8. THE PRIMITIVE RITE ILLUSTRATED.

“Hear, O my people, and I will speak;O Israel, and I will testify unto thee:I am God, even thy God.I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices;And thy burnt-offerings are continually before me....Will I eat the flesh of bulls,Or drink the blood of goats?Offer unto God the sacrifice of thanksgiving;And pay thy vows unto the Most High:And call upon me in the day of trouble;I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.“But unto the wicked, God saith:What hast thou to do to declare my statutes,And that thou hast taken my covenant in thy mouth?Seeing thou hatest instruction,And castest my words behind thee.”[536]

“Hear, O my people, and I will speak;

O Israel, and I will testify unto thee:

I am God, even thy God.

I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices;

And thy burnt-offerings are continually before me....

Will I eat the flesh of bulls,

Or drink the blood of goats?

Offer unto God the sacrifice of thanksgiving;

And pay thy vows unto the Most High:

And call upon me in the day of trouble;

I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.

“But unto the wicked, God saith:What hast thou to do to declare my statutes,And that thou hast taken my covenant in thy mouth?Seeing thou hatest instruction,And castest my words behind thee.”[536]

“But unto the wicked, God saith:

What hast thou to do to declare my statutes,

And that thou hast taken my covenant in thy mouth?

Seeing thou hatest instruction,

And castest my words behind thee.”[536]

Again, in the prophecy of Isaiah:

“To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me?Saith the Lord:I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts;And I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he-goats.When ye come to appear before me,Who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts?Bring no more vain oblations;Incense is an abomination unto me....Wash you, make you clean;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.”[537]

“To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me?

Saith the Lord:

I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts;

And I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he-goats.

When ye come to appear before me,

Who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts?

Bring no more vain oblations;

Incense is an abomination unto me....

Wash you, make you clean;

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.”[537]

And with this very warning against a false reliance on the symbols themselves, the same prophet gives assurance of better things in store for all those who are in true blood-covenant with God; even though they be not of the peculiar people of Abraham’s natural descent. Foretelling the future, when the types of the sacrifice shall be realized, he says:

“And in this mountain shall the Lord of Hosts make unto all peoplesA feast of fat things,A feast of wine on the lees;Of fat things full of marrow,Of wines on the lees well refined.”[538]

“And in this mountain shall the Lord of Hosts make unto all peoples

A feast of fat things,

A feast of wine on the lees;

Of fat things full of marrow,

Of wines on the lees well refined.”[538]

The feast of inter-communion shall be sure, when the blood-covenant of inter-union is complete.

Again, by Jeremiah:

“Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel:Add your burnt-offerings unto your sacrifices, and eat ye flesh.

“Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel:

Add your burnt-offerings unto your sacrifices, and eat ye flesh.

[But remember that that is not the completion of a covenant with me].

For I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them,In the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt,Concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices.

For I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them,

In the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt,

Concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices.

[As if burnt offerings and sacrifices were the all important thing];

But this thing I commanded them, saying,Hearken unto my voice,And I will be your God,And ye shall be my people;And walk ye in all the way that I command you,That it may be well with you.”[539]

But this thing I commanded them, saying,

Hearken unto my voice,

And I will be your God,

And ye shall be my people;

And walk ye in all the way that I command you,

That it may be well with you.”[539]

Once more, by Hosea:

“O Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee?O Judah, what shall I do unto thee?For your goodness is as a morning cloud,And as the dew that goeth early away....For I desire mercy and not sacrifice;And the knowledge of God more than burnt-offerings.But they like Adam have transgressed the covenant:

“O Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee?

O Judah, what shall I do unto thee?

For your goodness is as a morning cloud,

And as the dew that goeth early away....

For I desire mercy and not sacrifice;

And the knowledge of God more than burnt-offerings.

But they like Adam have transgressed the covenant:

[or, as the Revisers’ “margin” would render it,

“But they are as men that have transgressed a covenant”:]There have they dealt treacherously against me”[540]

“But they are as men that have transgressed a covenant”:]

There have they dealt treacherously against me”[540]

[Therein have they proved unfaithful to the requirements of the blood-covenant on which they assumed to be resting, in their sacrifices].

