Preface

PREFACE.

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TnE twelve chapters that form this little book are part of a larger work that has just been published.¹ They are issued separately in the hope that they may bring the tidings that the Father would indeed have us live our life in His Presence, and that Christ is able to bring and keep us there, to some whom the larger work may not reach.

The passage of which these chapters are the exposition (chap. x. 19-25) constitutes the very centre of the Epistle. It contains a summary of what had been taught in its first or doctrinal part, and indicates at the same time the chief

i The Holiest of AII: The Presence of God, the Sphere of Christ's Ministry in Heaven, and onr Life and Service on Earth. A Devotional Exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews (130 chapter).

thoughts which are to be enforced in the second half. Within the compass of a very few verses it gathers up all that has been said of our Blessed High Priest and His work, all that can be said of what we need fully to enjoy the fruit of that work, and all that has yet to be said in the Epistle of the influence its teaching is to exercise upon us. It makes all centre round the one thought: Let us draw nigh. Let us, in the power of Christ's redemption, enter in and dwell in the Father's presence.

In the larger book I have endeavoured to point out how the state of the Hebrews was just what we find in the churches of our days. There is a lack of steadfastness, of growth, and of power, which arises from our not knowing Jesus aright. I have there tried to show, as the Epistle led, that the true knowledge of the wonderful and blessed truths of the divinity and humanity of our Lord, of His being our Leader and Forerunner in the path of obedience and perfect surrender to God's will, above all, of His heavenly Priesthood in the power of an endless life, and His having procured us perfect liberty of access and abode in God's Presence through His blood, gives a strength to our faith and hope, which enables us in very deed to obtain the promise and live as God would have us do. But I am not without hope that even this smaller volume may urge some to seek and discover what the treasure is the Epistle contains, and help them to enter into the personal possession of that complete salvation our great High Priest waits and is able to bestow.

That the teaching of God's Holy Spirit may be the portion of all my readers, is my earnest prayer.

ANDREW MURRAY.

26th September, 1891.