all such ordinances in many and varied fashions foreshadowed that one sacrifice whereof we now celebrate the memorial. Hence since it has been revealed, and in due time offered, the ancient rites have been removed from the sphere of frequent observance, but in the way of signification they have remained authoritative. This statement corresponds to Augustine's distinction between Old Testament ordinances as partly praecepta vitae agendae, partly praecepta vitae significandae. The moral law given to the Jews is of permanent obligation, the ritual directions are of permanent significance. Like prophecy, the ceremonial code laid hold of eternal principles, and in so doing foreshadowed the future developments of the divine purpose. Consequently, as Augustine elsewhere observes, the Apostle speaks not of the abolition of the Law, but of the doing away in Christ of the veil which concealed its true sense 2. The writer to the Hebrews regards Christianity mainly under one aspect as the final or absolute religion. It has the characteristic of perfection (TEXEίwors), inasmuch as it establishes that unimpeded fellowship between God and man which in the levitical system was adumbrated but not attained. The faith of Christ is the religion of the better hope, whereby we draw nigh unto Gods. For Jesus Christ fulfils in Himself two distinct types of priesthood. He is a priest after the order of Melchizedek; His priesthood belongs to an order eternal and supra-national. It is based on divine promises and combines with sacerdotal functions those of royalty; it is the medium. of high and heavenly blessings to mankind. But, on the other hand, Christ is the antitype of the Aaronic priest. He fulfils all that was prefigured in the levitical ordinances by offering Himself as a spotless victim, and by entering within the veil of the true 1 C. Faust. Manich. vi. 5; cp. vi. 2. 2 de util. cred. 9 (2 Cor. iii. 14). Cp. Bas. de Spir. sancto, 21. tabernacle1, there to present Himself in the presence of God on behalf of His brethren and to dedicate them in His own representative person for the life of acceptable service 2. As the true Melchizedek, Christ bestows blessing, and feeds His people with eucharistic bread and wine: as the true priest of Aaron's line, He purges the whole sphere of man's worship with His own blood; He cleanses the individual conscience from the defilement of sin; He ever liveth to make intercession 3. Such is the well-known teaching of the Epistle to the Hebrews, which gives a sanction to the patristic view of the sacrificial ritual; and having this sanction we may proceed to inquire what were the main ideas symbolized in the cultus, and how they were fulfilled in the work of Christ. We have seen that the informing idea of the levitical sanctuary, as sketched first by Ezekiel and afterwards in the priestly code, was that of Jehovah's presence in the midst of Israel. The thought that inspires the sacrificial ritual seems to be that of maintaining Jehovah's covenant. Thus its fundamental significance is ethical, for the covenant implied on the one side Jehovah's grace, on the other Israel's moral obedience. The sacrifices were full of spiritual symbolism: they spoke of self-surrender and devotion to the will of God; of the need of forgiveness and the blessings of divine fellowship. The prophetic teaching as to Jehovah's requirement gave them a typical meaning which, if we may judge from the language of some of the Psalms, was transparent enough to devout and thoughtful minds. The burnt-offering, for instance, was a vivid type of man's willing selfsurrender in a life of unbroken obedience; the sinoffering with its ceremonial sprinkling of blood spoke of the submissive acceptance of penalty by the sinner 1 Heb. viii. 2. 2 Heb. vii. 27; viii. 3; ix. 14, 26; x. 10 foll. 3 Heb. ix. 13, 14 23 foll.; vii. 25. See Ezek. xxxvii. 26-28; Exod. xxix. 45, 46. as the necessary condition of forgiveness; the peaceoffering with its communion-feast expressed the idea of fellowship between God and man renewed and consummated. Here, then, were prefigured in broad outline the moral conditions of man's reunion with God: but in the fulfilment of them by Jesus Christ even the minor details of the cultus were found to possess a previously unsuspected significance. 1. For, in the first place, Christ's life of perfect devotion to the will of God is the antitype of the burnt-offering. His whole life is comprehended by St. Paul in the single word obedience1-an obedience which was an integral element in the acceptableness of His self-oblation. In Christ man rendered to God that which alone could satisfy Him, a whole-hearted self-devotion, a perfect consecration of every facultyof will, thought, and affection 2. That element of voluntariness which from the nature of the case could not be represented by an irrational victim was in the highest measure present in the oblation of Christ's life. He discharged the covenant obligation of obedience which Israel could not render, and crowned it by the surrender of His life. For the death upon the cross cannot be separated from the earthly pilgrimage which it consummated. It was the highest exhibition of that love wherewith Christ loved us and gave himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour". The life and ministry of Jesus were in fact prefigured by the Tamid or continual offering which was intended to remind Israel of its ideal vocation. Day and night without intermission there ascended from the temple 1 Rom. v. 19; cp. Phil. ii. 8. 