The Way into the Holiest

Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh. HEBREWS 10:19–20

Behind all Meyer’s practical counsel on guidance and surrender stands a book that many of his readers never opened: The Way Into the Holiest, his chapter-by-chapter exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews. It is the most doctrinal thing of his in the Ochorus library, and it is the foundation of the rest. A man cannot talk long about the surrendered life, the indwelling Christ and the fulness of the Spirit without being asked on what ground a sinner may come near to God at all. Hebrews is Meyer’s answer.

Shadows and realities

In his short preface Meyer names two tendencies of his day that the epistle corrects. One was a readiness to play down the substitutionary side of Christ’s death, to treat the cross as example or inspiration rather than sacrifice. The other was a readiness to make too much of outward rite and ceremony. Hebrews, he says, answers both. It teaches that our Lord’s death was a sacrifice, and it teaches that we have passed from the realm of shadows into that of realities.

For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us. HEBREWS 9:24

He had a high view of the Old Testament ceremonies because of this. He calls the Book of Leviticus the seed-plot of New Testament theology, and he urges his readers not to turn from it lightly. The tabernacle, its furniture and its sacrifices were pictures, he says, and sometimes a picture shows detail we would miss in the dazzle of the thing itself. But they were only pictures. The Jews had the shadow; we have the substance. They had the example; we have the reality.

The veil and the holiest

In the tabernacle, and later the temple, the most holy place stood behind a heavy veil. Only one man might enter, the high priest, and only on one day of the year, and never without blood. The veil said, as plainly as cloth could say it, that the way into God’s presence was not yet open.

And the LORD said unto Moses, Speak unto Aaron thy brother, that he come not at all times into the holy place within the vail before the mercy seat, which is upon the ark; that he die not. LEVITICUS 16:2

Then Christ died, and the veil of the temple was torn from top to bottom. Meyer reads it as God’s own announcement that the way was now open, without let or hindrance, to every trembling seeker. What that means for the believer he puts in a sentence of great simplicity: “We may go continually, and even dwell, where Israel’s high priests might tread but once each year.” The holiest place, he says, was the chamber of innermost communion with God. To enter it now is to make God our confidant and friend, into whose ear we may pour the whole story of our sin and sorrow and need.

And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom. MATTHEW 27:51

New and living

Meyer lingers over the two adjectives the epistle gives the way. It is living because it is not a road but a Person. We come to God through the living Saviour, and no one comes to the Father but by Him. And it is new, which Meyer takes to mean not merely recent but perpetually fresh: “It is new, because, though myriads have trodden it, it is as fresh as ever for each new priestly foot.” The veil, the epistle says, was His flesh. We come near to God through the real death of a real man, who hung on the cross in real human sorrow.

This matters for the rest of his teaching. When Meyer speaks elsewhere of the secret place of God’s presence, he is careful to say that no one can have a glad consciousness of God except through Jesus. Apart from Christ, he writes in The Secret of Guidance, the presence of God is an object of terror. In Christ, every barrier is down and every veil torn.

The blood that speaks

The Way Into the Holiest does not shrink from the language of blood, and Meyer defends it hotly. It is the only word, he says, that gathers up all that the death of Christ means: life, life poured out, life poured out violently, life poured out as a sacrifice. And he refuses the suggestion that the cross was only a noble martyrdom. Christ died not as a martyr, but as a Saviour.

How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? HEBREWS 9:14

He lists what the blood does. It purges the defiled conscience, so that the believer need not carry a perpetual sense of guilt but may confess at once and go on to serve. It reached back to the saints of the old covenant as well as forward to us. It seals the covenant, so that all God’s promises are ours. It opens the way into the holiest. And it has put away sin once for all. That last phrase he dwells on in a separate chapter, simply titled Once. Repetition, he argues, means imperfection. The old sacrifices had to be offered every year because they never finished the work. Christ’s work has never been repeated because it never needed to be.

For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. HEBREWS 9:26

Let us draw near

Hebrews does not stop at doctrine, and nor does Meyer. The open way comes with a threefold call: let us draw near, let us hold fast, let us consider one another. He ties them to faith, hope and love. Faith draws near to God. Hope holds fast to His promises because He is faithful. Love considers others and does not forsake the gathering of believers. Of faith he gives a lovely definition: “Faith is the open hand receiving Christ.”

Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water. HEBREWS 10:22

Reading him with care

Two cautions are worth making. Meyer’s defence of the language of blood sometimes runs away with him. In one passage he compares the blood of Christ with the blood shed by soldiers and martyrs in war and persecution, and speaks of glorying in such blood with an enthusiasm that reads badly after the wars of the century that followed. The comparison is not needed; the epistle’s own words are enough. And his typology, like that of most Victorian expositors, can find meanings in every knob and curtain of the tabernacle that the text itself does not claim. Read him gladly on the big things — the veil, the blood, the once-for-all, the open way — and hold his finer details more loosely.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Read Hebrews 9 and 10 at a sitting this week, slowly, with Meyer’s question in mind: on what ground may I come near to God?

2. Is there a sin you keep carrying because you have never quite believed it was put away once for all? Confess it, and thank God that it is gone.

3. Do you treat God as your confidant, telling Him the whole story of your sin and sorrow and need? Try it in prayer today.

4. Consider the call to consider one another. Whom have you neglected to encourage? Send them a word this week.

5. Take part in the Lord’s Supper next time with Meyer’s word in mind: the blood once shed is as fresh and effective as ever.

A PRAYER

Lord Jesus, the veil is torn, and the way is open, and You are the way.

Thank You that You died not as a martyr only but as my Saviour, once for all, and that nothing needs to be added.

Let me draw near to the Father with a true heart and full assurance, and make Him the confidant of all my need.

Keep me from drifting back to shadows, and hold me fast to You. Amen.