Eight Sermons on the Priesthood, Altar, and Sacrifice

by Mayow Wynell Mayow

Here, then, we have no doubtful witness, not merely to the usage of sacrifice, but to its acceptableness also in the sight of God, as a part of worship and intercession. And this is all the more, not merely curious, but important, when we reflect upon the very early date almost universally assigned to the events related in the Book of Job. Whether the record itself may have been composed at a somewhat later period, as some have thought, yet all authorities are, I believe, agreed that the time of Job’s life was contemporaneous with even the earliest part of the life of Moses, and, therefore, that he did not derive his knowledge of God from the institutions of the Jews, or live under the Mosaic dispensation. The consenting witness, both of the Jews themselves and of the early Christian writers accepting their testimony, is that Job is the same as Jobab, mentioned in the first book of Chronicles, who is there named as the third in descent from Esau; so that he, as well as Moses, was the fifth in descent from Abraham,—the one in the line of Esau, and the other in the line of Jacob. Moreover, it would appear that this Job or Jobab was, if not absolutely what may be termed a king, yet a ruler and a prince in the land called Uz, or Ausitis, a country on the confines, probably, of Idumæa and Arabia. If this be so, he would seem, from the summary given in the first book of Chronicles, to have succeeded Balaam in the sovereignty or chiefdom of that country. “For,” (says that narrative,) “these are the kings that reigned in the land of Edom, before any king reigned over the children of Israel; Bela the son of Beor,” (undoubtedly the same as Balaam); “and the name of his city was Dinhabah. And when Bela was dead, Jobab the son of Zerah of Bozrah reigned in his stead.” [26a] Now we find in the book of Numbers, that Balaam the son of Beor was killed in battle, fighting on the side of Midian in the last year of the Israelites’ wandering in the wilderness, [26b] and supposing Job’s trial to have taken place (as some ancient writers assert) some few years after the Exodus, as he lived one hundred and forty years after those events, he may very well have succeeded to the chief place among the Idumæan or Uzzite people upon the death of Balaam. The importance of this to our present purpose lies in the fact, that he is thus a witness to the antiquity and the use of sacrifice and burnt-offering, quite independently of the institutions and commands of the Mosaic law. If Job were of man’s estate, and had sons and daughters of like estate also, (as the narrative unquestionably implies,) even before his sufferings, he must have been born not far in time from the birth of Moses, probably some little while before him; and what he “did continually” in his own country, and apart from Moses, is a witness to the practice and acceptableness of sacrifice, anterior to the enactments of the law from Sinai; and a witness, not merely, let us observe, to the use of sacrifice, but to sacrifice by burnt-offering, when the victim was killed and consumed upon the altar of God.

Now this leads us back to consider what is the probable origin of sacrifice, and sacrifice of this kind, altogether; for it is thus evident, that it was adopted into, and not originated by, the peculiar institutions of the Jewish nation and law.

Now, of course we see at once where we must turn for the first account of sacrifice. The primal exercise of this mode of approach to God, is that recorded in the fourth chapter of the book of Genesis, which shews at once the need which the Fall had brought upon man of drawing nigh to God, not without a propitiation; and at the same time exhibits, in sad prominence, the first-fruits of that corruption of nature entailed by it, which provoked the eldest-born of the world, in malignant envy of heart, to slay his next born brother.

Let us turn, then, to a brief consideration of those events, as illustrative of the origin and nature of sacrifice.

Look first to St. John’s and St. Paul’s account of the cause of Cain’s quarrel against his brother Abel. “And wherefore slew he him?” (says St. John), “Because his own works were evil, and his brother’s righteous.” [27a] And St. Paul tells us wherein Abel’s righteousness and superiority consisted: “By faith he offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts.” [27b] The narrative in the Book of Genesis tells us the same thing as to the fact that Cain’s offering was rejected and Abel’s accepted; but without the Apostle’s comment we should not have precisely traced the cause of this rejection and acceptance: but we know now that it was faith in the one and a want of faith in the other, in which the distinction lay; and also that somehow this difference was exhibited in the gifts which they brought: “God” (of Abel) “testifying of his gifts.” By this, too, St. Paul tells us, “He being dead still speaketh;” a statement which brings the whole matter home to ourselves. The narrative then is this: “And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord. And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering: but unto Cain and to his offering He had not respect.” [28]

