II. I proceed to notice the inconsistency of the doctrine under review with the Christian idea of salvation.
There is onesignificant Scriptural fact, which suggests to us the best mode of treating this part of our subject. It is this: that the language supposed to teach the atoning efficacy of the cross does not appear in the New Testament till the Gentile controversy commences, nor ever occurs apart from the treatment of that subject, under some of its relations. The cause of this phenomenon will presently appear; meanwhile I state it, in the place of an assertion sometimes incorrectly made, viz. that the phraseology in question is confined to the Epistles. Even this mechanical limitation of sacrificial passages is indeed nearly true, as not above three or four have strayed beyond the epistolary boundary into the Gospels and the book of Acts; but the restriction in respect of subject, which I have stated, will be found, I believe, to be absolutely exact, and to furnish the real interpretation to the whole system of language.
(1.) Let us then first test the vicarious scheme by reference to the sentiments of Scripture generally, and of our Lord and his Apostles especially, where this controversy is out of the way. Are their ideas respecting human character, the forgiveness of sin, the terms of everlasting life, accordant with the cardinal notions of a believer in the atonement? Do they, or do they not, insist on the necessity of a sacrifice for human sin, as a preliminary to pardon, to sanctification, to the love of God? Do they, or do they not, direct a marked and almost exclusive attention to the cross, as the object to which, far more than to the life and resurrection of our Lord, all faithful eyes should be directed?
(a.) Now to the fundamental assertion of the vicarious system, that the Deity cannot, without inconsistency and imperfection, pardon on simple repentance, the whole tenor of the Bible is one protracted and unequivocal contradiction. So copious is its testimony on this head, that if the passages containing it were removed, scarcely a shred of Scripture relating to the subject would remain. "Pardon, I beseech thee," said Moses, pleading for the Israelites, "the iniquity of this people, according to the greatness of thy mercy, and as thou hast forgiven this people from Egypt even until now. And the Lord said,I have pardoned according to thy word." Will it be affirmed, that this chosen people had their eyes perpetually fixed in faith on the great propitiation, which was to close their dispensation, and of which their own ceremonial was a type?—that whenever penitence and pardon are named amongst them, this reference is implied, and that as this faith was called to mind and expressed in the shedding of blood at the altar, such sacrificial offerings take the place, in Judaism, of the atoning trust in Christianity? Well, then, let us quit the chosen nation altogether, and go to a heathen people, who were aliens to their laws, their blood, their hopes, and their religion; to whom no sacrifice was appointed, and no Messiah promised. If we can discover the dealings of God with such a people, the case, I presume, must be deemed conclusive. Hear, then, what happened on the banks of the Tigris. "Jonah began to enter into the city," (Nineveh,) "and he cried and said, yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown. So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even unto the least of them." "Who can tell," (said the decree of the king ordaining the fast,) "if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not? And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil that he had said he would do unto them; and he did it not." And when the prophet was offended, first at this clemency to Nineveh, and afterwards that the canker was sent to destroyhis own favorite plant, beneath whose shadow he sat, what did Jehovah say? "Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for which thou hast not labored, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night and perished in a night; and should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand?"—and who are not likely, one would think, to have discerned the future merits of the Redeemer.
In truth, if even the Israelites had any such prospective views to Calvary, if their sacrifices conveyed the idea of the cross erected there, and were established for this purpose, the fact must have been privately revealed to modern theologians; for not a trace of it can be found in the Hebrew writings. It must be thought strange, that a prophetic reference so habitual should be always a secret reference; that a faith so fundamental should be so mysteriously suppressed; that the uppermost idea of a nation's mind should never have found its way to lips or pen. "But if it were not so," we are reminded, "if the Jewish ritual prefigured nothing ulterior, it was revolting, trifling, savage; its worship a butchery, and the temple courts no better than a slaughter-house." And were they not equally so, though the theory of types be true? If neither priest nor people couldsee at the timethe very thing which the ceremonial was constructed to reveal, what advantage is it that divines can see itnow? And even if the notion was conveyed to the Jewish mind, (which the whole history shows not to have been the fact,) was it necessary that hecatombs should be slain, age after age, to intimate obscurely an idea, which one brief sentence might have lucidly expressed? The idea, however, it is evident, slipped through after all; for when Messiah actually came, the one great thing which the Jews didnotknow and believe about him was, that he could die at all. So much for the preparatory discipline of fifteen centuries!
There is no reason, then, why anything should be supplied in our thoughts, to alter the plain meaning of the announcementsof prophets and holy men, of God's unconditional forgiveness on repentance. "Thou desirest not sacrifice, else would I give it; thou delightest not in burnt-offering; the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise." "Wash you, make you clean," says the prophet Isaiah in the name of the Lord; "put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes, cease to do evil, learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow. Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord; though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." Once more, "When I say unto the wicked, thou shalt surely die; if he turn from his sin, and do that which is lawful and right; if the wicked restore the pledge, give again that he hath robbed, walk in the statutes of life without committing iniquity; he shall surely live, he shall not die." Nor are the teachings of the Gospel at all less explicit. Our Lord treats largely and expressly on the doctrine of forgiveness in several parables, and especially that of the prodigal son; and omits all allusion to the propitiation for the past. He furnishes an express definition of the terms of eternal life: "Good master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life? And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good save one, that is God; but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments." And Jesus adds, "If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me." This silence on the prime condition of pardon cannot be explained by the fact, that the crucifixion had not yet taken place, and could not safely be alluded to, before the course of events had brought it into prominent notice. For we have the preaching of the Apostles, after the ascension, recorded at great length, and under very various circumstances, in the book of Acts. We have the very "words whereby," according to the testimony of an angel, "Cornelius and all his house shall be saved"; these, one would think,would be worth hearing in this cause: "God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost, and with power; who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the Devil, for God was with him. And we are witnesses of all things which he did, both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem; whom they slew and hanged on a tree. Him God raised up the third day, and showed openly; not to all the people, but unto witnesses chosen before of God, even to us, who did eat and drink with him after he rose from the dead. And he commanded us to preach unto the people, and to testify that it is he who was ordained of God to be the judge of quick and dead. To him give all the prophets witness, that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins." Did an Evangelical missionary dare to preach in this style now, he would be immediately disowned by his employers, and dismissed as a disguised Socinian, who kept back all the "peculiar doctrines of the Gospel."
