“Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. 15 For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. 16 Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” NASB
“Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. 16 Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” NIV
In previous sermons we have talked much of the grace of God and the rest that the believer is provided and brought into as he or she begins to understand and embrace the truth of Christ’s finished work for us, and the necessity of laying down our own hands and our own efforts in order to ever enter into that rest.
So here, as we come to these last few verses of chapter 4, we find things taught that will never be comprehended, never be apprehended, until the believer is awakened to the all-sufficient grace of God extended through the cross of Christ and His finished work as our Great High Priest.
I have recently been surprised by the language of a bible commentator of days gone by, who asserted that no true worship takes place on the earth.
By his claim he made me pause to reflect on this for a while, and as I went back and continued to read I understood that he was correct.
He wrote:
“We cannot therefore state too strongly that there is no earthly worship now; that true worship is in the Spirit, Who, blessed be God, is here with us, but is also in Heaven. He acts in, for, and through believers wholly and only on the ground of Christ’s accomplished work, and of His being received up in glory, and of His having passed through the heavens. The believer has the same blessed rights in the presence of the Father as belong to the Son in Whom he is, and Who ‘appears before the face of God’ for him.” W.R. Newell, HEBREWS, Verse by Verse, Moody Press, 1947
What we’re going to focus on today, is the reason that all true worship now takes place in the Heavenly realm, and why this gives believers endurance to hold firmly to their faith, and confidence to approach the Throne of grace.
THE OLD
Where the old system of worship – in the courtyard where the sacrifices were offered, past the laver, into the inner temple, then the holy place, and even into the Holy of Holies behind the veil – where the old system fell short was that as men the priests of old were unable to connect men with God.
They went in to God’s presence to present the offering of blood for the covering of their sins and the sins of the nation, but they were not able to usher men into the presence of God, nor were they able to bring God out to the people.
The Temple was a center of worship, but it was a center for forms of worship. Outward exercises of the flesh which, although ordained by God through Moses, were still only shadows and had no substance.
So men would come to the Temple and offer their purchased items for sacrifice, but the farther one could go into the Temple itself, which consisted of only the priests when it came to performing worship functions in the holy place and farther in, the more ominous and uninviting it got.
Priests worked and served in and out of the Temple all day, every day, but for the common man it was a place he could not enter. It would have been for him dangerous, and had he peeked into the holy place he would have seen there a thick veil, the very presence of which cried, ‘Inaccessible!’
The priests themselves were of little help. They were themselves sinners, but separated from the common man because they were required to perform rituals all day long to keep themselves removed from the world and ceremonially clean so they might minister in the Temple. They were caught between Heaven and earth, not fully able to engage either one in any significant, life-altering way.
They were also never finished. The sacrifices, which only covered sin for a season but could never take it away, were offered constantly with no hope of ever coming to the place of being enough.
So day after day, hour after hour, the priests passed through the inner sanctuary, into the holy place and back out, and only once a year into the Holy of Holies behind the veil, and back out, but their work was never finished; never complete; and the way to God remained ominous, dangerous, inaccessible.
Now, we are in the New Testament. The church age. We teach and believe that the old system of shadows is past because the shadows have become substance in Christ, and rightly do we teach and believe that. We will be hearing much of this as we go through Hebrews; it’s what the letter is about.
However I can’t help seeing a disconcerting likeness in today’s church, to the character of the religion of old.
Do we not often get tied down and tied up in the mundane exercises of fleshly worship and earthly religion?
When the world looks at the church what do they see? Why, they see the very thing that the sincere Temple attendees of old saw. Forms, rituals, sad and confused adherents, ominous looking church buildings that fairly scream ‘Inaccessible!’ tended to by men, sinful like they, dancing as fast as they can to keep the machine running but unable to relate to them where they are.
Those of us in our local congregation at C3 will remember not very long ago, as we began to read together Philip Yancey’s book, ‘REACHING FOR THE INVISIBLE GOD’, we came to the end of the first chapter and found a touching story from the experience of a friend of the author.
He had taught at a camp for the disabled, where folks were wheelchair bound, lacking muscle control, some of them even unable to keep their heads up or control themselves from drooling.
Yancey’s friend wanted to teach them of victory in Christ and the full life that comes through the presence of God in them. Later, he was approached by one of the women who told him that none of the members of his audience could relate to anything he had said.
Chagrined and disappointed, the teacher spent the night in prayer. The following is quoted from Yancey’s book.
“…Reiner returned with a different message. ‘I don’t know what to say,’ he told them the next morning. ‘I’m confused. Without the message of victory, I don’t know what to say.’ He stayed silent and hung his head. The woman who had confronted him finally spoke up from the room full of disabled people. ‘Now we understand you,’ she said, ‘Now we are ready to listen’.”