And so, all the way along through the prophets, in repeated emphasis of the incompleteness of the blood-covenanting symbols in the ritual sacrifices.

Concerning the very rite of circumcision, which was the token of Abraham’s covenant of blood-friendship with the Lord, the Israelites were taught that its spiritual value was not in the formal surrender of a bit of flesh, and a few drops of blood, in ceremonial devotedness to God, but in its symbolism of the implicit surrender of the whole life and being, in hearty covenant with God. “Behold, unto the Lord thy God belongeth the heaven, and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that therein is. Only the Lord had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and he chose their seed after them, even you above all peoples as at this day. Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiff-necked.”[541]“And it shall come to pass, when all these things are come upon thee, the blessings and the curse which I have set before thee, and thou shalt call them to mind among all the nations, whither the Lord thy God hath driven thee, and shalt return unto the Lord thy God, and shalt obey his voice according to all that I command thee this day, thou and thy children, with all thine heart, and with all thy soul; that then the Lord thy God will turn thy captivity, and have compassion upon thee, and will return andgather thee from all the peoples, whither the Lord thy God hath scattered thee.... And the Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live.”[542]And when this has come to pass, the true seed of Abraham,[543]circumcised in heart,[544]shall be in the covenant of blood-friendship with God.

So, also, with the phylacteries, as the record of the blood-covenant of the passover, they had a value only as they represented a heart-remembrance of that covenant, by their wearers. Says Solomon, in the guise of Wisdom.

“My son, forget not my law;But let thine heart keep my commandments....Let not mercy and truth forsake thee:Bind them about thy neck;Write them upon the table of thy heart;So shalt thou find favor and good understandingIn the sight of God and man.”[545]“Keep my commandments and live;And my law as the apple of thine eye.Bind them upon thy fingers;Write them upon the table of thine heart.”[546]

“My son, forget not my law;

But let thine heart keep my commandments....

Let not mercy and truth forsake thee:

Bind them about thy neck;

Write them upon the table of thy heart;

So shalt thou find favor and good understanding

In the sight of God and man.”[545]

“Keep my commandments and live;And my law as the apple of thine eye.Bind them upon thy fingers;Write them upon the table of thine heart.”[546]

“Keep my commandments and live;

And my law as the apple of thine eye.

Bind them upon thy fingers;

Write them upon the table of thine heart.”[546]

And the prophet Jeremiah foretells the recognition of this truth in the coming day of better things:

“Behold the days come, saith the Lord,That I will make a new covenantWith the house of Israel and with the house of Judah:Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathersIn the day that I took them by the hand,To bring them out of the land of Egypt;

“Behold the days come, saith the Lord,

That I will make a new covenant

With the house of Israel and with the house of Judah:

Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers

In the day that I took them by the hand,

To bring them out of the land of Egypt;

[That covenant was the blood-covenant of the passover; of which the phylacteries were a token.]

Which my covenant they brake,Although I was an husband unto them [a lord over them] saith the Lord;But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel,After those days, saith the Lord;I will put my law in their inward parts,And in their heart will I write it:

Which my covenant they brake,

Although I was an husband unto them [a lord over them] saith the Lord;

But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel,

After those days, saith the Lord;

I will put my law in their inward parts,

And in their heart will I write it:

[Instead of its being written as now, outside of them, on their hand and on their forehead.]

And I will be their God,And they shall be my people....For I will forgive their iniquity,And their sin will I remember no more.”[547]

And I will be their God,

And they shall be my people....

