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And inasmuch as it is appointed unto men once to die, and after this the judgment, so Christ also, having been once offered to bear the sins of many, shall appear a second time, apart from sin, to them that wait for him unto salvation. Three appearances of our Lord, then, mentioned in those few verses. Chronologically, the first appearance when he appeared in our world, was manifested in our world to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. Secondly, we are told he now appears in the presence of God for us. Thirdly, we are informed that one day he will appear again, the second time on our planet.
He will appear again, that is, at his second coming. Now not for the question of the putting away of sin, but to finalize our salvation. Now that is a plain straightforward statement of Christian doctrine, but if you were preaching it to Jules, what a lovely illustration you would have ready made, not only in this tabernacle, but in the greatest and central ritual of the Jewish religious year. It used to be that Passover ceremonies were the beginning of the Jewish religious festivals every year, but in modern Judaism, as you know, Yom Kippur has taken their place.
This is started introduced by the Festival of Trumpets, then followed by the great day of atonement, the Yom Kippur, which then eventually leads on to the feast, a festival of Tabernacles. Yom Kippur, the great day of contrition, when according to Leviticus twenty three, the nation had to assemble themselves and afflict their souls before God. The great day of days of national contrition, conf- repentance and confession before God. And, uh, serious Jews still, uh, carry on that, uh, that, uh, spiritual exercise at that time of year.
In ancient Judaism, when they still had a tabernacle or temple, there was a most elaborate ceremony, you'll see, and the high priest actually went in and out several times. That was the day of the one day in the year when the high priest dressed up in his plain linen vestments, not in his garments of beauty and glory, it was after all a day of contrition. When dressed up in his plain white clothes, he went into the holiest of all at the rear of the tabernacle, into the presence of God. And, uh, he went in and out several times. I'm not forgetting that.
But for the sake of time, let me concentrate on the central ritual of that day. And it involved three appearings of the high priest. With the crowd all gathered round, the elders of the tribes assembled here with the, to act on the behalf of the people, the high priest appeared. He came out of the temple and came before the people by the altar here. And then they selected two goats, cast lots on them, one goat for the Lord and one as the scapegoat. The elders came near and confessed their sins over the head of the goat.
The goat was then killed, its blood shed, and the high priest took the blood in a basin. The high priest had appeared for the putting away of sin by the sacrifice of this goat, appeared before the whole assembled crowd. That being done, with the blood in the basin, the high priest retreated and disappeared behind the door that would be hanging here like this, out of sight. But not only there, pulling that veil aside here, he went into the very presence of God and stood before God, uh, at his throne.
Here is the ark. It's an oblong box made of acacia wood and overlaid inside and outside with pure gold. Then on the top of it, this slab of pure gold, uh, from the ends of which are beaten out cherubim with their wings overstretching the, the slab of gold. We don't know what form those cherubim took. Ours are hominoid, uh, but uh, they may have been animal things, like in the book of the Revelation, the throne of God is supported by uh, cherubim living creatures, and some have the face of a man, and some have the face of an ox, and some the lion, and some an eagle, and so forth and so on. And similarly, in the vision of the throne, in Ezekiel's marvelous vision in Ezekiel one, we have simply used, um, at this occasion, the hominid types, they're their wings outstretched.
Drawsay. This thing here called the propitiatory cover. In Greek tran- in Hebrew, kapores. In Hebrew, in in Greek translation, hila- uh, epithema, the cover where propitiation is made, the propitiatory cover, epithema hilasterion in Greek. Well, anyway, the high priest came in, uh, one day a year to stand thus in the presence of God. And what he did when he came in, with his incense first and then with his blood, was not to speak or say anything or offer any prayers.
Nothing, as far as we know, was said. In the profound silence and the tenseness, as the incense went up and covered the ark and, so to speak, shrouded this miserable sinner from the sight of most holy God. He took the blood and swished it first on that golden propitiatory cover, and then before it. What was he doing? He was appearing in the presence of God on behalf of the people that were outside. Now to appear in the presence of God for them.
