Also there were many priests, because they were prevented by death from continuing. But He, because He continues forever, has an unchangeable priesthood. Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them. (Hebrews 07:23-25, NKJV).
Saved completely, perfectly, utterly; that is what uttermost means - no area untouched or left in the darkness. No shackles of our imprisonment left unshattered. We are free beyond any remnant of our prior condition of slavery, and freed because of Him who loved us and gave His life for us.
This is the deepest cry of the human heart, expressed in as many voices as there are humans born on this benighted world. From the weak simpering of a helpless old man looking for hope and a meal, to the collective bellow of rage from a ravaging mob, we humans want something that cannot be properly articulated, but plagues our souls each waking and sleeping moment.
This unnameable thing that we seek entails a desire for peace and safety and warmth, and a place to call home. It involves an ephemeral, yet all-encompassing longing to be loved so deeply, so utterly that it is as the air we breathe. This thing, whether we know it or not, is salvation.
Look, inherent in each thinking being is the inescapable knowledge of the futility of life under the sun. Its most minimal outline is the simple fact that nothing of value lasts. No sweet and poignant relationship of parenthood, no passion and commitment of the most profound romantic love survives the ravages of time under the sun. All ends in the grave.
Cemeteries are filled with these reminders of endpoints. Edifices to the once-alive abound. But it all emphasizes, rather than obscures the oncoming emptiness of death.
Given this, it is a wonder that those without knowledge of Christ carry on day to day; that more do not succumb to the inevitable unspoken futility.
As I write these words sitting on a dock overlooking a peaceful lake on a beautiful late August morning, the longing, not for time to stand still, but for it to continue to flow as it is now invokes that wordless desire for something not possible in this life, however I might frantically search for its substitute.
And that's the thing. Without God to fill that void, we will act on our own understanding and seek in this world that for which it was bereft at the Fall - His all-satisfying Presence.
We were built to be in fellowship with our Creator - to walk in the cool of the evening in infinitely sweet communion with our Heavenly Father who delights in ways and to a depth that our delight in our own children is but the faintest shadow.
Our sin, the milieu into which we were born, separates us by an impossible chasm from the Person who we were made for, and who made the universe for us. Of all conceivable tragedies, this is the single greatest, and the hope-crushing fountainhead of all others.
And it is from this ensuing darkness that human beings blindly seek to escape with all their might until, with a silent scream lasting forever, they enter into a cold eternity of solitude and suffering.
I only wish these bleak words were a hyperbolic overstatement, but they are instead a woeful understatement. Each soul, born alive on this world has an unthinkable default destination into a horrifying eternity. Our desire for that something, that salvation, is by God's infinite mercy, the means He puts in our hearts to goad us to seek the only thing that will satisfy - His Son.
To be once again in His Presence, as intended from the beginning, is the uttermost goal of our existence, yet we are helpless to bridge the gap that exists. We need the Savior, our Great High Priest, the One who, in the fullness of time, made that ultimate intercession for us on the Cross, and who now lives forever to continue to make intercession for us.
He gives us the only hope in the face of our own hopelessness. He serves as our continuing High Priest - His ministry on our behalf unending, transforming, enlivening, unstoppable.
Where before Him we were helplessly defeated without chance of victory, through Him we are more than conquerors.
The contrast could not possibly be more stark: unrequitable longing versus everlasting satisfaction - all in Him.
There are no human superlatives to adequately convey these magnificent truths. That is why I believe the divinely inspired writers of the New Testament, the Apostle Paul especially, were frequently overtaken by worship and adoration as they wrote God's word, and were compelled by the gratitude of their own hearts, to write soaring doxologies and benedictions to the One for whom are all things, and by whom are all things.
Our Savior is beyond compare.