(b.) The emphatic mention of the resurrection by the Apostle Peter in this address, is only a particular instance of a system which pervades the whole preaching of the first missionaries of Christ.This, and not the cross, with its supposed effects, is the grand object to which they call the attention and the faith of their hearers. I cannot quote to you the whole book of Acts; but every reader knows, that "Jesus and the resurrection" constitutes the leading theme, the central combination of ideas in all its discourses. This truth was shed, from Peter's tongue of fire, on the multitudes that heard amazed the inspiration of the day of Pentecost. Again, it was his text, when, passing beneath the beautiful gate, he made the cripple leap for joy; and then, with the flush of this deed still fresh upon him, leaned against a pillar in Solomon's porch, and spake in explanation to the awe-struck people, thronging in at the hour of prayer. Before priests and rulers, before Sanhedrim and populace, the same tale is told again, to the utter exclusion, be it observed, of the essential doctrine of the cross. The authorities of the temple,we are told, were galled and terrified at the Apostle's preaching; "naturally enough," it will be said, "since, the real sacrifice having been offered, their vocation, which was to make the prefatory and typical oblation, was threatened with destruction." But no, this is not the reason given: "They were grieved because they preached, through Jesus, the resurrection from the dead." Paul, too, while his preaching was spontaneous and free, and until he had to argue certain controversies which have long ago become obsolete, manifested a no less remarkable predilection for this topic. Before Felix, he declares what was the grand indictment of his countrymen against him: "Touching the resurrection of the dead, I am called in question of you this day." Follow him far away from his own land; and, with foreigners, he harps upon the same subject, as if he were a man of one idea; which, indeed, according to our opponents' scheme, he ought to have been, only it should have beenanother idea. Seldom, however, can we meet with a more exuberant mind than Paul's; yet the resurrection obviously haunts him wherever he goes: in the synagogue of Antioch you hear him dwelling on it with all the energy of his inspiration; and, at Athens, it was this on which the scepticism of Epicureans and Stoics fastened for a scoff. In his Epistles, too, where he enlarges so much on justification by faith, when we inquire what precisely is this faith, and what the object it is to contemplate and embrace, this remarkable fact presents itself: that the one only important thing respecting Christ, which isnever oncementioned as the object of justifying faith, ishis death,and blood,and cross. "Faith" by itself, the "faith of Jesus Christ," "faith of the Gospel," "faith of the Son of God," are expressions of constant occurrence; and wherever this general description is replaced by a more specific account of this justifying state of mind, it isfaith in the resurrectionon which attention is fastened. "It is Christ that died,yea, rather, that is risen again." "He was delivered for our offences, andraised again for our justification." "Faith shall be imputed to us for righteousness, if we believe onhim that raised up Jesus ourLord from the dead." Hear, too, the Apostle's definition of saving faith: "If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thy heartthat God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." The only instance in which the writings of St. Paul appear to associate the word faith with the death of Christ, is the following text: "Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood"; and in this case the Apostle's meaning would, I conceive, be more faithfully given by destroying this conjunction, and disposing the words thus: "Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation by his blood, through faith." The idea of hisblood, ordeath, belongs to the word propitiation, not to the word faith. To this translation no Trinitarian scholar, I am persuaded, can object;[15]and when the true meaning of the writer's sacrificial language is explained, the distinction will appear to be not unimportant. At present I am concerned only with the defence of my position, that the death of Christ is never mentioned as the object of saving faith; but that his resurrection unquestionably is. This phenomenon in Scripture phraseology is so extraordinary, so utterly repugnant to everything which a hearer of orthodox preaching would expect, that I hardly expect my affirmation of it to be believed. The two ideas offaith, and of ourLord's death, are so naturally and perpetually united in the mind of every believer in the atonement, that it must appear to him incredible that they should never fall together in the writings of the Apostles. However, I have stated my fact; and it is for you to bring it to the test of Scripture.
(c.) Independently of all written testimony, moral reasons, we are assured, exist, which render an absolute remission for the past essential to a regenerated life for the future. Our human nature is said to be so constituted, that the burdenof sin, on the conscience once awakened, is intolerable; our spirit cries aloud for mercy; yet is so straitened by the bands of sin, so conscious of the sad alliance lingering still, so full of hesitancy and shame when seeking the relief of prayer, so blinded by its tears when scanning the heavens for an opening of light and hope, that there is no freedom, no unrestrained and happy love to God; but a pinched and anxious mind, bereft of power, striving to work with bandaged or paralytic will, instead of trusting itself to loosened and self-oblivious affections. Hence it is thought, that the sin of the past must be cancelled, before the holiness of the future can be commenced; that it is a false order to represent repentance as leading to pardon, because to be forgiven is the prerequisite to love. We cannot forget, however, how distinctly and emphatically he who, after God, best knew what is in man, has contradicted this sentiment; for when that sinful woman, whose presence in the house shocked the sanctimonious Pharisee, stood at his feet as he reclined, washing them with her tears, and kissing them with reverential lips, Jesus turned to her and said, "Her sins, which are many, are forgiven;forshe loved much." From him, then, we learn, what our own hearts would almost teach, that love may be the prelude to forgiveness, as well as forgiveness the preparative for love.
At the same time let me acknowledge, that this statement respecting the moral effects of conscious pardon, to which I have invoked Jesus to reply, is by no means an unmixed error. It touches upon a very profound and important truth; and I can never bring myself to regard that assurance of Divine forgiveness, which the doctrine of atonement imparts, as a demoralizing state of mind, encouraging laxity of conscience and a continuance in sin. The sense of pardon, doubtless, reaches the secret springs of gratitude, presents the soul with an object, strange before, of new and divine affection, and binds the child of redemption, by all generous and filial obligations, to serve with free and willing heart the God who hath gone forth to meet him. That the motives of self-interestare diminished in such a case, is a trifle that need occasion small anxiety. For the human heart is no laborer for hire; and, where there is opportunity afforded for true and noble love, will thrust away the proffered wages, and toil rather in a free and thankful spirit. If we are to compare, as a source of duty, the grateful with the merely prudential temper, rather may we trust the first, as not the worthier only, but the stronger too; and till we obtain emancipation from the latter,—forget the computations of hope and fear, and precipitate ourselves for better or for worse on some object of divine love and trust,—our nature will be puny and weak, our wills will turn in sickness from their duty, and our affections shrink in aversion from their heaven. But though personal gratitude is better than prudence, there is a higher service still. A more disinterested love may spring from the contemplation of what God is in himself, than from the recollection of what he has done for us; and when this mingles most largely as an element among our springs of action; when, humbled indeed by a knowledge of dangers that await us, and thankful, too, for the blessings spread around us, we yet desire chiefly to be fitting children of the everlasting Father and the holy God; when we venerate him for the graciousness, and purity, and majesty of his spirit, impersonated in Jesus, and resolve to serve him truly,beforehe has granted the desire of our heart, and because he is of a nature so sublime and merciful and good;—then are we in the condition of her who bent over the feet of Christ; and we are forgiven, because we have loved much.
