Advancing in Prayer: The Three Degrees and the Tabernacle
Ps Longstaff-Wright saw “three clearly defined degrees” of prayer in Scripture, but he particularly turned to the Tabernacle where he saw these three degrees of prayer exemplified in the Court of the Congregation, the Holy Place, and the Holy of Holies. So let me draw on Ps Longstaff-Wright's teaching on the three degrees of prayer and the Tabernacle to help us see how to continue growing in prayer.
Degree 1: The Court of the Congregation
Through His sacrifice in our place on the Cross, Jesus has opened up the way for all believers to draw near into the Holy of Holies. But, we don't always step into the fullness of His provision for us in our lives of prayer. Instead, many of us stay in the Outer Court. “Certainly they can see the Throne of Grace, and they bow before it, but they are, as it were, ‘worshipping afar off.’”
Yet, there are important things for us to learn in prayer in this outer court. It's in this court that the altar and the laver are found. And so here we see that the first principle in prayer is that sin must be dealt with. “Get right with God first; confess and forsake your sin; let the cleansing Blood avail and then get down and pray.”
But, not only do we need to come to the Lord for His forgiveness, we also need to forgive one another (Mark 11:25). Our hearts should be filled with mercy and love towards our neighbour as we enter into the court of the congregation in prayer (1 John 4:21; Proverbs 21:13). “An unforgiving spirit will stop the ears of God to your cry, just as surely as the selfish spirit ... See also 1 John 3:17-23 and Matthew 5:44.”
So, our motive in prayer “must be unselfish or self-less — free from self-interest ... let our prayer be only for God's glory” (James 4:3). Whatever we ask in prayer, our purpose should always be for “God's ultimate glory, otherwise we are asking amiss. It is a sever truth to learn; but if we desire to be effectual in prayer the motive must always be God's glory.”
And we pray only as we look to the Lord in faith. For those who are justified live by faith.
“He who would enter into the Holy Place to minister must first pass through the Court of the Congregation with its altar and laver—sin must be judged, self must die, God alone must fill the vision.”
Degree 2: The Holy Place
The court of the congregation was the place of the multitude, but the Holy Place is the place of the solitary. In great love and tenderness, the Lord invites all to enter with boldness into the Holy Place, for we are His royal priesthood.
In the Holy Place we learn from three objects: the Candlestick, the Table of Shewbread, and the Golden Altar of Incense. All the furnishings of the Tabernacle point us to Jesus — the true fulfilment of the Tabernacle, and so as we consider prayer in light of the Tabernacle, that should lift our eyes to Jesus, to see that our prayer is rooted in our union with Christ. Our intercession is "entering into the intercessory work of the Great Hight Priest.”
In the Holy Place, prayer arises, day and night, like sweet-smelling incense which perpetually ascends to the Lord.
There were no windows in the Holy Place, and so no natural light — only the light of the Golden Candlestick. And just as the Holy Place was dependent on the light from the Candlestick, so as we grow in prayer we grow in dependence on God's illumination (Romans 8:26-27). “The intercessor in the Holy Place knows what it is to pray with the spirit and also with the understanding, illuminated by the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 14:14-15).”
And we intercede only as branches in the vine (just as the 6 branches are joined in the one candlestick), united to Jesus our great Intercessor. And as the oil flows to each of the branches, so too the Holy Spirit flows from Christ to all those who are joined to Him. “Let not this truth of being joined to Jesus in intercession stagger us!”
But the Holy Place is not only the place of illumination, the Spirit's oil, and union with Christ, it is also the place of sustenence, for it's the place of the Table of Shewbread. “Those who function in the ministry of intercession in the Holy Place know what it is to be divinely sustained ... They learn the lesson of drawing on Divine strength.” And so fasting and prayer go together here.
Degree 3: The Holy of Holies
Although the veil has been torn and the way opened through Christ's sacrifice, “we pause with holy awe at the threshold because this place is the abiding place of God.” When we advance “to this ultimate degree of prayer” we are “no longer afar off in the Court of Congregation nor close at hand in the Holy Place, but so blessedly close to God that when they bend their knees to intercede, their reverently-clasped hands rest upon the Throne of Grace.”
Now, Pastor Longstaff-Wright wants us to be careful here as we think about this nearness to God. “In His Omnipresence God is nearer than hands or feet to every saint and sinner alike, but in spiritual experience there are degrees of nearness according to the individual saint's willingness.” God invites us to draw near, and so we are to draw near and keep drawing nearer. And His promise is that He will draw near to us as we draw near to Him (James 4:8).
And the nearer we draw to Him, the more we will know Him. “The intercessor who ministers in the Holy of Holies is always reverent because he knows God as only the utterly yielded can know Him. Like the cherubim around the Throne (Rev. 4:9-11) he is frequently on his face in adoration and worship.”
Along with this growing knowledge of God, comes growing confidence in Him. Those who pray in the Holy of Holies are “confident, but it is not self-confidence; self has been crucified and his humble testimony is ever ‘I do all things through Christ who strengthens me.’”
Yet, proximity to the Lord and confidence in Him does not mean there are no trials. “The tests are multiplied, not diminished, but he always maintains a calmness and serenity that causes his fellow-saints to marvel as the disciples marvelled at Jesus at peace in the boat in the midst of the tempest. He has learnt, as did Paul, ‘how to be abased and how to abound; to be full and to be hungry, to abound and to suffer need’ (Phil. 4:12). He not only patiently endures trials, he rejoices in them. His experience no longer fluctuates between peace and distress, victory and defeat, but he is ever quietly confident in the Lord and possesses a peace and joy which the waters of sorrow cannot quench, nor the fires of persecution destroy.”
Those who pray in the Holy of Holies are humble and happy with obscurity, and yet, through their prayers bring great blessing to so much in the life of the church and the world. “He often fights and wins the Lord's battles before the preacher enters the arena, but he seeks no praise or recognition, rather he hides from the praise of man lest his Lord be robbed of the glory.”
This life of prayer in the Holy of Holies is the life of union with God. There are two senses to union. The first is the union by which we're joined to Christ in salvation. This is our being grafted into the vine so that we are now “in Him”—what we normally call “union with Christ.” And, as we've already seen, this is vital to prayer. The only way into the Holy of Holies is in union with Jesus our Great High Priest.
But the union with God that we're now dealing with is something else. It's rooted in our union with Christ, but this is now a oneness in character and likeness. A union in holiness. (Pastor Longstaff-Wright calls these two unions “union by joining” and “union by blending”— but I think the word “blending” is too liable to misinterpretation to be particularly helpful.) In this union, we “experience the power of Christ's resurrection and also the fellowship of His sufferings.” By this union, in the Holy of Holies, we commune with God as friend communes with friend.
This prayer in the holy of holies is a ministry, and yet it is far more than that. “It is Life itself—the Life of God, expressing itself through the heart of the Body.”
That's just a summary of what Pastor Longstaff-Wright had to say about these three degrees of prayer. Going from the Outer Court, to the Holy Place, to the Holy of Holies, we go from dealing with sin, to illumination, to union with God. And in those three ways, the Pentecostal pastor in Australia ended up echoing so many of the great teachers of the spiritual life through the history of the Christian church. (Isn't the Holy Spirit marvellous in how He leads!)
But any teaching about the three ways or degrees of prayer is always an invitation — an invitation to draw ever nearer to the Lord and enter more and more into the life of prayer. He wants us to know more of Him in prayer. So won't you draw nearer?
All the quotes above are from Ps R. Longstaff-Wright, ‘The Purpose and Power of Prayer’, Riches of Grace 1940 (June, pp.52-53; July, pp.63-64; August, pp.81-82).