2 Cp. Lev. i. 8, 9; and see Matt. iii. 17, xii. 18, xvii. 5, xxii. 37; John viii. 29. Observe, the fire which consumed the burnt-offering is an emblem of the perpetual devotion of love (cp. John xiv. 31). See Euthymius on Heb. ix. 14 (quoted by Westcott, ad loc.). Cp. Heb. x. 1-10. Eph. v. 2. Observe the phrase doun evwdías, which is used also of the burnt-offering and symbolizes divine acceptance. See Gen. viii. 21; Lev. i. 9, 13, 17; cp. Ezek. xx. 41. court into the clear air the smoke of the sacrifice which lay upon the brazen altar. It was at once a memorial wherein Israel was as it were continually presented before God, and a striking emblem of that to which as a holy people it had pledged itself1, the whole-hearted and unbroken service of Jehovah. But the daily burnt-offering was a type fulfilled only in the life of Christ-in the perfection of His self-surrender, in the spotless purity and nobleness of what He offered, in the infinite acceptableness and victorious might with which it pleaded, and yet pleads, before God. For the continual offering of the Jewish sanctuary points to a perpetual function of Christ. His perfect obedience has not merely prevailed for man's acceptance in the past; it yet pleads with living power where the great High Priest now presents Himself on man's behalf, and wheresoever on earth the memorial sacrifice of Christendom is uplifted before the Father's face. In that unceasing act of intercession the Israel of God is ever presented before the throne of Heaven, nor is it fanciful to suppose that the meal-offering, and especially the ordinance of the shewbread, was divinely intended to prefigure the mystery wherein the Christian Church shows the Lord's death till he come 2. The least that can be said is that the meal-offerings prepared the Jewish mind for the acceptance of that form of sacrifice which was to supersede all others, in which the elements were to be simply bread and wine'; in which bloody sacrifice was to be replaced by the 2 1 Cp. Exod. xxiv. 7. I Cor. xi. 26. The shewbread (Dons, LXX. äproi évétioi or äptol τῆς προθέσεως) was set forth as a memorial, Lev. xxiv. 7: ἔσονται οἱ ἄρτοι eis áváμvηow прокEίμеvоι т@ Kupio. Cp. Luke xxii. 19. The loaves of shewbread were in fact a kind of perpetual sacrifice (Schultz, i. 355). Cp. Lev. xxiv. 8. Its typical character consists (1) in its being a Minchah or non-bloody offering, (2) in its having a memorial significance, (3) in its being wholly consumed by man. It thus combined the idea of sacrifice with that of communion (Willis, Worship of the Old Covenant, p. 166). Willis, p. 163. The Fathers commonly regard Mal. i. 11 as a prophecy of the Eucharist. oblation of incense and by the pure offering (Minchah) mentioned by Malachi. 2. In the next place, Jesus Christ as the representative of humanity accepts death, in token of His submission to the penalties of human sin. It is noticeable that the burnt-offering was in idea independent of the thought of sin. Its atoning virtue was incidental. Its essential significance was that of self-dedication; it implied the satisfaction not of offended justice, but of a holy requirement1. The sin-offering, on the contrary, was piacular; it implied the development of a consciousness of guilt; it witnessed to the reality of retribution and the need of satisfaction; to the impossibility of remission without shedding of blood 2. The antitype then of the sin-offering is the atoning death of Jesus Christ who makes propitiation for sin by His own blood. Moreover, the death of Christ may be regarded as a trespass-offering 3, inasmuch as the second Adam offers satisfaction and makes restitution for the wrong done to the majesty of God by the first Adam. Here let us pause to consider the meaning of the use of blood in connexion with the ancient sin-offering. There was, as we have seen, but very little significance attached to the victim's death; slaughter was simply the means employed for obtaining the blood, which was sacred as the seat of life. And it is important to observe that in the transaction which followed the slaughter-in the presentation, and sprinkling of the blood-the dominant idea was rather that of the surrender of life than that of the acceptance of death. The blood was in fact regarded as still living; it was only liberated for higher purposes by the act of slaughter; it was conceived as still living and in a real 1 Cp. Lev. i. 4, and see Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semiies, pp. 329, 330; Jukes, Law of the Offerings, p. 52. Heb. ix. 22. 3 Obs. DN in Isa. liii. 10. * Gen. ix. 4; Lev. xvii. 11. Cp. Schultz, i. 392. |