(2.) Let us now, in conclusion, turn our attention to those portions of the New Testament which speak of the death of Christ as the means of redemption.
I have said, that these are to be found exclusively in passages of the sacred writings which treat of the Gentile controversy, or of topics immediately connected with it. This controversy arose naturally out of the design of Providence to make the narrow, exclusive, ceremonial system of Judaism give birth to the universal and spiritual religion of the Gospel;from God's method of expanding the Hebrew Messiah into the Saviour of humanity. For this the nation was not prepared; to this even the Hebrew Christians could not easily conform their faith; and in the achievement of this, or in persuading the world that it was achieved, did Paul spend his noble life, and write his astonishing Epistles. The Jews knew that the Deliverer was to be of their peculiar stock, and their royal lineage; they believed that he would gather upon himself all the singularities of their race, and be a Hebrew to intensity; that he would literally restore the kingdom to Israel; ay, and extend it too, immeasurably beyond the bounds of its former greatness; till, in fact, it swallowed up all existing principalities, and powers, and thrones, and dominions, and became coextensive with the earth. Then in Jerusalem, as the centre of the vanquished nations, before the temple, as the altar of a humbled world, did they expect the Messiah to erect his throne; and when he had taken the seat of judgment, to summon all the tribes before his tribunal, and pass on the Gentiles, excepting the few who might submit to the law, a sentence of perpetual exclusion from his realm; while his own people would be invited to the seats of honor, occupy the place of authority, and sit down with him (the greatest at his right hand and his left) at his table in his kingdom. The holy men of old were to come on earth again to see this day. And many thought that every part of the realm thus constituted, and all its inhabitants, would never die: but, like the Messiah himself, and the patriarchs whom he was to call to life, would be invested with immortality. None were to be admitted to these golden days except themselves; all else to be left in outer darkness from this region of light, and there to perish and be seen no more. The grand title to admission was conformity with the Mosaic law; the most ritually scrupulous were the most secure; and the careless Israelite, who forgot or omitted an offering, a tithe, a Sabbath duty, might incur the penalty of exclusion and death: the law prescribed such mortal punishment for the smallest offence; and no one, therefore, could feel himself ready withhis claim, if he had not yielded a perfect obedience. If God were to admit him on any other plea, it would be of pure grace and goodness, and not in fulfilment of any promise.
The Jews, being scattered over the civilized world, and having synagogues in every city, came into perpetual contact with other people. Nor was it possible that the Gentiles, among whom they lived, should notice the singular purity and simplicity of the Israelitish Theism, without some of them being struck with its spirit, attracted by its sublime principles, and disposed to place themselves in religious relations with that singular people. Having been led into admiration, and even profession, of the nation's theology, they could not but desire to share their hopes; which indeed were an integral part of their religion, and, at the Christian era, the one element in it to which they were most passionately attached. But this was a stretch of charity too great for any Hebrew; or, at all events, if such admission were ever to be thought of, it must be only on condition of absolute submission to the requirements of the law. The Gentile would naturally plead, that, as God had not made him of the chosen nation, he had given him no law, except that of conscience; that, being without the law, he must be a law unto himself; and that, if he had lived according to his light, he could not be justly excluded on the ground of accidental disqualification. Possibly, in the provocation of dispute, the Gentile might sometimes become froward and insolent in his assertion of claim; and, in the pride of his heart, demand as a right that which, at most, could only be humbly hoped for as a privilege and a free gift.
Thus were the parties mutually placed to whom the Deliverer came. Thus dense and complicated was the web of prejudice which clung round the early steps of the Gospel; and which must be burst or disentangled ere the glad tidings could have free course and be glorified. How did Providence develop from such elements the divine and everlasting truth? Not by neglecting them, and speaking to mankind as if they had no such ideas; not by forbidding his messengers andteachers to have any patience with them; but, on the contrary, by using these very notions as temporary means to his everlasting ends; by touching this and that with light before the eyes of Apostles, as if to say, there are good capabilities in these; the truth may be educed from them so gently and so wisely, that the world will find itself in light, without perceiving how it has been quitting the darkness.
So long as Christ remained on earth, he necessarily confined his ministry to his nation. He would not have been the Messiah had he done otherwise. By birth, by lineage, by locality, by habit, he was altogether theirs. Whoever, then, of his own people, during his mortal life, believed in him and followed him, became a subject of the Messiah; ready, it was supposed, even by the Apostles themselves, to enter the glory of his kingdom, whenever it should please him to assume it; qualified at once, by the combination of pedigree and of belief, to enter into life, to become a member of the kingdom of God, to take a place among the elect; for by all these phrases was described the admission to the expected realm. If, then, Jesus had never suffered and died, if he had never retired from this world, but stayed to fulfil the anticipations of his first followers, his Messianic kingdom might have included all the converts of the Israelitish stock. From the exclusion which fell on others, they would have obtained salvation. Hence, it is never in connection with the first Jewish Christians that thedeath of Christis mentioned.
It was otherwise, however, with the Gentiles. They could not become his followers in his mortal lifetime; and had a Messianic reignthenbeen set up, they must have been excluded; no missionary would have been justified in addressing them with invitation; they could not, as it was said, have entered into life. The Messiah must cease to be Jewish, before he could become universal; and this implied his death, by which alone the personal relations, which made him the property of a nation, could be annihilated. To this he submitted; he disrobed himself of his corporeality, he becamean immortal spirit; thereby instantly burst his religion open to the dimensions of the world; and, as he ascended to the skies, sent it forth to scatter the seeds of blessing over the field of the world, long ploughed with cares, and moist with griefs, and softened now to nourish in its bosom the tree of Life.
Now, how would the effect of this great revolution be described to the proselyte Gentiles, so long vainly praying for admission to the Israelitish hope. At once it destroyed their exclusion; put away as valueless the Jewish claims of circumcision and law; nailed the handwriting of ordinances to the cross; reconciled them that had been afar off; redeemed them to God by his blood, out of every tongue, and kindred, and people, and nation; washed them in his blood; justified themby his resurrection and ascension; an expression, I would remark, unmeaning on any other explanation.