This takes us back to the origin of sacrifice; and the first remark which occurs is, that it would seem highly probable that its institution was a matter of revelation from God to Adam; for though mere reason and moral feeling might make the creature see the propriety of offering to the Creator something of that which His bounty had bestowed, and possibly might lead to the thought that it should be not mean, but good and precious, yet there are so many attendant circumstances in the institution, which it does not appear possible to account for upon the hypothesis of the mere dictates of reason and feeling, that we can hardly ascribe the practice to anything short of a communication of the divine will to man. However, be this as it may, it is plain that both Cain and Abel were conscious of the duty of offering sacrifice or oblation in some kind to God. And each brought of that which he had. So far, it might be thought, Cain was not behind his brother. “Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.” Cain brought of the fruit of the ground, but Abel brought of the firstlings of his flock, and (it is added) “of the fat thereof.” Now it may be we are intended to note a difference here,—that Abel’s offering, the firstlings and the fat, denotes the earliest and the best: as if he hastened to acknowledge, in all thankfulness and humility, that he was not worthy to touch or use anything he had, until he had sanctified it by first offering of it to God; and this, the first he had, and the best: whilst the more scanty narrative as to Cain, that he merely brought of the fruit of the ground, may mark that he took no heed to bring of the first, nor of the best. He would offer something as an acknowledgment of God’s power,—perhaps, too, of His goodness,—but not in that due spirit of unmeasured humility and thankfulness, which alone was becoming in a son of Adam. But this, if it were so, does not seem to be all which is implied as to his lack of faith. To understand wherein this lay, we must remember the promise made to our first parents after the Fall, of “the seed of the woman” who should “bruise the serpent’s head.” [30a] Faith in this seed, the hope, the only hope of the world after Adam’s transgression, seems to be the thing intended; and if we suppose that God was pleased to reveal to our first parents some further particulars as to the mode of the atonement to be made by shedding of blood, by which this hope was to be fulfilled, and the victory to be obtained, we shall be furnished, not merely with a clue to the difference in the acceptableness of the offerings of the two, but also with a key to a large part of the Holy Scriptures, and an understanding what manner of faith should be in every one of us, as well as to much that is important as to the history and design of sacrifice. Let it be granted, then, as highly probable, that to Adam a revelation was given that in him, as the federal head of mankind, and by his transgression, as deteriorating the whole race to spring from him, were all men lost by nature, and further, that “without shedding of blood should be no remission;” [30b] but that by a worthy sacrifice and blood-shedding should the promised seed of the woman in due time effect a reconciliation for them and their descendants, and reverse the evil and the curse of their transgression. Surely, then, from that time forward, a faith in the efficacy of a sacrifice by blood would be required, and would be acceptable to God. Cain, then, would be evidently one who had not this faith, who denied, and disbelieved, and did not look forward to, this sacrifice, or cast himself upon this mercy. By bringing of the fruits of the ground, he may be considered to have made acknowledgment of the power and goodness of God, in causing the seed to grow and the corn to ripen; he may have done as much as we do, when we merely confess that we must look to God for rain, and sunshine, and “fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness;” (therefore, by the way, let us not think too highly of ourselves if we do confess so much; it is right, but it is a very small part of religion:) he may have meant to express thankfulness for blessing, but observe what he did not express. He made no acknowledgment of sin; he exhibited no sense of unworthiness; he confessed no shortcomings; he gave no sign of sorrow or repentance; he asked no mercy; above all, he turned to no one out of himself—no intercessor, no mediator between his God and him. He shewed no sign of looking to a Saviour to make atonement, atonement by blood: he looked to no “Lamb of God to take away the sins of the world” in general, and his own sins in particular. He ignored, then, the whole promise which was the sole hope of man. He may have said, “God, I thank Thee,” but he shewed himself to be wholly without the feeling “God be merciful to me a sinner.”

But, on the other hand, Abel brought of the sheep or goats which were of his flock. He offered up not an unbloody sacrifice. He laid the victim on the altar, and believing God, as well as feeling his need of a Saviour, he looked forward with the eye of faith to an expiation greater than that of kids, or lambs, or bulls, or goats, to take away sin. Nay more, he shewed his sense of the need of an atonement out of and beyond himself; for the blood of the victim offered described at once the sense of his own blood being required as a penalty, if justice only held its course and no expiatory sacrifice were found, and represented also, in true type and figure, that better sacrifice, that more precious blood, which should be shed in the fulness of the time to make such an expiation, even that of “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world.”

