THE HEBREW SACRIFICES FROM THE CHRISTIAN POINT OF VIEW. THE SACRIFICE OF CHRIST THEIR TRUE COMPLEMENT.

When we consider the bearings of the Mosaic laws on the religion of Christ, it is impossible to avoid a careful attention to the Epistle to the Hebrews, which so clearly sets forth the unity of design between the different revelations, and the manner in which the institutions of the former prefigured and led up to the higher, purer, and holier covenant of the Gospel.

The mode in which the author deals with the highest subjects and persons bespeaks for him the position of one of the chiefest apostles, to whom abundance of revelations had been made, and whose mind was disembarrassed from the prejudices of the past, and accepted without reserve the fully developed light and spirit of the Gospel. Who else could venture on language like the opening verses of this book; or those words in the second chapter, “For it became Him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings” (Heb. ii. 10).

To him the transition from the Law to the Gospel is perfectly natural and necessary. As the morning dawn passes on into the perfect day, so the Law, having done its preparatory work, merges into the glorious light of the Gospel of Christ; or, to use the author’s own simile, the Law decays, waxes old, and vanishes away just as the glory of the Gospel appears. The one must increase, the other decrease; the type be swallowed up in the antitype. Nothing is discordant; everything fits naturally to its bearings on the other. Moses as lawgiver gives place to the Prophet whom the Lord would raise up to His people. The priesthood of Aaron and his sons is superseded by the High Priesthood of Christ. The blood of animals, which had no inherent healing power—by the blood of Him, who (uniting the Divine and the human—God and Man), “through the Eternal Spirit, offered Himself without spot to God,” “an offering and a sacrifice of a sweet smelling savour” for the sins of men. The beneficent provisions of the Mosaic laws—of which Moses could say (Deut. iv. 8): “What nation is there so great, that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law which I set before you this day?”—give place to the yet purer principles of the Gospel of Christ.

Had it not been for the long course of typical sacrifices, continued through so many ages, how would it have been possible in the latter days to establish the value and efficacy of the sacrifice of Christ? The sacrificial rites of heathen nations, so degrading to morality and purity of thought and life, would alone have led no one to imagine such a sacrifice as His: although when viewed as corruptions of revealed truth they have, as accessories, a valuable significance.

We propose now to look at the intrinsic value of the sacrifices under the Mosaic institutions from the Christian point of view, and the superiority of the sacrifice and religion of Christ, as explained in the Epistle to the Hebrews.

Chapter 1 sets forth that God, who had formerly spoken to men by Prophets, has now spoken to us by His Son, who, being the brightness of His glory and express image of His person, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. Here is the first recognition of the teaching and High Priesthood of Christ. He speaks to us the things of God, and purges away our sins by Himself (vers. 1–3).

Chapter 2 opens with the exhortation that for this reason we ought to give the more earnest attention to what He taught. [42]

Chapter 2 sets forth also that Christ had passed through suffering, in order that He “might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people” (c. ii. 17).

Chapter 3 opens with an invitation to consider this Apostle and High Priest of our profession, faithful in all things to Him that appointed Him—far exceeding Moses in glory—for Moses was faithful as a servant; Christ as a son over His own house (vers. 1–6).

Chapter 5 says, “Every high priest taken from among men is ordained for men in things pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sin” (ver. 1), that no man takes this honour unto himself, but he that is called of God as was Aaron. So Christ glorified not Himself, to be made a high priest; but He that said unto Him, “Thou art My Son, to-day have I begotten Thee!” and again, “Thou art a Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec” (vers. 4, 5, 6).

Further on, after setting forth, in the seventh chapter, the surpassing excellence of the High Priesthood of Christ in comparison with that of Aaron, and marking how exactly such a High Priest was adapted to our every need, “holy, harmless, undefined, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens” (c. vii. 26), the Apostle sums up his argument in the eighth chapter: “Now of the things which we have spoken this is the sum, We have such a High Priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens—a Minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched and not man (Heb. viii. 1, 2). And inasmuch as every high priest is ordained to offer both gifts and sacrifices, it is of necessity that this man have somewhat to offer” (Heb. viii. 3).

Jesus was proved to be our High Priest by offering up His own body for our sins, which is stated in the most explicit terms. “But Christ being come, a High Priest of good things to come; . . . neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption (for us)” (Heb. ix. 11, 12).

“How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” (Heb. ix. 14). (See also ver. 15.)

“Nor yet that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holy place every year with blood of others; for then must He often have suffered since the foundation of the world; but now once in the end of the world hath He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself” (Heb. ix. 25, 26).

“So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many,” i.e., of all that look to Him for salvation (Heb. ix. 28).