Even during our Lord's personal ministry his approaching death is mentioned as the means of introducing the Gentiles into his Messianic kingdom. He adverts repeatedly to his cross, as designed to widen, by their admission, the extent of his sway; and, according to Scripture phrase, to yield to him "much fruit." He was already on his last fatal visit to Jerusalem, when, taking the hint fromthe visit of some Greeks to him, he exclaimed: "The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified. Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: butif it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." He adds, in allusion to the death he should die: "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will drawall men unto me." It is for this end that he resigns for a while his life,—that he may bring in the wanderers who are not of the commonwealth of Israel: "Other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold and one shepherd:therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I may take it again." Many a parable did Jesus utter, proclaiming his Father's intended mercy to the uncovenantednations: but for himself personally he declared, "I am not sent, but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." His advent was a promise oftheireconomy; his office, the traditionary hope of their fathers; his birth, his life, his person, were under the Law, and excluded him from relations to those who were beyond its obligations. On the cross, all the connate peculiarities of the Nazarene ceased to exist: when the seal of the sepulchre gave way, the seal of the law was broken too; the nationality of his person passed away; for how can an immortal be a Jew? This, then, was the time to open wide the scope of his mission, and to invite to God's acceptance those that fear him in every nation. Though, before, the disciple might "have known Christ after the flesh," and followed his steps as the Hebrew Messiah, "yet now henceforth was he to know him so no more"; these "old things had passed away," since he had "died for all,"—died to become universal,—to drop all exclusive relations, and "reconcile the world," the Gentile world, to God. Observe to whom this "ministry of reconciliation" is especially confided. As if to show that it is exclusivelythe risen Christwho belongs to all men, and that his death was the instrument of the Gentiles' admission, their great Apostle was one Paul, who had not known the Saviour in his mortal life; who never listened to his voice till it spake from heaven; who himself was the convert of his ascension; and bore to him the relation, not of subject to the person of a Hebrew king, but of spirit to spirit, unembarrassed by anything earthly, legal, or historical. Well did Paul understand the freedom and the sanctity of this relation; and around the idea of the Heavenly Messiah gathered all his conceptions of the spirituality of the Gospel, of its power over the unconscious affections, rather than a reluctant will. His believing countrymen were afraid to disregard the observances of the law, lest it should be a disloyalty to God, and disqualify them for the Messiah's welcome, when he came to take his power and reign. Paul tells them, that, while their Lord remained in this mortal state, they were right; as representative of the law, and fillingan office created by the religion of Judaism, he could not but have held themthento its obligations; nor could they, without infidelity, have neglected its claims, any more than a wife can innocently separate herself from a living husband. But as the death of the man sets the woman free, and makes null the law of their union, so the decease of Christ's body emancipates his followers from all legal relations to him; and they are at liberty to wed themselves anew to the risen Christ, who dwells where no ordinance is needful, no tie permitted but of the spirit, and all are as the angels of God. Surely, then, this mode of conception explains why the death of Jesus constitutes a great date in the Christian economy, especially as expounded by the friend and Apostle of those who were not "Jews by nature, but sinners of the Gentiles." Had he never died, they must have remained aliens from his sway; the enemies against whom his power must be directed; without hope in the day of his might; strangers to God and his vicegerent.
But, while thus they "were yet without strength, Christ died for" these "ungodly"; died to put himself into connection with them, else impossible; and, rising from death, drew them after him into spiritual existence on earth, analogous to that which he passed in heaven. "You," says their Apostle, "being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him"; giving you, as "risen with him," a life above the world and its law of exclusion,—a life not "subject to ordinances," but of secret love and heavenly faith, "hid with Christ in God"; "blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and taking it out of the way, nailing it to his cross." God had never intended to perpetuate the division between Israel and the world, receiving the one as the sons, and shutting out the other as the slaves of his household. If there had been an appearance of such partiality, he had always designed to set these bondmen free, and to make them "heirs of God through Christ"; "in whom they had redemption through his blood" from theirservile state, the forgiveness of disqualifying sins, according to the riches of his grace. Though the Hebrews boasted that "theirs was the adoption," and till Messiah's death had boasted truly; yet in that event God, "before the foundation of the world," had "blessed us" (Gentiles) "with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places"; "having predestinated us unto the adoption of children, by Jesus Christ, according" (not indeed to any right or promise, but) "to the good pleasure of his will," "and when we were enemies, having reconciled us, by the death of his Son"; "that in the fulness of times he might gather together in oneall thingsin Christ"; "by whom we" (Gentiles) "have now received this atonement" (reconciliation); that he might have no partial empire, but that "in him might all fulness dwell." "Wherefore," says their Apostle, "remember that ye,Gentiles in the flesh, were in time past without Messiah, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenant of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world; but now in Christ Jesus, ye, who sometime were afar off, are made nigh by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us" (not between God and man, but between Jew and Gentile); "having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments, contained in ordinances; for to make in himself, of twain, one new man, somaking peace; and that he might reconcile both unto God, in one body, by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby; and came and preached peace to you who were afar off, as well as to them that were nigh. For through him we both have an access by one spirit unto the Father."
