2. It is called a living way not because it leads to life, nor because it gives life, nor because it vitally renews itself, nor because its use is restricted to the living — though in all these senses there is much truth — but because it is a way set up in Him who is the Life. Christ is the way to Christ, as the light is the way to the sun, and the seed-life of the flower the way to the flower. He is the life-fountain, and also the stream which conducts to it. And because it is a way set up in Him, it is a "Mving way," and fills with animation those who walk in it. Every other way wearies the traveller, but in this way the farther and longer he journeys, the more he is refreshed, energized and inspirited, so that he who at first has need to be carried receives strength to walk, and he who walks learns to run, and the runner to fly, hastening with ever-increasing swiftness of flight to challenge his destiny as one called in Christ to seek in the heights, " glory, honour, and eternal life."
^ A " living way," " living stones " : such expressions of New Testament writers bear witness to the inadequacy of ordinary language to convey the truth concerning the good that came to the world by Jesus Christ. Bible writers laboured in expression, throwing out words and phrases with a certain sublime helpless- ness at an object passing human comprehension. And yet the meaning here is plain enough. The epithet " living " implies that God's presence is not now, as of old, restricted to any particular place. To be near Him we do not need to pass locally from one point in space to another. We draw nigh to God by right thoughts of His character, and by loving, trustful afiections. When we think of Him as revealed to us in Christ, when we trust Him implicitly, as one who for Christ's sake forgiveth our sin, we are in His very presence. The way is living because it is spiritual, a way which we tread, not by the feet, but by the mind ^ F. J. A. Hort, The Way, the Truth, the Life, 38.
HEBREWS X. 19-22 .^97
and the heart, as is hinted in ver. 22, where it is said, " Let us draw near with true heart and with full assurance of faith." The way is Christ Himself, the Eevealer and the Eeeoncilcr, and we come to God through Him when we trust Him in both capacities.^
III.
The Veil of His Flesh.
1. This new and living way has been consecrated for us by Jesus through the veil by being first trodden by Him. Under the Levitical system there was a veil which barred the way, so that beyond it no man but the high priest might go. Under the new economy there is no bar — the way lies right through the veil to the very presence of God. There is no veil for us, but there was a veil for our great High Priest. He opened up the way for us through the veil, pushing it aside, never again to be drawn across the entrance. What this means is explained in the words, " that is to say, his flesh." The thought of the writer seems to be that the veil through which Jesus had to pass, by the pushing aside of which He opened up an entrance into the Divine presence, was His mortal flesh. That is to say, in unfigurative terms, the truth taught is, that we owe our liberty Godwards to the fact that Christ took a body and passed with it into glory through a course of humiliation and suffering. There was a veil for Him, inasmuch as it behoved Him to sujffer in the flesh, and so pass into glory ; there is no veil for us because the Just One suffered for the unjust, that He might bring them nigh to God.
By the expression, " the veil of his flesh," the writer gathers up in unity of significance the whole incarnate relations of the Son of Man, in His representative character on our behalf, and represents them as a veil of separation between Him and the house of His glory which He had with the Father before the world was, and says, " Only through that can there be a way for man to God." And this was true for Christ Himself as well as for us. Only by the rending of the veil of His flesh could He who " came out from God " return to Him. Standing in our nature, and as our Forerunner, He must needs die to enter into
1 A. B. Bruce, The Ej^dstle to the Hebrews, 395.
398 THE WAY OF ACCESS
life. By dying, the veil of His flesh was rent, and a way opened up through death to eternal life.
^ This conception of Christ's flesh as a veil is beautiful as a passing, poetic thought, but care must be taken not to press it too far. It cannot, of course, be made part of a consistent and complete typology. It is not meant for this. But as the veil stood locally before the holiest in the Mosaic tabernacle, the way into which lay through it, so Christ's life in the flesh stood between Him and His entrance before God, and His flesh had to be rent ere He could enter. The truth to be laid to heart is, that our liberty of access cost Christ much. The making of the new way was no light matter for Him.^