Part 40

Let us advert then to the functions of the Mosaic sin-offerings, to which the writer has recourse to illustrate his main position. They were of the nature of a _mulct or acknowledgment rendered, for unconscious or inevitable disregard of ceremonial liabilities, and contraction of ceremonial uncleanness_. Such uncleanness might be incurred from various causes; and while unremoved by the appointed methods of purification, disqualified from attendance at the sanctuary, and “cut off” “the guilty” “from among the congregation.” To touch a dead body, to enter a tent where a corpse lay, rendered a person “unclean for seven days;” to come in contact with a forbidden animal, a bone, a grave; to be next to any one struck with sudden death; to be afflicted with certain kinds of bodily disease and infirmity; unwittingly to lay a finger on a person unclean, occasioned defilement, and necessitated a purification or an atonement.[370] Independently of these offences, enforced upon the Israelite by the accidents of life, it was not easy for even the most cautious worshipper to keep pace with the complicated series of petty debts which the law of ordinances was always running up against him. If his offering had an invisible blemish; if he omitted a tithe, because “he wist it not;” or inadvertently fell into arrear, by a single day, with respect to a known liability; if absent from disease, he was compelled to let his ritual account accumulate; “though it be hidden from him,” he must “be guilty, and bear his iniquity,” and bring his victim.[371] On the birth of a child, the mother, after the lapse of a prescribed period, made her pilgrimage to the temple, presented her sin-offering, and “the priest made atonement for her.”[372] The poor leper, long banished from the face of men, and unclean by the nature of his disease, became a debtor to the sanctuary, and on return from his tedious quarantine, brought his lamb of atonement, and departed thence, clear from neglected obligations to his law.[373] It was impossible, however, to provide by specific enactment for every case of ritual transgression and impurity, arising from inadvertency or necessity. Scarcely could it be expected that the courts of worship themselves would escape defilement, from imperfections in the offerings, or unconscious disqualification in people or in priest. To clear off the whole invisible residue of such sins, an annual “day of atonement” was appointed; the people thronged the avenues and approaches of the tabernacle; in their presence a kid was slain for their own transgressions, and for the high-priest the more dignified expiation of a heifer: charged with the blood of each successively, he sprinkled not only the exterior altar open to the sky, but, passing through the first and Holy chamber into the Holy of Holies, (never entered else), he touched, with finger dipped in blood, the sacred lid (the Mercy-seat) and foreground of the Ark.[374] At that moment, while he yet lingers behind the veil, the purification is complete; on no worshipper of Israel does any legal unholiness rest; and were it possible for the high-priest to remain in that interior retreat of Jehovah, still protracting the expiatory act, so long would this national purity continue, and the debt of ordinances be effaced as it arose. But he must return; the sanctifying rite must end; the people be dismissed; the priests resume the daily ministrations; the law open its stern account afresh; and in the mixture of national exactitude and neglects, defilements multiply again till the recurring anniversary lifts off the burden once more. Every year, then, the necessity comes round of “making atonement for the Holy sanctuary,” “for the tabernacle,” “for the altar,” “for the priests, and for all the people of the congregation.” Yet, though requiring periodical renewal, the rite, so far as it went, had an efficacy which no Hebrew could deny; for ceremonial sins, unconscious or inevitable (to which all atonement was limited[375]), it was accepted as an indemnity; and put it beyond doubt that Mosaic obedience was commutable.