For I will forgive their iniquity,

And their sin will I remember no more.”[547]

The blood-covenant symbols of the Mosaic law, all pointed to the possibility of a union of man’s spiritual nature with God; but they did not in themselves either assure or indicate that union as already accomplished; nor did they point the way to it, as yet made clear. They were only “a shadow of the things to come.”[548]

Another gleam of the primitive truth, that blood is life and not death, and that the transference of blood is the transference of life, is found in the various Mosaic references to thegoel(גֹּאֵל), the person who is authorized to obtain blood for blood as an act of justice, in the East. And another proof of the prevailing error in the Western mind, through confounding blood with death, and justice with punishment, is the common rendering of the termgoel, as “avenger,”[549]or “revenger,”[550]in our English Bible, wherever that term applies to the balancing of a blood account; although the same Hebrew word is in other connections commonly translated “redeemer,”[551]or “ransomer.”[552]

Lexicographers are confused over the original import of the wordgoel;[553]all the more, because of this confusion in their minds over the import of blood, in its relation to death and to justice. But it is agreed on all hands, that, as a term, the word was, in the East, applied to that kinsman whose duty it was to securejustice to the injured, and to restore, as it were, a normal balance to the disturbed family relations.Oehlerwell defines the goel, as “that particular relative whose special duty it was to restore the violated family integrity, who had to redeem not only landed property that had been alienated from the family (Lev. 25 : 25 ff.), or a member of the family that [who] had fallen into slavery (Lev. 25 : 47 ff.), but also the blood that had been taken away from the family by murder.”[554]Hence, in the event of a depletion of the family by the loss of blood—the loss of a life—the goel had a responsibility of securing to the family an equivalent of that loss, by other blood, or by an agreed payment for its value. His mission was not vengeance, but equity. He was not an avenger, but a redeemer, a restorer, a balancer. And in that light, and in that light alone, are all the Oriental customs in connection with blood-cancelling seen to be consistent.

All through the East, there are regularly fixed tariffs for blood-cancelling; as if in recognition of the relative loss to a family, of one or another of its supporting members.[555]This idea, of the differences in ransoming-valuebetween different members of the family, is recognized, in the Mosaic standards of ritual-ransom;[556]although the accepting of a ransom for the blood of a blood-spiller was specifically forbidden in the Mosaic law.[557]This prohibition, in itself, however, seems to be a limitation of the privileges of the goel, as before understood in the East. The Qurân, on the other hand, formally authorizes the settlement of manslaughter damages by proper payments.[558]

Throughout Arabia, and Syria, and in various parts of Africa,[559]the first question to be considered in any case of unlawful blood-shedding is, whether the loss life shall be restored—or balanced—by blood, or by some equivalent of blood.Von Wrede, says of the custom of the Arabs, in concluding a peace, after tribal hostilities: “If one party has more slain than the other, the shaykh on whose side the advantage lies, says [to the other shaykh]: ‘Choose between blood and milk’ [between life, and the means of sustaining life]; which is as much as to say, that he may [either] avenge the fallen [take life for life]; or accept blood-money.”[560]Mrs. Finn says, similarly, of the close of a combat inPalestine: “A computation is generally made of the losses on either side by death, wounds, etc., and the balance is paid to the victors.”[561]Burton describes similarly the custom in Arabia.[562]

It is the same in individual cases, as in tribal conflicts. An accepted payment for blood fully restores the balance between the aggrieved parties and the slayer. AsPierottisays: “This charm will teach the Arab to grasp readily the hands of the slayer of his father or his son, saying, ‘Such an one has killed my father, but he has paid me the price of his blood.’”[563]This in itself shows, that it is not revenge, but restitution, that is sought after by the goel; that he is not the blood-avenger, but the blood-balancer.

It is true that, still, in some instances, all money payment for blood is refused; but the avowed motive in such a case is the holding of life as above price—the very idea which the Mosaic law emphasized. Thus Burton tells of the excited Bed´ween mother who dashes the proffered blood-money to the ground, swearing “by Allah, that she will not eat her son’s blood.”[564]And even where the blood of the slayer is insisted on, there are often found indications that the purpose of this choice rests on the primitive belief that the lost life ismade good to the depleted family by the newly received blood.[565]Thus, in the region of Abyssinia, the blood of the slayer is drunk by the relatives of the one first slain;[566]and, in Palestine, when the goel has shed the blood of an unlawful slayer, those who were the losers of blood by that slayer dip their handkerchiefs in his blood, and so obtain their portion of his life.[567]

In short, apart from the specific guards thrown around the mission of the goel, in the interests of justice, by the requirements of the Mosaic law, it is evident, that the primal idea of the goel’s mission was to restore life for life, or to secure the adjusted equivalent of a lost life; not to wreak vengeance, nor yet to mete out punishment. The calling of the goel, in our English Bible, a “revenger” of blood, is a result of the wide-spread and deep-rooted error concerning the primitive and Oriental idea of blood and its value; and that unfortunate translation tends to the perpetuation of this error.

