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In this message we will continue to consider the experience and enjoyment of Christ as the One better than Aaron.
Hebrews 7:25 tells us that Christ “is able to save to the uttermost those who come forward to God through Him, since He lives always to intercede for them.” Here the expression to the uttermost means “completely, entirely, perfectly, to the end, and for eternity.” This indicates that Christ as our High Priest is able to save to the fullest extent, that is, to save in every kind of situation and condition.
He is able to save to the uttermost those who come forward to God through Him, since He lives always to intercede for us. Christ as our High Priest undertakes our case by interceding for us. He appears before God on our behalf and prays for us that we may be saved and brought fully into God’s eternal purpose. We should believe that Christ is always interceding for us. By interceding for us, He takes care of us. He can take care of us much better than we could ever take care of ourselves. Most of the time we are foolish in the way that we care for ourselves. Instead of trying to take care of ourselves by our own efforts, we should simply give ourselves to Him and rest, knowing that He is always caring for us.
Verse 25 tells us that Christ is able to save to the uttermost. Because He lives forever without any change, Christ is able to save us to the uttermost in extent, in time, and in space. Hence, His salvation reaches to the uttermost.
Christ can save us to the uttermost because He is living not only in the heavens but also within us. While He is living in the heavens, He is transmitting Himself into us. He is living in the heavens to intercede for us and take care of our case, but the reality of this is transmitted into our spirit by His Spirit. We must learn to see this heavenly vision and enjoy our High Priest. Then we will receive mercy and find grace at the throne of grace for timely help. We will be delivered and saved to the uttermost. This is the work of our divine High Priest.
Because He has this kind of priesthood, He is able to save us to the uttermost. If we are not saved to the uttermost, it does not mean that He is not able to save. Rather, it means that we were not willing to be saved. We have no excuse. If we are willing to be saved, surely He will save us to the uttermost.
According to the Scriptures, there are three aspects of the priesthood: the aspect of the Aaronic priesthood, the aspect of the kingly priesthood, and the aspect of the divine priesthood. The Aaronic aspect of the priesthood is for offering sacrifices to God for our sins. Hence, the Aaronic priesthood is mainly concerned with the sin offering. The kingly aspect of the priesthood is for ministering the processed God to us as our life supply. The aspect of the divine priesthood is for saving us to the uttermost. Therefore, we have three words to describe the three aspects of the priesthood: offering for the Aaronic aspect, ministering for the kingly aspect, and saving for the divine aspect. Offering solves the problem of sin, ministering imparts the processed God to us as our daily supply, and saving rescues us to the uttermost. The saving of the divine priesthood rescues us especially from death and all the environment of death.
At this point, we need to consider why there is the need for the third aspect of the priesthood, the divine priesthood. Although sin is over, it caused a tremendous result — death. According to Romans 5, the issue of sin is death (v. 12). We should not understand death according to the narrow view of our human concept. According to the broadest understanding of death in the Bible, death includes vanity, corruption, sighing, groaning, and decay. Everything is decaying. We may have a strong body, but before too long it begins to decay. The matters of vanity, corruption, bondage, groaning, and decay are fully developed and covered in Romans 8. In Romans 5 we have sin and death; in Romans 8 we have vanity, corruption, bondage, groaning, and decay. The whole universe has been polluted by death, which is the result of the sin that came in through Adam, the head of the old creation. The pollution that comes from death is corruption, vanity, decay, and groaning. Romans 8:22 says that the whole creation is groaning. Every person is groaning deep within. Since people want to escape from this groaning, they partake of worldly entertainments. Even after indulging in these entertainments, they find that the inward groaning is still there. This groaning is one of the issues of death.
Because of the issues of death, we need the divine priesthood, which is the presence of life and the absence of death. He will save us from all our corruption, vanity, groaning, and decay. When others come to our home, there should be praising, reality, building up, and growth, not groaning, vanity, corruption, and decay. To be saved from these issues of death is what it means to be saved to the uttermost. This is more than the saving of the Savior — it is the saving of the divine priesthood.