Such was the system of ideas, by availing himself of which the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews would persuade his correspondents to forsake their legal observances. “You can look without uneasiness,” he suggests, “on your ritual omissions, when the blood of some victim has been presented instead, and the penetralia of your sanctuary have been sprinkled with the offering: well, on no other terms would I soothe your anxiety; precisely such equivalent sacrifice does Christianity exhibit, only of so peculiar a nature, that for _all_ ceremonial neglects, intentional no less than inadvertent, you may rely upon indemnity.” The Jews entertained a belief respecting their temple, which enabled the writer to give a singular force and precision to his analogy. They conceived, that the tabernacle of their worship was but the copy of a divine structure, devised by God himself, made by no created hand, and preserved eternally in heaven: this was “the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man;” which no mortal had beheld, except Moses in the mount that he might “make all things according to that pattern;”[376] within whose Holy of Holies dwelt no emblem or emanation of God’s presence, but his own immediate Spirit; and the celestial furniture of which required, in proportion to its dignity, the purification of a nobler sacrifice, and the ministrations of a diviner priest, than befitted the “worldly sanctuary”[377] below. And who then can mistake the meaning of Christ’s departure from this world, or doubt what office he conducts above? He is called by his ascension to the Pontificate of heaven; consecrated, “not after the law of any carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life;”[378] he drew aside the veil of his mortality, and passed into the inmost court of God: and as he must needs “have somewhat to offer,”[379] he takes the only blood he had ever shed,—which was his own,—and like the high-priest before the Mercy-seat, sanctifies therewith the people that stand without, “redeeming the transgressions” which “the first covenant” of rites entailed.[380] And he has not returned; still is he hid within that holiest place; and still the multitude he serves turn thither a silent and expectant gaze; he prolongs the purification still; and while he appears not, no other rites can be resumed, nor any legal defilement be contracted. Thus, meanwhile, ordinances cease their obligation, and the sin against them has lost its power. How different this from the offerings of Jerusalem, whose temple was but the “symbol and shadow” of that sanctuary above.[381] In the Hebrew “sacrifices there was a remembrance again made of sins every year;”[382] “the high-priest annually entered the holy place;”[383] being but a mortal, he could not go in with his own blood and _remain_ but must take that of other creatures and _return_; and hence it became “not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should _take away_ sins,”[384] for instantly they began to accumulate again. But to the very nature of Christ’s offering, a perpetuity of efficacy belongs; bearing no other than _his own_ blood,” he was immortal when his ministration began, and “ever liveth to make his intercession;[385] he could “not offer himself often, for then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world,”—and “it is appointed unto men _only once_ to die:” so that “_once for all_ he entered into the holy place, and obtained a redemption that is _perpetual_;” “_once_ in the end of the world hath he appeared, and by sacrificing himself hath absolutely _put away_ sin;” “this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins, for ever sat down on the right hand of God,” “for by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified,”[386] The ceremonial then, with its periodical transgressions, and atonements, is suspended; the services of the outer tabernacle cease, for the holiest of all is made manifest;[387] one who is “priest for ever” dwells therein: one “consecrated for evermore,” “holy, harmless, undefiled, in his celestial dwelling quite separate from sinners;[388] who needeth not _daily_, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people’s; for this he did _once for all_ when he offered up himself.”[389]

Nor is it in its perpetuity alone, that the efficacy of the Christian sacrifice transcends the atonements of the law; it removes a higher order of ritual transgressions. It cannot be supposed, indeed, that Messiah’s life is no nobler offering than that of a creature from the herd or flock, and will confer no more immunity. Accordingly, it goes beyond those “_sins of ignorance_,” those ceremonial inadvertences, for which alone there was remission in Israel; and reaches to _voluntary_ neglects of the sacerdotal ordinances; ensuring indemnity for legal omissions, when incurred not simply by the accidents of the flesh, but even by intention of the conscience. This is no greater boon than the dignity of the sacrifice requires; and does but give to his people below that living relation of soul to God, which he himself sustains above. “If the blood of bulls and of goats ... sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purify (even) your conscience from dead works (ritual observances) to serve the living God!”[390] Let then the ordinances go, and the Lord “put his laws _into the mind_ and write them _in the heart_;” and let all have “boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by this new and living way which he hath consecrated for us;” “provoking each other to love and to good works.”[391]

See, then, in brief, the objection of the Hebrews to the gospel; and the reply of their instructor. They said; “What a blank is this; you have no temple, no priest, no ritual! How is it that, in his ancient covenant, God is so strict about ceremonial service, and permits no neglect, however incidental, without atonement; yet in this new economy, throws the whole system away; letting us run up an everlasting debt to a law confessedly unrepealed, without redemption of it, or atonement for it?”

