Christ is able to save us because He intercedes for us (Heb. 7:25b). As our High Priest, Christ undertakes our case by interceding for us. He appears before God on our behalf, praying for us that we may be saved and brought fully into God’s eternal purpose. We need to simply rest in His intercession, trust in it, and enjoy it. Be assured that our divine High Priest is continually interceding for us. Many times we have been saved by His intercession. We have a perpetual, constant, and eternal Intercessor.
Our divine High Priest intercedes for us constantly, knowing how easy it is for us to fall and, once we have fallen, to remain in our fallen state. Sooner or later His intercession will overcome, subdue, and save us. We all will be completely subdued and saved by His intercession. God appointed Him to take care of us, and He is now taking care of us by interceding for us. Although we may forget that we have called upon His name, He will never forget it. He is interceding for us, and He will save us to the uttermost.
Since we have such a High Priest interceding for us, we should “come forward with boldness to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace for timely help” (4:16). We need to keep coming forward to God. Morning and evening, day and night, we should come forward to Him, saying to Him, “I am open to You. You are rich. I need You. I want to stay open to You all the time.”
Hebrews 8:2 speaks of Christ as “a Minister of the holy places, even of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, not man.” Hebrews 9:24 tells us that “Christ did not enter into a holy place made by hands, a figure of the true, but into heaven itself, to appear now before the face of God for us.” These verses reveal that Christ as a High Priest is a Minister of the holy places in the heavens before the face of God. We have a Minister in the heavens who has entered into the Holy of Holies in the heavens and appears now before the face of God for us.
In 8:2 Minister refers to one who ministers as a priest. As a minister of the true (heavenly) tabernacle, Christ ministers heaven (which is not only a place but also a condition of life) into us that we may have the heavenly life and power to live a heavenly life on earth, as He did while He was here. In verse 2 the Greek word for holy places, used as a noun, is plural here. It refers to all the holy places in the tabernacle; strictly, it refers to the Holy of Holies, the holiest of all the holy places (9:8, 12, 25; 10:19; 13:11).
Christ is the Minister of the true tabernacle in the heavens. This tabernacle, this sanctuary, is the third heaven, the heavenly Holy of Holies. We should praise the Lord that the Holy of Holies in the heavens is connected to our spirit. Therefore, in experience, our regenerated spirit is also the Holy of Holies. Our spirit is connected to the third heaven, where Christ is ministering on our behalf. We need to see that Christ as the High Priest desires to give us a heavenly salvation and that He is carrying out the heavenly ministry in the heavenly tabernacle to supply us with the heavenly life (8:2), and that this heavenly life is in the life-giving Spirit. He dispenses Himself as the life-giving Spirit into us from the heavens, causing us to receive the supply of life, enabling us to rejoice when we are ill and to praise Him when we are in trouble.
Christ ministers in the true tabernacle in heaven, which is joined to our spirit. As our High Priest in the heavens, Christ brings us into heaven, from the earthly court into the heavenly Holy of Holies, which is joined to our spirit by Him as the heavenly ladder (Gen. 28:12; John 1:51). The priests on earth served the shadow (Heb. 8:5), but this Minister in heaven serves the reality. Whatever was done by the priests on earth in the Old Testament was a shadow of the real things to come. What they did on earth served only as a shadow of the reality, but whatever this Minister ministers in heaven in the New Testament is the reality. His more excellent ministry in heaven serves the reality of the heavenly things in the divine dispensing. He is ministering the heavenly life and life supply of the divine riches into all His believers.
Christ is the Minister, ministering to us all the divine, heavenly, spiritual, and eternal things. How can Christ minister the heavenly, spiritual, and eternal things from the heavens to us on the earth? It is by the heavenly “television” within us. Christ is “televising” the “scenery” in the heavens into our spirit. Christ is now far away in the heavens to minister all the heavenly, eternal, and spiritual things to us by the transmission of the eternal Spirit. Whatever is now in the heavens is immediately transmitted into our spirit.
In the true tabernacle, Christ is ministering as the High Priest (vv. 1-2). As the High Priest, He is interceding for us so that everything that He accomplished might be wrought into our being. Just as Melchizedek came to minister the bread and wine to Abraham after he had interceded for him behind the scene, Christ, our Melchizedek, is secretly interceding for all who love Him and seek Him. As He is interceding for us in the heavens, He is also the all-inclusive and all-pervading Spirit. The all-inclusive Spirit works in us according to Christ’s heavenly intercession, causing Christ, the firstborn Son of God, to be wrought into our being. Christ is ministering in the true tabernacle today. He ministers the life supply from heaven into the believers that they may receive the enjoyment to function as members of the Body.