Gooding, David: 2- The Ministry and the Need of a High Priest

So now let us begin our study this evening by reading some verses from the Epistle to the Hebrews, the first of them to be found in chapter six. The Epistle to the Hebrews, chapter six verses nineteen and twenty. Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast, and entering into that which is within the veil. Whither as forerunner Jesus entered for us, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. Then in chapter nine and verse twenty four: For Christ entered not into a holy place made with hands, like in patterns of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear before the face of God for us. Finally, for the moment, in chapter ten, verse, verse 19, having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by the way which he dedicated for us a new and living way through the veil, that is to say his flesh, and having a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in fullness of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our body washed with pure water. This morning we thought about our Lord's priesthood, and as we began to do so, we concentrated first on the question why we need a priest at all. And we found the first answer to our question this, we need a priest who is able to succor and help us in the time of our testing. When we, as Israel did, we walk through our wilderness on our way to the great inheritance beyond. Assured by God's faithful word and counsel that as we walk through our desert towards our inheritance, we shall be tested. Not merely tempted to this or that aberration, though we shall have plenty of those experiences. We shall be tested in that fundamental attitude of our being, whether we are genuine believers or not. And in those moments of trial and testing, we shall need a high priest to do for us what he did for Peter on the night of the betrayal, to pray for us, so that our faith shall not fail. We are assured by the very terms of this inspired epistle that because we have an high priest who ever lives, then he is able to save us to the uttermost who are on our way to God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for us. And from considering our Lord's task of succoring us in the time of our, our testing, we went on briefly to think of his qualification so to do. Though he was son, son though he was, yet he learned what it costs to obey God in this ungodly world, learned it by suffering its consequences. His obedience was unblemished, undeviating. Now he calls on those who trust him to obey him. He has become, says the writer, the author of eternal salvation to those who obey him. The term is a little unusual. We are used to encouraging ourselves and rejoicing in our eternal security in the terms that he who believes has eternal life. But true belief will show itself in obedience, and our blessed Lord has the right to our obedience, has he not? He is the captain of our salvation, our great Joshua, as we were reminded this morning. His the great task to bring many sons to glory and to bring them there through a wilderness beset by howling wolves and hyenas and every devilish device. He demands obedience. Why, if it were merely the Matterhorn or the Eiger in Switzerland that you were climbing for the first time, and you'd never been up it before? If a guide were prepared to take you on such a green horn attempting the almost impossible, then he would demand that you obeyed him. Every step, every movement. There will have to be an understanding that when you reach the difficult point in the climbing of the mountain and a difficult step to will be taken, you will have to be given to understand before it happens. Now look, when we get there, there is to be no disputing of my judgment or command. For in that situation, for the amateur to question the expert and dispute with him could spell death itself, couldn't it? Shall we complain if our blessed Lord, captain of our salvation, in process of leading many sons to glory through this waste wilderness, undertakes to be the author of eternal salvation to those who submit to him and obey him. And then we moved on from that to consider... And then we moved on from that to consider the majesty of his enthronement and his appointment. He took not the honor to himself, but he who said, thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee, as he invited him into the heavens of the heavens. The one who commanded him, saying, sit at my right hand. On that very occasion, swore the divine oath and said, thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. And now tonight we move on to consider first the place of his ministry. For he has not entered into tabernacles made with hands, mere copies of the true. He has entered into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us. Then finally we shall have to consider the sacrifice that he has offered. So now to the place of his ministry. We cannot read these chapters, can we, my brethren, without sensing the vibrancy, still powerful and unexhausted, that fills the hearts of these early Christians. Granted, they were now a generation from the great events of Calvary and the Ascension, yet as you read them, you can sense the subdued excitement in their words and in their pens. That the Lord has Has entered entered. men. Men standing with two feet on the earth were being blessed by the Lord Jesus as their heavenly priest, as he raised his hands and blessed them. And in that moment, they saw their blessed Lord rise up before their very eyes and enter. As Jews, if they lived in Jerusalem, or if they had come as pilgrims to the great national festival of the Day of Atonement, they would have been accustomed to the stately pageantry with which the High Priest of Israel on the great Day of Atonement, with due solemnity, taking