The Greek word translated “uttermost” in Hebrews 7:25 has the same root as the Greek word for perfection. Hence, to be saved to the uttermost means to be saved into perfection. Christ saves us into His perfection. To be saved to the uttermost is to be brought into Christ’s perfection. The Son of God was incarnated, lived on earth, passed through death, was resurrected, and has been fully perfected forever. This means that in His perfection there is no groaning, vanity, corruption, bondage, or decay. In Christ, the perfected Son of God, the One who has been resurrected and uplifted, there is no groaning. Within Him there is no vanity, bondage, corruption, or decay. He is absolutely free from these things. Vanity, groaning, decay, bondage, and corruption are all by-products of death. Christ, the perfected One, is able to save us from all of these by-products of death and to bring us into His perfection. This is the saving to the uttermost, the saving to perfection. This is the saving of the divine priesthood of Christ.
While Christ was on earth, He solved the problems of sin and death. As we are enjoying His kingly priesthood, we participate in the divine priesthood that diminishes and even swallows up all of the by-products of death. While we enjoy God being ministered into us as the processed One, we partake of the divine priesthood that diminishes, eliminates, and swallows up all of the by-products of death, such as vanity, corruption, bondage, groaning, and decay. Day by day there is within us a diminishing, a swallowing up, of our groaning and vanity. The more we participate in the divine priesthood of Christ, the less groaning we have. The more we enjoy the divine priesthood of Christ, the less we will sigh and the more we will shout. According to Romans 8, the last step of God’s work on us is to glorify us. To be glorified is to be thoroughly saturated with the divine priesthood. When we have been thoroughly saturated with the divine priesthood, that will be our glorification. To be glorified is also to be delivered from vanity, corruption, bondage, groaning, and decay. This is exactly the meaning of glorification in Romans 8—the full sonship, the redemption of our body (v. 23). The redemption of our body is its being transfigured out of vanity, corruption, and decay into a stage in which it is completely filled with the divine priesthood. That will be our glorification. The Aaronic priesthood is in Romans 3 and 4, the kingly priesthood is in Romans 6 and in the first part of Romans 8, and the divine priesthood is in the middle and the last part of Romans 8. Hebrews 7 does not correspond with Romans 3 or 4; it firstly corresponds with Romans 6 and the first part of Romans 8, and eventually it corresponds completely with the middle and the last parts of Romans 8 dealing with glorification and our deliverance from vanity, corruption, bondage, and decay into the freedom of glory.
We are now on our way toward this perfection. We are in the process of being perfected. As our Forerunner, Christ has already entered into that complete perfection, and we also will be brought there. We will be saved to the uttermost. To be saved to the uttermost is to be brought into Christ’s complete perfection where there is no vanity, corruption, bondage, groaning, decay, or sighing. To save us in this way is the ministry of the divine priesthood.
Christ’s kingly priesthood is for ministry, and His divine priesthood is for saving. He is able to save to the uttermost because He not only is living but also is the indestructible life. Nothing can destroy Him. Although we may have the heart to save others, we can easily be destroyed and terminated. But Christ can save us to the uttermost because His priesthood is composed of an indestructible life. Regardless of our situation or the condition in which we may find ourselves, we have the divine priesthood to take care of us. This divine priesthood is the saving power of the indestructible life. The work of the divine High Priest is mainly to save us to the uttermost. The divine priesthood is constituted with the indestructible life; thus, it is able to save us to the uttermost from all the by-products of death into Christ’s perfection.
He saves to the uttermost those who come forward to God through Him (Heb. 7:25a). Christ died for all mankind, but not everyone will be saved. This is because not everyone comes forward to God through Him. Although we may have been saved in the sense of being regenerated, we still need more saving (Rom. 5:10). If we do not come forward, we cannot receive His saving. It may be raining, but a vessel cannot receive this rain unless its opening is toward the heavens. Likewise, many genuine Christians today do not receive Christ’s saving, because they do not come forward to God. Christ’s saving in His priesthood will not reach the ones who will not come forward.
Sometimes we may be saved from our temper only to a certain extent and not to the uttermost. A sister may be about to lose her temper; hence, she turns to Christ and is stopped from losing her temper. She may be saved from her temper but not to the uttermost. If she were saved from her temper to the uttermost, she would be rejoicing in the Lord. For the Lord’s sake, we may forgive others’ mistakes. But to be saved from remembering others’ mistakes is to be saved to the uttermost. We may forgive others and yet still remember their mistakes. When God forgives us, He forgets (Heb. 8:12); hence, to forgive is to forget. If our forgiving does not equal forgetting, we are not saved to the uttermost. If we have truly forgiven someone, we should also forget the offense. We need to be saved to the uttermost in our forgiving of others and from all our daily troubles. When we come forward to God through Christ, our High Priest, He saves us in the power of His resurrection (Phil. 3:10) and by the law of the Spirit of life (Rom. 8:2).
