Eight Sermons on the Priesthood, Altar, and Sacrifice

by Mayow Wynell Mayow

COLOSSIANS ii. 3.
“In Whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”

The preceding verses will tell us “of whom speaketh” the Apostle this. Having declared what great conflict he had for his converts at Colosse and “for them at Laodicea, and for as many as had not seen his face in the flesh,” he tells them that this his conflict and desire for them was, that their “hearts might be comforted; being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgment of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ; in Whom,” he adds, “are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”

As there is nothing on which men may not make a controversy, so there has been a question raised whether the meaning be, “in Whom,” viz. in Christ, or, “in which,” viz. in the mystery of God, and the Father, and Christ, “are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge?” But we may well be excused if we do not desire on such a day as this to run into criticism of this kind; and I shall therefore take it at once for granted that the plain and natural sense of the words is the true one, and that we have here the Apostle’s declaration of and concerning Him of Whom he says just afterwards unmistakeably, that “in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily,” [136] that He is the same “in Whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” And if they be so in Christ, as He is, at the right hand of God, (for He was there undoubtedly when the Apostle wrote this of Him,) so, being ever one and the same Eternal God, “the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever,” they were equally in Him in the days of His humiliation, “when for us men and for our salvation” He took upon Him man’s nature. As the Second of our Articles of Religion, in the strictest theological language, expresses it: “The Son, which is the Word of the Father, begotten from everlasting of the Father, the very and eternal God, and of one substance with the Father, took man’s nature in the womb of the blessed Virgin, of her substance: so that two whole and perfect Natures, that is to say, the Godhead and Manhood, were joined together in one Person, never to be divided, whereof is one Christ, very God and very Man;” whereof, too, be it well observed, the just and immediate consequence is, that He—“Who truly suffered, was crucified, dead and buried, to reconcile His Father to us, and to be a sacrifice, not only for original guilt, but also for all actual sins of men,”—was this same one Person, very God, and very Man. So that we speak simple truth (though a mystery beyond even angelic powers fully to understand or appreciate) when we say that God Himself was born of the Virgin Mary; God Himself lay in that manger at Bethlehem; God Himself grew up from infancy to manhood before men’s eyes; God Himself shed His Blood, and died upon the Cross, to save the lost and guilty race of Adam, whom by His Incarnation He made His brethren: even as the Apostle declares to the disciples at Miletus, that God had “purchased His Church with His own Blood;” [137a] and again, tells the Ephesians, that through Christ “we have redemption through His Blood;” [137b] and again, the Hebrews, that “by His own Blood entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.” [137c]

This perfect union for ever of the two Natures in the one Person of Jesus Christ our Lord it is of the highest importance for us to receive, or we shall have unworthy notions of God, and what He has done for us. We shall, if we “divide the Substance,” making two Persons to be in Christ, be in danger of believing that a mere man died for us; or else, that the death of Christ was not, in a true sense, death at all; so that there would be either a propitiatory sacrifice made for the sins of the world by one less than God, or else no propitiatory sacrifice made at all. In either case, a denial of “the Lord that bought us.” [138] In the one, that He is the Lord; in the other, that He bought us. For, as we see at once, God, as God only, cannot die; and man, as man only, cannot make propitiation for sin. It is, of course, true that the Godhead, considered in itself, is incapable of suffering, and therefore, the Son of God, for this reason, (among many others, as we may well believe,) took upon Him man’s nature, which was capable of suffering and death. And not less true or less plain is it, that the Manhood, even in its best and most perfect state, could not make atonement to God for sin, or enable any man to “save his brother.” But when God became Flesh, when the Son of God became also the Son of Man, when the two natures in their Perfection were thus joined in the Person of Jesus Christ: then God being man could die, and man being God could not only live but give life. So Christ not only liveth ever, but He “giveth eternal life” [139a] to as many as are His. “Thus,”—to use the words of the well-known commentator on our Articles, the present Bishop of Ely,—“thus we understand the Scripture when it says that men ‘crucified the Lord of Glory,’ [139b] when it says that ‘God purchased the Church with His own Blood,’ [139c] because though God in His Divine Nature cannot be crucified, and has no blood to shed; yet the Son of God, the Lord of Glory, took into His Person the nature of man, in which nature He could suffer, could shed His blood, could be crucified, could die.” [139d] All this being done and suffered by that one Person—Christ Jesus, God and Man—it is no figure or fallacy but a simple truth, however wonderful, to say that God was born in Bethlehem and died upon the cross at Calvary. Thus, too, He the one ever-blessed Son of the Highest, “in Whom were hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge,” could become unto us “wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption;” our Prophet, Priest and King, our Sacrifice, our Mediator, our Intercessor, our ever-merciful and ever-enduring Saviour, Who sitteth at the right hand of God, until He shall come again with power and great glory to be also our Judge.

