IF heaven is the scene of the priesthood of Christ, it is thereby also the scene of the Church’s worship. The priesthood of Christ and the worship of the Church are so connected, that they stand or fall together; and the scene or locality of the one must be the scene or locality of the other. All our worship of God hangs on the mediation of Jesus in the execution of His sacerdotal office; and he who is unacquainted with the great leading truths concerning Christ’s priesthood cannot intelligently nor acceptably worship God. No worship is acceptable to the Father, no ascriptions of praise and glory, and no supplications and prayers can come into His presence, save through the hands of the one Mediator between God and man. And this does not merely imply that, on the one hand, God has regard to the sacrifice of Jesus, and that, on the other, the worshipper directs his faith to it also. There is more implied in it than that. For the sacrifice of Christ cannot be regarded as something that has passed out of His hands, so as that benefits may be solicited and bestowed on the ground of it, the continued personal and living intervention of Christ Himself being unnecessary. No: not only does the Father dispense the blessing of the covenant on the ground of the satisfaction rendered to divine justice on the cross of Calvary; but when He does dispense those blessings, it is only through the perpetual ministry, the gracious personal intervention, and the very hands of the living High Priest Himself. And not only does the acceptable worshipper proffer his faith, and love, and service, through the merit of the great propitiation, but his right to do so with acceptance he recognises as dependent on his making use of the ministry and service of the High Priest, as He personally and officially presents them at the throne. When we are invited to come boldly to the throne of grace, our privilege is rested on a twofold ground: first, that we have “a new and living way into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, and by the rent veil,” which is to say, His flesh: and secondly, that “we have a great High Priest”—the risen Saviour Himself, as the leader of our worship—”over the house of God.” And assuredly no one will rise to the purity of a true heart, and to the privilege of the full assurance of an unshaken confidence, whose faith does not embrace the completeness of this double warrant for drawing near to God.
All our worship is dependent on the priesthood of Christ. Our worship, in fact, is nothing else than our communion with Christ in His priesthood. Our whole worship hinges on that priesthood: takes its colour and character, its spiritual life and substance, from it; gathers round it, and revolves about it. Inevitably the scene of His priesthood is the scene of our worship.
It is written in the opening statement of the chapter succeeding that from which our text is taken: “Then verily the first covenant had ordinances of divine service, and a worldly sanctuary.” And the contrast which the Apostle is carrying out between the old covenant and the new, suggests by antithesis the sure and implied counterpart and correlative truth, that the second covenant has ordinances of divine service, but a heavenly sanctuary as the scene of them. And this truth is either expressly asserted or implicitly involved in repeated statements throughout this epistle. When in the fourth chapter we are called on to hold fast our profession, on the ground that we have a great High Priest who has passed into the heavens—Jesus, the Son of God—it is surely the throne of God in heaven to which we are for the same reason invited to “come boldly, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” When in the sixth chapter we have a glorious description of the strong consolation which God is willing that the heirs of promise should enjoy in the city of refuge into which they have fled, it is a heavenly refuge-city—heaven itself—into which their hope is seen to carry them, or into which their souls, in the power of hope, are spiritually carried out; which hope “enters into that within the veil, whither the Forerunner is for us entered.” When in the tenth chapter we are invited into the holiest of all now pertaining to gospel worship—analogous to the holy of holies under the law—it is manifestly heaven itself into which we are, by this heavenly calling, summoned to enter by faith: “Having therefore 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; and having a high priest over the house of God, let us draw near.” When in the thirteenth chapter the writer asserts that “we have an altar of which they have no right to eat that serve the tabernacle,” it is assuredly no earthly altar that he has in view, but one with which a heavenly and exclusively spiritual worship is connected, and in the virtues of which we are to offer no ceremonial, material, or sensuous sacrifice, or any worship of earthly pomp, but the pure and simple “sacrifice of praise, that is, the fruit of the lips.” And more decisive perhaps, than any of these, is the grand description of our Church-state and privilege under the gospel, which he expressly contrasts with that under the law; and in which he makes heaven so palpably the only scene and seat of worship that readers are continually tempted to fancy that it is the estate of glory he is depicting, though it is manifestly our present condition under the gospel which he has in view:—“Ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words; but ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the first-born, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel.”