The way, then, is clear and intelligible, in which the death and ascension of the Messiah rendered him universal, by giving spirituality to his rule; and, on the simple condition of faith, added the uncovenanted nations to his dominion, so far as they were willing to receive him. This idea, and this only, will be found in almost every passage of the New Testament (excepting the Epistle to the Hebrews) usually adducedto prove the doctrine of the Atonement. Some of the strongest of these I have already quoted; and my readers must judge whether they have received a satisfactory meaning. There are others, in which the Gentiles are not so distinctly stated to be the sole objects of the redemption of the cross; but with scarcely an exception, so far as I can discover, this limitation is implied, and either creeps out through some adjacent expression in the context, or betrays itself, when we recur to the general course of the Apostle's argument, or to the character and circumstances of his correspondents. Thus Paul says, that Christ "gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time"; the next verse shows what is in his mind, when he adds, "whereuntoI am ordained a preacher, and an Apostle, a teacher ofthe Gentilesin faith and verity"; and the whole sentiment of the context is theUniversality of the Gospel, and the duty of praying for Gentile kings and people, as not abandoned to a foreign God and another Mediator; for since Messiah's death, tous all"there is but One God, and One Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus": wherefore the Apostle wills, thatfor all"men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting,"—without wrath at their admission, or doubt of their adoption. And wherever emphasis is laid on thevast numberbenefited by the cross, a contrast is implied with thefew(only the Jews) who could have been his subjects had he not died: and when it is said, "he gave his life a ransomfor many"; his blood was "shedfor many, for the remission of sins"; "thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us by thy blood,out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation, and hast made us unto our God kings and priests, and we shall reign on the earth"; "behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin ofthe world";[16]—byall these expressions is still denoted the efficacy of Christ's death in removing the Gentile disqualification, and making his dispensation spiritual as his celestial existence, and universal as the Fatherhood of God. Does Paul exhort certain of his disciples "to feed the church of the Lord, which he hath purchased with his own blood"?[17]We find that he is speaking of theGentilechurch of Ephesus, whose elders he is instructing in the management of their charge, and to which he afterwards wrote the well-known Epistle, on their Gentile freedom and adoption obtained by the Messiah's death. When Peter says, "Ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation, received by tradition from your fathers; but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot,"—we must inquireto whomhe is addressing these words. If it be to the Jews, the interpretation which I have hitherto given of such language will not apply, and we must seek an explanation altogether different. But the whole manner of this Epistle, the complexion of its phraseology throughout, convinces me that it was addressed especially to theGentile convertsof Asia Minor; and that the redemption of which it speaks is no other than that which is the frequent theme of their own Apostle.
In the passage just quoted, the form of expression itself suggests the idea, that Peter is addressing a class which did not include himself: "Yewere not redeemed," &c.; farther on, in the same Epistle, the same sentiment occurs, however,without any such visible restriction. Exhorting to patient suffering for conscience' sake, he appeals to the example of Christ; "who, when he suffered, threatened not, but committed himself to Him that judgeth righteously; who, his own self, bareoursins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness": yet, with instant change in the expression, revealing his correspondents to us, the Apostle adds, "by whose stripesyewere healed. For ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls." With the instinct of a gentle and generous heart, the writer, treating in plain terms of the former sins of those whom he addresses, puts himself in with them; and avoids every appearance of that spiritual pride by which the Jew constantly rendered himself offensive to the Gentile.
Again, in this letter, he recommends the duty of patient endurance, by appeal to the same consideration of Christ's disinterested self-sacrifice. "It is better, if the will of God be so, that ye suffer for well-doing than for evil-doing: for Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God." And who are these "unjust" that are thus brought to God? The Apostle instantly explains, by describing how the "Jews by nature" lost possession of Messiah by the death of his person, and "sinners of the Gentiles" gained him by the resurrection of his immortal nature; "being put to death in flesh, but quickened in spirit; andthereby he went and preached unto the spirits in prison, who formerly were without faith." This is clearly a description of the heathen world, ere it was brought into relation to the Messianic promises. Still further confirmation, however, follows. The Apostle adds: "Forasmuch, then, as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind; for the time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the willof the Gentiles; whenwewalked in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banquetings, andabominable idolatries." If we cannot admit this to be a just description of the holy Apostle's former life,we must perceive that, writing to Pagans of whom it was all true, he beautifully withholds from his language every trace of invidious distinction, puts himself for the moment into the same class, and seems to take his share of the distressing recollection.
The habitual delicacy with which Paul, likewise, classed himself with every order of persons in turn, to whom he had anything painful to say, is known to every intelligent reader of his Epistles. Hence, inhiswritings too, we have often to considerwith whomit is that he is holding his dialogue, and to make our interpretation dependent on the answer. When, for example, he says, that Jesus "was delivered forouroffences, and was raised again forourjustification"; I ask, "For whose?—was it for everybody's?—or for the Jews', since Paul was a Hebrew?" On looking closely into the argument, I find it beyond doubt that neither of these answers is correct; and that the Apostle, in conformity with his frequent practice, is certainly identifying himself, Israelite though he was, withthe Gentiles, to whom, at that moment, his reasoning applies itself. The neighboring verses have expressions which clearly enough declare this: "when we wereyet without strength," and "while we were yet sinners," Christ died for us. It is to theGentile churchat Corinth, and while expatiating on their privileges and relations as such, that Paul speaks of the disqualifications and legal unholiness of the heathen, as vanishing in the death of the Messiah; as the recovered leper's uncleanness was removed, and his banishment reversed, and his exclusion from the temple ended, when the lamb without blemish, which the law prescribed as his sin-offering, bled beneath the knife, so did God provide in Jesus a lamb without blemish for the exiled and unsanctified Gentiles, to bring them from their far dwelling in the leprous haunts of this world's wilderness, and admit them to the sanctuary of spiritual health and worship: "He hath made him to be a sin-offering for us (Gentiles), who knew no sin; that we might be made the justified of God in him"; entering, under the Messiah, the community of saints. That,in this sacrificial allusion, the Gentile adoption is still the Apostle's only theme, is evident hence: that twice in this very passage he declares that he is speaking of that peculiar "reconciliation," the word and ministry of which have been committed to himself; he is dwelling on the topic most natural to one who "magnified his office," as "Apostle of the Gentiles."
To the same parties was Paul writing, when he said, "Christ, our passover, is sacrificed for us." Frequently as this sentence is cited in evidence of the doctrine of Atonement, there is hardly a verse in Scripture more utterly inapplicable; nor, if the doctrine were true, could anything be more inept than an allusion to it in this place. I do not dwell on the fact that the paschal lamb was neither sin-offering nor proper sacrifice at all: for the elucidation of the death of Jesus by sacrificial analogies is as easy and welcome as any other mode of representing it. But I turn to the whole context, and seek for its leading idea, before multiplying inferences from a subordinate illustration. I find the author treating, not of thedeliveranceof believers from curse or exclusion, but of their duty to keep the churches cleansed, by the expulsion of notoriously profligate members. Such persons they are to cast from them, as the Jews, at the passover, swept from their houses all the leaven they contained; and as for eight days, at that season, only pure unleavened bread was allowed for use, so the Church must keep the Gospel festival free from the ferment of malice and wickedness, and tasting nothing but sincerity and truth. This comparison is the primary sentiment of the whole passage; under cover of which the Apostle is urging the Corinthians to expel a certain licentious offender: and only because the feast of unleavened bread, on which his fancy has alighted, set in with the day of passover, does he allude to this in completion of the figure. As his correspondents were Gentiles, their Christianity commenced with the death of Christ; with him, as an immortal, their spiritual relations commenced; when he rose, they rose with him, as by a divine attraction, from an earthlyto a heavenly state; their old and corrupt man had been buried together with him, and, with the human infirmities of his person, left behind for ever in his sepulchre; and it became them "to seek those things which are above," and to "yield themselves to God, as those that are alive from the dead." This period of the Lord's sequestration in the heavens Paul represents as a festival of purity to the disciples on earth, ushered in by the self-sacrifice of Christ. The time is come, he says; cast away the leaven, for the passover is slain, blessed bread of heaven to them that taste it! let nothing now be seen in all the household of the Church, but the unleavened cake of simplicity and love.
