December - the Free Presbyterian church of Scotland

356The Free Presbyterian MagazineThe Church’s Worship in Heaven (2) 1A Sermon by Hugh MartinHebrews 8:1. We have such an high priest, who is set on the right hand ofthe throne of the Majesty in the heavens.Another highly-valuable inference from our present doctrine is this:2. Christ’s priesthood, as exercised in heaven, is the bond of an intelligentsympathy between the portion of the Church that is in heaven and theportion of it on earth.The redeemed Church of Christ in heaven and earth is one. “For this causeI bow my knees unto the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whomthe whole family in heaven and earth is named.” Neither faith nor the instinctsof spiritual feeling and love can brook the idea of any essential separation, ofany effective gulf of disjunction between them. Yet, if the celestial priesthoodof Christ be removed, it will be difficult to see how the Church in heavenis other than most effectually isolated from the Church militant below. Considerthis from both the points of view: (1) that of the Church above, in itsinterest and sympathy with their brethren on earth; (2) that of the Church onearth, in our interest and sympathy with our brethren in glory. And see howall intelligent sympathy on both sides must depend on the continued executionof Christ’s priestly office in heaven.(1) Consider the Church in heaven as interested in the affairs of the Churchon earth. We cannot imagine that they take no interest in the condition oftheir brethren here below. We can scarcely believe it to be a part of theperfection of “the spirits of just men made perfect” that they have ceased totake an interest in the spiritual affairs of Christ’s people on earth, and in theprogress of His kingdom amidst the trials and conflicts of its militant estate.That could hardly be.Many of them, while on earth themselves, doubtless felt unceasingly thatone distressing element of their imperfection consisted in the very difficultiesthey felt in grasping the interests of Christ’s spiritual kingdom on earth;in gaining any large acquaintance with its condition, and maintaining thatconstant and lively and supreme interest in its progress which its gloriouscharacter and issues demand of the believer’s heart. We can scarcely then believethat their admitted condition of perfection now shuts them out from anintelligent acquaintance, or from the means of intelligent acquaintance, with1 The concluding part of a sermon taken, with editing, from The Family Treasury for 1870.The first part developed the thought: “If heaven is the scene of the priesthood of Christ,it is thereby also the scene of the Church’s worship”. A previous, related sermon on thistext appeared in the issues for January and February.