the basin that will fill with blood from the sacrifice of sin offering, they would have been used, I say, to see him disappear through the door of the temple. Would have waited with bated breath. For they understood on that day he entered not merely into the door, into the holy place, but pulling aside the veil, entered the presence of God in the holiest of all, in the innermost shrine of the temple. Great as the pageantry was, it faded into miserable insignificance, like the light of a candle before the rising sun. What now could they care about a priest, however ornate his robes? It lost its excitement to see him going into the back room of some temple on earth. They had seen the risen Son of God himself entering the very presence of God, made higher than the heavens. And I invite you, my brethren, though you know these things, to sit back this evening and enjoy with me what they were so vividly enjoying, the implications of our Lord's ascension and of the place in which he now ministers. We meet it in chapter six where the writer says, which hope we have as an anchor of the soul that enters into that which is within the veil, whither as forerunner, as precursor, our Lord has entered, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. He's entered. He's within the veil. I think I hear the early Christians telling each other this time and time again, when the going was tough, when the wilderness was hot and dusty and thirsty. Ah, but they would say, our blessed Lord has entered in. He has entered in as our high priest, as our precursor and our forerunner. What does that mean? We thought this morning of the testing of Israel when they walked through a wilderness towards their great inheritance. How alas, the testing proved that multitudes of them were never true believers, and they never got in. Oh, my dear brothers, we couldn't pride ourselves on the superiority of our hearts, could we? What a dismal mood would be ours tonight if we sat here, some of us beginning our Christian course and some of us near the end. We at the end should have no more confidence than they at the beginning, if entering in depended upon us and our strength. Oh, what a hope is this? Tell me, what a hope is this? Which hope we have as an anchor? And an anchor that's gone through the veil and rooted itself in that heavenly soil from which it could never be moved. That our blessed Lord has entered. You say there's nothing wonderful in that. Well, there is, but to me, insignificant little me with my own personal interests, this is the wonder. He's entered as my forerunner. And as surely as the Messiah came after his forerunner, John the Baptist. He did, didn't he? John the Baptist came as a forerunner and told the world that the Messiah was coming on close behind his heel. Sure as the forerunner came and announced it, so the Messiah came. With utter similar certainty, we may know this, that as sure as our forerunner has entered glory, you and I one day shall be there. All the wondrous humility of the Son of God. How will you measure it? For normally forerunners are of very little importance compared with the majesty that comes on behind. What, after all, was John the Baptist compared with the Messiah himself? But in this glorious exercise, our blessed Lord is content to be our forerunner, announcing that we are coming on behind. Oh, my brother, if you have been wobbly, I can't suppose you have been. Who will I to suppose any such thing? But just in case. Just in case, under life's pressures and trials and difficulty, you've been a bit wobbly, but you feel like giving up your profession of faith, and Satan himself whispers in your heart, you know, you blotted your copy book so badly, it's no good you're attempting to go on, you might as well own up and give up. Listen again to the marvelous exhortation of this epistle. You don't need to abandon your profession. You can hold fast to your confession of faith, for there's a throne upon which sits the exalted Christ, your priest and forerunner, and you may ca- come to find mercy for the past error and grace to suffice in the difficulties that lie ahead. Therefore, now, as we think of the place where our Lord has entered into heaven itself and the implications of his entry as our high priest. We think first of him as our forerunner, but we must go further. For in the chapters nine onwards through most of ten or halfway through ten, attention concentrates on our Lord's entry into the heavens themselves, strictly speaking, as our high priest over the house of God. You'll see when we come to the climax of the argument, and it is a sophisticated and complicated argument, but when we come to its climax, it will be this: let us draw near into the very holiest of all, having, first of all, a great priest over the house of God. You'll see when Israel drew near to God to serve him in their earthly tabernacle, by God's merciful provision, they had a great priest who could lead the other priests, not to speak of the ignorant and erring and them that were out of the way, could lead them in their service of God. And it is our privilege not merely to enter the holiest of all of guests coming, booking into their five-star heavenly hotel, there to enjoy themselves for all eternity. We shall do that, of course. We are invited to draw near into the very heavens themselves. What for? As Hebrews puts it, to serve the living God. Hebrews nine fourteen: Cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God. It is written of the eternal state that his servants shall serve him. What awesome privilege. What awesome responsibility. How could we serve the living God? Let me read you the context of the verse, therefore. Is the blood of bulls and of goat- well, let me read before, if you don't mind, but Christ having come a high priest of good things to