The symbolism that he carried through was exceedingly eloquent, wasn't it? Inside that ark was God's holy law. And every man in the nation had broken it. Not a man or woman in the nation, but what deserved its penalty. When the high priest came in as the representative of the people to appear in front of them, one thing it is certain he did not do, he didn't start to blabber about we have done our best to keep your law. He didn't make a verbal confession.
He took the blood of the sacrifice and silently swished it on that propitiatory cover and before it, saying what? The ritual itself was eloquent. We have sinned. We have broken God's holy law. We deserve its penalty. See in your mercy, Almighty God, that by your own provision the penalty has been paid, the life laid down. The blood here is a token that the law's sanctions have been upheld. Now to appear in the presence of God for.
Then, having done that, he turned round. He had several duties inside here to make atonement for these pieces of furniture and so forth. We'll omit that and cut the story short. He turned round, and eventually he came out, and he appeared the second time. And the second time he appeared, they took the other goat. And the elders once more confessed their sins over the head of the other goat. And then a man specially chosen took the goat and led it out, out of the gate here, the gateway here, and out beyond the camp of Israel into a desolate place, and shoot it away so that it should never come back again. The three appearances.
It is against the background of that ceremony that the writer now talks to us of the great reality that we have in Christ. It says, you'll see, we can have uttered assurance of our standing before the very throne of God, because first of all, Christ, at the consummation of the ages, he appeared on our planet to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. Silently awaited, verbally awaited by the long tradition of the psalmists and the prophets, at last the Savior came. God incarnate appeared on our planet, and his cross was spiked into the earth.
He appeared to put away s- in order to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. Yes, but says the writer, following the shadow and matching it to the reality. Now he appears in the presence of God for us, and herein is a delightful thing, that our blessed Lord has entered heaven not merely for himself, he has entered heaven for us as our representative. Now, the Jews had an interesting little, uh, legend and tradition. It wasn't true, of course, but, uh, Jews like things like that, and it does no harm to consider it.
They said that, uh, when the high priest on the Day of Atonement went into the presence of God with the blood and stood before the Ark of God, they took the precaution first of tying a rope around his waist and trailing it outside here. Because what? Well, what would happen, they said, if when he got into the presence of God with his blood, God found the sacrifice inadequate. In that moment, the high priest must have perished, and the people finding him to lay would be obliged to pull him out. Well, it's a yarn, isn't it?
But it points to a very serious thing. And you see, it can point the question up to us. Christ appeared at Calvary to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. Now he appears in the presence of God. Yes, but add the other two words, for us. He has gone into the presence of God as our representative. And we can ask, like the Jews asked of their high priest, is God going to accept him? And the thing that concerns me is, forgive my now evil tea, gentlemen. When Christ entered the glory of the immediate presence of God, did God know that he was appearing on the behalf of a chap called David Green?
You say, why do you want to know that? Why? We all say, if Christ was merely entering the presence of God for himself, of course there's no wonder that God said, come sit on my right hand. But if God was aware that Christ was coming as my representative, that was another question altogether, wasn't it? Whatever would happen if one day I arrived at heaven's door, and God said, what are you doing here? And I said, well, you see, you accepted my representative. And God said, I never did.
Who are you? Well, Christ is my representative. And God could say, well, I never knew he was representing you, because if I had known that, that would have been a different story. Did he know, gentlemen? Forgive my childish naivety. Did he know when the blessed Savior ascended into the courts of heaven? Did he know that the Savior entered for me, my representative? You see, if if that was known and clear to heaven, what God has done with Christ, God has done for me. Well, in the ancient world, the way you treated the representative was the guarantee of how you would treat the man that came on behind, whom he represented.
Oh, magnificent thing, isn't it? Contemplate at this moment, gentlemen, till your heart so burn that you must go out and tell somebody that the blessed Savior not only died at Calvary for you, but entered heaven as your representative before God, and God, knowing that he came to represent you, has accepted his son and bid him sit at his own right hand in glory, and he's not been asked to budge a centimeter all these nineteen hundred years. Magnificent, isn't it? Accepted through Christ, now to appear in the presence of God for us.