“Not without redemption and atonement,” replies their evangelical teacher; “temple, sacrifice, priest, remain to us also, only glorified into proportions worthy of a heavenly dispensation; our temple, in the skies; our sacrifice, Messiah’s mortal person; our priest, his ever-living spirit. How poor the efficacy of your former offerings! year after year, your ritual debt began again: for the blood dried and vanished from the tabernacle which it purified; the priest returned from the inner shrine; and when there, he stood, with the interceding blood, before the emblem, not the reality of God. But Christ, not at the end of a year, but at the end of the great world-era of the Lord, has come to offer up himself,—no lamb so unblemished as he; his voluntary and immortal spirit, than which was nothing ever more divinely consecrate, becomes officiating priest, and strikes his own person with immolating blow; it falls and bleeds on earth, as on the outer altar, standing on the threshold of the sanctuary of heaven: thither he ascends with the memorials of his death, vanishes into the Holy of Holies of the skies, presents himself before the very living God, and sanctifies the temple there and worshippers here: saying to us, ‘drop now for ever the legal burdens that weigh you down; doubt not that you are free, as my glorified spirit here, from the defilements you are wont to dread; I stay behind this veil of visible things to clear you of all such taint, and put away such sin eternally. Trust then in me, and take up the freedom of your souls: burst the dead works, that cling round your conscience like cerements of the grave; and rise to me, by the living power of duty, and loving allegiance to God.’”

So far then, as the death of Christ is treated in scripture dogmatically, rather than historically, its effects are viewed in contrast with the different order of things which must have been expected, had he, as Messiah, _not_ died. And thus regarded, it presented itself to the minds of the Apostles in three relations;

First, to the Gentiles, whom it drew in to be subjects of the Messiah, by breaking down the barriers of his Hebrew personality, and rendering him spiritual as well as immortal.

Secondly, to the unbelieving Jews; whom his retirement from this world delivered from the judgment due to them, on the principles of their own law, both for their _general_ violation of the _conditions_ of their covenant, and for their positive rejection of him. His absence re-opened their opportunities; and to tender them this act of long-suffering, he took on himself the death which had been incurred by them.

Thirdly, to the believing Jews; the terms of whose discipleship the Messiah’s death had changed, destroying all the benefits of their lineage, and substituting an act of the mind, the simpler claim of faith. It was therefore a commutation for the Ritual Law, and gave them impunity and atonement for all its violations.

With the last two of these relations, beyond their remarkable historical interest, we have no personal concern. The first remains, and ever will remain, worthy of the glorious joy, with which Paul regarded and expounded it. God has committed the rule of this world to no exclusive Prince, and no sacerdotal power, and no earthly majesty; but to one whose spirit, too divine to be limited to place and time, broke through clouds of sorrow into the clearest heaven; and thither has since been drawing our human love, though for ages now he has been unseen and immortal. An impartial God, a holy and spiritual Law, an infinite hope for all men,—are given to us by that generous cross.

