Come Boldly Is the Instruction, and the Reason Given Is Strange

He rehearses in the driveway.

Not for meetings. For prayer. There is a run-up, and it has gotten longer over the years, and it goes roughly like this: he acknowledges the gap, apologizes for the length of the gap, briefly explains the last thing, apologizes for that, and then, if there is anything left, says whatever he actually came to say.

Most nights there is nothing left. The run-up takes it all.

And he does not think this is wrong, exactly. It feels respectful. It feels like the thing a person ought to do who understands what he is approaching. He has never met anybody who told him it was a problem.

What he has noticed, and never said, is that he does not come very often anymore, and that the reason is not disbelief. It is that the entrance procedure has become expensive enough that he saves it for when he needs something.

There is a verse that tells him to walk in without any of that, and the reason it gives for the permission is not the reason anybody expects.

The instruction, and the reason under it

Here it is, in the King James Version:

For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need. (Hebrews 4:15-16)

Let us therefore come boldly. The word carries the sense of speaking freely, of saying what you actually came to say, without managing it.

And the therefore points backward, to the reason, which is the strange part.

For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities.

The reason given is not that a man's record is clean. It is not that he has done well lately or come often enough. The reason is about who is on the other end: somebody who was tempted in all points and can be touched with the feeling of it.

So the confidence is not confidence about yourself. It is confidence about Him, which is available on a night when nothing about you is available at all.

You have grounds to come that have nothing to do with your last week and you were never asked to bring a clean record as the ticket. Hebrews 4:15 puts the reason on the high priest rather than on the man approaching, and it is the Holy Spirit rather than a better stretch who makes a permission like that usable.

What is at the seat when you get there

And then the two things named as available.

That we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.

Mercy is for what has already happened. Grace to help is for what is in front of you. Both are at the same seat and you get both by the same approach, which means the man who is coming about the last thing and the man who is coming about tomorrow do not need two different procedures.

In time of need. Not after the need has been managed down to a presentable size.

And the throne is called the throne of grace, which is what it is named before anybody arrives at it. The character of the seat was settled before the approach.

You have mercy and help available at the same seat and you were never going to need two separate entrances. Hebrews 4:16 names both and calls it the throne of grace, and it is His Spirit who makes an old sentence about a throne something a man walks into on an ordinary Tuesday.

What the boldness is grounded in, said again later

The same letter says it a second time, six chapters on, and it names the ground explicitly.

Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh. (Hebrews 10:19-20)

Boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus.

By the blood. Not by the length of the run-up, not by the sincerity of the apology, not by how recently a man last came.

And that matters for the driveway, because everything in the rehearsal is an attempt to establish a right to be there. The letter says the right was established by something else, and it names it, and the naming makes the rehearsal redundant rather than wrong.

Paul says the same thing in a shorter form:

In whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him. (Ephesians 3:12)

Boldness and access with confidence. Three words for the same thing, stacked, in one verse.

You have access on grounds that were established for you and you were never the one establishing them. Hebrews 10:19 says the boldness is by the blood of Jesus and Ephesians 3:12 says access comes with confidence, and it is the Holy Spirit who makes that something a man uses rather than assents to.

And if the distance you keep has gone past caution into somewhere heavier, if it has reached not wanting to be here, that is not a thing to hold alone. A doctor, a counselor, somebody you trust who will pick up the phone. In the United States the 988 crisis line answers day and night. Nobody is asked to carry that by himself.

Who is already talking about you there

There is one more sentence in the letter, and it changes the picture of what is happening at the throne before a man arrives.

Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them. (Hebrews 7:25)

He ever liveth to make intercession for them.

Present tense, continuous. There is speaking going on about a man before he opens his mouth, and it is being done by the one whose blood established the access in the first place.

Which recasts the whole approach. A man rehearsing in the driveway is preparing to introduce himself into a room where he is already the subject of the conversation.

To the uttermost. That is a phrase about extent, and it is attached to the saving rather than to the coming.

You are already spoken for in that room and you were never walking in cold. Hebrews 7:25 says He ever lives to make intercession, and it is His Spirit who makes an ongoing intercession something a man can rest on rather than only believe.