Because the primitive rite of blood-covenanting was well known in the Lands of the Bible, at the time of the writing of the Bible, for that very reason, we are not to look to the Bible for a specific explanation ofthe rite itself, even where there are incidental references in the Bible to the rite and its observances; but, on the other hand, we are to find an explanation of the biblical illustrations of the primitive rite, in the understanding of that rite which we gain from outside sources. In this way, we are enabled to see in the Bible much that otherwise would be lost sight of.

The word for “covenant,” in the Hebrew,bereeth(בְּרִית), is commonly so employed, in the sacred text, as to have the apparent meaning of a thing “cut,” as apart from, or as in addition to, its primary meaning of a thing “eaten.”[568]This fact has been a source of confusion to lexicographers.[569]But, when we consider that the primitive rite of blood-covenanting was by cutting into the flesh in order to the tasting of the blood, and that a feast was always an accompaniment of the rite, if, indeed, it were not an integral portion of it, the two-fold meaning of “cutting” and “eating” attaches obviously to the term “covenant”; as the terms “carving,” and “giving to eat,” are often used interchangeably, with reference to dining; or as we speak of a “cut of beef” as the portion for a table.

The earliest Bible reference to a specific covenant between individuals, is in the mention, at Genesis 14 : 13, of Mamre, Eshcol, and Aner, the Amorites,who were in covenant with—literally, were “masters of the covenant of”—“Abram the Hebrew.” After this, comes the record of a covenant between Abraham and Abimelech, at the wells of Beer-sheba. Abimelech sought that covenant; he sought it because of his faith in Abraham’s God. “God is with thee in all that thou doest,” he said: “Now, therefore, swear unto me here by God, that thou wilt not deal falsely with me, nor with my son, nor with my son’s son: but according to the kindness that I have done unto thee, thou shalt do unto me, and to the land wherein thou hast sojourned. And Abraham said, I will swear.”[570]Then came the giving of gifts by Abraham, according to the practice which seems universal in connection with this rite, in our own day.[571]“And Abraham took sheep and oxen, and gave them unto Abimelech.” And they two “made a covenant,”—or, as the Hebrew is, “they two cut a covenant.” This covenant, thus cut between Abraham and Abimelech—patriarchs and sovereigns as they were—was for themselves and for their posterity. As to the manner of its making, we have a right to infer, from all that we know of the manner of such covenant-making among the people of their part of the world, in the earliest days of recorded history.

Herodotus, who goes back more than two-thirds of the way to Abraham, says, that when the Arabianswould covenant together, a third man, standing between the two, cuts, with a sharp stone, the inside of the hands of both, and lets the blood therefrom drop on seven stones which are between the two parties.[572]Phicol, the captain of Abimelech’s host, was present, as a third man, when the covenant was cut between Abimelech and Abraham; at Beer-sheba—the Well of the Seven, or the Well of the Oath.[573]Instead of seven stones as a “heap of witness”[574]between the two in this covenanting, “seven ewe lambs” were set apart by Abraham, that they might “be a witness”[575]—a symbolic witness to this transaction.

In the primitive rite of blood-covenanting, as it is practised in some parts of the East, to the present time, in addition to other symbolic witnesses of the rite, atreeis planted by the covenanting parties, “which remains and grows as a witness of their contract.”[576]So it was, in the days of Abraham. “And Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beer-sheba, and called there on the name of the Everlasting God. And Abraham sojourned [was a sojourner] in the land of the Philistines many days”[577]—while that tree, doubtless, remained and grew as a witness of his blood-covenant compact with Abimelech the ruler of thePhilistines.[578]Abimelech was, as it were, the first-fruits of the “nations”[579]who were to have a blessing through the covenanted friend of God.

