The Holy of Holies
“M’Cheyne was able to write that ‘Jesus, the Lord, my righteousness, has become all things to me.’ It was more than words. It was the onset of a life-long determination to cling to his God . . . He wanted to be holy for love of Jesus Christ.”
—Dr. John Snyder, Behold Your God: Rethinking God Biblically, Week 6
Robert Murray M‘Cheyne (1813-43) was one of the most godly, faithful, and able young pastors of his day. He sought to conform every area of his life to the holy example of Christ. M’Cheyne studied under Thomas Chalmers at Edinburgh University. He became a pastor in Dundee, Scotland by the age of twenty-three, where he served faithfully until his death at twenty-nine.
In a letter to Andrew Bonar, Robert Murray M’Cheyne writes:
“I feel distinctly that the whole of my labor during this season of sickness and pain, should be in the way of prayer and intercession. And yet, so strongly does Satan work in our deceitful hearts, I scarcely remember a season wherein I have been more averse to these duties. I try to ‘build myself up in my most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, keeping myself in the love of God and looking for the mercy of the Lord Jesus unto eternal life.’
“That text of Jude has particular beauties for me at this season. If it be good to come under the love of God once, surely it is good to keep ourselves there. And yet how reluctant we are. I cannot doubt that boldness is offered me to enter into the holiest of all; I cannot doubt my right and title to enter continually by the new and bloody way; I cannot doubt that when I do enter in, I stand not only forgiven, but accepted in the Beloved; I cannot doubt that when I do enter in, the Spirit is willing and ready to descend like a dove, to dwell in my bosom as a Spirit of prayer and peace, enabling me to ‘pray in the Holy Ghost;’ and that Jesus is ready to rise up as my intercessor with the Father, praying for me though not for the world; and that the prayer-hearing God is ready to bend his ear to requests which he delights to hear and answer, I cannot doubt that thus to dwell in God is the true blessedness of my nature; and yet, strange unaccountable creature! I am too often unwilling to enter in. I go about and about the sanctuary, and I sometimes press in through the rent veil, and see the blessedness of dwelling there to be far better than that of the tents of wickedness; yet it is certain that I do not dwell within.”