earth, but in heaven. Had no such recompence awaited them, he " would have told them so." Thus he pledges, as it were, his love and faithfulness for the truth of what he had told them.]
Our Lord further acquaints them with the reason of his ascending thither :
II. The end of his ascension thither —
All which our Lord did on earth was for the good of his people. He consulted their good also in his ascension to heaven : he went " to prepare a place for them," which he does,
1 . By purging heaven itself with his own blood — [Heaven would have been defiled, as it were, by the ad- mission of sinners into it; he therefore entered into heaven to sanctify it by his blood. This was typified by the atone- ment made for the altar and the tabernacle d. The type is thus explained and applied e — ]
2. By taking possession of it as their Head and Representative—
[He is the head, and his people are his members f. His ascension to heaven is a pledge and earnest of theirs g. In this view he is expressly called " our forerunner11."]
3. By maintaining their title to it —
[They would continually forfeit their title to it by their sins : but he maintains their peace with God by his inter- cession. Hence his power to bring them finally to that place is represented as depending on his living in heaven to intercede for them'.]
By these means every obstacle to his people's hap- piness is removed.
III. The prospects which his ascension affords us — His ascension is the foundation of all our hope: as
it proves his mission, so also it assures us,
d Lev. xvi. 15 — 20.
e Heb. ix. 21 — 24. Here is a parallel drawn not only between the Holy of holies and heaven, but also between the purifying of the Holy of holies by the high-priest, and the purifying of heaven itself by Christ with his own blood : and both are declared to have been necessary ; the one as a type, and the other as the anti-type.
f Eph. iv. 15, 16. s 1 Cor. xv. 20. " Heb. vi. 20.
! Heb. vii. 25.