Now, in the most important sense both the priesthood and the sacrifices were typical of Christ. In the mediatorial work of redemption, he was both the priest and the victim. He offered Himself. And no one will deny that He was holy, harmless, undefiled and separate from sinners. The holy priest, under the law typified the holy priest, who is a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. But under the gospel dispensation all Christians are priests. “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people.” And we are priests, not for the purpose of expiation, for expiation was completed by the Lord Jesus Christ, when He “bore our sins in His own body on the tree,” but priests to offer up “spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” And every such priest must needs be continuously holy.
The “spiritual sacrifices” which the Christian priest must offer are, as previously stated, (1) his body, with all its members and capacities. The heart was given to Christ at conversion. It is, however, largely through the body that the soul is led into sin, and it is through the body, also, that the soul must perform its work for Christ, so long as soul and body are united in probation. Hence, the Apostle exclaims in the twelfth of Romans, “I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.” The Christian must offer (2) also his continual testimony. He must “hold fast the confession of his faith without wavering.” “By him, therefore, let us offer the sacrifices of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to His name.” And, finally (3), the Christian priest must offer the sacrifice of a holy life. “But to do good, and to communicate forget not, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.” Beloved, let us ask ourselves if we are constantly offering as a holy priesthood, a consecrated body, a confessing tongue and a godly life. Amen.
This subject has already been alluded to under a different head, but it will bear repetition.
In the ceremonial used under the law for the cleansing of the leper, we find an impressive type or symbol of holiness. Leprosy is most clearly and strikingly a type of inbred sin. It is loathsome, unclean, incurable, fatal and hereditary. The leper was driven from society; he could not dwell in the camp nor in the city. He was an outcast. None must be permitted to approach him. They must be warned off by the despairing cry “unclean, unclean.” Nothing can be conceived more desolate or more hopeless than the condition of the leper, unless it be, indeed, the sinner who is an “alien from the commonwealth of Israel, a stranger to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.”
But to the leper, in many instances, came the glad “day of cleansing.” He might not come into the camp, until the priest went forth to him. The priest and no one else could pronounce him clean. And none but Christ has any authority to tell the sinner that he is converted, or the believer that he is sanctified. A clean bird must be slain over living water, another bird dipped into this water flies away toward heaven with bloody wing; the leper is sprinkled seven times, to denote the completeness or perfection of his cleansing, with blood by means of hyssop and scarlet wool bound to a stick of cedar; he must wash his clothes; he must pass a razor over his whole body, and bathe the whole body likewise in water. Certainly, all this needs no explanation. Surely, here is atonement by blood, and cleansing by the washing of water through the word, as plainly described as symbolic language can utter it.
All the bloody sacrifices of the Jewish law, the daily sacrifice both morning and evening, the paschal lamb, the Day of Atonement, the offerings at the various feasts, and innumerable sacrifices offered for individuals or for the whole people, the guilt offering, the sin offering, one for what we have done, the other for what we are, the peace offering, the burnt offering, these, also, all point to the Lamb that was slain from the foundation of the world. In all the sacrifices which we have named, a life was taken and blood was shed. “Almost all things are, by the law, purged with blood, and without shedding of blood is no remission.”
But turn now to the New Testament, and read that “It is not possible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.” Read again, “If the blood of bulls and goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God.” Read again, “In Him we have redemption through His blood” —"Having made peace through the blood of His cross"—"Ye who are far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ"—"Being now justified by His blood"—"That He might sanctify the people with His own blood"—and especially “The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin.”
Here, I insert a quotation from that saintly man, Dr. Edgar M. Levy. “When an oblation for sin was offered up under the old dispensation, the priest was commanded to dip his finger in blood, and to sprinkle it seven times before the Lord. This denoted the perfection of the offering. Nor would the blessed antitype come short of the type. Seven times, at least, did our Lord pour forth His precious blood. He was circumcised and there, of necessity, was blood. He was buffeted on the mouth, and by such brutal hands, that this must needs have been attended with blood. He was scourged, and from Roman scouring there was, of course, blood. The crown of thorns was driven into His precious temples and, surely, this was not without blood. The sharp nails penetrated into His hands and feet, and again there was blood. And “one of the soldiers, with a spear, pierced His side, and forthwith came thereout blood and water.”
The blood of Jesus, then, is the procuring cause of our sanctification as it is of our justification. Glory be to His Name forever for the precious, cleansing blood. And every Christian can heartily join in the immortal hymn of Toplady on the “Rock of Ages,” and especially with the rendering now frequently given to the conclusion of the first stanza, viz.:
“Let the water and the blood
From Thy wounded side which flowed,
Be of sin the double cure
Save from wrath—and make me pure.”