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In the book of Hebrews we are told mainly that the Lord Jesus today is in the heavens as the great High Priest, interceding for us continually. But in the same book there is another aspect of His ministry. While He is there in the heavens interceding for us, He is also here in the midst of the church singing hymns of praise to the Father. He is there, and He is here; He is there interceding for us, and He is here with us praising the Father. We should be able to say with the apostle Paul, “It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me” (Gal. 2:20). We should also be able to say, “It is no longer I who sing, but it is Christ who sings in me.” He and we are one. He as the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45) indwells our spirit (2 Tim. 4:22), and we are one spirit with Him (1 Cor. 6:17); so when we sing from our spirit, He sings within our spirit.
Of all the Epistles in the New Testament, there are only two dealing with the matter of Christian meetings: the first, which we have already considered, is the book of 1 Corinthians; the second is the book of Hebrews. There are three passages in the book of Hebrews which we must see concerning meetings. When we collect them and put them together, we get the concept of the writer regarding Christian meetings. The first is the passage we have already referred to in 2:12, saying that in the midst of the church the Lord Jesus sings hymns of praise. We must realize that the church here means the church meeting together — that is quite apparent. If there were no meeting of the church, how could the Lord Jesus sings hymns of praise in the midst of the church? The word midst indicates that the church is coming together, so this is the church meeting. This is a deeper way for us to meet together — by the Lord Jesus singing in us.
So many of us were born and brought up in Christianity. When we were there, the choir did the singing. Do you think the Lord Jesus could sing hymns of praise there? But that is still a kind of Christian meeting. The problem is that they meet in a superficial way, a formal way, a wrong way; they frustrate the Lord Jesus and hinder His singing in the meeting of the church. When I was young I knew of a kind of Christian meeting in which people rolled on the ground — they were called the holy rollers; others stood in the corner laughing — they were called the holy laughers; and some were continually jumping — they were the holy jumpers. To my realization it would be rather difficult for the Lord Jesus to sing hymns of praise there. The meetings we need, the proper meetings, are those in which the Lord Jesus is able to sing hymns of praise. This one matter will adjust us greatly. Do we have the assurance that whenever we come together, there is no frustration to Him singing in us? We must be assured that while we are singing, He is singing in our singing. This is tremendously meaningful. You may insist that such-and-such a way is the proper way for Christians to meet. Superficially speaking, you may be right, but let me check with you: while you are singing, is the Lord Jesus singing within your singing? If you do not have this assurance, your way of meeting is undoubtedly improper. At least it is not adequate. This passage of the Word is the strongest test to our way of meeting. If we do have the proper and adequate way to meet, we should have the certainty deep within us that when we are singing, when we are praising, the Lord Jesus is singing and praising within us. This matter must adjust and correct us.
The second passage regarding meetings in this book is 10:25: “Not abandoning our own assembling together, as the custom with some is.” We need to have a habit of meeting; we need to build up a meeting habit. But, I would ask, if we have the habit of meeting, what do we have the habit of doing in our meetings? Do we occupy the entire time with ministry, prophecy, exhortation, teaching, etc.? Then how could the Lord Jesus sing the hymns of praise in the church? Do you see my point? Hebrews 10:25 indicates that when we come together we should exhort or encourage one another, and so much the more as the day of the Lord’s coming draws nigh. But we must put the passages of this one book together. If we isolate this verse in chapter 10 of Hebrews, we may say that we should come together just for mutual encouragement. But if we put the passage in 2:12, together with this, we will see that we should come together mainly to praise.
Now let us go on to the last passage in this book regarding Christian meetings — 13:15. This is the last instruction in this book. “Through Him then let us offer up a sacrifice of praise continually to God, that is, the fruit of lips confessing His name.” After thirteen chapters full of instructions, here is the final instruction: “Through Him.” Do not miss these two words, through Him. Through whom? You may say through Jesus Christ. Yes, but who is Jesus Christ? You must read the book of Hebrews several times before you can answer this question. The answer is not so simple. All thirteen chapters of this book simply tell us who Jesus is. Let us consider briefly in the light of this book who Jesus is.
