Argumentatively, it would seem that these great questions are decided forever by the following considerations:
1. If the bloody sacrifices of this ancient system do not set forth the atoning death of Christ, they mean nothing; this, or nothing at all.
2. The writer to the Hebrew Christians testifies that they mean this. To give the proof of this statement in full would repeat entire the seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth chapters of this epistle. It would be idle to say that this writer does not refer to the sacrificial system of ancient Israel; equally idle to claim that he does not speak of the bloody death of Christ; more than idle to deny that in his view that old system sought to illustrate this new one—those bloody scenes were foreshadowing pre-intimations of Christ’s death; that those priests were precursors of this greater High Priest; that the blood which Aaron bore once a year into the most holy place meant neither more nor less than that Jesus was in his time to enter once for all into a yet more holy place with his own blood and thus achieve for us eternal redemption. Jesus “needed not daily as did those priests to offer sacrifice, first for his own sins and then for the people’s; for this he did once” [for all] “when he offered up himself” (Heb. 7: 27).
3. All the New Testament writers were Jews; men of Jewish education, men of life-long training in religious ideas based on this Hebrew sacrificial system. They never speak of the purpose or results of Christ’s death save in terms and phrases taken from this system given through Moses. Jesus never speaks of his own death save in these same words and phrases. When he speaks of “giving his life a ransom for many” (Mat. 20: 28); when he said, “This is my bloodof the New Testament which is shed for many for the remission of sins” (Mat. 26: 28); when his great forerunner speaks of him as “the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world” (Jno. 1: 29);—or Peter (1 Eps. 2: 24) as “bearing our sins in his own body on the tree;” or Paul (2 Cor. 5: 21) as being “made a sin-offering for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him,” it is simply impossible to disprove the reference of these terms and phrases to the Mosaic system—impossible to give them any other sense than that which is illustrated in the bloody death of the sin-offerings and burnt-offerings of that ancient law.
Thus with bands which no sophistry can sever, the Old Testament and the New are bound together, and the atonement prefigured in the former is embodied and made perfect in the latter. The almost ceaseless blood-sheddings and blood-sprinklings of the former culminate in the latter in the one great scene of death-agony and blood on Calvary. The grand idea of expiatory suffering—of the vicarious death of the innocent in place of the guilty, which ages of ceremonial sacrifice had been setting forth and working into the minds of all reverent worshipers, had prepared the way for Christ’s disciples to understand the mystery of his bloody death and to teach the Christian world in the writings of the New Testament how the blood of Jesus “takes away sin.”
In closing our notice of this religious system, let us revert for a moment to the fact that all its important features were so many important steps of progress in the manifestation of God to man. These were lessons in advance of all that had preceded on that greatest of all questions—How shall man approach his Maker, and how shall he offer acceptable worship?——That God deigned to come down and dwell with his obedient people is the precious truth which underlies all these provisions for his worship. How shall man treat this Heavenly Guest; how adjust himself to this pure and majestic Presence; with what state of heart; with what purity and cleanliness of person; with what offerings and sacrifices and of what significance?——These are the points embraced in these great lessons taught in this religious system. The perpetual inculcation ofcleanliness and of conscientious, scrupulous care; the practice of perpetual thanksgiving; but above all, the copious illustrations of the great idea of bloody sacrifice to take away sin;—these have been already named as the salient features in this system, and all (it will be noticed) are points of progress. Bloody sacrifices and altars appear in the worship offered by Abraham, Noah, and even Abel. But how much more fully is their true import unfolded here? Here is confession of sin on the part of the worshiper; here is the symbolic transfer of sins by imposition of hands upon the head of the victim brought out to die: here is the sprinkling of his blood all round about the altar; upon the very mercy-seat and immediately in the presence of the Holy One who sat beneath the cherubim; upon the worshipers also gathered round the bloody altar: here are the special solemnities of the great day of atonement in which the whole sacrificial system culminated—all combining their significance to unfold the great idea of the vicarious sufferings of an innocent victim in place of guilty men.
CHAPTER XX.
HISTORIC EVENTS OF HEBREW HISTORY FROM SINAI TO THE JORDAN.
The Golden Calf.