come, through the greater and more ter- perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation, nor yet through the blood of goats and calves, but through his own blood, he entered in once for all into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling them that had been defiled, sanctify unto the cleanness of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish unto God. Cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God. There is both the opportunity and the difficulty. We must, of course, as we read the epistle to the Hebrews, take notice of the Old Testament thought models that God has given us. In some quarters, my good brethren, what used to be called typology has gone distinctly out of favor because of the extremes, unreasonable extremes, that it has been taken to in some quarters. Now, it would be a pity if, in reacting to the extreme, we got rid of the types and the prototypes, wouldn't you? Because it is the very wisdom of God that has given us these ancient prototypes. The advanced mathematician and physicist, when they come to examine the atom and its core, its nucleus, and whatever are the quarks around it, whatever they might be, freely confess that they cannot picture really what their mathematics tell them. The mathematics being so abstract and complicated, they then make themselves models to think with. It's a recognized, uh, instrument of research, and very often in the discovery of what has been inside the atoms, the discovery has come about because they have made the thought model, and they have noticed that in the model there should be a bit of stuff here somewhere, and they've gone along with their cyclotrons and said, now atom, show up the truth. They bombarded the poor dear thing with I don't know what, and lo and behold, they have discovered there was a bit of stuff just there where the thought model told them it should be. And when it comes to grasping the great and eternal and spiritual wonders of God's salvation, we are wise to use the thought models that God has given us in the Old Testament. One great thought model in this connection, Israel's service of the living God, was given us in the instructions for the great day of atonement. A great day of atonement had two functions. It had first to cleanse the people from all their iniquity, but in addition, it had to cleanse the tabernacle itself and its ministry. And why have to cleanse the tabernacle? Why? Because in the view of God thrice holy, his dwelling place on earth, the tabernacle of Moses, had been stained, polluted, defiled by the sheer presence of Israel around it. It comes up a bit of a shock, doesn't it? We're so sanitized, we think in our own estimation we can't understand anybody objecting to us as though we were people that defiled anything. I pray look at it from God's point of view. The vice holy. He taught his ancient people that, amongst other things, death defile. And he taught his ancient people in those early days, at the lowliest of levels, physical. So that if a man touched a bone in the open field, he was defiled, says God. And if he fails to purify him, himself, then has he defiled the tabernacle of the Lord. The living God was not going to have his tabernacle smudged by the stench of death. He is, as you see from the adjective used in the verse, this one whom we have to serve, the living God. And the vision we are given of his throne in the book of the Revelation, chapter four is that that throne is upheld by four living creatures, magnificently mysterious in their abundance of life. And what the four living creatures admire in God is that he is the living God. The living God finds death and obnoxious stench and defilement. Oh, what wonder is this, when the living God became incarnate and stood outside the grave of his friend Lazarus. And Martha and Mary said, in their tear-stained voice, oh Lord, don't take a stone away. By this time, he stinks. And I say God taught his people at that humble level, the physical level, that he finds death obnoxious. Oh, I'm glad he does, aren't you? He's not going to put up with me as a dead corpse forever, thank the Lord. He's not. Ha ha, one day I shall have a body conformed to the image of his son, and even the suspicion of death shall have gone forever, even from our bodies. The high priest, therefore, on the great day of atonement, as on any other sac- uh, great ceremonial day in Israel, were very often a worried man. Read the Talmud and find out. You think of the situation when there's all the hundreds of thousands of Jews from Egypt, from Patagonia, from Rome, from the Uni- no, the United States wasn't then invented. Uh, uh, they'll say, but here they are, thousands of them, and tomorrow is the great day when Israel shall join in their service of the Lord, led by their high priest in all his robes. But what if that night the high priest had some physical emission and was unclean, and he couldn't take part. They always had to have a substitute high priest on hand. It's a great worry to the organizing authorities. Graham Hayden doesn't know he's alive compared with their worries. So then, to deal with this matter of death, they had a special ceremony when they were cleansed from his defilement by the ashes of a heifer. We didn't pursue the thing further because, gentlemen, if the high priest was rightly concerned about his physical purity and being kept clean from contact with death, lest he defile the presence of God, it wouldn't be altogether a bad thing, would it, if we were concerned a bit more with moral and spiritual impurity, from works that are themselves corrupt and tend towards death. How obnoxious they are to God. How then can I, whose mind is dark, who live in a death-stricken world, how can I dare to approach the living God, to serve the living God. As we pose the problem and