Chapter 1 tells us that Jesus is one with divinity: He is called the Son of God, and He is even God Himself. Chapter 2 tells us that Jesus is a real man, yet a man who is now crowned with glory and honor. Such a man who has been tested by so many sufferings is today our great High Priest. In chapter 3 we have more items of what this Jesus is. He is the Apostle sent to us by God and the High Priest going to God for us. He came as the Apostle, and He went as the High Priest. We could go on to look at many more items in chapters 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8, etc. There is something in every chapter. Oh, this Jesus, this wonderful Jesus! So this word, “through Him,” in chapter 13 has immense significance. It means that we have experienced Him, that we have passed through Him, through the Jesus of all thirteen chapters of this superlative book. Without being “through Him” our praises to God can never be acceptable and are meaningless. We must give our praises “through Him.” In other words, our praise must be composed through Him, must be composed with Him, and must be constituted with the experiences of Him. We enjoy Him as the One mentioned in chapter 1, we enjoy Him as the One in chapter 2, we experience and pass through Him as the One revealed in chapter 3, and so forth. Then we have many letters and words of Christ; we have a vocabulary, not just in our mentality but in our experience, from which we may compose praise to the Father. This is the right meaning of through Him. Through Him we offer our praises to the Father. This is the fruit of our lips, confessing His name. We confess His name not by preaching or teaching but by praising.
Put these three passages together: (1) Christ is in the midst of the church, singing hymns of praise to the Father; (2) we must not neglect to come together, we must have a meeting habit; and (3) through Him we must offer praises to God. When we conjoin these three passages, we get the proper concept of Christian meetings.
I am expecting and looking to the Lord that one day in our meetings three-fourths of the time will be for praising and one-fourth left for prophesying. You may say that that is too much time for praise, but I hope that it will be so much. Whenever we come together, we must be full of praise and most of the time praising. You may ask, what about encouraging one another, what about exhorting? Should we just praise without exhorting or encouraging? I tell you, the proper praising is the best exhortation, the best encouragement. If someone stands up to exhort me, I am not so deeply impressed. But if they sing praises from the spirit, if the Lord Jesus sings in their singing, that is a real exhortation, a real encouragement, to me. Do you not agree? The real edifying, the real building up of the church, is in the praising. If we would and if we could praise adequately and properly so that the Lord Jesus could continually sing hymns in our singing, the church would be wonderfully encouraged and built up. This is why the apostle Paul lists psalms as the first item mentioned in 1 Corinthians 14:26. Singing and praising must be on the top. We must consider praising the first item we need in the meetings of the church.
The beginning of Hebrews says that the Lord Jesus sings praises to the Father in the midst of the church. Then at the end we are told that we must offer up the sacrifice of praise continually to God through Him. Between these two passages we have the verse in chapter 10 telling us that we must build up a meeting habit. By these three passages we are abundantly clear that whenever we meet there must be the possibility of the Lord Jesus singing praises to the Father, and whenever we come together, we must be praising, not talking, witnessing, or prophesying so much, but praising — praising through Him.
The entire book of Hebrews teaches that Christ is better than so many things: Christ is better than Judaism and any kind of religion; Christ is better than this and better than that; Christ is all the best things — this is the book of Hebrews. But this book, while it tells how Christ is better than so many things, also tells and encourages us to enjoy such a Christ, not just to know Him but to experience Him.
Sometimes the small words in the Bible are intensely meaningful. I really like these three words: “We see Jesus” (2:9). Do you realize what it means to see Jesus? This is not just knowledge, not just understanding; this is seeing — we see Jesus. We see! What kind of Jesus do we see? We see Jesus who is God incarnated, who is made a little man, lower than the angels. He was not such a great man, but a small man, a despised man. We see Him! We see His human living on the earth, His sufferings, His death. We see Jesus! But we also see Him crowned with glory and honor! This should not simply be a kind of doctrine, but a seeing. Have you seen Jesus incarnated, Jesus suffering, Jesus crucified, Jesus resurrected from the dead, Jesus ascended to the heavens, glorified, crowned, and enthroned? If you have really seen these things today, how could you keep yourself silent when you come to the meeting?