That's a gospel that sophisticated Europe still needs to hear after nineteen hundred years. Just as the high priest then eventually came out and appeared the second time, so in the great reality will it be done that Christ, our blessed Lord, who in the consummation of the ages appeared at Calvary in order to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself, shall appear the second time. This same Jesus shall show come in like manner as the apostles saw him go. But now here comes a distinction. Whereas the Jewish high priest, when he came out, had to take this sacrifice and still deal with the problem of sin.
The writer to the Hebrews now draws the vivid contrast. But when our Lord appears, it will not be in connection with the question of sin. Uh, he shall appear apart from the question of sin, without any sin offering. There is no need to repeat what was done at Calvary. He shall appear the second time. What shall he appear for? He shall appear the second time, apart from sacrifice for sin, unto salvation. And salvation in what sense? Well, our final salvation, the very redemption of our bodies, and he shall take us, glorious thought, he shall take us bodily home to the Father's house on high.
Simple gospel, isn't it? ABC. But oh, what a delight and a privilege to preach what the highest angel would gladly preach to lost men and women. Let's have a look, where did that go? Oh, over here, so this art. It had the law inside. Following God's examples, I also descend sometimes in my little preaching to simplicities. And I stand beside my model, and I hold up the model of the Ark, and I said, you know, that's a picture, symbolism of the throne of God, if not of the throne, then of the footstool of God, as some rabbis would have it.
They imagined that God was throne was invisible here, a me too between the cherubim, God enthroned above the cherubim, and this therefore was his footstool, but the footstool of an oriental throne was part of the throne anyway, so it comes to the same thing. Throne of God, and then it God's law. And I say, you know, just as surely as you can see that model of a throne in my hand, so surely one day you shall stand before the throne of God. On what ground can you stand there and know yourself accepted? On the ground of having kept God's law.
And then I read in the lesson of Romans three. you know it all. But by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified. By the law is the knowledge of sin. The law is like a thermometer, isn't it? It tells you how sick you are, but you don't suck a thermometer to get better. You'll say, uh, no, the law condemns me. So now, says Romans three, God has found a way, apart from the law, of declaring us just. A way that is by faith, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God has set forth. Uh, I better forget this or it would be fanciful.
God has set forth a propitiatory sacrifice, perhaps. Well, wait a minute. You see this thing here? In Hebrew, it was called kaporeth. When the Septuagint translators came to the Hebrew word kaporeth, they scratched their Septu gental heads and, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, didn't know quite how to cope with this. They thought that the Hebrew word kapha meant to cover, so it was a kind of a lid. So they put erpithema, something placed on top. But then they were observant that the Hebrew word kapha has theological connotations about atonement and things like that.
So they put along it, uh, uh, aside it an adjective, and they called it epithema hilasterion, where hilasterion is an adjective agreeing with the noun epithema, yeah? Uh, so there it was when the high priest came in. He came in not on the basis of the law, but with the blood that was sprinkled upon the epithema hilasterion. But there's another little usage. Whereas on the first occasion the Septuagint puts the noun epithēma followed by the adjective Hilasterion, subsequently, not wanting to repeat the mouthful, they simply say Hilasterion. And though originally it was an adjective, it now comes to serve as a noun.
The propitiatory. Well, forgive all now the fanciful that's about to erupt. Says Paul, we cannot be justified on the grounds of the law, but there's another way completely, which is through faith in Christ, through the redemption that's in Christ Jesus, through faith and by his blood, for God has set him forth and Philistarium. There, said God as he gave Moses the instructions to make this device, there I'll meet with you. Magnificent words of the transcendent, thrice holy God, condescending to meet with fallen, sinful man.
Where can I meet God? At this stage, you can afford to forget your model. Dealing with a soul, a sinner that needs to meet a price-holding God, and to meet him now, while there's time to be right with him. Where can a lost person come and meet their God? There will I meet with you, on that, above that Philasterion. And there is a place where we may meet God still. God has set forth Christ. That's how I translate proetator. I'm aware that all the best theologians are against me, but you see, I'm a little perverse. There, how I understand the Greek verb proetator, God has set forth Christ as the meeting place between fallen man and the Christ Holy God.