So very far have modern times gone in forgetfulness of the ancient faith, that, I believe, it is sometimes considered a strange thing to give to the Blessed Virgin the title of “the Mother of God,” as if it were a novelty so to designate her. Whereas, to deny her this title, and so in fact to make two Persons to be in Christ,—one, God, not born of her; and one, man, born of her,—is precisely the very and exact heresy of Nestorius condemned by the Third General Council held at Ephesus in the year 431, which decision was, and has ever since been, received by the whole Church. So that it is not merely truth so to designate her, but it is absolutely heretical to maintain the contrary. “Ever since the Council of Ephesus, the Church has consecrated the peculiar title of ‘Theotokos’ (God’s parent, or Mother of God,) to denote the incommunicable privilege of the Blessed Virgin Mary, in that she became the mother of Immanuel, ‘God with us.’ . . . For, though it is as man that Christ is of the substance of His Mother born in the world, yet, inasmuch as the Word took man’s nature in the womb of the Blessed Virgin of her substance, she may truly be styled ‘Mother of God,’ because ‘two whole and perfect natures—that is to say, the Godhead and Manhood—were joined in One Person never to be divided, whereof is one Christ, very God and very Man.’” [140]

But let us turn back again for a moment to the thought of the text, that in Christ “are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” There is surely an emphatic force in the words “are hid,”—“εἰσὶν ἀπόκρυφοι,” not merely ‘contained,’ but ‘laid up,’ ‘concealed,’—and if in a certain sense, even now they are hid, because Christ our Lord does not manifest Himself to the eye of sense in any visible form of glory, though He has all wisdom and all knowledge ever inherent in Him, it may be said that they were even more obscured, when, emptying Himself of His glory, “He took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men, and was found in fashion as a man.” [141] Look upon Him as He was on this day eighteen hundred and three-score and more years ago! Think of Him as a little infant, in the arms of His blessed Mother, or laid under her watchful eye upon some rude pillow in the manger, and then consider that there was the God of all flesh, the great God of heaven and earth, God the Son, ever one with the Father and the Holy Ghost, all-powerful, all-knowing, all-creating, all-upholding, all-preserving, and say if these treasures were not indeed hid and obscured!

But though obscured, the treasures were there nevertheless. It were impious to doubt or deny it. When, then, we hear it asked, as sometimes in these latter days of almost unlimited free enquiry it is, Are we to imagine that in that little infant was centred the knowledge of all history, all learning, all the secrets of nature as we term them, all the devices of art, all the developments of science? I think we cannot doubt that the answer is, There was. For what is there in any kind or department of knowledge or science, or of things past, present, or to come, which we can suppose the Almighty not to know? This would be to deny His attribute of Omniscience; and, therefore, to deny it of Christ, God and Man, would be to deny His Godhead. People think to escape this consequence by saying that it is merely His human nature which was ignorant,—that whilst as God He knew, yet as Man He did not know,—not seeing that thus immediately they must fall into that other error before mentioned. For if they do not deny the Godhead, they must divide the Substance of the Son. Perhaps in their defence they will urge such passages of Holy Scripture as that in which it is written, “Jesus increased in wisdom and stature;” [142a] or where He Himself said, concerning the Judgment, “Of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father,” [142b] of which it may be sufficient to remark to-day, that the first passage seems to imply no more than that His wisdom, as He grew in years, and of course appeared to acquire human knowledge, increased, in the sense of its being more manifested in the eyes of men, just as His bodily stature increased in visible presence before them: whilst of the other, (without going into all which may be said on a passage confessedly difficult,) it may be enough to point out that He does not say even of the Day of Judgment, that He, the God-Man, Christ Jesus, ever undivided in His divinity and humanity, did not know it: but that the Son (Who must be taken of course here to be the Son of Man), knoweth it not. And if it be thought that this admission grants all that the objector asked, and is in fact but the enunciation of his own view, I should maintain that it is not so, and for this reason, that it is a very different thing to say of the One Person, Jesus Christ, that He, thus one and undivided, was ignorant of anything, and to contemplate apart His Godhead and His Manhood, and so, in some sort, their attributes apart. And I conceive that here our Blessed Lord using the term “the Son” (not ‘I know not,’ but the Son knoweth not,) contemplates Himself as the Son of Man, and speaks of Himself as viewed in that relation. What modern unbelief seems to delight to assert, is, that our Blessed Lord, as He stood and talked and reasoned with the people, was ignorant or mistaken. What we affirm to be the really just and consistent sense of the passages adduced, is, that if His human nature be contemplated apart from His Divine, it might be taken to be thus ignorant; so, I would repeat, He is not thus proclaiming that He, the God-Man, the One Christ, is ignorant, nor yet dividing His Substance and becoming two, but merely contemplating apart the Divine and human natures, which may well be done; and we may even go so far as to say that if we contemplate them as separated, then there would be things unknown to the one, though known to the other, and if they could be divided there would be a separate province of knowledge in each; but that, as we must believe the two natures have ever been united in one Person from the time of His taking our nature of the substance of the Blessed Virgin Mary, so no one can ever predicate of Him, the thus born Son of God and Son of Man; of Him “in Whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily;” of Him “in Whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge;” of Him “Who is over all, God blessed for ever,” [144a] that it is possible there was, or is, or shall be anything, whether “of things in heaven, or things in earth, or things under the earth,” of which He was, or is, or shall be ignorant. [144b]