Those who go to the football games are intensely excited. Why? Because they see something. The wife tells the husband, and the husband tells the wife; the son tells the father, and the father tells the son. When you see, you cannot be silent. Why do you come to the meetings so silently? Why must the leading brothers spend so much time and energy encouraging you to open your mouth? Because you have not seen. You have not seen Jesus. If you have seen Jesus today, it is absolutely impossible to remain silent in the meeting. This is the way for us to meet — we have to see Jesus. We cannot just quote a verse such as Hebrews 10:25, saying that we must not neglect coming together. Even if we come together, what shall we do? If we are so empty, if we are void of seeing Jesus, we will simply burden one another when we come to the meetings. If we are encouraged to function in the meetings, we will have nothing to say; we will have nothing to stir up the spirits of others. The meeting will simply fall flat. Suppose you have never seen a game of football; yet when you come together, you try to talk, and others encourage you to talk about football. What a miserable performance! Suppose, however, we have all just seen an exciting game — when we come together, everyone will have a lot to say. Several will be speaking at once, and you will have a hard time trying to stop us. O brothers, this is the way we should meet. But the subject is Jesus; we have seen Jesus! Oh, what a Jesus!
Many years ago, I was quite foolish; I used to force people to function. I was helped by the teaching regarding the universal priesthood to realize that every believer must function in the meeting. I told the brothers they all must function, and I even went so far as to ask them to sign a paper, promising how many times in the meetings they would pray or give a testimony. That frightened the people. Some were so frightened that they quit coming. Now I do not ask people to sign a paper, but I do say that if we would have a proper meeting, we must see Jesus; we must have the real experience of the Jesus revealed in this book. If we see this Jesus, we will be beside ourselves. If we neglect the seeing of Jesus, even though we come to the meeting, we will not function.
In chapter 2 we are told that this Jesus is the sanctifying One, and we are those to be sanctified. He and we are of one Father with one life, so He is not ashamed to call us brothers. Christ is our Brother, and we are His brothers. Just to see this one item is tremendous. In chapter 3 we are told that we are partakers of the heavenly calling and partakers of Christ. He is the Apostle, the One sent from God to us, and He is the High Priest, the One going to God from us. Consider Him and partake of Him, partake of the Apostle, partake of the High Priest, partake of Christ. Oh how good is this term, the partakers of Christ. If we enjoy Christ in this way, what a meeting we will have!
In chapter 4 we are told that there is a rest remaining for us, and we must be diligent to enter into that rest. We know that is the good land, which is the full type of Christ. Christ is the good land as our rest. So many Christians are like the wandering Israelites in the wilderness: they do not have rest because they do not have the practical experience of Christ as everything to them. They have not entered into the good land, so there is no rest for them. Yet this rest is remaining for us. How can we enter in? The way is in verse 12: our soul must be divided from our spirit. When we are in the soul, we are just in the wilderness. It is not till we turn ourselves to the spirit, till we get into the spirit, that we are immediately in the good land, the Holy of Holies. We all must learn to discern our spirit from our soul so that we may enter into Christ and enjoy all that He is to us. This is the base, the foundation for our meeting. If in our daily walk we do not know how to divide the spirit from the soul, how to discern our spirit, and how to be in the spirit, we can never enjoy Christ as our rest and as our good land. Then when we come to the meeting, we are void of Christ, and it is impossible for us to have a proper meeting. I hope that all these words will not be just a teaching to you. The way to enter into the real enjoyment of Christ is to discern our spirit from our soul. Then when we come together, we will come with a rich surplus of Christ. Spontaneously, we will sing His praises, and while we are singing, He will be singing within our singing. This is the proper way for us to meet.
When we are in the spirit enjoying Christ as the good land, it is rather difficult to tell others whether we are on earth or in the heavens. We have a deep ecstasy that we are mostly in the heavens, touching the throne of grace, receiving mercy and finding grace for timely need (v. 16). When we are in such an enjoyment, we can hardly wait to get into the meeting hall to shout and sing; we will be singing and praising all the way. Do not try simply to do this in an outward way — that is a kind of performance; that is not real. We must see Jesus. Have you seen Jesus? Oh, our High Priest is able to sympathize with all our weaknesses! I will never be bothered by my weakness with such a One. Hallelujah, I am in the heavens! When I get into my spirit, I am just in the heavens, touching the throne of grace.
Most writings on the book of Hebrews are simply doctrinal, saying that Jesus is better than the angels, better than Moses, better than Joshua, and better than this and that — mere terminology. The one written by Andrew Murray on this book, entitled “The Holiest of All,” is an exception; it speaks much concerning our experience. In the book of Hebrews the author frequently tells us that we must experience what he is saying. We all must experience what is revealed in this book about Christ.
