Then shall time be swallowed up in eternity. The righteous shall inherit life everlasting, and the ungodly shall find their portion in the second death. Time is the age of the visible world; eternity is the age of the invisible God. All things in time are changeful; all things in eternity are immutable. If you pass from time to eternity, without faith in Christ, without love to God, an enemy to prayer, an enemy to holiness, “unpurged and unforgiven,” so you must ever remain. Now is the season of that blessed change, for which myriads shall sing everlasting anthems of praise. “To-day, if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts.” To-day the office is open; if you have any business with the Governor, make no delay. Now he has time to talk with the woman of Samaria by the well, and the penitent thief upon the cross. Now he is ready to forgive your sins, and renew your souls, and make you meet to become partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. Now he waits to wash the filthy, and feed the hungry, and clothe the naked, and raise the humble, and quicken the spiritually dead, and enrich the poor and wretched, and reconcile enemies by his blood. He came to unloose your bands, and open to you the gates of Eden; condemned for your acquittal, and slain for the recovery of your forfeited immortality. The design of all the traveling from heaven to earth, and from earth to heaven, is the salvation of that which was lost, the restoration of intercourse and amity between the Maker and the worm. This is the chief of the ways of God to man, ancient in its origin, wise in its contrivance, dear in its accomplishment, powerful in its application, gracious in its influence, and everlasting in its results. Christ is riding in his chariot of salvation, through the land of destruction and death, clothed in the majesty of mercy, and offering eternal life to all who will believe. O captives of evil! now is the accepted time; now is the day of salvation; now is the year of jubilee; now is the age of deliverance; now is “the time of reformation!”
II. All the prophets speak of something within the veil, to be manifested in due time; the advent of a Divine agent in a future age, to accomplish a glorious “reformation.” They represent him as a prince; a hero; a high-priest; a branch growing out of dry ground; a child toying with the asp and the lion, and leading the wolf and the lamb together. The bill of the reformation had been repeatedly read by the prophets, but its passage required the descent of the Lord from heaven. None but himself could effect the change of the dispensation. None but himself had the authority and the power to remove the first, and establish the second. He whose voice once shook the earth, speaks again, and heaven is shaken. He whose footsteps once kindled Sinai into flame, descends again, and Calvary is red with blood. The God of the ancient covenant introduces a new, which is to abide for ever. The Lord of the temple alone could change the furniture and the service from the original pattern shown to Moses in the mount; and six days before the rending of the veil, significant of the abrogation of the old ceremonial, Moses came down upon a mountain in Palestine to deliver up the pattern to him of whom he had received it on Sinai, that he might nail it to his cross on Calvary; for the “gifts and sacrifices” belonging to the legal dispensation “could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience; which stood only in meats, and drinks, and divers washings, and carnal ordinances, imposed on them until the time of reformation.”
This reformation signifieth “the removal of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain;” the abrogation of “carnal ordinances,” which were local and temporal in their nature, to make room for a spiritual worship, of universal and perpetual adaptation. Henceforth the blood of bulls and goats is superseded by the great reconciling sacrifice of the Lamb of God, and outward forms and ceremonies give place to the inward operations of a renovating and purifying Spirit.
To the Jewish church, the covenant of Sinai was a sort of starry heaven. The Shekinah was its sun; the holy festivals, its moon; and prophets, priests, and kings, its stars. But Messiah, when he came, shook them all from their spheres, and filled the firmament himself. He is our “Bright and Morning Star;” the “Sun of Righteousness,” rising upon us “with healing in his wings.”
The old covenant was an accuser and a judge, but offered no pardon to the guilty. It revealed the corruption of the natural heart, but provided no renovating and sanctifying grace. It was a national institution, for the special benefit of the seed of Abraham. It was a small vessel, trading only with the land of Canaan. It secured to a few the temporal blessings of the promised possession, but never delivered a single soul from eternal death; never bore a single soul over to the heavenly inheritance. But the new covenant is a covenant of grace and mercy, proffering forgiveness and a clean heart, not on the ground of any carnal relationship, but solely through faith in Jesus Christ. Christianity is a personal concern between each man and his God, and none but the penitent believer has any right to its spiritual privileges. It is adapted to Gentiles as well as Jews, “even as many as the Lord our God shall call.” Already has it rescued myriads from the bondage of sin, and conveyed them over to the land of immortality; and its voyages of grace shall continue to the end of time, “bringing many sons to glory.”