It is evident that all three of the relations which I have described, belonged to the death of Jesus, _in his capacity of Messiah_; and could have had no existence, if he had not borne this character, but had been simply a private martyr to his convictions. The foregoing exposition gives a direct answer to the inquiry, pressed without the slightest pertinence upon the Unitarian, why the phraseology of the cross is never found applied to Paul or Peter, or any other noble confessor, who died in attestation of the truth; why “no record is given that we are justified by the blood of Stephen; or that he bare our sins in his own body, and made reconciliation for us.”[392] I know not why such a question should be submitted to us; we have assuredly no concern with it; having never dreamt that the Apostles could have written as they did respecting the death on Calvary, if they had thought of it only as a scene of martyrdom. We have passed under review the whole language of the New Testament on this subject; and in the interpretation of it have _not even once_ had recourse to this, which is said to be our only view of the cross. We have seen the apostles justly announcing their Lord’s death, as a _proper propitiation_; because it placed whole classes of men, without any meritorious change in their character, in saving relations: declaring it a _strict substitute_ for others’ punishment; on the ground that there were those who must have perished, if he had not; and that he died and retired, that they might remain and live: describing it as a _sacrifice which put away sin_; because it did that for ever, which the Levitical atonements achieved for a day: but we have not found them ever appealing to it either as a satisfaction to the justice of God, or an example of martyrdom to men. The Trinitarians have one idea of this event themselves; and their fancy provides their opponents with one idea of it; of the former not a trace exists, on any page of Scripture; and of the latter, the Unitarian need not avail himself at all, in explaining the language, whereof it is said to be his solitary key.

Nowhere, then, in Scripture do we meet with anything corresponding with the prevailing notions of vicarious redemption; everywhere, and most emphatically in the personal instructions of our Lord, do we find a doctrine of forgiveness, and an idea of salvation, utterly inconsistent with it. He spake often of the unqualified clemency of God to his returning children; never once of the satisfaction demanded by his justice. He spake of the joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth; but was silent on the sacrificial faith, without which penitence is said to be unavailing. Nor did he, like his modern disciples, teach that there are _two separate salvations_, which must follow each other in a fixed order; first, redemption from the penalty, secondly from the spirit, of sin; pardon for the past, before sanctification in the present; a removal of the “hindrance in God,” previous to its annihilation in ourselves. If indeed there were in Christianity two deliverances, discriminating and successive, it would be more in accordance with its spirit to invert this order;—to recal from alienation first, and announce forgiveness afterwards; to restore from guilt, before cancelling the penalty; and permit the _healing_ to anticipate the _pardoning_ love. At least, there would seem, in such arrangement, to be a greater jealousy for the holiness of the divine law, a severer reservation of God’s complacency for those who have broken from the service of sin, than in the system, which proclaims impunity to the rebel will, ere yet its estrangement is renounced. If the outward remission precedes the inward sanctification, then does God admit to favour the yet unsanctified; guilt keeps us in no exile from him: and though the holy Spirit is to follow afterwards, it becomes the peculiar office of the cross to lift us as we are, with every stain upon the soul and every vile habit unretraced, from the brink of perdition to the assurance of glory: the divine lot is given to us, before the divine love is awakened in us; and the heirs of heaven have yet to become the children of holiness. With what consistency can the advocates of such an economy accuse its opponents of dealing lightly with sin, of deluding men into a false trust, and administering seductive flatteries to human nature?[393] What! shall we, who plant in every soul of sin a Hell, whence no foreign force, no external God, can pluck us, any more than they can tear us from our identity;—we, who hide the fires of torment in no viewless gulf, but make them ubiquitous as guilt;—we, who suffer no outward agent from Eden, or the Abyss, or Calvary, to encroach upon the solitude of man’s responsibility, and confuse the simplicity of conscience;—we, who teach that God will not, and even cannot, spare the froward, till they be froward no more, but must permit the burning lash to fall, till they cry aloud for mercy, and throw themselves freely into his embrace;—shall we be rebuked for a lax administration of peace, by those who think that a moment may turn the alien into the elect? It is no flattery of our nature, to reverence deeply its moral capacities: we only discern in them the more solemn trust; and see in their abuse the fouler shame. And it is not of what men _are_, but of what they _might be_, that we encourage noble and cheerful thoughts. Doubtless, we think exaggeration possible (which our opponents apparently do not) even in the portraiture of their actual character: and perhaps we are not the less likely to awaken true convictions of sin, that we strive to speak of it with the voice of discriminative justice, instead of the monotonous thunders of vengeance; and to draw its image in the natural tints provided by the conscience, rather than in the præternatural flame-colour mingled in the crucibles of Hell.