see its extent, it will magnify the wonder of God's provision, will it not? We have. Oh, praise God for it again. That glorious statement of this epistle. We have, brethren, we do, we have an high priest who is over the house of God, responsible for keeping the house of God and the presence of God clean, making possible our service of the living God. Oh, let me hasten to read the verse. That if the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling them that have defiled, sanctify unto the cleanness of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unto God without blemish, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God. So then let me concentrate your attention now for a few moments on this analogy that the writer draws from verse twenty three of chapter nine to the end of that chapter, between some of the ceremonies conducted by the high priest on the Day of Atonement, and what our Lord has done for us and still does. You know these things, my brethren, but when it gets to twenty to eight on a Saturday night, it's good, isn't it, sometimes not to think of new things, but to go over old things and sit back and, uh, just indulge yourself and enjoy them. These verses then, as we have been many times told by our preachers, relate three appearances of the Lord Jesus. They correspond to three of the appearances of the Jewish high priest on the Day of the Atonement. It is true, of course, to say that on that great day once a year, Yom Kippur, the high priest went into the holiest of all more than once. He went in and out and in and out and in and out. But there were three major elements in the ceremonies of that occasion, as the high priest would come out to the waiting crowd of the worshippers around and take the ra- the goat of the sin offering and bring it, and the elders would lay their hands upon its head and confess their sin, and the animal would be slain as a sacrifice for sin. It was a sin offering, that central offering, because in the technical algebra of the ancient sacrifices, sin offerings have to do with the cleansing of the stain of sin. A burnt offering has to do with sin in its aspect of coming short of our devotion to God. The trespass offering has to do with sin from its aspect of the damage that sin does. Sin offering copes with our sin from the point of view of the stain of sin, and sin is a filthy thing, isn't it? It stains our consciences, it stains our bodies, it stains our literature, it stains the films, doesn't it? Wow, it does. It stains our human relationship. It would even befoul the holy things of God. That sin is a rotten, dirty thing. Central to the Day of Atonement sacrifices were the sin offerings. Their blood was shed to deal with the guilt of this enormity of a thing. Our human sin had defiled the very dwelling place of God, the tabernacle in the wilderness. So did the high priest appear in front of the nation, and the sacrifice was offered, and the blood shed that should wipe away the stain. Then, as the people looked on, he took that blood in the basin and, turning his back on them, went towards the presence of God and disappeared behind the door, going through the holy place, irreverently pulled aside the veil and went into the holiest of all, and there he appeared in the presence of God for the people. And when he had done that, he came out again, cleansing various vessels on the way with the stain remover of the blood, and appeared outside a second time. On that occasion, they took the other goat, confessed their sins upon its head, and the goat was led away by the hand of a fit man and banished to oblivion. The writer to the Hebrews, who is an expert in his ancient thought model, reminds us that there is a reality, a marvelous and blessed reality that corresponds to that model. For he says, once in the consummation of the ages has the Lord appeared on our planet. All this thing was not done in a corner. Celebrate in your heart the wonder of it, that the transcendent Lord of space and time appeared on our planet. This guilty, filthy, dusty, stained planet to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And having done it, he rose the third day from the dead and ascended on the fortieth into heaven itself. Now to appear in the presence of God for us. I ask you to allow me to dwell on it a moment. It's true. At this moment, my brethren, the great Son of God appears in the presence of God for us, for you. You know, uh, the rabbis had a, a kind of a legend. It was a pleasant little thought. It wasn't true, of course. But if you read the Talmud, they, they will tell you that when the high priest went into the holiest of all on the Day of Atonement, they took the precaution of tying a long rope around his waist, do you see? At the end of it, uh, was out in public, do you see? So if the high priest didn't come out because for some reason God had not accepted his sacrifice, and the man was killed by the very holiness of God, then at least they could pull on the rope and and get him out. But Israel, in its better days, took the whole thing seriously. When that high priest entered the holiest of all, the question was, would the sacrifice be enough? Would God actually accept the high priest? If he accepted the high priest, then he accepted the people. If he rejected the high priest, then he rejected the people, and wrath was determined upon them. Our blessed Lord has gone in, now to appear in the presence of God for us. Oh, my brethren, tell me, what has God done? What has God's been reaction? What has God's reaction been? You'll forgive my childishness, won't you? But you see, I like to be a re- realist, even if it makes me naive. What I want to know is whether God realizes that the blessed Lord Jesus is appearing for me. That the Lord should appear himself before the Father, that's nothing to