Jesus, The Forerunning Of Salvation For Us

A forerunner is a scout, and advance person, one who prepares the way by going before the others, a pathfinder, a trailblazer, a guide. 

Normally the forerunner we think of in the gospels is John the Baptist, who was prophesied to be the forerunner of Christ. Luke 1:17, quoting prophesy says, “It is he who will go as a forerunner before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah…” This prophesy foretold John as turning “THE HEARTS OF THE FATHERS BACK TO THE CHILDREN, and the disobedient to the attitude of the righteous; so as to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” He did this by preaching repentance and baptism.

But this is not the only “forerunner” in the gospel. Just as John went ahead of Jesus readying the way for Him, Jesus goes ahead of us to ready the way to heaven. 

It says in Heb. 6:19,20, “This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast and one which enters within the veil, where Jesus has entered as a forerunner for us, having become a high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.”

He has done what we cannot yet have done. He has not shown what we otherwise could not yet know. He has gone beyond death, through the veil.  He has gone to where we cannot yet see to prepare and open up the way for us. We can, and must, fully trust Him to lead the way because He has gone there Himself. 

If we want to go to heaven we must follow the one who laid down, who marked out and who traveled the path for us, who alone showed us the way to go — and that is the One, Jesus Christ.