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 only son,
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 the hope] 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 fulfillment
of 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.
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-human inter-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, and out 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:
“Like sacrificial wine
Poured on a victim’s head,
Are those few precious drops of thine,
Now first to offering led.
“They are the pledge and seal
Of Christ’s unswerving faith,
Given to his Sire, our souls to heal,
Although it cost his death.
“They, to his Church of old,
To each true Jewish heart,
In gospel graces manifold,
Communion blest impart.”
In Gethsemane, the sins and the needs of humanity so pressed upon the
burdened soul of Jesus, that his very life was forced out, as it were,
from his aching, breaking heart, in his boundless sympathy with his
loved ones, and in his infinite longings for their union with God,
through their union with himself, in the covenant of blood he was
consummating in their behalf.[613] “And being in an agony, he prayed
more earnestly: and his sweat became as it were great drops of blood
falling down to the ground.”[614]
Because of his God-ward purpose of bringing men into a loving covenant
with God, Jesus gave of his blood in the covenant-rite of circumcision.
Because of his man-ward sympathy with the needs and the trials of
those whom he had come to save, and because of the crushing burden
of their death-bringing sins, Jesus gave of his blood in an agony of
intercessory suffering. Therefore it is, that the Litany cry of the
ages goes up to him in fulness of meaning: “By the mystery of thy holy
incarnation; by thy holy nativity and circumcision; ... by thine agony
and bloody sweat, ... Good Lord, deliver us.”
In process of time, the hour drew nigh that the true covenant of blood
between God and man should be consummated finally, in its perfectness.
The period chosen was the passover-feast--the feast observed by the
Jews in commemoration of that blood-covenanting occasion in Egypt, when
God evidenced anew his fidelity to his promises to the seed of Abraham,
his blood-covenanted friend. “Now before the feast of the passover,
Jesus knowing that his hour was come that he should depart out of this
world to the Father, having loved his own which were in the world, he
loved them unto the end.”[615] “And when the hour was come, he sat
down, and the apostles with him. And he said unto them, With desire
I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer.”[616]
Whether he actually partook of the passover meal at that time, or not
is a point still in dispute;[617] but as to that which follows, there
is no question.
“As they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and brake
it; and he gave to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my
body.”[618] “This do in remembrance of me. And the cup in like manner
after supper;”[619] “and when he had given thanks, he gave [it] to
them,”[620] “saying, Drink ye all of it; for this is my blood of the
covenant,”[621] or, as another Evangelist records, “this cup is the
new covenant in my blood,”[622] “which is shed for many unto remission
of sins”[623] [unto the putting away of sins]. “This do, as oft as ye
drink it, in remembrance of me.”[624] “And they all drank of it.”[625]
Here was the covenant of blood; here was the communion feast, in
partaking of the flesh of the fitting and accepted sacrifice;--toward
which all rite and symbol, and all heart yearning and inspired
prophecy, had pointed, in all the ages. Here was the realization of
promise and hope and longing, in man’s possibility of inter-union
with God through a common life--which is oneness of blood; and in
man’s inter-communion with God, through participation in the blessings
of a common table. He who could speak for God, here proffered of
his own blood, to make those whom he loved, of the same nature with
himself, and so of the same nature with his God; to bring them into
blood-friendship with their God; and he proffered of his own body, to
supply them with soul nourishment, in that Bread which came down from
God.
Then it was, while they were there together in that upper room, for
the consummating of that blood-covenant of friendship, that Jesus said
to his disciples: “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay
down his life for his friends. Ye are my friends, if ye do the things
which I command you. No longer do I call you servants; for the servant
knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends [friends
in the covenant of blood-friendship now]; for all things that I heard
from my Father, I have made known unto you.”[626] A common life,
through oneness of blood, secures an absolute unreserve of intimacy; so
that neither friend has aught to conceal from his other self. “Abide
in me, and I in you; ... for apart from me ye can do nothing,” was the
injunction of Jesus to his blood-covenant friends, at this hour of his
covenant pledging. “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask
whatsoever ye will, and it shall be done unto you.”[627]
Then it was, also, that the prayer of Jesus for his new blood-covenant
friends went up: “Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that the
Son may glorify thee: even as thou gavest him authority over all flesh,
that whatsoever [whomsoever] thou hast given him, to them he should
give eternal life [in an eternal covenant of blood]. And this is life
eternal, that they should know thee the only true God, and him whom
thou didst send [as the means of life], even Jesus Christ.... Holy
Father, keep them in thy name which thou hast given me, that they may
be one, even as we are.... Neither for these [here present] only do I
pray, but for them also that believe on me through their word; that
they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee,
that they also may be in us: that the world may believe that thou didst
send me. And the glory which thou hast given me I have given unto them;
that they may be one, even as we are one; I in them, and thou in me,
that they may be perfected into one; that the world may know that thou
didst send me, and lovedst them, even as thou lovedst me.”[628] Here
was declared the scope of this blood-covenant, and here was unfolded
its doctrine.
It was not an utterly new symbolism that Jesus was introducing into
the religious thought of the world: it was rather a new meaning that
he was introducing into, or that he was disclosing in, an already
widely recognized symbolism. The world was familiar with the shadow of
truth; Jesus now made clear to the world, the truth’s substance. Man’s
longing to be a partaker of the divine nature, had manifested itself,
through all the ages and everywhere. Jesus now showed how that longing
of death-smitten man could be realized. “The appearing of our Saviour
Jesus Christ ... abolished death, and brought life and immortality to
light through the gospel”[629] of his blood-covenant.
But a covenant of blood, a covenant to give one’s blood, one’s life,
for the saving of another, cannot be consummated without the death
of the covenanter. “For where [such] a covenant is, there must of
necessity be [be brought] the death of him that made it. For [such] a
covenant is of force [becomes a reality] where there hath been death
[or, over the dead]: for doth it [such a covenant] ever avail [can
it be efficient] while he that made it liveth?”[630] Jesus had said,
“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for
his friends.”[631] Of his readiness to show this measure of love for
those who were as the sheep of his fold, he had declared: “I came that
they may have life, and may have it abundantly.... I lay down my life
for the sheep.... Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down
my life, that I may take it again. No one taketh it away from me, but
I lay it down of myself.”[632] And again: “I am the living bread which
came down out of heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live
for ever: yea, and the bread which I will give is my flesh, for the
life of the world.”[633] “For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is
drink indeed.”[634] Such a covenant as this, could be of force only
through the death of him who pledges it.
The promise of the covenanting-cup, at the covenanting-feast, was made
good on Calvary.[635] The pierced hands and feet of the Divine Friend
yielded their life-giving streams. Then, with the final cry, “It is
finished,” the very heart of the self-surrendered sacrificial victim
was broken,[636] and the life of the Son of God and of the Seed of
Abraham, was poured out unto death,[637] in order that all who would,
might become sharers in its re-vivifying and saving power. He who
was without sin, had received the wages of sin; because, that, only
through dying was it possible for him to supply that life which would
redeem from the penalty of sin those who had earned death, as sin’s
wages.[638] He who, in himself, had life, had laid down his life, so
that those who were without life might become its partakers, through
faith, in the bonds and blessings of an everlasting covenant. So, the
long symbolized covenant of blood was made a reality. “And the witness
is this, that God gave unto us eternal life, and this life is in his
Son. He that hath the Son hath the life; he that hath not the Son of
God hath not the life.”[639]