It is a noteworthy fact, that when Herodotus describes the Scythians’ mode of drinking each other’s mingled blood, in their covenanting, he tells of their “cutting covenant” by “striking the body” of the covenanting party. In this case, he employs the wordstamnomenon(ταμνομένων) “cutting,” andtupsantes(τύψαντες) “striking,” which are the correspondents, on the one hand of the Hebrewkarath(כָּרַת) “to cut,” and on the other hand of the Latinferire, “to strike;” as applied to covenant making.[580]And this would seem to make a tri-lingual “Rosetta Stone” of this statement by Herodotus, as showing that the Hebrew “cutting” of the covenant, and the Latin “striking” of the covenant, is the Greek, the Arabian, the Scythian, and the universal primitive, method of covenanting, by cutting into, or by striking, the flesh of a person covenanting; in order that another may become a possessor of his blood, and a partaker of his life.

Yet later, at the same Well of the Seven, another Abimelech came down from Gerar, with “Ahuzzath his friend, and Phicol the captain of his host,” and,prompted by faith, sought a renewal of the covenant with the house of Abraham.[581]It is not specifically declared that Abimelech and Isaaccuta covenant together; but it is said that “they did eat and drink” in token of their covenant relations, and that they “sware one to another.”[582]Apparently they either cut a new covenant, or they confirmed one which their fathers had cut.

When Jacob and Laban covenanted together, in “the mountain [the hill-country] of Gilead,” before their final separation, they had their stone-heap of witness between them; such as Herodotus says the Arabs were accustomed to anoint with their own blood, in their covenanting by blood, in his day;[583]for Jacob, perhaps, had more tolerance than Abraham, for perverted religious symbols.[584]“And now let us cut a covenant, I and thou,” said Laban; “and let it be for a witness between me and thee. And Jacob took a stone, and set it up for a pillar [a pillar instead of a tree]. And Jacob said unto his brethren, Gather stones; and they took stones, and made an heap: and they did eat there on the heap [the Revisers have translated this,bythe heap].[585]And Laban called it Jegar-sahadutha: butJacob called it Gilead. And Laban said, This heap is witness between me and thee this day.... God is witness betwixt me and thee.... The God of Abraham and the God of Nahor, the God of their father, judge betwixt us. And Jacob sware by the Fear of his father Isaac. And Jacob offered a sacrifice in the mountain, and called his brethren to eat bread: and they did eat bread.”[586]Here again, the cutting of the covenant, and the sharing of a feast in connection with the rite,—the “cutting” and the “eating”—are in accordance with all that we know of the primitive rite, of blood-covenanting in the East, in earlier and in later times.

Yet more explicit is the description of the blood-covenanting which brought into loving unity, David and Jonathan. It was when the faith-filled heroism of the stripling shepherd-boy was thrilling all Israel with grateful admiration, that David was brought into the royal presence of Saul, and of Saul’s more than royal hero-son, Jonathan, to receive the thanks of theking for the rescue of the tarnished honor of the Israelitish host. Modestly, David gave answer to the question of the king. “And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking unto Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.” “Then Jonathan and David cut a covenant, because he [Jonathan] loved him [David] as his own soul [as his own life, his own blood].”[587]Then followed that gift of raiment and of arms which was a frequent accompaniment of blood-covenanting.[588]“And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was upon him, and gave it to David, and his apparel, even to his sword, and to his bow, and to his girdle.”[589]From that hour the hearts of David and Jonathan were as one. Jonathan could turn away from father and mother, and could repress all personal ambition, and all purely selfish longings, in proof of his loving fidelity to him who was dear to him as his own blood.[590]His love for David was “wonderful, passing the love of women.”[591]

