It is difficult to go back in imagination to a time when sacrifice was the
sole and sufficient form of every complete act of worship.(265) That the
slaughter of an animal, or at least the presentation of a material
offering of some sort, should ever have been considered of the essence of
intercourse with the Deity may seem to us incredible in the light of the
idea of God which we now possess. Yet there can be no doubt that there was
a stage of religious development which recognised no true approach to God
except as consummated in a sacrificial action. The word “sacrifice” itself
preserves a memorial of this crude and early type of religious service.
Etymologically it denotes nothing more than a sacred act. But amongst the
Romans, as amongst ourselves, it was regularly applied to the offerings at
the altar, which were thus marked out as _the_ sacred actions _par
excellence_ of ancient religion. It would be impossible to explain the
extraordinary persistence and vitality of the institution amongst races
that had attained a relatively high degree of civilisation, unless we
understand that the ideas connected with it go back to a time when
sacrifice was the typical and fundamental form of primitive worship.
By the time of Ezekiel, however, the age of sacrifice in this strict and
absolute sense may be said to have passed away, at least in principle.
Devout Jews who had lived through the captivity in Babylon and found that
Jehovah was there to them “a little of a sanctuary,”(266) could not
possibly fall back into the belief that their God was only to be
approached and found through the ritual of the altar. And long before the
Exile, the ethical teaching of the prophets had led Israel to appreciate
the external rites of sacrifice at their true value.
Wherewithal shall I come before Jehovah
Or bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before Him with burnt‐offerings,
With calves of a year old?
Is Jehovah pleased with thousands of rams,
With myriads of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn as an atonement for me,
The fruit of my body as a sin‐offering for my life?
He hath showed thee, O man, what is good;
And what does Jehovah require of thee,
But to do justice and to love mercy,
And to walk humbly with thy God?(267)
This great word of spiritual religion had been uttered long before
Ezekiel, as a protest against the senseless multiplication of sacrifices
which came in in the reign of Manasseh. Nor can we suppose that Ezekiel,
with all his engrossment in matters of ritual, was insensible to the lofty
teaching of his predecessors, or that his conception of God was less
spiritual than theirs. As a matter of fact the worship of Israel was never
afterwards wholly absorbed in the routine of the Temple ceremonies. The
institution of the synagogue with its purely devotional exercises of
prayer and reading of the Scriptures must have been nearly coeval with the
second Temple, and prepared the way far more than the latter for the
spiritual worship of the New Testament. But even the Temple worship was
spiritualised by the service of praise and the marvellous development of
devotional poetry which it called forth. “The emotion with which the
worshipper approaches the second Temple, as recorded in the Psalter, has
little to do with sacrifice, but rests rather on the fact that the whole
wondrous history of Jehovah’s grace to Israel is vividly and personally
realised as he stands amidst the festal crowd at the ancient seat of God’s
throne, and adds his voice to the swelling song of praise.”(268)
How then, it may be asked, are we to account for the fact that the prophet
shows such intense interest in the details of a system which was already
losing its religious significance? If sacrifice was no longer of the
essence of worship, why should he be so careful to legislate for a scheme
of ritual in which sacrifice is the prominent feature, and say nothing of
the inward state of heart which alone is an acceptable offering to God?
The chief reason no doubt is that the ritual elements of religion were the
only matters, apart from moral duties, which admitted of being reduced to
a legal system, and that the formation of such a system was demanded by
the circumstances with which the prophet had to deal. The time was not yet
come when the principle of a central national sanctuary could be
abandoned, and if such a sanctuary was to be maintained without danger to
the highest interests of religion it was necessary that its service should
be regulated with a view to preserve the deposit of revealed truth that
had been committed to the nation through the prophets. The essential
features of the sacrificial institutions were charged with a deep
religious significance, and there existed in the popular mind a great mass
of sound religious impression and sentiment clustering around that central
rite. To dispense with the institution of sacrifice would have rendered
worship entirely impossible for the great body of the people, while to
leave it unregulated was to invite a recurrence of the abuses which had
been so fruitful a source of corruption in the past. Hence the object of
the ritual ordinances which we are about to consider is twofold: in the
first place to provide an authorised code of ritual free from everything
that savoured of pagan usages, and in the second to utilise the public
worship as a means of deepening and purifying the religious conceptions of
those who could be influenced in no other way. Ezekiel’s legislation has a
special regard for the wants of the “common rude man” whose religious life
needs all the help it can get from external observances. Such persons form
the majority of every religious society; and to train their minds to a
deeper sense of sin and a more vivid apprehension of the divine holiness
proved to be the only way in which the spiritual teaching of the prophets
could be made a practical power in the community at large. It is true that
the highest spiritual needs were not satisfied by the legal ritual. But
the irrepressible longings of the soul for nearer fellowship with God
cannot be dealt with by rigid formal enactments. Ezekiel is content to
leave them to the guidance of that Spirit whose saving operations will
have changed the heart of Israel and made it a true people of God. The
system of external observances which he foreshadows in his vision was not
meant to be the life of religion, but it was, so to speak, the trellis‐
work which was necessary to support the delicate tendrils of spiritual
piety until the time when the spirit of filial worship should be the
possession of every true member of the Church of God.
Bearing these facts in mind, we may now proceed to examine the scheme of
sacrificial worship contained in chapters xlv. and xlvi. Only its leading
features can here be noticed, and the points most deserving of attention
may be grouped under three heads: the Festivals, the Representative
Service, and the Idea of Atonement.
