IV. The atonement of the cross stamps its own character and spirit on the entire ethics of Christianity.—The Fatherhood of God, the unity and solidarity of mankind, the issues of eternal life or death awaiting us in the unseen world—all the great factors and fundamentals of revealed religion gather about the cross of Christ; they lend to it their august significance, and gain from it new import and impressiveness. The fact that Christ “gave Himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God” throws an awful light upon the nature of human transgression. All that inspired men had taught, that good men had believed and felt, and penitent men confessed in regard to the evil of human sin, is more than verified by the sacrifice which the Holy One of God has undergone in order to put it away. What tears of contrition, what cleansing fires of hate against our own sins, what scorn of their baseness, what stern resolves against them, are awakened by the sight of the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ! The sacrifice of Christ demands from us devotion to Christ Himself. Our first duty as Christians is to love Christ, to serve and follow Christ. There is no conflict between the claims of Christ and those of philanthropy, between the needs of His worship and the needs of the destitute and suffering in our streets. Every new subject won to the kingdom of Christ is another helper won for His poor. Every act of love rendered to Him deepens the channel of sympathy by which relief and blessing come to sorrowful humanity.—Findlay.
Christ’s Sacrifice of Himself explained, and Man’s Duty to offer Spiritual Sacrifice inferred and recommended.
I. Our Lord’s unexampled sacrifice.—1. The Priest. As a prophet or an apostle properly is an ambassador from God to treat with men, so a priest is an agent or solicitor in behalf of men to treat with God.
2. The sacrifice.—Our Lord was both offering and sacrifice. Every sacrifice is an offering to God, but every offering to God is not a sacrifice. Perfect innocence and consummate virtue, both in doing and suffering, were not only the flower and perfection but the very form and essence of our Lord’s sacrifice. These were the sacrifice of sweet odour, acceptable to Him who alone could judge perfectly of the infinite worth and merit of it.
3. The altar.—From the third century to this time the cross whereon our Lord suffered has been called the altar. There is another altar, a spiritual altar—the eternal Spirit, the Divine nature of our Lord. The sacrifice of our Lord is an undoubted Scripture truth; but as to a proper altar for that sacrifice, it is a more disputable point, about which wise and good men may be allowed to judge as they see cause.
4. The Divine Lawgiver.—To whom the sacrifice was made, and by whom it was graciously accepted. God the Father is Lawgiver-in-chief, and to Him our Lord paid the price of our redemption. Thus the glory of God and the felicity of men are both served in this dispensation.
II. Our own sacrifice of ourselves.—As Christ give Himself for us, so we ought to give up ourselves to God in all holy obedience, and particularly in the offices of love towards our brethren, as these are the most acceptable sacrifices we can offer to God. We cannot do greater honour to our Lord’s sacrifice than by thus copying it in the best manner we are able—a sacrifice of love to God and love to our neighbours.—Waterland.
The Imitation of God.—No argument is so frequently urged as the example of Christ to persuade us to mutual love, because none is so well adapted to influence the mind of a Christian. God’s approbation of Christian charity is expressed in the same terms as His acceptance of the sacrifice of Christ; for charity to our fellow-Christians, flowing from a sense of Christ’s dying love, is a virtue of distinguished excellence. As the death of Christ is called “a sacrifice for a sweet-smelling savour,” so Christian charity is called “an odour of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, well-pleasing to God.” Let it be our care to follow Christ in His goodness and love, and to learn of Him humility, condescension, mercy, and forgiveness. Religion is an imitation of the moral character of God, brought down to human view and familiarised to human apprehension in the life of Christ. The sacrifice of Christ is of great use, not only as an atonement for guilt, but also as an example of love.—Lathrop.
Ver. 1, The Duty and Object of a Christian’s Imitation.
I. The duty enjoined.—1. Remove the hindrances to imitation. (1) Spiritual pride and self-conceit. (2) This self-conceit works in us a prejudiced opinion, and makes us undervalue and detract from the worth of our brother. (3) Spiritual drowsiness. 2. Observe the rules of imitation. (1) We must not take our pattern upon trust; no, not St. Paul himself. He brings it in indeed as a duty—“Be ye followers of me”; but he adds this direction, “as I am of Christ” (1 Cor. xi. 1). “For in imitation, besides the persons, there is also to be considered,” saith Quintilian, “what it is we must imitate in the persons. We must no further follow them than they follow the rules of art.” “Some there were,” said Seneca, “who imitated nothing but that which was bad in the best.” It is so in our Christian profession: we must view, and try, and understand what we are to imitate. We must not make use of all eyes, but of those only which look upon the Lord. (2) That we strive to imitate the best. Saith Pliny: “It is great folly not to propose always the best pattern”; and saith Seneca, “Choose a Cato,” a prime, eminent man, by whose authority thy secret thoughts may be more holy, the very memory of whom may compose thy manners; whom not only to see, but to think of, will be a help to the reformation of thy life. Dost thou live with any in whom the good gifts and graces of God are shining and resplendent, who are strict and exact, and so retain the precepts of God in memory that they forget them not in their works? Give men the instructive examples of these good men: let them always be before my eyes; let them be a second rule by which I may correct my life and manners; let me not lose this help, which God hath granted me, of imitation.