1. An understanding of practically all of the Epistle to the Hebrews
is necessary before we can hope to make this text clear to ourselves.
Briefly, the epistle treats of a two-fold priesthood. The former
priesthood was a material one, with material adornment, tabernacle,
sacrifices and with pardon couched in ritual; material were all its
appointments. The new order is a spiritual priesthood, with spiritual
adornments, spiritual tabernacle and sacrifices--spiritual in all that
pertains to it. Christ, in the exercise of his priestly office, in the
sacrifice on the cross, was not adorned with silk and gold and
precious stones, but with divine love, wisdom, patience, obedience and
all virtues. His adornment was apparent to none but God and possessors
of the Spirit, for it was spiritual.
2. Christ sacrificed not goats nor calves nor birds; not bread; not
blood nor flesh, as did Aaron and his posterity: he offered his own
body and blood, and the manner of the sacrifice was spiritual; for it
took place through the Holy Spirit, as here stated. Though the body
and blood of Christ were visible the same as any other material
object, the fact that he offered them as a sacrifice was not apparent.
It was not a visible sacrifice, as in the case of offerings at the
hands of Aaron. Then the goat or calf, the flesh and blood, were
material sacrifices visibly offered, and recognized as sacrifices. But
Christ offered himself in the heart before God. His sacrifice was
perceptible to no mortal. Therefore, his bodily flesh and blood
becomes a spiritual sacrifice. Similarly, we Christians, the posterity
of Christ our Aaron, offer up our own bodies. Rom 12, 1. And our
offering is likewise a spiritual sacrifice, or, as Paul has it, a
"reasonable service"; for we make it in spirit, and it is beheld of
God alone.
3. Again, in the new order, the tabernacle or house is spiritual; for
it is heaven, or the presence of God. Christ hung upon a cross; he was
not offered in a temple. He was offered before the eyes of God, and
there he still abides. The cross is an altar in a spiritual sense. The
material cross was indeed visible, but none knew it as Christ's altar.
Again, his prayer, his sprinkled blood, his burnt incense, were all
spiritual, for it was all wrought through his spirit.
4. Accordingly, the fruit and blessing of his office and sacrifice,
the forgiveness of our sins and our justification, are likewise
spiritual. In the Old Covenant, the priest with his sacrifices and
sprinklings of blood effected merely as it were an external
absolution, or pardon, corresponding to the childhood stage of the
people. The recipient was permitted to move publicly among the people;
he was externally holy and as one restored from excommunication. He
who failed to obtain absolution from the priest was unholy, being
denied membership in the congregation and enjoyment of its privileges;
in all respects he was separated like those in the ban today.
5. But such absolution rendered no one inwardly holy and just before
God. Something beyond that was necessary to secure true forgiveness.
It was the same principle which governs church discipline today. He
who has received no more than the remission, or absolution, of the
ecclesiastical judge will surely remain forever out of heaven. On the
other hand, he who is in the ban of the Church is hellward bound only
when the sentence is confirmed at a higher tribunal. I can make no
better comparison than to say that it was the same in the old Jewish
priesthood as now in the Papal priesthood, which, with its loosing and
binding, can prohibit or permit only external communion among
Christians. It is true, God required such measures in the time of the
Jewish dispensation, that he might restrain by fear; just as now he
sanctions church discipline when rightly employed, in order to punish
and restrain the evil-doer, though it has no power in itself to raise
people to holiness or to push them into wickedness.
6. But with the priesthood of Christ is true spiritual remission,
sanctification and absolution. These avail before God--God grant that
it be true of us--whether we be outwardly excommunicated, or holy, or
not. Christ's blood has obtained for us pardon forever acceptable with
God. God will forgive our sins for the sake of that blood so long as
its power shall last and its intercession for grace in our behalf,
which is forever. Therefore, we are forever holy and blessed before
God. This is the substance of the text. Now that we shall find it easy
to understand, we will briefly consider it.
"But Christ having come a high priest of the good things to come."