That bloodstained, what in English we used to call, and the Germans used to call, the Genove Stuhl, the mercy seat. That too is a magnificent gospel, and for people who find the systematic theology of Romans a little bit difficult to get their minds around, what a brilliant illustration the thing is. Uh, now we backtrack for a moment and come outside that, because while these vessels lay on the direct line of approach into God, there were two others that stood one on the left hand side and the other on the right out here in the holy place.
Let me take them out so that you can, uh, uh, see them conveniently. They stood one opposite the other, like that, you'll see. And they go in pair, and as a pair they are mentioned elsewhere, uh, as a pair, you'll see, Leviticus twenty four, for instance. Because they were related. And it's not difficult to see, uh, um, how their symbolism was related. Of course, from a practical point of view, this gave light in the evenings, and if you wanted to come to that table of a nighttime, you'd need some light, uh, and to that altar.
So, right, that was their practical function. But in their symbolism, for obviously this wasn't there just for practical purpose, look at its rich symbolism. So they were appear symbolically. Why? Because, as we were saying this morning, this was made to be a tree of life. I recommend Carol Meyer's book, if you haven't read it, I expect you have, the monograph on the icono- iconography of trees of life and lampstands in the ancient oriental parts. You'll see. We don't know the shape of this, but in early drawings and graffiti, this is done like the roots of a tree. This was meant to be a tree, and its description is the base, the shaft.
This is not a seven-branch candlestick, gentlemen. That's a misnomer. It's a six-branch candlestick, or can- six-branch lamps, and actually there were no candles here. Uh, uh, uh, uh, there was a base, a central shaft, and six branches, three out of one side and three out of the other. Not only a tree, but a stylized tree, of course, in which all three stages of life were simultaneously present. There was the bud, the flower, and the fruit made like almonds. That's at least how I read the Hebrew. Obviously a stylized tree, I mean to say. We don't know life like that down here on Earth, do we?
At least I don't. I often wish you could, you know. Have all three stages of life, the bud with its potential, and the flower with its beauty, and the fruit with its maturity. You'll say, I watch the little kids, and life is in the bud with them, isn't it? It's, uh, all the potential, but they ain't got the sense to use it, poor things. You'll say, endless energy and going to waste. And, uh, hard you'll say, uh, uh, now I've grown up, I all got all the wisdom and I ain't got the energy. And then the beauty. Well, I was beautiful once. That's gone. Now I hope I've got a little proof that the beauty has disappeared.
Is there a world where all stages of life are simultaneous? A world. that's unchanging, not subject to the old pressures of time and its decay, where youth is still a reality and an eternal potential, and beauty never fades, wisdom is already complete. Or is there such a world, or is that a fairy story? I mustn't repeat all we said this morning about the interpretation of the world, uh, vis-a-vis and contra to Canaanite myths.
But this isn't a deification of the forces of nature. This is, if we now look at the reality of which this is a shadow, it's a symbolic representation of our blessed Lord as the source of life, the source of all life, of every kind of life, himself not being part of the creation. John states it in mighty terms. All things were made through him. Without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, source of life. Didn't have to get the life from anywhere. He's the great source of the universe, and transcendent and apart from it.
In him was life, and that life, notice the article in the Greek at that point, and that life was the light of men. How can creative life be the light of men? Because, gentlemen, simply, light's one of those things, isn't it? If you're walking up a dark lane of a dark night and suddenly a shaft of light appears through the hedge and your friend says to you, where's that light come from? You don't normally reply, what do you mean, where's it come from? It doesn't have to come from anywhere, do you? Light is a phenomenon in our world, and we normally ask where it comes from. And if you want to make sense of life, if you want to have light on life, you must trace life to its source.
Ah, but more than that, let's set that, if that is the source of life, look at this thing here. I've had twelve loaves on loaves of bread, enough one each for all the tribes of Israel. And bread isn't the source of life, is it? It's a means of life. There is a difference, of course. If I were to ask you, how did you get your physical life, you'd scarcely reply, I got it by chewing bread and butter, would you? That isn't normally how people get life. You, you, you, you have to get life from your parents, and really, strictly speaking, they're not the source either. It comes from God, you know what I mean.