be wondered at. You couldn't be surprised at the infinite extent of the welcome, could you? But this I want to know, was God aware when the blessed Lord entered his presence that he was coming as my representative? Or had that, uh, escaped the notice of the divine mind, and one of these days there would be a danger that God would find out, and who is this? This is Gooding. You invited him here. Well, you know, he's one of those I represent. No, I didn't. No, if I'd have known you were representing him, I, I, I, I wouldn't have accepted you. No, my brethren, forgive my childishness, but you see, I want to get to heaven, and this is real for me. Is it true that when the blessed Savior entered not into a tabernacle made with hands, but into heaven itself, to appear in the presence of God for me and for you, God knew it was for me and for you, and knowing he represented us, he said, come, my son, sit at my right hand. Oh, if it be true, it is beyond words to express its wonder. He entered heaven for us, and God who knew it accepted him, and he's not been asked to budge a centimeter in two thousand years. And soon he's coming, isn't he? He's coming for us. He shall appear the second time without sin until salvation. No need of a scapegoat then, and sure it's not the devil, as some say, that will be the scapegoat and bear our sin. For our Lord's one sacrifice at Calvary was enough. He put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. We thought of our high priest as our precursor, our forerunner. We thought of him as our high priest and representative over the house of God, and the exhortation is come near then, you have boldness to enter, you are fitted to fulfill your function, to enter the very courts of heaven and serve the living God, because the blood of Christ cleanses us from all sin. We spend just a moment thinking of his sacrifice. And chapter ten deals with it. You'll see, as the writer observes, if he's a priest, then he must have something to offer. For pray, consider how different his sacrifice from those which Israel's priests offered. It was superior in this that they were animal sacrifices. But self-evidently, gentlemen, they could never be the answer to sin, could they, not animals? What do cows know about sin? Cows don't go to bed with a bad conscience, you know. They're just animals. It's human beings that know the honor and the grave burden of having a conscience. Some people try to get rid of it, don't they, by living as animals and telling people that conscience doesn't matter, just, just ignore it. That is to live like an animal, of course, and the resultant behavior is to be expected. We can't live like animals, really, can we? So that the blood of bulls and goats could not put away sin. What then shall be substituted? Now the writer had to be very careful. You'll see he was, after all, writing for Jews, and they believed these animal sacrifices had been commanded by God and the directions written in inspired Holy Scripture. Here then were these Christians coming along and saying, please stop these animal sacrifices. It horrified the Orthodox Jew, of course. Had they taken leave of their senses? Were they denying inspiration of Leviticus? And the answer, of course, is no. But whereas in Leviticus God ordered animal sacrifices, centuries later, through the writer of Psalm forty, God was indicating that one day a better sacrifice would be offered. And what should that be? The Old Testament itself said, sacrifice, burnt offerings, sin offerings thou wouldest not. Mine ears hast thou open, I have come to do thy will, O God. We picture the Blessed Lord going to Calvary, don't we? How different from those thousands of bullocks and sheep that had come to the altar with not a thought in their head, nor an ability to understand what sin was or meant. And smelling the blood and putting their front feet down to try at all costs to come nowhere near that altar. Dying unwillingly. Mere tokens of the answer of man's problem. But the blessed Lord Jesus. Lo, I come to do thy will, O my God. And we think again as we end our study under the shade of Gethsemane. This was no mere wordage, was it? He didn't come dancing into Gethsemane, surely not. But with supreme honesty, pleaded. Abba Father. You love me, in other words. By your love I pleaded. Let this cup pass. All things are possible to you. By your power I pray. Let it pass. Nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done. And in the midst of the stench of this world's sin, the sadism of Calvary, the brutality of men, the horrible cynicism of unregenerate religion, there arose from that cross an odor of a sweet smell to God. All God found in it, all that satisfied his heart and will satisfy it eternally. By the which will we have been sanctified by the offering of the body of Jesus Christ. Once for all. Mark the term. Not now justified, true though it be, but sanctified. Why do I need sanctification? Because the high priest's preparation of me is that so I may be free to follow him into the holiest of all, there at his control and guidance, to fulfill my function, to serve the living God. Then, brethren, let us draw near. We may be clumsy in speech and sluggish of heart, and all fingers and thumbs as we try to approach in spirit the august immediate presence of God, and scarce know what to say. But, my brethren, we have a priest who can have compassion on them that are ignorant and out of the way, has sanctified us, and can take us by the hand and lead us in our holy exercises, in the holiest of all, and draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith. Our hearts sprinkled, that is, with the blood of Christ from an evil conscience, and our bodies bathed all over with pure. We have a priest. Let our praise to God for him be ceaseless. And may the Lord bless his word.