UNBREAKABLE ANCHOR

Heb.6:19,20 – We have this certain hope like a strong, unbreakable anchor holding our souls to God himself. Our anchor of hope is fastened to the mercy seat which sits in the heavenly realm beyond the sacred threshold, and where Jesus, our forerunner, has gone in before us. He is now and forever our royal Priest like Melchizedek.

This passage has always stood out to me as one of the highlights of the book of Hebrews. The whole message of Hebrews is to proclaim that we now have access into the very presence of God. This verse shows us that Jesus was the first human that actually was allowed to enter that presence and stay there. The whole message is that Jesus was just the first, the forerunner of a vast multitude who could enter His presence and experience life behind the veil. This is the bold declaration that we can now live in the very presence of God, filled with the Holy Spirit, enjoying fellowship with the Father and His Son for eternity. Here is how Barclay describes this passage.

“That hope, he says, is one which enters into the inner court beyond the veil. In the Temple, the most sacred of all places was the Holy of Holies. The veil was what covered it. It was believed that anyone who entered the Holy of Holies entered into the very presence of God, and into that place only one man in all the world could go. That man was the high priest; and even he might enter that holy place on only one day of the year, the Day of Atonement.

Even then, it was laid down, he must not linger in it, for it was a dangerous and a terrible thing to enter into the presence of the living God. What the writer to the Hebrews says is this: ‘Under the old Jewish religion, no one might enter into the presence of God but the high priest and he only on one day of the year; but now Jesus Christ has opened the way for every individual at every time.’”

The picture Paul was painting in this portion of scripture is that access into the presence of God is our anchor in this tumultuous world. We can easily be tossed to and fro by the problems all of us face on a daily basis, access into this new way of life brings us into a place of peace and productivity. Taking advantage of this privelege of entering into life behind the veil and living in His presence as a way of life is the way Christians can navigate this unstable world. Rather than being tossed around by the stormy seas of life, grab hold of your anchor, this is the life purchased for us at the cross.