Christ in His ascension is a divine High Priest who is able to save us to the uttermost if we come forward to God through Him, since He lives always to intercede for us (Heb. 7:25). Let us therefore come forward with boldness to the throne of grace so that we may receive mercy and find grace for timely help (Heb. 7:26)!
Christ in His ascension is the High Priest according to the order of Aaron, according to the order of Melchizedek, and a divine High Priest.
As a high priest according to the Aaronic order, Christ offered Himself as the all-inclusive sacrifice for all our sins; He entered into the holy tabernacle in the heavens and made propitiation for our sins, being the sin offering for all mankind.
As the High Priest according to the order of Melchizedek, Christ is the kingly high priest. As the kingly High Priest, Christ ministers the processed and consummated Triune God into us as our life supply (typified by the bread and wine offered by Melchizedek to Abraham).
As the divine High Priest, Christ is saving us the uttermost all those who come forward to God through Him; He is saving us from death and all the by-products of death and, in this process, His divine life swallows up all the death and fills our whole being with God’s life!
Hallelujah for our Christ in ascension who is the great High Priest ministering God into us as our life supply and saving us to the uttermost in His life! If we come forward to God through Christ, He is able to save us to the uttermost from any aspect of the effect of death on our life and living; He is able to save us from any decay, sighing, groaning, moaning, complaining, vanity, and corruption.
By coming into us as the divine life in resurrection, Christ has started a process of swallowing up any aspect of death in our being and in our living. The more we come forward with boldness to the throne of grace, the more we receive mercy from the Lord and we find grace for timely help! Lord Jesus, we come forward to God through Jesus Christ to be saved to the uttermost today!
Let us Come Forward to God through Christ to be Saved from any By-Products of Death!
Sin brought in death (Rom. 5:12), and death is not only physical but also psychological and spiritual, and death has many by-products. Both sin and death are terrible, and they have a great impact on man.
When we believe into the Lord, He washed away our sins and came into us with His divine life to deliver us from the power of sin; however, even though sin is finished, death still operates and the by-products of death still affect us. According to the broadest understanding in the Bible of death, death includes vanity, corruption, sighing, groaning, and decay (see Rom. 8:20-23).
The by-products of death are such things as vanity (the feeling of emptiness and meaninglessness), corruption (the feeling and reality that you’re decaying and eventually dying), bondage (the fact that you’re bound, unable to do what you want to really do), sighing (reacting with hopelessness to things beyond your ability to handle), groaning, pain, and decay.
All these are the by-products of death, and they operate in all human beings; when we received Christ as life, he came into us and His life started working within us day by day to swallow up all the by-products of death. When we come forward to God through Christ by coming to the throne of grace, Christ’s life in us swallows up any death and any by-products of death.
As we live by the Spirit and walk by the law of the Spirit of life, we have no more vanity, no more corruption, sighing, groaning, and decaying. This is what the Bible tells us, this is what we believe, and this is what actually happens.
All mankind is polluted by corruption and decay, and every person is groaning deep within; even though many try to find some comfort and happiness with sports, entertainment, cars, and other things in the world, the sense of vanity and corruption is still within them and the inward groaning is present with everyone.
As believers in Christ, we can also be affected by this; if we are not touching the Lord and living by the spirit, we are touched by death and the by-products of death operate in us.
Because of these issues of death, we need the salvation that comes through the divine priesthood. Christ’s divine priesthood doesn’t just save us from sin but also from corruption, decay, vanity, sighing, and groaning; furthermore, His divine priesthood is not only restitutional but constitutional – we are being constituted with God’s life!
As the life of Christ spreads in us and swallows up death and its by-products, we are being constituted with Christ to be the same as He is. Through the process of incarnation, human living, crucifixion, and resurrection, Christ has been fully perfected forever; in Him there’s no groaning, sighing, corruption, decay, vanity, or any other by-product of death. Christ in His ascension is fully perfected and fully able to save us to the uttermost if we simply come forward to God through Him!
Lord Jesus, we come forward to the throne of grace so that we may receive mercy and find grace for timely help. Lord, thank You for Your death-swallowing life in us. Keep us coming to You again and again so that Your life may operate in us and swallow up any by-product of death. Lord, save us to the uttermost a little more today! We want to live by the spirit and walk by the law of the Spirit of life in our spirit so that we may be delivered from vanity, corruption, sighing, groaning, and decay!
Christ Saves to the Uttermost ALL those who Come Forward to God through Him!
The Bible promises us that Christ is able to save to the uttermost all those who come forward to God through Him; we simply need to come forward to God through Christ and the divine priesthood will operate in us to deliver us from any death or by-product of death – and save us to the uttermost!