Yes; as the holy place in the innermost recesses of Israel’s temple was the recognised scene of Israel’s worship under Aaron’s priesthood, heaven is the scene of our worship under Christ. We enter there, indeed, in this life, only by faith. But faith’s entrance is real. Faith’s entrance is not fanciful, but true. We enter by no effort of imagination, but by an effort and exercise of faith; and faith has the warrant of the Word, and the call of the Father, and the quickening of the Spirit, and the ministry and priesthood of the Son to proceed upon, when it enters there. And when our case is called, and our petition is to be considered—if reverently we may speak of these great mysteries in terms borrowed from the procedure of men and courts on earth—and if the question is put: Who appears on behalf of these petitioners and in support of this petition? the answer is: “Christ hath entered into heaven itself, there to appear in the presence of God for us.” In the grateful remembrance of this great truth—that God’s heaven of glory is the real sanctuary and scene of our unpretending gospel worship—with what perfect satisfaction, with a mind how calm and equal, may we be contented to resign all the grandeur and pomp of a ritualistic worship, and cleave to the simplicity of our Presbyterian order! We are but preferring heaven to earth when doing so. And though our forms may be accounted bald, and tame, and unimpressive, it can only be in the judgment of those that are comparatively carnal, and who, in default of spiritual ability to appreciate the heavenliness of New Testament worship, would lay earth and sense under contribution, where heaven and faith should rule. The truly spiritual worshipper, sensitive to the difficulty of maintaining his spiritual mindedness, will be jealous of everything fitted to appeal to sense. To such, the grave sweet melody of Zion’s psalmody will be a congenial vehicle for spiritual feeling; while the artistic sounds of instrumental music thrilling the ear, awakening bodily sense to energies conflicting with those of the spirit, precisely where most of all the spirit should be free from all such conflict, will be felt intuitively as a great impurity, and a fundamental violation of the great principles of gospel worship.
It is remarkably confirmatory of these remarks to remind you that, in point of fact, the tolerating or desiring of such innovations and impurities in the worship of God, always goes hand in hand with false or defective views of the priesthood of Christ. A ritualistic worship is found to be historically connected with notions of an earthly priesthood. When the ministers of the gospel are accounted priests, as in Popish or Puseyite worship, the earthly house of prayer—and not heaven—comes to be regarded as the scene and sanctuary of worship; its observances, in default of heavenly and unseen beauty, are decorated with materials of earthly splendour; and inasmuch as it is a principle of reason that the worship of God should be glorious, and priesthood and glory stand intimately related, the priesthood being on earth, the glory sought is an earthly pomp and glory too. The doctrine of Christ’s exclusive and celestial priesthood puts ritualistic worship to flight. And the believing worshipper, seeking in spirit to enter heaven, rejoices to resign every beggarly element of the world, which can only chain down his spirit, too prone to cleave unto the dust, and hinder his entrance within the vail. I need scarcely remark, in this connection, that it is manifestly the deep appreciation of doctrine—a large, and sound, and rich theology, once highly valued in Scotland, when every peasant could confound the prelates—that will alone protect and conserve among us the worship and government of the Church of God according to His will. Doctrine, in all things, takes the lead in the Church; doctrine, held fast in the grasp of a living faith, a deep spiritual intelligence, and a loving, cordial appreciation. And where doctrine becomes corrupt, or shallow, or inefficient, neither the worship nor government of the Church can long be safe from the follies of human wisdom, and the corruptions and impurities of human inventions. Nor is there any doctrine more distinguishing and glorious in Christianity than the many-sided and exalted doctrine of the priesthood of Christ. You will always find those deplorably ignorant of it, who desiderate or would welcome innovations and ceremonies in our worship.