Turn then again, brethren, to the stable at Bethlehem. Cast away, at least on such a blessed day as this, the thoughts of controversy. Come to the sight which is to be seen in that lowly habitation “where the stalled oxen feed.” See the blessed Mother! See the glorious Infant, glorious and divine in Himself, howbeit He may look like any other child of man, and with the eye of faith “behold thy God!” Think of the wonders of love in the condescension that He should be found in such an humble guise and lowly place, only excelled by the marvel that He should abase Himself to become man at all! And then think that all this is no barren spectacle, to be gazed upon indeed with wonder, but in which we have no practical interest. No, it all belongs to us, and has to do with us, in matters of the very highest moment. It is so important to us, that we might say all other things are mere bubbles and trifles compared with it. What should we be, and what would be our hope, if we had not the Christmas season, and all which it has brought, to gild our year, and gladden our hearts? Think of what we are, and what are our prospects by nature! The children of Adam in his fallen state, and therefore “born in sin and children of wrath.” A degenerate race, from our very birth, with the sure seed of the first and second death implanted in us, with a corrupt nature, a depraved will, a heart estranged from God, exiles from Eden, unable to return to it. Even if we had the heart to seek it, only doomed to find it barred against us, and “cherubims and a flaming sword turning every way to keep the way of the tree of life,” on account of both the original guilt and actual sins of men. Thus, in ourselves with no access again to God. Placed, it is true, in a world of wonders, a world adapted by Almighty wisdom to supply our wants and minister to our comfort and gratification, apparently capable of almost unlimited development in these things under the fertile mind and ever-busy hand of man, yielding thus much enjoyment for the time, if we give ourselves to enjoy it. Even in more than such external things adapted to our constitution, as furnishing the food for absorbing pursuit and high aim in the acquisition of wealth or power, or in intellectual cultivation; nay, more and more widely still, meeting the cravings of our nature by supplying the field for sweet sympathies and home affections in the varied scenes of domestic life and mutual love; but yet, after all, not satisfying the yearnings of man’s heart or the aspirations of his being. A world, too, however framed with all these means of comfort or enjoyment, yet with much of pain, sorrow, sickness, bereavement, trial, fear, and weakness in the lot of every child of Adam. All this without; and within, a conscience enough alive to make us uneasy, when we have yielded to temptation, and broken the law written in our hearts, though of no sufficient power to prevent our yielding to the one and breaking the other, joined with a certain consciousness, indeed, of God’s greatness and goodness, but not the heart to love Him. So, with no light in ourselves to see our way clearly, nor in ourselves any strength to throw off our chains and turn to God; with dim forebodings of and even earnest yearnings after something higher, better, and more enduring than this world, and this earthly life and being, but with no apprehension to grasp it, and no power to attain to it. And then, as life wanes, and death draws on, and conscience, it may be, pricks, and the evil one himself, perchance, mocks and triumphs, and no remedy, in either external things or in our own selves, is to be found,—how darkly and sadly does the night close in upon man in his mere natural condition! Survey him in such aspect from his life’s beginning to its end, and what is there for him but either blank despair or reckless levity (often the direct fruit of despair), or a dark and corrupting superstition calling “evil good and good evil, saying Peace, peace, when there is no peace,” and resulting in the utmost dishonour to God, and the greatest licence of an unbridled sensuality, even under the plea of religion? or else, if not this, an utter unbelief, merely falling blindfold into judgment and eternity? Yes: for when once man was lost by the Fall, no one could save himself and no one could save his fellow. As it is written, “No man may deliver his brother, or make agreement unto God for him; for it cost more to redeem their souls, so that He must let that alone for ever.” [147]