An aspect of being saved to the uttermost is being saved from remembering other’s mistakes; we may say that we forgive others of their mistakes, but we still remember their mistakes – this is not real forgiveness. When God forgives us, He forgets (Heb. 8:12), and when we are one with the Lord to forgive others, we will also forget their mistakes.
We need to come forward to God through Christ, coming forward with boldness to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace for timely help. When we come forward to God through Christ, our divine High Priest, He saves us in the power of His resurrection and by the law of the Spirit of life (Phil. 3:10; Rom. 8:2).
Unbeknownst to us, when we come to the throne of grace and contact the Lord in our spirit, the law of the Spirit of life operates in us spontaneously and automatically to save us from death and the issues, the by-products, of death. At the same time, when we touch the Lord in our spirit and come forward to Him, the power of Christ’s resurrection operates in us to deliver us from any death and any by-product of death so that we may be saved to the uttermost.
In Hebrews we are told four times to come forward: we need to come forward with boldness to the throne of grace (Heb. 4:6), come forward to God through Christ (7:25), come forward to the Holy of Holies (10:22), and come forward to Mount Zion (12:22).
Our Christian life is a life of coming out of ourselves, our situations, our opinions and thoughts, and our feelings – and come forward to God through Christ; a normal Christian life is a life of enjoying Christ and having His life operate and grow in us to save us to the uttermost.
Lord Jesus, we come forward to You to be saved to the uttermost! We refuse to stay in our situation, our condition, our feelings, or our way of thinking; we come forward to God through Christ so that we may enjoy the Lord and be saved to the uttermost by His death-swallowing and life-imparting divine life! Lord, we come forward with boldness to the throne of grace. We come forward to God through Christ. We simply come forward to You so that You may save us to the uttermost!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my Christian experience, bro. Andrew Yu’s sharing in the message for this week, and portions from, The Conclusion of the New Testament, msg. 375 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Vision and Experience of Christ in His Resurrection and Ascension, week 5 / msg 5, The Vision and Experience of Christ in His Ascension (2) – Christ as the Divine High Priest Interceding for Us.
- All verses are taken from, Recovery Version Bible.
- Hymns on this topic to strengthen this burden:
# For we do not have a High Priest who cannot / Be touched with the feeling of our weaknesses, / But One who has been tempted in all respects like us, / Yet without sin, yet without sin. / Let us therefore come forward / With boldness to the throne of grace / That we may receive mercy and find grace / For timely help. (Song on Heb. 7:14-16)
# Come forward now to God through Him, / Ne’er shrink back to destruction; / Come forward now to get the life, / Which brings the proper function; / Come forward now the life to take, / By life His people us He’ll make, / And swallow death forever. (Hymns #1130)
# We’ll drop our former concepts, Lord, / To take this finished way; / Appropriating each bequest, / We’ll praise You more each day. / We’ll heed our High Priest’s inward call— / “Come forward!” to the end— / Until we reach the final goal; / The New Jerusalem! (Hymns #1188)
About aGodMan
To be saved from remembering others’ mistakes is to be saved to the uttermost. We may forgive others and yet still remember their mistakes. When God forgives us, He forgets (Heb. 8:12); hence, to forgive is to forget. If our forgiving does not equal forgetting, we are not saved to the uttermost. If we have truly forgiven someone, we should also forget the offense. We need to be saved to the uttermost in our forgiving of others and from all our daily troubles. When we come forward to God through Christ, our High Priest, He saves us in the power of His resurrection (Phil. 3:10) and by the law of the Spirit of life (Rom. 8:2). (Witness Lee, The Conclusion of the New Testament, p. 3782)
Amen! Keep us, O Lord Jesus, coming forward to the throne of grace, so that we might receive mercy and find grace for timely help. Lord Jesus, we turn away from everything else to touch You in our spirit, that You would sit upon the throne of our heart. O Lord Jesus, we are not, but You O Lord are our great and merciful High Priest, so we come before You and open our heart and being to You, under the covering of Your precious blood, to be sanctified unto You this day, by the washing of the water in the word. Thank You Lord Jesus, for being our saving grace. We come again to You, O Lord Jesus, to the throne of grace, to enjoy, experience and express You more as the church, the home You are longing for. Keep us Lord coming boldly to You, keep us turning to our spirit, keep us in the joy and rejoicing in the God of our salvation, our Melchizedek, our divine and heavenly, High Priest, to receive mercy and find grace for timely help. Today, we need You O Lord Jesus. Today, we open to You to receive more of You. Today, we thank You O Lord and praise You, our divine, heavenly and merciful High Priest.