Hebrews Chapter Four, The Throne of Grace

 

Hebrews 4:16 Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

 

Verses 14 and 15 describe Jesus the Son of God as our sympathetic High Priest, having gone into the Heavens on our behalf. The purpose of the High Priest was to serve God for the sake of offering atonement for His people, and so the writer commends our Lord as the ultimate High Priest, the Aaronic priesthood being a type of Him who was to come.

Because it is established that Jesus is High Priest forever, since He will never again die, and ever lives to make intercession for us in the Heavens, and He is sympathetic with our weaknesses, being tempted as we are, yet without sin, we are encouraged to come to Him. We are told that we may boldly come before the throne of grace.

 

There are a few words to single out here for contemplation. First, the saints are told we may come boldly. The Greek word translated “boldly” here is, “parrhesia,” and has a plethora of meanings, all of them wonderfully descriptive in our relationship toward God. Parrhesia may be defined, “all-outspokenness (frankness or bluntness), publicity (assurance), freedom of speech, to speak without ambiguity, the absence of fear.” There are some genuine treasures to be found in this single word. We may speak to God plainly. Overtures of religious piety tend to lace prayer with a litany of language hard to understand. Sometimes it may seem like the speaker is praying not to God, but to his audience to impress them with his efforts to wax eloquent. But is this prayer? Regimented prayer is condemned in Scripture. Repetitive, lifeless prayer is condemned as well by the very mouth of our Lord. Such prayers become mantras or chants, as if the proper framing of the words convey power or efficacy like a magic spell. Roman Catholic prayers to Mary fall into this camp. Likewise, mechanical prayers without meaning or thought behind them are condemned because we are not praying, but reciting by rote something impressed into our memory, such as a shallow dinner “prayer,” sanitized of any genuine interest in the God we’re offering it to so we can get to eating without consideration or offense.

 

To be free to speak openly and without ambiguity to God the Father is a remarkable blessing. We don’t need to learn how to speak in Latin; no tongue under Heaven is any more or less efficacious in effecting genuine prayer to God than the one we are taught to speak in our childhood. Prayer is worship ascending to the Father; prayer is the submission of the human soul to the divine. Prayer acknowledges God’s primacy in our life, His ability to provide, and His ever-present care toward us. Yes, we exercise humility when praying to God because He is our Father who is in Heaven. Father means that we are members of the household of faith, but always remember that He is the God of Heaven. If He commands us to honor our parents on earth, how much more our Father above? Cast out litany, and rid yourself of repetition, lifeless, scripted prayer, and “I want” lists that turn God into a genie through whom we achieve our kingdom, rather than seek God’s.

 

But we may have an open communication with the Lord. Candor on our part is best, because we cannot hide from God, or lie to Him. Nor need we, His children, fear Him the way the unsaved do when they contemplate coming before the God who judges. John writes, “There is no fear in love; but perfect (mature) love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love,” 1 John 4:18. Love and fear are opposites in this instance. Fear, penal fear in this case, casts out love, because who can love someone that we believe is going to harm (torment) us? Love in turn casts out fear. When love matures we stop fearing God in the sense of waiting for some impending doom or judgment to fall on us because we are inadequate or sinful. He saved us in our sin, and we will wrestle with the sin nature all of our lives. Remember first falling in love? Remember not only the strong pangs of romantic love, but the doubts and fears that accompanied? The first flush of love, filled with feeling and not deeply taken root yet, is like an ocean tempest-tossed with swells and ebbs. But beneath that turbulent surface lies a calm where nothing is disturbed regardless of what the circumstance above may be. When our love of God deepens, fear subsides because we learn that God does not seek our harm, and all that He does is done in love. We are not appointed to wrath, but to salvation, we are told. The torment that will one day seize the whole earth, and every day seizes the unsaved when they finally die, is not our inheritance. Knowing the depths of God’s love for us, we may approach His throne with boldness. His Holy Spirit, who inspired these lines, gave us this truth.

 

Now we turn our attention to the phrase: throne of grace. We first are compelled to envision God’s throne, the seat from which the universe’s Creator governs the material and moral orders He brought into being. The throne is the heart of a kingdom, for on it sits the one who is the kingdom’s life. From a monarch’s mouth come pardon or punishment. From his lips one can be lifted up or cast down. Power resides in his hand to do as he wishes within the bounds of all that can be defined as his dominion. The true King, whom all kings of the earth are modeled after and shadows of, holds omnipotence and His dominion goes beyond known time and space. All is subject to Him. Satan and his demons. Heaven and Hell, and the Lake of Fire. Life and death, and every thought of man are His. He knows all, sees all, and is all-powerful. Our God sits on a throne of rule the likes of which cannot be paralleled by any effort of man or angel. But this throne, the writer of Hebrews tells us, is one that is named grace. It is the throne of grace. Of grace, Strong’s Concordance extrapolates: “grace removes guilt; mercy removes misery.” Our High Priest preceded us to the throne, bearing His offering in our stead. We see in this depiction the Jewish mercy seat in the Holiest of All, now covered in the blood of the slain lamb, sprinkled by the high priest once a year for the remission of sin. The seat of judgment has become a mercy seat, because God’s justice is satisfied with the shed blood of the lamb. God resides on a throne of grace, and the believer may approach this throne not as a thrall or slave, but as a child of God, adopted into His household. He is the King of kings, and he is our Father, to whom we owe love, respect, honor, and worship.