Paul again appears as the advocate of the Gentiles, when he protests that now between them and the Jews "there is no difference, since all have sinned and come short of the glory of God"; that the Hebrew has lost all claim to the Messianic adoption, and can have no hope but in that free grace of God, which has a sovereign right to embrace the heathen too; and which, in fact, has compassed the Gentiles within its redemption, by causing Jesus the Messiah to die; "by whose blood God hath set forth a propitiation, through faith; to evince his justice, while overlooking, with the forbearance of God, transgressions past;—to evince his justice in the arrangements of the present crisis; which preserve his justice (to the Israelite), yet justify on mere discipleship to Jesus." The great question which the Apostle discusses throughout this Epistle is this: "On what terms is a man now admitted as a subject to the Messiah, so as to be acknowledged by him, when he comes to erect his kingdom?" "He must be one of the circumcised, to whom alone the holy law and promises are given," says the Jew. "That is well," replies Paul; "only the promises, you remember, are conditional on obedience; and he who claims by the law must stand the judgment of the law. Can your nation abide this test, and will you stake your hopes upon the issue? Or is there on record against you a violation of every condition of your boasted covenant,—wholesale and national transgression,which your favorite code itself menaces with 'cutting off'? Have you even rejected and crucified the very Messiah, who was tendered to you in due fulfilment of the promises? Take your trial by the principles of your law, and you must be cast off, and perish, as certainly as the heathen whom you despise; and whose rebellion against the natural law, gross as it is, does not surpass your own offences against the tables of Moses. You must abandon the claim of right, the high talk of God's justice and plighted faith;—which are alike ill suited to you both. The rules of law are out of the question, and would admit nobody; and we must ascend again to the sovereign will and free mercy of Him who is the source of law; and who, to bestow a blessing which its resources cannot confer, may devise new methods of beneficence. God has violated no pledge. Messiah came to Israel, and never went beyond its bounds; the uncircumcised had no part in him; and every Hebrew who desired it was received as his subject. But when the people would not have him, and threw away their ancient title, was God either to abandon his vicegerent, or to force him on the unwilling? No: rather did it befit him to say: 'If they will reject and crucify my servant,—why, let him die, and then he is Israelite no more; I will raise him, and take him apart in his immortality; where his blood of David is lost; and the holiness of his humanity is glorified; and all shall be his, who will believe, and love him, as he there exists, spiritually and truly.'" Thus, according to Paul, does God provide a new method of adoption or justification, without violating any promises of the old. Thus he makes Faith in Jesus—a moral act, instead of a genealogical accident—the single condition of reception into the Divine kingdom upon earth. Thus, after the passage of Christ from this world to another, Jew and Gentile are on an equality in relation to the Messiah; the one gaining nothing by his past privileges; the other, not visited with exclusion for past idolatry and sins, but assured, in Messiah's death, that these are to be overlooked, and treated as if cleansed away. He finds himself invited into the very penetralia ofthat sanctuary of pure faith and hope, from which before he had been repelled as an unclean thing; as if its ark of mercy had been purified for ever from his unworthy touch, or he himself had been sprinkled by some sudden consecration. And all this was the inevitable and instant effect of that death on Calvary, which took Messiah from the Jews and gave him to the world.
With emphasis, not less earnest than that of Paul, does the Apostle John repudiate the notion of anyclaimon the Divine admission by law or righteousness; and insist on humble and unqualified acceptance of God's free grace and remission for the past, as the sole avenue of entrance to the kingdom. This avenue was open, however, to all "who confessed that Jesus the Messiah had come in the flesh"; in other words, that, during his mortal life, Jesus had been indicated as this future Prince; and that his ministry was the Messiah's preliminary visit to that earth on which shortly he would reappear to reign. The great object of that visit was to prepare the world for his real coming; for as yet it was very unfit for so great a crisis; and especially to open, by his death, a way of admission for the Gentiles, and frame, on their behalf, an act of oblivion for the past. "If," says the Apostle to them, "we walk in the light,as he is in the light" (of love and heaven), "we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin": the Israelite will embrace the Gentiles in fraternal relations, knowing that the cross has removed their past unholiness. Nor let the Hebrew rely on anything now but the Divine forbearance; to appeal to rights will serve no longer: "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." Nor let any one despair of a reception, or even a restoration, because he has been an idolater and sinner: "Jesus Christ the righteous" is "an advocate with the Father" for admitting all who are willing to be his; "and he is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only (not merely for our small portion of Gentiles, already converted); but also for thewholeworld," if they will but accept him.He died to become universal; to make all his own; to spread an oblivion, wide as the earth, over all that had embarrassed the relations to the Messiah, and made men aliens, instead of Sons of God. Yet did no spontaneous movement of their good affections solicit this change. It was "not that we (Gentiles) loved God; but that he loved us, and sent his Son, the propitiation for our sins"; "he sent his only-begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him." That this Epistle was addressed to Gentiles, and is therefore occupied with the same leading idea respecting the cross which pervades the writings of Paul, is rendered probable by its concluding words, which could hardly be appropriate to Jews: "Keep yourselves from idols." How little the Apostle associated any vicarious idea even with a form of phrase most constantly employed by modern theology to express it, is evident from the parallel which he draws, in the following words, between the death of our Lord and that of the Christian martyrs: "Hereby perceive we love, becauseChristlaid down his lifefor us; and we ought to lay down our livesfor the brethren."