Now I have gone through this history with what I think is its probable and satisfactory explanation, because not merely does it serve to shew what the Apostle means when he tells us it was by faith that Abel pleased God, and that God testified of his gifts, but also because the very same remarks seem to apply to the whole history and intention of sacrifice, as either commanded or accepted, or both, by Almighty God from the beginning. Take such to be the origin of propitiary sacrifice, and I think nothing can more fully agree with, or illustrate, or be illustrated by, the further progress both of the fact and doctrine as we find them, first in the Holy Scripture, and, secondly, in the world at large, even though by the world’s wickedness so fearfully perverted. In perfect accordance with such beginning of acceptable sacrifice we have the same used and practised, and with the like acceptance, by Noah, Abraham, Melchizedek, Isaac, and Jacob, [33a] and, indeed, by all the patriarchs until the institution was embodied in the law of Moses. As we know, also, it was practised by all the heathen nations of antiquity of whom we have any record, though with them its true meaning and intention were fearfully lost and perverted. Nor does the difference in the instance of Abraham on one occasion, as to his being ready to offer a human sacrifice in the person of his son (which was of course a wholly exceptional case as regards the sacrifices of those knowing the true God), make any difference as to the witness of the acceptableness of sacrifice by blood, or the consuming the victim upon the altar. It has, indeed, been disputed whether Abraham were not the more easily reconciled to the idea of sacrificing his son, or even incited to it, by the customary “fierce ritual” of the Syrians around him; but independently of the utter contradiction which this view would give to the account in Holy Scripture, by the attribution of any other motive for Abraham’s conduct than the command of God, received in all faith, and leading to all obedience, it may well be doubted whether a perverse misinterpretation of the sacrifice which Abraham was thus ready to make, and an utter inattention to the real circumstances of that case, may not have been, instead of in any way the consequence, rather the cause of the nations around falling into the practice of human sacrifice. But, be this as it may, we have the plain witness to the usage of sacrifice, and its efficacy when performed according to the will of God. Also, that it prefigured the great sacrifice by the blood of a pure victim, as well as in itself taught the lesson that (as afterwards expressed by the Apostle to the Hebrews) “without shedding of blood is no remission.” [34]

And all this we see consolidated and confirmed, as well as more fully expanded and defined, under the Law. And especially there, a certain new element in its administration is introduced, in the appointment of a particular order for the performance of the service. In all the earlier usage, it would seem that the head of the family or tribe acted as the ministering priest. And there is no disproof of this, as far as I see, in the account of even the first sacrifice of all. For there is nothing in the narrative in the Book of Genesis to shew that Cain and Abel were themselves the acting priests (if we may so term it) in the sacrifice. They may each, for aught that appears to the contrary, have brought their offering to Adam, and it may have been by his hand that the different oblations were placed before God, and presented or devoted to Him. Such as the office and privilege of the head or chief, would seem to have been the recognised right and duty of such persons throughout the patriarchal age; but as the rule of patriarchs in secular matters merged in that of kings, as nations grew out of families, so the office of chiefs as priests, however thus exercised by Noah, Abraham, Melchizedek, or Job, seems to have been afterwards restricted to a tribe, or family, or other persons, set apart for the special service, and denominated priests, ἱερεῖς, or sacerdotes; names implying their dedication to holy things, and their exclusive rights in many particulars to deal with them. And this theory of worship, if we may so call it, was not merely reduced to a system by God’s law among the Jews, but also prevailed universally among the heathen world from the very earliest times of which any records are preserved. Hesiod, Homer, Herodotus, bear witness to it, and the universal practice of all nations substantiates it, whether in the barbarian forms of the ancient Druidical or other worship in the ruder peoples of the world, or in the more refined practice of Greece and Rome, or in the grotesque or cruel rites of the eastern countries, or absolutely barbarian tribes. They all have their altars, their priests, and their sacrifices, and in most, if not in all, the notion of propitiation by the blood of the victim has prevailed.

It need hardly be added that in the provisions of the Mosaic Law all these principles were embodied, so that, with every safeguard introduced against the perversions, the sensuality, the materialism, and the cruelty, which pervaded all forms and systems of idol worship, yet the true worship of Jehovah, as established by Himself, embraced, and contained, and stereotyped under the mark of His own approval, nay, of His absolute command, the same three points, of an altar, a priesthood, and a sacrifice; yes, a sacrifice in the sense of more than a mere oblation or offering,—a sacrifice by blood of a victim slain, and consumed in the very act of the commanded worship. For it ought never to be forgotten that amid all other offerings that were permitted,—nay, for certain purposes enjoined, as, for instance, for thank-offerings, or for mere legal purification,—yet, under the Jewish Law, the particular sacrifice which was appointed for expiation of any moral offence was the burnt-offering, where the victim, as I have said, was killed, and afterwards consumed by fire upon the altar; [36] and this appears to have no exception, unless it were in the case of the extremely poor, who might offer the tenth part of an ephah of meal; but even then, I believe, it is considered that this was placed upon a victim offered by others, or by the priest, for the sins of the people, and so may be deemed to have made a part of a sacrifice with blood. So that, in truth, as St. Paul says to the Hebrews, “almost all things are by the law purged with blood, and without shedding of blood is no remission.”