“Old things are passed away, and all things are become new.” The circumcision of the flesh, made with hands, has given place to the circumcision of the heart by the Holy Ghost. The Shekinah has departed from Mount Zion, but its glory is illuminating the world. The sword of Joshua is returned to its scabbard; and “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God,” issues from the mouth of Messiah, and subdues the people under him. The glorious High-priesthood of Christ has superseded the sacerdotal office among men. Aaron was removed from the altar by death before his work was finished; but our High-priest still wears his sacrificial vestments, and death has established him before the mercy-seat, “a priest for ever, after the order of Melchisedec.” The earthquake which shook mount Calvary, and rent the veil of the temple, demolished “the middle wall of partition” between Jews and Gentiles. The incense which Jesus offered fills the temple, and the land of Judea cannot confine its fragrance. The fountain which burst forth in Jerusalem, has sent out its living streams into every land; and the heat of summer cannot dry them up, nor the frosts of winter congeal.
In short, all the vessels of the sanctuary are taken away by the Lord of the temple. The “twelve oxen,” bearing the “molten sea,” have given place to “the twelve apostles of the Lamb,” proclaiming “the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost.” The sprinkled mercy-seat, with its overshadowing and intensely-gazing cherubim, has given place to “the throne of grace,” stained with the blood of a costlier sacrifice, into which the angels desire to look. The priest, the altar, the burnt-offering, the table of shew-bread, and the golden candlestick, have given place to the better things of the new dispensation introduced by the Son of God, of which they were only the figures and the types. Behold, the glory is gone up from the temple, and rests upon Jesus on mount Tabor; and Moses and Elias are there, with Peter, and James, and John; and the representatives of the old covenant are communing with the apostles of the new, and the transfigured Christ is the medium of the communication; and a voice of majestic music, issuing from “the excellent glory,” proclaims—“This is my beloved Son; hear ye him!”
“God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake unto our fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son.” Behold him nailed to the cross, and hear him cry—“It is finished!” The voice which shook Sinai is shaking Calvary. Heaven and hell are in conflict, and earth trembles at the shock of battle. The Prince of Life expires, and the sun puts on his robes of mourning. Gabriel! descend from heaven, and explain to us the wondrous emblem! As set the sun at noon on Golgotha, making preternatural night throughout the land of Palestine; so shall the empire of sin and death be darkened, and their light shall be quenched at meridian. As the Sun of Righteousness, rising from the night of the grave on the third morning, brings life and immortality to light; so shall “the day-spring from on high” yet dawn upon our gloomy vale, and “the power of his resurrection” shall reanimate the dust of every cemetery!
He that sitteth upon the throne hath spoken—“Behold, I make all things new!” The reformation includes not only the abrogation of the old, but also the introduction of the new. It gives us a new Mediator, a new covenant of grace, a new way of salvation, a new heart of flesh, a new heaven and a new earth. It has established a new union, by a new medium, between God and man. “The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the Only Begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” “Forasmuch as the children were partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same.” “God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.” Here was a new thing under the sun; the “Son of man” bearing the “express image” of the living God; bearing it untarnished through the world; through the temptations and sorrows of such a wilderness as humanity never trod before; through the unknown agony of Olivet, and the supernatural gloom of Golgotha, and the dark dominion of the king of terrors; to the heaven of heavens; where he sits, the adorable representative of two worlds, the union of God and man! Thence he sends forth the Holy Spirit, to collect “the travail of his soul,” and lead them into all truth, and bring them to Zion with songs of everlasting joy. See them, the redeemed of the Lord, flocking, as returning doves upon the wing, “to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God; and to the spirits of just men made perfect; and to an innumerable company of angels; and to Jesus, the Mediator of the new covenant; and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel!”
O, join the joyful multitude! The year of jubilee is come. The veil is rent asunder. The way into the holiest is laid open. The blood of Jesus is on the mercy-seat. The Lamb newly slain is in the midst of the throne. Go ye with boldness into his gracious presence. Lo, the King is your brother, and for you has he stained his robe with blood! That robe alone can clothe your naked souls, and shield them in the day of burning. Awake! awake! put on the Lord Jesus Christ! The covenant of Sinai cannot save you from wrath. Descent from Abraham cannot entitle you to the kingdom of heaven. “Ye must be born again;” “born, not of the flesh, nor of the will of men, but of God.” You must have a new heart, and become a new creation in Christ Jesus. This is the promise of the Father.