Are, then, theGentiles alonebeneficially affected by the death of Christ? and is no wider efficacyeverassigned to it in Scripture? The great number of passages to which I have already applied this single interpretation will show that I consider it as comprisingthe great leading ideaof the Apostolic theology on this subject; nor do I think that there is (out of the Epistle to the Hebrews, which I shall soon notice) a single doctrinal allusion to the cross, from which this conception is wholly absent. At the same time, I am not prepared to maintain, that this is theonlyview of the crucifixion and resurrection ever present to the mind of the Apostles. Jews themselves, they naturally inquired, howIsrael, in particular, stood affected by the unanticipated death of its Messiah; in what way its relations were changed, when the offered Prince became the executed victim; and how far matters would have been different, if, as had been expected, the Anointed had assumed his rights and takenhis power at once; and, instead of making his first advent a mere preliminary and warning visit "in the flesh," had set up the kingdom forthwith, and gathered with him his few followers to "reign on the earth." Had this—instead of submission to death, removal, and delay—been his adopted course, what would have become of his own nation, who had rejected him,—who must have been tried by that law which was their boast, and under which he came,—who had long been notorious offenders against its conditions, and now brought down its final curse by despising the claims of the accredited Messiah? They must have been utterly "cut off," and cast out among the "aliens from the commonwealth of Israel," "without Messiah," "without hope," "without God"; for while "circumcision profiteth,if thou keep the law; yet if thou be abreaker of the law, thy circumcision is made uncircumcision." Had he comethen"to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe,"—had he then been "revealed with his mighty angels" (whom he might have summoned by "legions"),—it must have been "in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that knew not God, nor obeyed the glad tidings of the Lord Jesus Christ"; to "punish with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and the glory of his power." The sins and prospects of Israel being thus terrible, and its rejection imminent (for Messiah was already in the midst of them), he withheld his hand; refused to precipitate their just fate; and said, "Let us give them time, and wait; I will go apart into the heavens, and peradventure they will repent; only they must receive me then spiritually, and by hearty faith, not by carnal right, admitting thus the willing Gentile with themselves." And so he prepared to die and retire; he did not permit them to be cut off, but was cut off himself instead; he restrained the curse of their own law from falling on them, and rather perished himself by a foul and accursed lot, which that same law pronounces to be the vilest and most polluted of deaths. Thus says St. Paul to the Jews: "He hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being madea curse for us; for it is written, 'Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.'"[18]In this way, but for the death of the Messiah, Israel too must have been lost; and by that event they received time for repentance, and a way for remission of sins; found a means of reconciliation still; saw their providence, which had been lowering for judgment, opening over them in propitiation once more; the just had died for the unjust, to bring them to God. What was this delay,—this suspension of judgment,—this opportunity of return and faith,—but an instance of "the long-suffering of God," with which "he endures the vessels of wrath (Jews) fitted to destruction, and makes known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory"? If Christ had not withdrawn awhile, if his power had been taken up at once, and wielded in stern and legal justice, a deluge of judgment must have overwhelmed the earth, and swept away both Jew and Gentile, leaving but a remnant safe. But in mercy was the mortal life of Jesus turned into a preluding message of notice and warning, like the tidings which Noah received of the flood; and as the growing frame of the ark gave signal to the world of the coming calamity, afforded an interval for repentance, and made the patriarch, as he built, a constant "preacher of righteousness"; so the increasing body of the Church, since the warning retreat of Christ to heaven, proclaims the approaching "day of the Lord," admonishes that "all should come to repentance," and fly betimes to that faith and baptism which Messiah's death and resurrection have left as an ark of safety. "Once, in the days of Noah, the long-suffering of God waited while the ark was preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls, were saved by water: a representation, this, of the way in which baptism (not, of course, carnal washing, but the engagement of a good conscience with God) saves us now,by the resurrection of Jesus Christ; who is gone into heaven, and is onthe right hand of God; angels, and authorities, and powers, being made subject to him." Yet "the time is short," and must be "redeemed"; "it is the last hour"; "the Lord," "the coming of the Lord," "the end of all things," are "at hand."
I have describedoneaspect, which the death of the Messiah presented tothe Jews; and, in this, we have found another primary conception, explanatory of the Scriptural language respecting the cross. Of the two relations in which this event appeared (the Gentile and the Israelitish), I believe the former to be by far the most familiar to the New Testament authors, and to furnish the true interpretation of almost all their phraseology on the subject. But, as my readers may have noticed, many passages receive illustration by reference to either notion; and some may have a meaning compounded of both. I must not pause to make any minute adjustment of these claims, on the part of the two interpreting ideas: it is enough that, either separately or in union, they have now been taken round the whole circle of apostolic language respecting the cross, and detected in every difficult passage the presence of sense and truth, and the absence of all hint of vicarious atonement.
It was on theunbelievingportion of the Jewish people that the death of their Messiah conferred the national blessings and opportunities to which I have adverted. But tothe convertswho had been received by him during his mortal life, and who would have been heirs of his glory, had he assumed it at once, it was less easy to point out any personal benefits from the cross. That the Christ had retired from this world was but a disappointing postponement of their hopes; that he had perished as a felon was shocking to their pride, and turned their ancient boast into a present scorn; that he had become spiritual and immortal made him no longer theirs "as concerning the flesh," and, by admitting Gentiles with themselves, set aside their favorite law. So offensive to them was this unexpected slight on the institutions of Moses, immemorially reverenced as the ordinances of God, that itbecame important to give some turn to the death of Jesus, by which that event might be harmonized with the national system, and be shown toeffect the abrogation of the law, on principles strictly legal. This was the object of the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews; who thus gives us a third idea of the relations of the cross,—bearing, indeed, an essential resemblance to St. Paul's Gentile view, but illustrated in a manner altogether different. No trace is to be observed here of Paul's noble glorying in the cross: so studiously is every allusion to the crucifixion avoided, till all the argumentative part of the Epistle has been completed, that a reader finds the conclusion already in sight, without having gained any notion ofthe modeof the Lord's death, whether even it was natural or violent,—a literal human sacrifice, or a voluntary self-immolation. Its ignominy and its agonies are wholly unmentioned; and his mortal infirmities and sufferings are explained, not as the spontaneous adoptions of previous compassion in him, but as God's fitting discipline for rendering him "a merciful and faithful high-priest." They are referred to in the tone of apology, not of pride; as needing rather to be reconciled with his office, than to be boldly expounded as its grand essential. The object of the author clearly is, to find a place for the death of Jesus among the Messianic functions; and he persuades the Hebrew Christians that it is (not a satisfaction for moral guilt, but) a commutation for the Mosaic Law. In order to understand his argument, we must advert for a moment to the prejudices which it was designed to conciliate and correct.
