[15] Mr. Buddicom has the following note, intimating his approbation of this rendering: "Some of the best commentators have connected εν τω αυτου αιματι, not with δια της πιστεως, but with ἱλαστηριον and, accordingly, Bishop Bull renders the passage, 'Quem proposuit Deus placamentum in sanguine suo per fidem.'"—Lecture on Atonement, p. 496.
[16] John i. 29. For an example of the use of the word "world" to denote the Gentiles, see Rom. xi. 12-15; where St. Paul, speaking of the rejection of the Messiah by the Jews, declares that it is only temporary; and as it has given occasion for the adoption of the Gentiles, so will this lead, by ultimate reaction, to the readmission of Israel; a consummation in which the Gentiles should rejoice without boasting or high-mindedness. "If," he says, "the fall of them (the Israelites) be the riches of the world (the Gentiles), and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles, how much more their fulness! For I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the Apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify my office; if, by any means, I may provoke to emulation them which are my flesh (the Jews), and save some of them; for if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be but life from the dead?"
[17] Acts xx. 28. It is hardly necessary to say, that the reading of our common version, "church of God," wants the support of the best authorities; and that, with the general consent of the most competent critics, Griesbach reads "church of the Lord."
[18] Gal. iii. 13. Even here the Apostle cannot refrain from adverting to his Gentile interpretation of the cross; for he adds,—"that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles, through Jesus Christ."
[19] In three or four instances, it is true, a sin-offering is demanded from the perpetrator of some act of moral wrong. But in all these cases a suitable punishment was ordained also; a circumstance inconsistent with the idea, that the expiation procured remission of guilt. The sacrifice appended to the penal infliction indicates the twofold character of the act,—at once a ceremonial defilement and a crime; and requiring, to remedy the one, an atoning rite,—to chastise the other, a judicial penalty. See an excellent tract by Rev. Edward Higginson, of Hull, entitled, "The Sacrifice of Christ scripturally and rationally interpreted," particularly pp. 30-34.
[20] Heb. vii. 27. Let the reader look carefully again into the verbal and logical structure of this verse; and then ask himself whether it is not as plain as words can make it, that Christ "once for all" offered up "a sacrifice first for his own sins, and then for the people's." The argument surely is this: "He need not do the daily thing, for he has done it once for all; the never-finished work of other pontiffs, a single act of his achieved." The sentiment loses its meaning, unless that which he did once is the selfsame thing which they did always: and what was that?—the offering by the high-priest of a sacrifice first for his own sins, and then for the people's. With what propriety, then, can Mr. Buddicom ask us this question: "Why is he said to have excelled the Jewish high-priest in not offering a sacrifice for himself?" I submit, that no such thing is said; but that, on the contrary, it is positively affirmed that Christ did offer sacrifice for his own sins. So plain indeed is this, that Trinitarian commentators are forced to slip in a restraining word and an additional sentiment into the last clause of the verse. Thus Pierce: "Who has no need, like the priests under the law, from time to time to offer up sacrifice first for his own sins, and after that for the people's. For this latter he did once for all when he offered up himself; and as to the former, he had no occasion to do it at all." And no doubt the writer of the Epistle ought to have said just this, if he intended to draw the kind of contrast which orthodox theology requires, between Jesus and the Hebrew priests. He limits the opposition between them to one particular;—the Son of Aaron made offering daily,—the Son of God once for all. Divines must add another particular;—that the Jewish priest atoned for two classes of sins, his own and the people's,—Christ for the people's only. Suppose for a moment that this was the author's design; that the word "this," instead of having its proper grammatical antecedent, may be restrained, as in the commentary cited above, to the sacrifice for the people's sins; then the word "daily" may be left out, without disturbance to the other substantive particular of the contrast: the verse will then stand thus: "Who needeth not, as those high-priests, to offer up sacrifice for his own sins; for he offered up sacrifice for the people's sins, when he offered up himself." Here, all the reasoning is obviously gone, and the sentence becomes a mere inanity: to make sense, we want, instead of the latter clause, the sentiment of Pierce,—for "he had no occasion to do this at all." This, however, is an invention of the expositor, more jealous for his author's orthodoxy than for his composition. I think it necessary to add, that, by leaving out the most emphatic word in this verse (the word once) Mr. Buddicom has suppressed the author's antithesis, and favored the suggestion of his own. I have no doubt that this was unconsciously done; but it shows how system rubs off the angles of Scriptural difficulties.—I subjoin a part of the note of John Crell on the passage: "De pontifice Christo loquitur. Quid verô fecit semel Christus? quid aliud, quam quod Pontifex antiquus statâ die quotannis[21] faciebat? Principaliter autem hic non de oblatione pro peccatis populi; sed de oblatione pro ipsius Pontificis peccatis agi, ex superioribus, ipsoque rationum contextu manifestum est."
The sins which his sacrifice cancelled must have been of the same order in the people and in himself; certainly therefore not moral in their character, but ceremonial. His death was, for himself no less than for his Hebrew disciples, a commutation for the Mosaic ordinances. Had he not died, he must have continued under their power; "were he on earth, he would not be a priest," or have "obtained that more excellent ministry," by which he clears away, in the courts above, all possibilities of ritual sin below, and himself emerges from legal to spiritual relations.
[21] This is obviously the meaning of καθ ἡμεραν in this passage; from time to time, and in the case alluded to, yearly; not, as in the common version, daily.
[22] Mr. Buddicom's Lecture on the Atonement, p. 471.
[23] See Mr. M'Neile's Lecture, pp. 302, 311, 328, 340, 341.