Nor was this loving compact between Jonathan and David for themselves alone. It was for their posterity as well.[592]“The Lord be with thee, as he hath been with my father,” said Jonathan. “And thou shaltnot only while yet I live shew me the kindness of the Lord, that I die not: but also thou shalt not cut off thy kindness from my house for ever: no, not [even] when the Lord hath cut off the enemies of David every one from the face of the earth. So Jonathan cut a covenant with the house of David, saying [as in the imprecations of a blood-covenant], And the Lord shall require it [fidelity to this covenant] at the hand of David’s enemies. And Jonathan caused David to swear again, for the love he had to him: for he loved him as he loved his own soul [his own life, his own blood].”[593]And years afterward, when the Lord had given David rest from all his enemies around about him, the memory of that blood-covenant pledge came back to him; “and David said, Is there yet any that is left of the house of Saul, that I may shew him kindness for Jonathan’s sake?”[594]The seating of lame Mephibosheth at David’s royal table,[595]was an illustration of the unfailing obligation of the primitive covenant of blood; which had bound together David and Jonathan, for themselves and for theirs forever.

And now from David, to David’s greater Son; from type to anti-type; from symbol and prophecy, to reality and fruition.

Death had passed upon all men. Yet in the hearts of the death-smitten there was still a longing for life. Sin-leprous souls yearned for that in-flow of new being, which could come only through inter-union with the divine nature, in oneness of life with the Author and Source of all life. Revelation and prophecy had assured the possibility and the hope of such inter-union. Rite and ceremony and symbol, the wide-world over, signified man’s desire, and man’s expectation, of covenanted access to God, through personal surrender, and through life-giving, life-representing blood.

But, where men yielded up unauthorized offerings, even of their own blood, or of the very lives of their first-born, they confessed themselves unsatisfied with their attitude God-ward; and, where men followed a divinely prescribed ritual, they were taught by that very ritual itself, that the outpoured blood and the partaken flesh of the sacrifices were, at the best, but mere shadows of good things to come.[596]The whole creation was groaning and travailing in pain together, until the birth of the world’s promised redemption.[597]

The symbolic covenant of blood-friendship was between God and Abraham’s seed; and in that seed were all the nations of the earth to have a blessing. God had called on Abraham to surrender to him his onlyson, in proof of his unfailing love; and, when Abraham had stood that test of his faith, God had spared to him the proffered offering. It now remained for God to transcend Abraham’s proof of friendship, and to spare not his own and only Son,[598]but to make him a sacrificial offering, by means of which the covenant of blood-friendship, between God and the true seed of Abraham, might become a reality instead of a symbol. Abraham had given to God of his own blood, by the rite of circumcision, in token of his desire for inter-union with God. God was now to give of his blood, in the blood of his Son, for the re-vivifying of the sons of Abraham in “the blood of the eternal covenant.”[599]

Then, in the fullness of time, there came down into this world He who from the beginning was one with God, and who now became one with man. Becoming a sharer of the nature of those who were subject to death, and who longed for life, Jesus Christ was here among men as the fulfillment of type and prophecy; to meet and to satisfy the holiest and the uttermost yearnings of the human soul after eternal life, in communion and union with God. “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, ... full of grace and truth.” “In him was life [life that death could not destroy; life that could destroy death], and the life [which was in him] was the light [the guide and thehope] of men.” “He came unto his own, and they that were [called] his own received him not. But as many as received him [whether, before, they had been called his own, or not] to them gave he the right to become children of God [by becoming partakers of his life], even to them that believe on his name: which were [through faith] begotten, not of bloods [not by ordinary generation], nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”[600]Having in his own blood, the life of God and the life of man, Jesus Christ could make men sharers of the divine nature, by making them sharers of his own nature; and this was the truth of truths which he declared to those whom he instructed.