But now, men and brethren, think of Christmas-tide, and all it tells and brings to us, and what a change is there! On this appalling picture, on this “day of darkness and gloominess, of clouds and of thick darkness, as the morning spread upon the mountains,” [148a] “the Sun of righteousness hath arisen with healing in His wings;” [148b] “the day-spring from on high hath visited us; to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.” [148c] As we raise our eyes to the Christmas morning the light dawns not merely on our eyes but on our hearts. Here we find the “seed of the woman” who reverses our curse, and the curse upon the earth, by “bruising the serpent’s head.” He comes, He comes, the Saviour of the world, bringing “life and immortality to light through the Gospel,” [148d] because He is God and Man. “Unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given: the government is upon His shoulder: His Name is called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.” [148e] What can more declare His Godhead? But nevertheless He is “not ashamed to call us brethren;” [148f] nay, we are told, it even “behoved Him to be made like unto His brethren,” and this, that “He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people.” [148g] Yes, and although He is such “a great High Priest, the Son of God passed into the heavens,” yet is He not one “which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.” [149a] What can more declare His Manhood? Like unto us in all points, sin only excepted. Like unto us, with perfect manhood, human body and soul taken into the Godhead, so to be unto us “both a sacrifice for sin, and also an ensample of godly life.” As the new federal Head of the human race; as the one, and only one, of the descendants of Adam in whom sin found no place, and whose obedience was perfect, “He is able to save to the uttermost all them that come to God by Him.” Thus is God Incarnate our great High Priest and only Saviour. “To this end was He born, and for this cause came He into the world,” [149b] and such is the mercy which we this day commemorate. By this, the Incarnation of the Eternal Son, is the cloud of thick darkness rolled aside; by this, as the first manifested step (so to say) in our redemption, is the veil lifted; by this, is hope revived; by this, joy spread; by this, is Satan defied; by this, and by the consequences to which it led and leads, is he conquered; by this, is the sting taken from death, and victory wrested from the grave; this, is peace made for man with God, and peace brought to man within himself; by this, is he enabled to please God, for by the death of the Son made Man was the purchase and gift of the Spirit, whereby alone he can be sanctified. By Him, then, (“the great God and our Saviour,” as St. Paul terms Him,) are “we reconciled, and have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ;” by Him, “being now justified by His Blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him:” and so truly “we joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by Whom we have now received the Atonement.” [150] He is the great High Priest, with power in Himself as none other has, or can have, to offer up the sacrifice and “make reconciliation for the sins of the people.” He is the immaculate Victim, the one only meritorious Sacrifice, “once offered to bear the sins of many,” Whose “Blood speaketh better things than that of Abel.” He is the true Paschal Lamb, “without blemish and without spot;” “the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world;” the Lamb “slain,” (in God’s design, and His own ever-merciful intention,) “from the foundation of the world,” but manifested for this purpose “in the fulness of the time.” He is the great Physician, causing joy wherever He goeth, because He can heal all diseases; He is the great Lawgiver, proclaiming His will; He is the great Prophet, ordaining and promulgating His method of salvation; He is the great King, setting up His kingdom, marking out its boundaries, and ruling His subjects; He is the great Captain, ordering His armies, displaying His banners, giving out His weapons, going forth “conquering and to conquer;” He is the one Mediator, He is the availing Intercessor; He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life; He is the Sun and Centre of the whole mediatorial kingdom; He is the Lord of this world and of the world to come!—And all this, because He is (as He is and ever hath been) “God the Son: God of God, Light of Light, Very God of Very God; of one substance with the Father;” and because, in mercy to us, He became also the Son of Man, “conceived by the Holy Ghost, and born of the Virgin Mary.”

