The Way Into the Holiest

It is F. B. Meyer's devotional exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews, tracing its great theme: the way into the holiest presence of God opened by the blood of Jesus. Chapter by chapter Meyer unfolds the dignity and priesthood of Christ, the sufficiency of his sacrifice, and the access it gives the believer, applying the letter's teaching warmly to the Christian life.

Frederick Brotherton Meyer was a Baptist pastor and evangelist in England around the turn of the twentieth century, much loved as a devotional writer and a preacher of the deeper Christian life. He wrote many warm-hearted expository books on Scripture; The Way Into the Holiest, his exposition of Hebrews, is among the most enduring.

It refers to the Holy of Holies, the innermost sanctuary of the Old Testament tabernacle, which only the high priest could enter, and once a year — a symbol of the very presence of God. The Epistle to the Hebrews teaches that Christ has opened the way into that presence for all believers by his blood, and Meyer's book unfolds that access as the letter's central glory.

His superior dignity and his high priesthood. Meyer dwells on Christ as greater than angels, Moses, and the old priesthood, as the perfect and final high priest whose one sacrifice accomplished what the old sacrifices could not, and as the living intercessor who now opens and keeps open the way into God's presence for his people.

Both, in Meyer's characteristic way — it follows the text of Hebrews chapter by chapter like a commentary, but its aim throughout is devotional and practical, pressing the letter's truths home to the reader's heart and life. Meyer is less concerned with technical detail than with leading the believer into the access and assurance that Hebrews holds out.

That, because of Christ's finished work, the believer may now come boldly into God's presence — the way once barred is opened, the veil torn. Meyer presses this access as the great privilege of the Christian: not to stand at a distance but to draw near with confidence, living in the enjoyed presence of God that Christ's blood secured.

Any Christian wanting to understand the Epistle to the Hebrews and to be led by it into a fuller enjoyment of Christ's priesthood and the access he gives. Meyer's warm, applicatory style makes the sometimes difficult letter approachable, and the book serves both as a guide to Hebrews and as devotional reading on drawing near to God.

At the beginning, following Meyer through Hebrews in order, since his exposition tracks the letter's own argument from Christ's superiority to the access his sacrifice secures. Read alongside the text of Hebrews, it opens the letter chapter by chapter and leads the reader steadily toward the holiest, into which Christ has made the way.