REACHING FOR THE INVISIBLE GOD Chapter 1, ‘Born Again Breech’ Philip Yancey, Zondervan, 2000
Reiner did not have to be like these folks to relate to them; he didn’t have to be, himself, disabled. He only had to recognize their utter inability to raise themselves above their circumstances and speak to them in words that poignantly described their world.
For me this serves to illustrate the need of the church today, to cease drawing people together for empty, earthly shadows of worship, let them know we are in the same sinking boat of cluelessness as they, and lead them to the One who is worshiped in spirit and in truth, whether they’re in a sanctuary or a slaughterhouse.
THE NEW
Jesus didn’t have to be a sinner to help us, Christians. In fact, it was because He was without sin that after suffering all the trials and temptations that test us, He was able then to come to our aid and finish the work that the old system could only symbolize.
The sinful priests of old could only sympathize with the people in that they themselves were sinful and ultimately helpless against that sin. Our Great High Priest was Man, ‘Jesus’, and as such was able to take His stand on the earth to make sacrifice of Himself for us; and He was also Deity, the ‘Son of God’, and as such was able to enter into the Holy of Holies, our sinless High Priest, to sprinkle His blood of propitiation for us there.
As Man, Jesus experienced every emotion and physical feeling that any other person experiences. We often hear the doctrine taught that Jesus was fully Man and fully God. I won’t go into that teaching per se here, but let’s allow our minds for just a moment to pause at the term, ‘fully Man’. It means what it says. If it were possible to separate the fact of His deity from His humanity, what we would have left is a man, every bit as much a man as any other man, apart from sin.
So any pain, any hunger, any temptation, any physical response to outward stimulus you might attribute to any man, Jesus knew also and in many cases, even more acutely by virtue of being sinless.
An example of what I mean by that would be the exposure to the maladies that afflict mankind.
We sinful and selfish creatures may walk past a child in a public place who is severely deformed or perhaps missing limbs, and feel profound sorrow for that poor little one, at the start of life with such obstacles to normal existence. But we cannot imagine the depth of sorrow felt by one who is sinless and therefore able to sympathize perfectly and without limits to that child’s plight.
I have preached this in the past but I dare repeat it here, that every moment of every day must have been trying on the heart of Jesus by virtue of the fact that He was the sinless Creator constantly surrounded by sin and its effects on a fallen world.
As Man, fully Man, He experienced things that as only God He never could have known. That is why over in chapter 5 verse 8 the author will say that He learned obedience through the things which He suffered. We’ll be careful to explain that phrase later, but suffice it to say that His sufferings, not just on the cross but His entire, trying life on the earth, made Him the perfect, sympathetic, Great High Priest.
There is an old song of the church titled, “No One Ever Cared for Me Like Jesus”. That is absolutely true, and it is true because no one else could know as perfectly or sympathize as fully with your circumstances as the One who suffered and was tempted in every way that you ever have been or will be, but without sin.
Then, after having completed His suffering, which you should know is something He accomplished, not just something that happened to Him; Jesus accomplished all that the Father gave Him to do and that includes all that He suffered including going to the cross and shedding His blood to die there; after He was finished He rose bodily and glorified from the dead and ascended into Heaven for us. That is what the writer of our text means when he says, ‘…we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens’.
As Man, Jesus suffered. As Son of God He passed through the heavens, having completed His High Priestly task, and sat down at the right hand of the Father, His work done forever.
So where the human priests of old were sinners, largely unsympathetic and never done, Jesus our Great High Priest is sinless, sympathetic, finished.
Where the Holy of Holies on earth was a place that was ominous, dangerous, inaccessible, the Holy of Holies of Heaven is now for us a place of welcome, of safety, open forever – and that is what we will talk about now.
THE THRONE OF GRACE
When the writer calls us to come ‘therefore’ and draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, he is saying that the things he has taught us in previous verses make up the foundation upon which our faith endures, and the foundation upon which our confidence is built.
So the first thing we can be assured of is that he is not encouraging in us some cocky, self-assured confidence as though somehow we have earned or won the right to march up to God declaring something that is by nature ours.
We have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens – a High Priest who is able by virtue of His sufferings and ultimate sacrifice to sympathize with us perfectly, and whose blood has now opened the way into the presence of Holiness.
Our confidence is in Jesus and His accomplished work, and the knowledge that He will never chastise us for coming, or push us away, because He has identified Himself with us and met the requirements of God’s justice for us.
Let’s talk about thrones.
In the history of man there have been many, many thrones, and those thrones have been climbed to by various means; by inheritance, by blood, by deception and overthrow.