Surely, then, this is a day “to be much observed unto the Lord,” a day in which we do well indeed “to make merry and be glad;” so only that our mirth be with sobriety, and our gladness with godliness. If, indeed, He had not come, if we had no Christmastide, and Christmas memories, and Christmas teaching, and Christmas faith, where should we place our hope? Truly, we should be “of all men most miserable.” Whether God could have forgiven man in any other way, without Himself becoming Flesh, and doing all which Christ has done, we know not. But it seems to be unlikely, according to His attributes and will, inasmuch as St. Paul plainly says, “without shedding of blood is no remission,” and (as we know,) “the blood of bulls and of goats could never take away sin;” whilst again it is declared, that God set forth His Son “to be a propitiation through faith in His Blood, that He might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus:” [152] from which it would seem that God’s attribute of justice could not be satisfied unless by the payment, by some one able to pay it, of the penalty due to man’s transgression. But whether it could have been otherwise or not, otherwise it is not. This is God’s way, and undeniably it tells us more of God’s love, Who gave His only-begotten Son; and of Christ’s tender compassion, Who shrunk not back from all which He undertook, than if we had been saved by a forgiveness, without an atoning sacrifice at all. Therefore this mode, God’s mode of pardon, as it supplies us with greater proofs of His love, so it gives us higher motives for our own love and gratitude than any other mode which we can conceive. Therefore this day calls upon us all the more for praise, adoration, thanksgiving, joy, and obedience. Whatever else we do, or learn, or think, we can never think aright, unless—in praising and thanking God for all His mercies, and for the birth of Christ in human nature, as the source, if we may so term it, of the Gospel scheme of Redemption,—unless, I say, we attribute all we are in sanctification, and all we have in hope, and all we feel in peace, to God and Christ. Whatever be His way to bring us pardon, whatever laws He has set up in His Kingdom, whatever means He has appointed,—whether His Holy Word, or His Church, or His ministry of instruction or reconciliation,—all these are but His instruments, and He Himself is the only efficient cause of our salvation. “Not unto us, not unto us, but unto His Name give the praise.” No; even the fruits of the Spirit, wrought in us by Him, “albeit, indeed, they are the fruits of faith, and follow after justification, though they are acceptable and pleasing to God in Christ, yet can they not put away our sins, and endure the severity of God’s judgment.” [153a] Nay, not faith itself can do this; for though, as the means and instrument to lay hold on eternal life, faith may be said to save us, yet, as the efficient cause of our salvation it would be heresy to say so. For it is plain, we are not saved by anything of ours, even when wrought in us by God’s Spirit. As one of our Articles says, they are in grievous error “who say that every man shall be saved by the law or sect which he professeth, so that he be diligent to frame his life according to that law and the light of nature,” for that “Jesus Christ is the only Name whereby men must be saved;” [153b] so, truly, no one may affirm that we are saved, except instrumentally or conditionally, either by good works, (even if they were good, in the sense of being blameless, which none of ours are,) or by knowledge, or by the priesthood, or by sacraments, or by the Church, or by the Bible, or by prayer, or even by faith itself, for it is manifest that we are saved by Christ only, and by none else, either thing or person. He may have set forth, as He has done, certain conditions of salvation; He may have appointed, as He has done, certain means of applying to Him for mercy, and of obtaining mercy from Him; He may have ordained, as He has done, certain channels of help by which His grace flows to us, and enables us to receive His favour, and the reconciliation with God, which He has purchased for us; but it is He, and He only, Who is the sole meritorious cause of all we have, and all we are, and all we hope for. So, truly, again we may repeat in the words of the Apostle, that it is “Christ Jesus, Who, of God, is made unto us Wisdom and Righteousness and Sanctification and Redemption;” not as if He could be this to us (God forbid the thought!) if we persist in sin, or in neglect of His way of life; but, as if (which is the truth), even if we had done all, we should be but unprofitable servants; as if (which is the truth) we are very far from having done all; as if (which is the truth) anything we have done to please God has been only of Him and through the purchased gift of His Spirit, and the communication to us of Himself. So that, indeed, we owe all to Him, and without Him are and must be lost indeed.