In chapter 10 we are told that we have boldness for entering the Holy of Holies in the blood of Jesus, which entrance He initiated for us as a new and living way through the veil (vv. 19-20). “Hallelujah! Hallelujah! / I have passed the riven veil, / Here the glories never fail” (Hymns, #551). This is more than just a song; this is something bubbling up and overflowing from within. Psalm 45:1 says, “My heart overflows with a good matter.” This means that within me something is bubbling up. It is not a performance but a bubbling, so that my tongue is the pen of a ready writer. He who bubbled up in Psalm 45 was one who saw the wonderful things of the King; he could not help himself. We all need the experience of Psalm 45 and Psalm 68. If we do not have this experience, regardless of how loud we shout, we do not have the ecstasy, and we do not have the response in the spirit. We need to come to the throne of grace, to enter into the Holy of Holies with boldness by the blood, by the new and living way through the veil. Hallelujah!
In Hebrews 12:2 we have, “Looking away unto Jesus.” Oh, let us look away from so many other things unto Jesus. Look away unto Jesus — not just see Him, but look unto Him. In Hebrews 13:13 we read, “Let us therefore go forth unto Him.” Just to see Him is not enough; just to look unto Him is not sufficient; just to consider Him is also not adequate. Finally, we must go forth unto Jesus. “Let us therefore go forth unto Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach.” Jesus today is not in the camp; He is outside. What is the camp? The camp is a religious organization; the camp here typically means Judaism, the Jewish religion. When the Israelites worshipped the golden calf while Moses was on Mount Sinai, they immediately became a religious camp in the eyes of God. Moses at that time moved out of the camp to be with the Lord, and everyone who sought the Lord went unto the Lord outside the camp (Exo. 33:7). This is the historical fact referred to here. The book of Hebrews was written to the Hebrew believers who were still so much for Judaism. They did not realize that Judaism in the eyes of God had become a camp forsaking God and worshipping idols. Jesus was not there; Jesus is not in any religious organization. Jesus today is outside the camp; we must go forth unto Him outside the camp. In no other way could we be one with Him. Where He is, there we must be.
Through Him, through such a One, we offer our praises to God. Do you see the point? Suppose that at the very opening of Hebrews we had this word, “Through Him then let us offer up a sacrifice of praise.” We would all ask, “Through whom?” But this word is not at the beginning, or in the middle, but at the end, after all the riches of this Christ have been revealed. Through such a One whom you have experienced, whom you have enjoyed so much, offer up the sacrifice of praise continually to God. The real praise in the meetings must be constituted of our experiences of Christ.
The Father does not like us to praise Him directly. The sweetest praises we can offer to the Father are those we offer to Christ and which concern Christ — there is nothing more pleasant to the Father’s heart than this. There is an entirely mistaken concept in Christianity regarding worship to God: that to prostrate ourselves and bow down to the Father in heaven is real worship. No, that is not real worship. Real worship to the Father is the handling of His Son. In gospel preaching we tell the sinners that Christ is the Son of God, that Christ is the very One who redeemed us, the One who can save us and bring us to the Father. If we minister these things regarding Christ to the unbelievers, this is real worship to the Father. To worship the Father, to worship God, is simply to present the Son of God. Either we present Christ to the Father, or we present Christ to others in the Father’s presence — both are the best worship we can render to God. Real praise to the Father is not merely that we come to Him and say, “O Father, how great You are. You are so righteous, so holy, so high, so kind, and so good!” If we merely praise the Father in this way, we are rather religious. The real praises to the Father come out of our experience of Christ in our daily life as the little Benjamin, as Judah, and as Zebulun and Naphtali (Psa. 68:27). If we come to the meeting and say, “Hallelujah, Jesus is my Lord; He is the little Benjamin,” it seems that this is not praise to the Father. But I tell you, this is a very pleasing praise to the Father, gladdening and rejoicing His heart. The Father never desires that we merely glorify Him, but rather that we glorify Him with the Son. If we glorify the Son, we glorify the Father. If we glorify the Son, the Father will say, “I am glorified in My Son being glorified by you.” Learn to praise in this way, not to praise with a composition of religious and natural things. The praises out of our experience and enjoyment of Christ, the spiritual praises to the Lord about Christ, are the best praise to the Father.
For many years we have been trying to free ourselves from the way of meeting in today’s Christianity, but we have not succeeded. In these days, however, the Lord is showing us the way — that is, we all must experience Christ, we all must see Jesus; then when we come together we will have something so exciting to share of Him. This is the proper meeting, and this meeting will be mostly for praising.