But for the limited analogy, uh, your parent is the source of your life. Oh, so you don't eat bread and butter then? Oh, yes, yes, I do. Oh. So you need two things. You need source of life, and once you've got life, you need means of life to keep it going. Of course you do. That is clear at the physical world. It's true also in the spiritual level. And in the Gospel of John in chapter five, our Lord is presented as the source of life. He heals the l- the impotent man without using any means whatsoever.
He doesn't need to use means. God graciously had provided means for the infirm to get well. An angel troubled the pool or something happened, and whosoever stepped down into the pool first got healed. Yes, God in his mercy has placed all kinds of means in our world that people can use, uh, as medicinal, uh, affairs and get better. But when our Lord came by that day and said to the man, my uh man, w- w- w- would you like to be well? The man, you know, he had his mind so on that pool thing, uh, that he didn't really listen to the question. When he was asked, would you be well? He said, well, I've got no man to put me into the pool. Bother the pool, said Christ.
I don't need any pools, man. He didn't, did he? He just spoke the word as he did in creation, and the man was well. And when the Pharisees came around to complaining, our Lord said, as the Father has life in himself, his source of life, so has he given to the Son to have life in himself. Our blessed Lord, the source of life, he can give you eternal life instantaneously.
The hour is coming, and now is, he said, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live. And since he is also the judge, he can and has authority to pronounce the final judgment over you now, you know. The Father judges no man, has given all judgment to the Son. So he who hears my word, he says, and believes on him that sent me, and here the judge speaks, has everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation, but has passed from death to life. He has the life of the ages already.
Has eternal life, that's what it is, has it now. How can he say that? Because he's the final judge. And is his sentence final? Indeed it is. Because he's the source of life, he gives it to us and pronounces his eternal sentence. He that believeth hath everlasting life and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life. Happy are they that have thus made contact with the very source of life, and what is more, the hour is coming one day, says Christ, when they that are in the grave shall hear the voice of the Son of God and shall come forth. Source of life, John five.
How about scripture is sometimes more accurate than we think. And John six? Bread of life, means of life. You can tell me that's accidental or fanciful. Well, you'll take a long while to convince me, that's all. Source of life, bread of life, not as your fathers ate manna in the wilderness and died. This is the bread that came down from heaven, that the man may eat thereof and not die. Magnificent words. Yes, having received Christ, of having received life from the risen, uh, Lord, the fount of all life, we still need that life maintained, don't we?
And Christ is the maintainer of our life, the bread of life. I want to know, of course, being naive once more, practically minded, that reference to the people in the wilderness, ah, it's troublesome, isn't it? Because they ate manna, came down from heaven, man did eat angels' bread. And they were redeemed by the Passover lamb, and uh, they had the cloud to lead them, and they had manna rained down from them every day from the sky, except on the Sabbath. And they didn't get into the Promised Land, did they, that first generation?
Why not? They sinned in the wilderness and they died, notwithstanding the manner. Could it happen to me? Redeemed by the blood of Christ, born again of God's Holy Spirit, the high priest to intercede for me, having received life from the source of life. Ah, but I'm still on my journey, and I'm not home yet, am I? And heaven sometimes seems a long way off, and I have a long way to go. Oh, can I be sure that I shall reach the goal at last?
You say, yes, the blessed Lord Jesus is, is manna from heaven. He's not only the source of life, he is the, he is the food of life, the means of life, the maintainer of life. Eat him. Oh, I say yes, but the, the, the Israelites ate manna in the wilderness, and they died. Could I eat the manna that comes down from heaven and still perish? Mercifully for me, I don't have to depend on speculation on the matter, nor you either. For the blessed Lord has pronounced, I am the bread that came down from heaven, not as your fathers ate manna in the wilderness and died, not like that.
I am the bread of life. He that believeth upon me and eateth of me shall never die. You say, what's the difference then? Well, the manna came down from heaven, that was sightably miraculous, but it wasn't living bread, was it? There's only so much stuff. The bread that we eat is not only bread from heaven, gentlemen, it is living bread. It is none other than the person of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Oh, magnificent story that he gives himself to use his vivid metaphor, that I eat his flesh and drink his blood, till in a sense he becomes part of me.