7. The adornment of Aaron and his descendants, the high priests, was
of a material nature, and they obtained for the people a merely formal
remission of sins, performing their office in a perishable temple, or
tabernacle. It was evident to men that their absolution and
sanctification before the congregation was a temporal blessing
confined to the present. But when Christ came upon the cross no one
beheld him as he went before God in the Holy Spirit, adorned with
every grace and virtue, a true High Priest. The blessings wrought by
him are not temporal--a merely formal pardon--but the "blessings to
come"; namely, blessings which are spiritual and eternal. Paul speaks
of them as blessings to come, not that we are to await the life to
come before we can have forgiveness and all the blessings of divine
grace, but because now we possess them only in faith. They are as yet
hidden, to be revealed in the future life. Again, the blessings we
have in Christ were, from the standpoint of the Old Testament
priesthood, blessings to come.
"Through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands,
that is to say, not of this creation."
8. The apostle does not name the tabernacle he mentions; nor can he,
so strange its nature! It exists only in the sight of God, and is ours
in faith, to be revealed hereafter. It is not made with hands, like
the Jewish tabernacle; in other words, not of "this building." The old
tabernacle, like all buildings of its nature, necessarily was made of
wood and other temporal materials created by God. God says in Isaiah
66, 1-2: "What manner of house will ye build unto me?... For all these
things hath my hand made, and so all these things came to be." But
that greater tabernacle has not yet form; it is not yet finished. God
is building it and he shall reveal it. Christ's words are (Jn 14, 3),
"And if I go and prepare a place for you."
"Nor yet through the blood of goats and calves, but through his own
blood, entered in once for all into the holy place, having obtained
eternal redemption."
9. According to Leviticus 16, the high priest must once a year enter
into the holy place with the blood of rams and other offerings, and
with these make formal reconciliation for the people. This ceremony
typified that Christ, the true Priest, should once die for us, to
obtain for us the true atonement. But the former sacrifice, having to
be repeated every year, was but a temporary and imperfect atonement;
it did not eternally suffice, as does the atonement of Christ. For
though we fall and sin repeatedly, we have confidence that the blood
of Christ does not fall, or sin; it remains steadfast before God, and
the expiation is perpetual and eternal. Under its sway grace is
perpetually renewed, without work or merit on our part, provided we do
not stand aloof in unbelief.
"For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the ashes of a heifer," etc.
10. Concerning the water of separation and the ashes of the red
heifer, read Numbers 19; and concerning the blood of bulls and goats,
Leviticus 16, 14-15. According to Paul, these were formal and temporal
purifications, as I stated above. But Christ, in God's sight, purifies
the conscience of dead works; that is, of sins meriting death, and of
works performed in sin and therefore dead. Christ purifies from these,
that we may serve the living God by living works.
"And for this cause he is the mediator of a new covenant [testament],"
etc.
11. Under the old law, which provided only for formal, or ritualistic,
pardon, and restored to human fellowship, sin and transgressions
remained, burdening the conscience. It--the old law--did not benefit
the soul at all, inasmuch as God did not institute it to purify and
safeguard the conscience, nor to bestow the Spirit. It existed merely
for the purpose of outward discipline, restraint and correction. So
Paul teaches that under the Old Testament dispensation man's
transgressions remained, but now Christ is our Mediator through his
blood; by it our conscience is freed from sin in the sight of God,
inasmuch as God promises the Spirit through the blood of Christ. All,
however, do not receive him. Only those called to be heirs eternal,
the elect, receive the Spirit.
12. We find, then, in this excellent lesson, the comforting doctrine
taught that Christ is he whom we should know as the Priest and Bishop
of our souls; that no sin is forgiven, nor the Holy Spirit given, by
reason of works or merit on our part, but alone through the blood of
Christ, and that to those for whom God has ordained it. This matter
has been sufficiently set forth in the various postils.
_Palm Sunday_
Text: Philippians 2, 5-11.
5 Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: 6 who,
existing in the form of God, counted not the being on an equality with
God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, taking the form of a
servant, being made in the likeness of men; 8 and being found in
fashion as a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient even unto
death, yea, the death of the cross. 9 Wherefore also God highly
exalted him, and gave unto him the name which is above every name; 10
that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven
and things on earth and things under the earth, 11 and that every
tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God
the Father.