Christ is able to save us because He intercedes for us (Heb. 7:25b). As our High Priest, Christ undertakes our case by interceding for us. He appears before God on our behalf, praying for us that we may be saved and brought fully into God’s eternal purpose. We need to simply rest in His intercession, trust in it, and enjoy it. Be assured that our divine High Priest is continually interceding for us. Many times we have been saved by His intercession. We have a perpetual, constant, and eternal Intercessor.
Our divine High Priest intercedes for us constantly, knowing how easy it is for us to fall and, once we have fallen, to remain in our fallen state. Sooner or later His intercession will overcome, subdue, and save us. We all will be completely subdued and saved by His intercession. God appointed Him to take care of us, and He is now taking care of us by interceding for us. Although we may forget that we have called upon His name, He will never forget it. He is interceding for us, and He will save us to the uttermost.
Since we have such a High Priest interceding for us, we should “come forward with boldness to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace for timely help” (4:16). We need to keep coming forward to God. Morning and evening, day and night, we should come forward to Him, saying to Him, “I am open to You. You are rich. I need You. I want to stay open to You all the time.”
Hebrews 8:2 speaks of Christ as “a Minister of the holy places, even of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, not man.” Hebrews 9:24 tells us that “Christ did not enter into a holy place made by hands, a figure of the true, but into heaven itself, to appear now before the face of God for us.” These verses reveal that Christ as a High Priest is a Minister of the holy places in the heavens before the face of God. We have a Minister in the heavens who has entered into the Holy of Holies in the heavens and appears now before the face of God for us.
In 8:2 Minister refers to one who ministers as a priest. As a minister of the true (heavenly) tabernacle, Christ ministers heaven (which is not only a place but also a condition of life) into us that we may have the heavenly life and power to live a heavenly life on earth, as He did while He was here. In verse 2 the Greek word for holy places, used as a noun, is plural here. It refers to all the holy places in the tabernacle; strictly, it refers to the Holy of Holies, the holiest of all the holy places (9:8, 12, 25; 10:19; 13:11).
Christ is the Minister of the true tabernacle in the heavens. This tabernacle, this sanctuary, is the third heaven, the heavenly Holy of Holies. We should praise the Lord that the Holy of Holies in the heavens is connected to our spirit. Therefore, in experience, our regenerated spirit is also the Holy of Holies. Our spirit is connected to the third heaven, where Christ is ministering on our behalf. We need to see that Christ as the High Priest desires to give us a heavenly salvation and that He is carrying out the heavenly ministry in the heavenly tabernacle to supply us with the heavenly life (8:2), and that this heavenly life is in the life-giving Spirit. He dispenses Himself as the life-giving Spirit into us from the heavens, causing us to receive the supply of life, enabling us to rejoice when we are ill and to praise Him when we are in trouble.
Christ ministers in the true tabernacle in heaven, which is joined to our spirit. As our High Priest in the heavens, Christ brings us into heaven, from the earthly court into the heavenly Holy of Holies, which is joined to our spirit by Him as the heavenly ladder (Gen. 28:12; John 1:51). The priests on earth served the shadow (Heb. 8:5), but this Minister in heaven serves the reality. Whatever was done by the priests on earth in the Old Testament was a shadow of the real things to come. What they did on earth served only as a shadow of the reality, but whatever this Minister ministers in heaven in the New Testament is the reality. His more excellent ministry in heaven serves the reality of the heavenly things in the divine dispensing. He is ministering the heavenly life and life supply of the divine riches into all His believers.
Christ is the Minister, ministering to us all the divine, heavenly, spiritual, and eternal things. How can Christ minister the heavenly, spiritual, and eternal things from the heavens to us on the earth? It is by the heavenly “television” within us. Christ is “televising” the “scenery” in the heavens into our spirit. Christ is now far away in the heavens to minister all the heavenly, eternal, and spiritual things to us by the transmission of the eternal Spirit. Whatever is now in the heavens is immediately transmitted into our spirit.
In the true tabernacle, Christ is ministering as the High Priest (vv. 1-2). As the High Priest, He is interceding for us so that everything that He accomplished might be wrought into our being. Just as Melchizedek came to minister the bread and wine to Abraham after he had interceded for him behind the scene, Christ, our Melchizedek, is secretly interceding for all who love Him and seek Him. As He is interceding for us in the heavens, He is also the all-inclusive and all-pervading Spirit. The all-inclusive Spirit works in us according to Christ’s heavenly intercession, causing Christ, the firstborn Son of God, to be wrought into our being. Christ is ministering in the true tabernacle today. He ministers the life supply from heaven into the believers that they may receive the enjoyment to function as members of the Body.