It is not easy for us to realize the feelings with which the Israelite, in the yet palmy days of the Levitical worship, would hear of an abrogation of the Law;—the anger and contempt with which the mere bigot would repudiate the suggestion;—the terror with which the new convert would make trial of his freedom;—the blank and infidel feeling with which he would look round, and find himself drifted away from his anchorage of ceremony;—the sinking heart with which he would hear the reproaches of his countrymenagainst his apostasy. Every authoritative ritual draws towards itself an attachment too strong for reason and the sense of right; and transfers the feeling of obligation from realities to symbols. Among the Hebrews this effect was the more marked and the more pernicious, because their ceremonies were in many instances only remotely connected with any important truth or excellent end; they were separated by several removes from any spiritual utility. Rites were enacted to sustain other rites; institution lay beneath institution, through so many successive steps, that the crowning principle at the summit easily passed out of sight. To keep alive the grand truth of the Divine Unity, there was a gorgeous temple worship; to perform this worship there was a priesthood; to support the priesthood there were (among other sources of income) dues paid in the form of sacrifice; to provide against the non-payment of dues there were penalties; to prevent an injurious pressure of these penalties, there were exemptions, as in cases of sickness; and to put a check on trivial claims of exemption, it must be purchased by submission to a fee, under name of an atonement. Wherever such a system is received as divine, and based on the same authority with the great law of duty, it will always, by its definiteness and precision, attract attention from graver moral obligations. Its materiality renders it calculable: its account with the conscience can be exactly ascertained: as it has little obvious utility to men, it appears the more directly paid to God: it is regarded as the special means of pleasing him, of placating his anger, and purchasing his promises. Hence it may often happen, that the more the offences against the spirit of duty, the more are rites multiplied in propitiation; and the harvest of ceremonies and that of crimes ripen together.
At a state not far from this had the Jews arrived when Christianity was preached. Their moral sentiments were so far perverted, that they valued nothing in themselves, in comparison with their legal exactitude, and hated all beyond themselves for their want of this. They were eagerly expectingthe Deliverer's kingdom, nursing up their ambition for his triumphs; curling the lip, as the lash of oppression fell upon them, in suppressed anticipation of vengeance; satiating a temper, at once fierce and servile, with dreams of Messiah's coming judgment, when the blood of the patriarchs should be the title of the world's nobles, and the everlasting reign should begin in Jerusalem. Why was the hour delayed? they impatiently asked themselves. Was it that they had offended Jehovah, and secretly sinned against some requirement of his law? And then they set themselves to a renewed precision, a more slavish punctiliousness than before. Ascribing their continued depression to their imperfect legal obedience, they strained their ceremonialism tighter than ever; and hoped to be soon justified from their past sins, and ready for the mighty prince and the latter days.
What, then, must have been the feeling of the Hebrew, when told that all his punctualities had been thrown away,—that, at the advent, faith in Jesus, not obedience to the law, was to be the title to admission,—and that the redeemed at that day would be, not the scrupulous Pharisee, whose dead works would be of no avail, but all who, with the heart, have worthily confessed the name of the Lord Jesus? What doctrine could be more unwelcome to the haughty Israelite? it dashed his pride of ancestry to the ground. It brought to the same level with himself the polluted Gentile,—whose presence would alone render all unclean in the Messiah's kingdom. It proved his past ritual anxieties to have been all wasted. It cast aside for the future the venerated law; left it in neglect to die; and made all the apparatus of Providence for its maintenance end in absolutely nothing. Was then the Messiah to supersede, and not to vindicate, the law? How different this from the picture which prophets had drawn of his golden age, when Jerusalem was to be the pride of the earth, and her temple the praise of nations, sought by the feet of countless pilgrims, and decked with the splendor of their gifts! How could a true Hebrew be justified in a life without law? How think himself safe in a profession,which was without temple, without priest, without altar, without victim?
Not unnaturally, then, did the Hebrews regard with reluctance two of the leading features of Christianity; the death of the Messiah, and the freedom from the law. The Epistle addressed to them was designed to soothe their uneasiness, and to show that, if the Mosaic institutions were superseded, it was in conformity with principles and analogies contained within themselves. With great address, the writer links the two difficulties together, and makes the one explain the other. He finds a ready means of effecting this, in the sacrificial ideas familiar to every Hebrew; for by representing the death of Jesus as a commutation for legal observances, he is only ascribing to it an operation acknowledged to have place in the death of every lamb slain as a sin-offering at the altar. These offerings were a distinct recognition, on the part of the Levitical code, of a principle ofequivalentsfor its ordinances; a proof that, under certain conditions, they might yield: nothing more, therefore, was necessary, than to show that the death of Christ established those conditions. And such a method of argument was attended by this advantage, that, while thepractical endwould be obtained of terminating all ceremonial observance, the law was yet treated asin theoryperpetual; not as ignominiously abrogated, but as legitimately commuted. Just as the Israelite, in paying his offering at the altar to compensate for ritual omissions, recognized thereby the claims of the law, while he obtained impunity for its neglect; so, if Providence could be shown to have provided a legal substitute for the system, its authority was acknowledged at the moment that its abolition was secured.
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 amulct or acknowledgment rendered for unconscious or inevitable disregard of ceremonial liabilities, and contraction of ceremonial uncleanness. Such uncleanness might be incurred from variouscauses; 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. 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. 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." 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. It was impossible, however, to provide by specific enactment for every case of ritual transgression and impurity, arising from inadvertence 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-priestthe 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. 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[19]), 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, forallceremonial 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"; 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" 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"; 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," 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. 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. In the Hebrew "sacrifices there was a remembrance again made of sins every year"; "the high-priest annually entered the holy place"; being but a mortal, he could not go in with his own blood andremain, but must take that of other creatures andreturn; and hence it became "not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats shouldtake awaysins," 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 ownblood," he was immortal when his ministration began, and "ever liveth to make his intercession"; he could "not offer himself often, for then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world,"—and "it is appointed unto menonly onceto die"; so that "once for allhe entered into the holy place, and obtained a redemption that isperpetual"; "oncein the end of the world hath he appeared, and by sacrificing himself hath absolutelyput awaysin"; "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." 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; one who is "priest for ever" dwells therein;—one "consecrated for evermore," "holy, harmless, undefiled, in his celestial dwelling quite separate from sinners; who needeth notdaily, as those high-priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people's; for this he didonce for allwhen he offered up himself."[20]