The Holiest of All By Andrew Murray

tTbe Tboliest of BU 235
even he only once a year. In the Holy Place, separated from
the Most Holy by a heavy veil, the priests entered and served.
The truths embodied in the house thus made after a heavenly
In the Most Holy God dwelt, but man
pattern were very simple.
might not enter. In the Holy Place man might enter to serve
God, but God dwelt not there. The veil was the symbol of
separation between a holy God and sinful man :
they cannot
dwell together. The tabernacle thus expressed the union of two
apparently conflicting truths. God called man to come and
worship and serve Him, and yet he might not come too near :
the veil kept him at a distance. His worship in the tabernacle
testified to his longing for the restoration to the fellowship with
God he had lost in paradise, but also to his unfitness for it, and
his inability to attain it. The two truths find their reason and
their harmony in the holiness of God, that highest attribute of
the divine Being. In it
righteousness and love are combined.
Love calls the sinner near ; righteousness keeps him back. The
Holy One bids Israel build Him a house in which He will
dwell, but forbids them entering His presence there. The
entrance of the high priest once a year for
a faint foreshadowing
the Holiest would be given.
a few moments was
that the time would come when access to
In the fulness of time righteousness
and love would be revealed in their perfect harmony in Him, in
whom those types and shadows would find their fulfilment.
The first and second tabernacles are the symbols of two
degrees of the divine nearness, two stages of access to God s
presence, two modes of fellowship with God, two ways of serving
Him. The one, to which the High Priest had access only once
a year, is the promise of what would one day be in Christ : the
nearer, the more direct and immediate approach into the pre
sence and fellowship of God. The other is the symbol of the