Hebrews 9:28 tells us that Christ, “having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time to those who eagerly await Him, apart from sin, unto salvation.”
In verse 28 the word sin, which is singular, refers to our sinful nature. Hebrews 9:26 tells us that Christ “has been manifested for the putting away of sin through the sacrifice of Himself.” This indicates that He is the sin offering. Moreover, according to 7:27, Christ offered up Himself once for all for our sins. Hebrews 9:28 goes on to say that He has been “offered once to bear the sins of many.” This indicates that He is also the trespass offering. Because sin has already become history, the second manifestation of Christ has nothing to do with sin. Since Christ has put away sin in His first appearing (1 John 3:5), His second appearing will be apart from sin, having nothing whatever to do with it. In other words, Christ appeared the first time to take away our sin and our sins, and He will appear a second time apart from sin (Heb. 9:24-28).
Christ’s second appearing is not only apart from sin but also unto salvation. When He comes back, He will grant us the highest salvation. The salvation that we have been enjoying today has not yet reached its highest peak. The highest peak of Christ’s salvation will be His second appearing. At His coming back, we will enjoy His salvation to the uttermost.
The word salvation in verse 28 has a wide and high meaning, covering many aspects. First, the salvation which Christ will bring to us in His second manifestation is for the redemption, the transfiguration, of our body. When we were saved, we were regenerated in our spirit (John 3:5-6). Now we are in the process of being transformed in our soul (Rom. 12:2; 2 Cor. 3:18). Then at Christ’s second coming for the completion of the salvation of our entire being, He will transfigure our vile body into a glorious one (Phil. 3:21). That will be the redemption of our body (Rom. 8:23), the first aspect of Christ’s appearing “unto salvation” in His second manifestation.
The second aspect of the salvation by Christ’s second coming is the deliverance from the vanity and slavery of corruption of the old creation into the freedom of the glory of the children of God (vv. 18-23; Phil. 3:20-21). The entire old creation has been subjected to vanity and is under the slavery of corruption. Even we who have been saved and who have the enjoyment of the Spirit are also under the vanity and the slavery of corruption of the old creation. At His second coming, Christ will free us from this vanity and slavery and deliver us into the freedom of the glory of the children of God.
At His second coming, Christ will glorify us (v. 17); that is, He will bring us into His glory to fulfill the word in Hebrews 2:10. Our glorification is the final goal of God’s salvation in Christ (Rom. 8:29-30). We have been chosen, predestinated, called, and justified. Now we are being sanctified through the process of transformation in life. Then in His second manifestation, we will be glorified and reach the final goal of God’s salvation in Christ. This is the third aspect of Christ’s coming salvation.
In regeneration we were born of God and became the sons of God (John 1:12-13). In this new birth we received the divine sonship in our spirit (Rom. 8:15). After this, we began to enjoy this sonship through the transformation of our soul. The more we are transformed in our soul, the more we enjoy the sonship which has been given to us in our spirit. This sonship will become full when our body of the old creation is transfigured into a body of the new creation. This means that the redemption of our body is the full sonship of our new birth. This will be the fourth aspect of Christ’s salvation in His second manifestation.
God’s salvation in Christ is to work Himself into us as our enjoyment. He has given to us His Spirit in our spirit as the firstfruits for our enjoyment (v. 23). The firstfruits of the Spirit are the foretaste for our enjoyment of God. The full taste will be brought in for our enjoyment by Christ’s second manifestation. When our body is transfigured and our entire being — spirit, soul, and body — is fully saturated with the element of the Triune God, we will enjoy God in full. That will be our full taste of God, the last aspect of Christ’s coming salvation.
The salvation that Christ will bring to us in His second coming will be such a wider and higher one and will fulfill the final and ultimate goal of God’s all-inclusive salvation in Christ. Before His second manifestation, Christ is ministering to us with this goal in view. His more excellent ministry in the heavens today, the ministry of His kingly and divine priesthood with His heavenly intercession, is building up such a salvation. When He sees that the building up of this wonderful salvation has been accomplished, He will appear the second time. That will be His second manifestation in God’s economy.