Yeah. It's an interesting little fact, isn't it? Literary fact, I mean, that that, uh, John chapter six uh, gives you the story of the manna, but in in i- i- i- put in the middle of it, you know, uh, the feeding of the five thousand and then the exposition at the spiritual level of the bread from heaven, and in between there's the story of a journey where the, um, apostles were told to go in a boat while our Lord sent the crowd away, and our Lord went up into a mountain to pray, and the apostles were in this boat and said to go across the sea. So here I see them journeying across the sea. Uh-huh.
You say, what's that got to do with the whole, uh, topic? Just a little amusing interlude or something? What's that got to do with it? Uh, well, it was Passover time, says John. These things happened round about Passover time. And, uh, of course, Passover, as we've seen many times, is about being redeemed and then taking a journey, wasn't it? And here they were, told to take a journey. How would you get across a sea? Well, a boat, use the oars. It's the only known way in those days to get across the sea. You had to use the appropriate means and row as hard as you could.
It was good for the muscles, of course, but it be pretty, could be pretty sore. And they were using the old oars and the boat, trying to journey and get to the goal that they wanted to get. But the wind was contrary and so stormy, it seemed like one mile forwards and two miles backwards. When they nearly despaired of ever reaching the goal, they saw someone walking, coming to them. At first affrighted, they discovered it was the Lord himself.
He wasn't in any boat. He didn't need any boat to cross the sea. He doesn't need our means. Lord of creation. He made the sea. He doesn't have to use means if he doesn't want to. It is good that we have to use means sometimes. It defesses our mus- develops our muscles, spiritual and otherwise. He doesn't have to use means. And as they caught sight of him and realized it was he, they asked him into their boat. And immediately, says John, they were at the land.
Well, it happened at dark of night when fancy is high, isn't it, or imagination runs. But on our journey home to glory, we have to use the means, the bread of life. Gentlemen, we shall have to row and use the means of getting us to glory, exercise our spiritual muscles. We don't just let go and let God. We have to journey towards the great goal. There come moments, do there not, in your life, hasn't there come been moments in your life when the opposition has been fierce and the journey tough, and you just despaired of ever reaching the goal? And at that moment, the Lord has fulfilled his promise, I will not leave you desolate, I come to you.
And he's appeared to you, and you bid him enter your boat. And in that moment, you have sensed that you are as good as home to glory. For if Christ be in the boat, then the end is guaranteed. Them whom he justified, then he glorified. Source of life, means of life. But wait a minute. That table, I knew a learned scholar one time, and he had to write on the tabernacle, and he said, I've not said anything about it much, he said, you see, because we don't know, can't have no ways of telling what that table stood for.
See, he said, it doesn't say in the text. Oh, so if I come into your dining room and there's a table, I don't even know what that's for, I suppose, because you haven't got a notice on it. This is where we eat dinner. Come, come, gentlemen. God does expect us to have a modicum of experience and intelligence, and a table is a table is a table. And if there's loaves of bread on it, they are presumably to be eaten. And what is more, the regulation said that they were to put twelve loaves here and leave them for a week before God, in the presence of God, for God's benefit.
And then at the end of the week, the priests could come. They took the old bread off, put new bread on, and then they were allowed to eat the old bread in a holy place, of course. So in that ancient time, man fed at God's table. Simple enough, isn't it? Except you happen to be sophisticated. It was God offering man fellowship. Oh, oh, what an interesting little simple illustration of those, uh, ineffable marvels that John talks about in his first epistle.
I write unto you concerning the word of life, that eternal life that was with the Father and has been manifested to us, and I write these things that you may have fellowship with us. I'm telling you, says John, and you can see how excited his pen is beginning to go. And we actually saw him, he says, and we held him this word of love. And God has deigned to share him with us. On what condition? There are conditions, aren't there? As John will say, if we say we know him and we walk in darkness, we lie and do not the truth.
But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, God's son, cleanses us from all sin. Tell me, gentlemen, what does it mean to walk in the light? You say that's easy, it means, um, it means, uh, well, if you behave in a respectable fashion, you see? So that if you behave in a respectable fashion, you may come and share this eternal life. Is that the conditions on which you share eternal life, that you behave respectively?