None of these things are true about the Throne of which we read in Hebrews 4. Of course we know we aren’t talking about a physical throne here, but that the language signifies ultimate and absolute Divine authority. Nevertheless it is not a bad thing for us to envision in our minds a glorious, magnificent throne, high and exalted, which no invading army can ever reach, no art of deception can ever overthrow, but the accessibility to which has been purchased for us with blood as of the blood of a sacrificed Lamb, slain before the foundation of the world for the salvation of men and the glory of God.
We know, of course, that the term Throne of Grace is the same as saying the Throne of God. So it is very significant for us to dwell on the word ‘grace’, and why the writer would have employed that term instead of simply saying the Throne of God.
You see, this throne is not a Throne of Grace for all.
For finite creatures it is not a throne that can be approached at all. In 1 Timothy 6:15-16 we read that Jesus Christ is the “King of Kings and Lord of Lords; who alone possess immortality and dwells in unapproachable light; whom no man has seen or can see.”
In chapter 6 of Isaiah’s prophecy he tells us of the Seraphim who cover their faces with their wings, to veil their eyes from the brilliant glory of Divine Holiness shining from His throne.
We also know that His throne is a throne of justice where He will judge the sinner according to the law and according to the individual’s faith in works, instead of grace. He who has rejected Christ has rejected all that Christ is and has done. Therefore if those who are His by faith come confidently to this Throne because of what He has done, then it goes without saying that those who have not believed in what He has done can have no confidence to approach, no mercy to find.
No, it is the Throne of Grace for the believer; for the elect; for the faithful whose Great High Priest sympathized with them, purchased them; brought them to glory.
And although it can be called the throne of justice, the throne of peace, the throne of heaven, the throne of God, it is most importantly, for you and me, Christ-follower, the Throne of Grace.
Because that means that we need never fear. We can approach, confident that there will be no penalty, no punishment, no chastisement, no scorn, but only welcome and warmth and peace and responsiveness to our every spiritual need. For us it is a Throne where Grace is found in its fullness and Grace only.
It also means that we have a duty to draw near. It is an invitation from God, and it is an encouragement from the writer of the epistle, but by virtue of the fact that only Grace will be found there by the true believer, it is the place we cannot avoid except we bring condemnation on our own heads.
For if the veil has been torn and the way made open for us, and if the call from that place is perpetually, ‘Grace! Grace! Grace!’, then we dishonor the gift – cast aspersions on the character – distrust ‘Trustworthiness’ Himself when we neglect to come.
Our High Priest has ministered there for us, Christians, and He has finished His work. It is complete and He invites us; he compels us; to draw near to the Throne of Grace, the way to which has been opened for us by His blood.
By going we acknowledge that we are in need of His mercy still. Not His mercy to save, which is extended once and never has to be extended again, but His mercy that flows out to us from His goodness simply because we are pathetic creatures in need of help, in need of mercy, in need of strength, in need of direction. Out of His mercies flow all our provision and all our protection; all our comfort, all our peace.
By going we acknowledge that we are in need of His grace still. Not His grace to save, which is extended once and never has to be extended again, but His grace that flows out to us simply because grace defines His throne, and we are pathetic creatures who so thinly comprehend grace at all. And it is our blindness that makes His grace all the more necessary and all the more sustaining in our lives.
By going we acknowledge that we are needy still, even with all the Divine provision purchased and provided by our High Priest, even with our doctrine of eternal security, even with all the Scriptural assurances of heir-ship and spiritual riches and friendship with God never-ending, we are needy and wretched and starving unless we draw near, within the veil, to the Throne of Grace.
This is why all true worship takes place in Heaven, Christians. Because all true worship takes place before the Throne of Grace.
Notice in our text that we are not told to do anything physical. Notice that we are not told to bring anything.
All that is said of us is that we have made a confession of faith, and we are exhorted by the writer to come with confidence in the object of our faith and draw near, so that we may receive that which flows perpetually out from that Throne to those who come.
We find endurance to hold fast our confidence when we understand that Grace demands only faith, and gives all the mercy and help that we ever need.
As long as we trust in our earthly forms of worship to shore us up and keep us energized and moving, we will grow weak and fall. For these things are all empty and happen on the lower plane where corruption and ruin reign.
But in the times of our greatest trial, strongest temptation, lowest emotional experience, we can find strength to endure and hold fast to our confession, when we simply remember that we have a High Priest at the right hand of the Father – on the Throne of Grace, who has been tempted in all things as we are yet without sin, and who now calls us up and in to receive mercy and to find grace to help in time of need.
The veil has been torn, the blood sprinkled, justice met, wrath turned away forever, by our sympathetic, great high priest. Now there is only grace. Draw near. Draw near.