In the primitive rite of blood-covenanting, men drank of each other’s blood, in order that they might have a common life; and they ate together of a mutually prepared feast, in order that they might evidence and nourish that common life. In the outreaching of men Godward, for the privileges of a divine-human inter-union, they poured out the substitute blood of a chosen victim in sacrifice, and they partook of the flesh of that sacrificial victim, in symbolism of sharing the life and the nourishment of Deity. This symbolism was made a reality in Jesus Christ. He was the Seed of Abraham; the fulfillmentof the promise, “In Isaac shall thy Seed be called.”[601]He was the true Paschal Lamb; the “Lamb without blemish and without spot”;[602]“the Lamb that hath been slain from the foundation of the world.”[603]The blood which he yielded, was Life itself. The body which he laid on the altar was the Peace Offering of Completion.[604]

“Wherefore, when he cometh into the world, he saith:

Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not,But a body didst thou prepare for me;In whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hadst no pleasure:Then said I, Lo, I am come(In the roll of the book it is written of me)To do thy will, O God.

Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not,

But a body didst thou prepare for me;

In whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hadst no pleasure:

Then said I, Lo, I am come

(In the roll of the book it is written of me)

To do thy will, O God.

Saying above, [He here says,] Sacrifices and offerings and whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein [as if in themselves sufficient] (the which are offered according to the Law); then [also] hath he said, Lo I am come to do thy will. He taketh away the first [the symbolic], that he may establish the second [the real].”[605]

He was here, in the body of his blood and flesh, for the yielding of his blood and the sharing of his flesh, in order to make partakers of his nature, whosoever would seek a divine-human inter-union and a divine-humaninter-communion, through the sacrifice made by him, “once for all.”

“Jesus therefore said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, ye have not life in yourselves. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed [is true meat], and my blood [my life] is drink indeed [is true drink]. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood abideth in me, and I in him [Herein is communion through union]. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father; so he that eateth me, he also shall live because of me. This is the bread which came down out of heaven: not as the fathers did eat, and died: he that eateth this bread shall live forever.”[606]

“These things said he in the synagogue, as he taught in Capernaum”—toward the close of the second year of his public ministry. The fact that he did speak thus, so long before he had instituted the Memorial Supper, has been a puzzle to many commentators who were unfamiliar with the primitive rite of blood-covenanting, and with the world-wide series of substitute sacrifices and substitute forms of communion, which had grown out of the suggestions, andout of the perversions, of the root symbolisms of that rite. But, in the light of all these customs, the words of Jesus have a clearer meaning. It was as though he had said: “Men everywhere long for life. They seek a share in the life of God. They give of their own blood, or of substitute blood, and they taste of substitute blood, or they receive its touch, in evidence of their desire for oneness of nature with God. They crave communion with God, and they eat of the flesh of their sacrifices accordingly. All that they thus reach out after, I supply. In me is life. If they will become partakers of my life, of my nature, they shall be sharers of the life of God.” Then, he added, in assurance of the fact, that it was a profound spiritual truth which he was enunciating: “It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I have spoken unto you are spirit, and are life.”[607]The divine-human inter-union and the divine-human inter-communion are spiritual, and they are spiritually wrought; or they are nothing.

The words of Jesus on this subject, were not understood by those who heard him. “The Jews therefore strove one with another, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”[608]But this was not because the Jews had never heard of eating the flesh of a sacrificial victim, and of drinking blood in a sacred covenant:it was, rather, because they did not realize that Jesus was to be the crowning sacrifice for the human race; nor did they comprehend his right and power to make those who were one with him through faith, thereby one with God in spiritual nature. “Many,” even “of his disciples, when they heard” these words of his, “said, This is a hard saying; who can hear it?”[609]Nor are questioners at this point, lacking among his disciples to-day.

Before Jesus Christ was formally made an offering in sacrifice, as a means of man’s inter-union and inter-communion with God, there were two illustrations of his mission, in the giving of his blood for the bringing of man into right relations with God. These were, his circumcision, and his agony in Gethsemane.

By his circumcision, Jesus brought his humanity into the blood-covenant which was between God and the seed of God’s friend, Abraham, of whose nature, according to the flesh, Jesus had become a partaker;[610]Jesus thereby pledged his own blood in fidelity to that covenant; so that all who should thereafter become his by their faith, might, through him, be heirs of faithful Abraham.[611]The sweet singer of the Christian Year,[612]seems to find this thought, in this incident in the life of the Holy Child:

Back to Index Next