How respectively do you have to behave? When you say you can't just behave as you like, surely you must, uh, you're gonna have fellowship with God. You have to try and walk like Christ. Ah, yes, there's a later verse, isn't there, in John that talks about that. That's in, in the second chapter of First John, where John says that he that says he abides in him ought to walk even as. And that's, as I understand grammar, how you walk. How ought I to walk if I'm a believer? I ought to walk even as he walked. That's how I walk.
But you'll notice the first phrase is not how we walk at all, is it? Listen to the condition of having fellowship with God in that great eternal life. If we walk in the light, it's not how I walk, but where I walk. Oh come, there's an easy illustration of these difficult things. Here comes priesty, and aha, he comes of an evening when he's off duty, and he'd like to have fellowship with God, and he knows the bread is on that table.
Ha. So he draws the curtain aside, and he comes in. Now he wants to get to that table to have bread. Now, now he comes walking, good. Where's he got to walk? Where's he walking now? Yeah, yeah, simple the child, which is a very good Sunday school, you know, if you ever get called upon to take a Sunday school. And he's walking in the light. And if he's walking out here in the darkness and says, I have fellowship with him, he's an obvious liar, isn't he? And if he walks in the light, where he walks?
Uh, you say, but if I come into the light, it will expose me. It jolly well will. You'll feel worse in the light than you felt in the dark, by definition. The nearer you get to the light, the more it will expose you. Will you therefore notice what the condition of having fellowship with God is? It doesn't say if you come to the light, you may have fellowship with God. That is not said. It is said if you walk in the light. The Bible gives us a very important illustration of the difference between those two.
John chapter eight, the very chapter in which our Lord says, I am the light of the world. John the Evangelist says, there came certain gentlemen, and when they heard these things, they believed on him. So Christ said to those Jews who believed on him, they said, very good gentlemen. Uh, now I, I won't tell you this, that if you continue in my word, then you shall be my disciples indeed, really my disciples, and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. They said, excuse us, what do you mean free? Free from what? We were not slaves, actually. Oh, he's talking about sin, said our Lord.
Freedom from sin, you know, gentlemen. I mean, he who, who keeps on committing sin is a slave, isn't he? I was talking about being, uh, progressively freed from the practice of sin. They said you were. You know who you're talking to. Who asked you to come here? We are Abraham's seed. We're children of God, we'd have you know. And as the light of the world stood talking to them, the light began to expose them, and presently our Lord said, not children of God, gentlemen, you are of your father, the devil. Upon which they took up stones to stone him and put the light out. They had come to the light, but when it exposed them, they were not prepared to walk in the light and retreated into their darkness.
The condition of having fellowship with God is not coming to the light, it's walking in the light and allowing that light to expose one. Because I shall feel so miserable that then I can't feel like having fellowship with God. But listen to the rest of it. If we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Christ cleanses us from all sin, so that we may stay in the light and confess our sin and know he is faithful and just to forgive our sin, and our fellowship and enjoyment of eternal life carry on.
Imagine a young priest coming in for the first time, and he knows what a solemn and holy thing it is to come to that holy table, and he's got all flustered, and wearing his big robe, you see, he comes a walking into the light, and presently he's so flustered, his big toe catches in the hem and he falls on his face flat. Well, he's fallen, hasn't he? And where has he fallen? What do you say, it's in the light? Well, good for him. Now he can get up and say sorry. And we have eternal life. He says, John, I'm not saying this to give you an excuse for sinning, but you know, if any man sin, what?
You get expelled. Thank God, no. If any man sis- sin, says John, we have an advocate with the Father judgment. He brings out here, there were not two, there were three vessels, weren't there? At which vessel the high priest made intercession. And on the horns of that altar was smeared the blood of the atoning sacrifice, symbolizing the power of that intercessory altar. What a lovely trilogy of fellowship it is, isn't it? Source of life, means of life, and a table of fellowship with God and its condition of walking in the light.
And should it be if any man sins and confesses his sin, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, cleanse us from all unrighteousness, and if any man sin, we can advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. Thus is our fellowship in eternal life maintained by the gracious provision of God himself.