“By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (Heb. x. 10).

“For by one offering He hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified” (Heb. x. 14).

The Apostle Paul uses language equally explicit in Eph. v. 2:—“And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God, of a sweet smelling savour.” [46]

Having thus shown how, on the principles of the priesthood of Aaron, the Lord Jesus had proved Himself to be a priest, although of the higher and more perfect order of Melchisedec—the order of righteousness and peace, and everlasting endurance—this epistle points out in a very conclusive manner the defects of the Mosaic institutions, which were enjoined for a time only, to prepare the way, and lead up to the enduring realities of the Gospel of Christ. And here we cannot but notice again how completely the Christian mind of the author had passed from all the Jewish prejudices and predilections of his former training, to regard everything in the light and spirit of Christ; while far from disregarding or repudiating that which he showed to be past, worn out, and abolished, he draws from it his most powerful arguments in favour of the New Covenant as required to complete the first, by making good its typical meaning, and securing to all who had passed from earth to heaven under the provisions of the Law, those blessings which they had already entered on, upon the promise of the sacrifice of Christ to come.

“For the Law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope did; by the which we draw nigh unto God” (Heb. vii. 19). That better hope is stated to be the “blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God,” purging our conscience, &c. (Heb. ix. 13, 14)“For the Law having a shadow (or shadowing forth) of good things to come, and not the very image (or substance and reality) of the things, can never by those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect” (Heb. x. 1). It was “therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens, should be purified with these, [48a] but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices [48b] than these” (Heb. ix. 23).

The passage last quoted follows verse 22, which declares, “without shedding of blood is no remission” (See also Lev. xvii. 11). But if it was impossible that the blood shed under the law of Moses (Heb. x. 4), should take away sins, it is evident that other blood must be shed of which that was typical, and which should be effectual for the purpose, agreeably to Heb. ix. 15, referring to Christ; “For this cause He is the Mediator of the New Testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first Testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.” In the former sacrifices there was a remembrance again made of sins every year (Heb. x. 3). But after the one Sacrifice for ever it is said, “their sins and iniquities will I remember no more” (x. 17).

“And having made peace through the blood of His cross, by Him to reconcile all things unto Himself, whether things in earth or things in heaven” (Col. i. 20).

“In the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in His sight” (Col. i. 22).

Thus we are given to understand that the sins of future generations, should be atoned by the one offering of Christ, as well as those of past generations, so that all generations alike owe their salvation to the one Mediator between God and man, Jesus Christ, in whom “all are made alive, and who is the one only hope of glory. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Cor. xv. 22) in such manner that if we are united to Him we partake of what is His, and shall find in Him all that we can need as a Saviour, Mediator, Intercessor, and Redeemer.

Nothing is of us; all from Christ. In Him is all the fulness of the Godhead bodily (Col. ii. 9); full of grace and truth (John i. 14). All power is committed to Him in heaven and in earth (Matt. xxviii. 18). As maker and upholder of all things, blessings, spiritual and temporal, are in His hand (Heb. i. 2, 3); and in Him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Col. ii. 3), and “He is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him” (Heb. vii. 25).Can we not now with reverent feeling enter into somewhat of the deep meaning of those few words of our Lord, “That thus it must be” (Matt. xxvi. 54)? and of that awful scene which had just passed in the garden of Gethsemane, when He had thrice prayed—“If it be possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless not as I will, but as Thou wilt”—when His soul was “exceeding sorrowful even unto death” (Matt. xxvi. 38, 39); and when “there appeared an angel unto Him from heaven strengthening Him (Luke xxii. 43); when His sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling to the ground” (Luke xxii. 44).

The words referred to were spoken when Peter had made an attempt at resistance, and smitten off the ear of the High Priest’s servant, who came with others to take Jesus, and when He had rebuked Peter, saying, “Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and He shall presently give Me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled that thus it must be?” (Matt. xxvi. 51–54). “The Lord” had “sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec” (Ps. cx. 4). And then to show that He needed not even the legions to rescue Him, but had still all power in His hands, when about to be “brought as a lamb to the slaughter” (Isa. liii. 7), as soon as He had said to the band of men and officers who came with Judas to take Him, “I am He” they went backwards and fell to the ground (John xviii. 3–7), signifying that they had no power to touch Him until again encouraged by Jesus. And so at each step of His trial, mocking, scourging, until by wicked hands He was crucified and slain (Acts ii. 23)—it was: “Thou couldst have no power against Me except it were given Thee from above” (John xix. 11). At each step it was His voluntary submission to ignominy and insult, and a cruel death, that He might redeem us from death, and from the power of the grave and of hell by His own blood.