I. THE YEARLY FEASTS.—The most striking thing in Ezekiel’s festal
calendar(269) is the division of the ecclesiastical year into two
precisely similar parts. Each half of the year commences with an atoning
sacrifice for the purification of the sanctuary from defilement contracted
during the previous half.(270) Each contains a great festival—in the one
case the Passover, beginning on the fourteenth day of the first month and
lasting seven days, and in the other the Feast of Tabernacles (simply
called the Feast), beginning on the fifteenth day of the seventh month and
also lasting for seven days.(271) The passage is chiefly devoted to a
minute regulation of the public sacrifices to be offered on these
occasions, other and more characteristic features of the celebration being
assumed as well known from tradition.
It is difficult to see what is the precise meaning of the proposed
rearrangement of the feasts in two parallel series. It may be due simply
to the prophet’s love of symmetry in all departments of public life, or it
may have been suggested by the fact that at this time the Babylonian
calendar, according to which the year begins in spring, was superimposed
on the old Hebrew year commencing in the autumn.(272) At all events it
involved a breach with pre‐exilic tradition, and was never carried out in
practice. The earlier legislation of the Pentateuch recognises a cycle of
three festivals—Passover and Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Harvest or of
Weeks (Pentecost), and the Feast of Ingathering or of Tabernacles.(273) In
order to carry through his symmetrical division of the sacred year Ezekiel
has to ignore one of these, the Feast of Pentecost, which seems to have
always been counted the least important of the three. It is not to be
supposed that he contemplated its abolition, for he is careful not to
alter in any particular the positive regulations of Deuteronomy; only it
did not fall into his scheme, and so he does not think it of sufficient
importance to prescribe regular public sacrifices for it. After the Exile,
however, Jewish practice was regulated by the canons of the Priestly Code,
in which, along with other festivals, the ancient threefold cycle is
continued, and stated sacrifices are prescribed for Pentecost, just as for
the other two.(274) Similarly, the two atoning ceremonies in the beginning
of the first and seventh months,(275) which are not mentioned in the older
legislation, are replaced in the Priests’ Code by the single Day of
Atonement on the tenth day of the seventh month, whilst the beginning of
the year is celebrated by the Feast of Trumpets on the first day of the
same month.(276)
But although the details of Ezekiel’s system thus proved to be
impracticable in the circumstances of the restored Jewish community, it
succeeded in the far more important object of infusing a new spirit into
the celebration of the feasts, and impressing on them a different
character. The ancient Hebrew festivals were all associated with joyous
incidents of the agricultural year. The Feast of Unleavened Bread marked
the beginning of harvest, when “the sickle was first put into the
corn.”(277) At this time also the firstlings of the flock and herd were
sacrificed. The seven weeks which elapse till Pentecost are the season of
the cereal harvest, which is then brought to a close by the Feast of
Harvest, when the goodness of Jehovah is acknowledged by the presentation
of part of the produce at the sanctuary. Finally the Feast of Tabernacles
celebrates the most joyous occasion of the year, the storing of the
produce of the winepress and the threshing‐floor.(278) The nature of the
festivals is easily seen from the events with which they are thus
associated. They are occasions of social mirth and festivity, and the
religious rites observed are the expressions of the nation’s heart‐felt
gratitude to Jehovah for the blessing that has rested on the labours of
husbandman and shepherd throughout the year. The Passover with its
memories of anxiety and escape was no doubt of a more sombre character
than the others, but the joyous and festive nature of Pentecost and
Tabernacles is strongly insisted on in the book of Deuteronomy. By these
institutions religion was closely intertwined with the great interests of
every‐day life, and the fact that the sacred seasons of the Israelites’
year were the occasions on which the natural joy of life was at its
fullest, bears witness to the simple‐minded piety which was fostered by
the old Hebrew worship. There was, however, a danger that in such a state
of things religion should be altogether lost sight of in the exuberance of
natural hilarity and expressions of social good‐will. And indeed no great
height of spirituality could be nourished by a type of worship in which
devotional feeling was concentrated on the expression of gratitude to God
for the bountiful gifts of His providence. It was good for the childhood
of the nation, but when the nation became a man it must put away childish
things.
The tendency of the post‐exilic ritual was to detach the sacred seasons
more and more from the secular associations which had once been their
chief significance. This was done partly by the addition of new festivals
which had no such natural occasion, and partly by a change in the point of
view from which the older celebrations were regarded. No attempt was made
to obliterate the traces of the affinity with events of common life which
endeared them to the hearts of the people, but increasing importance was
attached to their historic significance as memorials of Jehovah’s gracious
dealings with the nation in the period of the Exodus. At the same time
they take on more and more the character of religious symbols of the
permanent relations between Jehovah and His people. The beginnings of this
process can be clearly discerned in the legislation of Ezekiel. Not indeed
in the direction of a historic interpretation of the feasts, for this is
ignored even in the case of the Passover, where it was already firmly
established in the national consciousness. But the institution of a
special series of public sacrifices, which was the same for the Passover
and the Feast of Tabernacles, and particularly the prominence given to the
sin‐offering, obviously tended to draw the mind of the people away from
the passing interest of the occasion, and fix it on those standing
obligations imposed by the holiness of Jehovah on which the continuance of
all His bounties depended. We cannot be mistaken in thinking that one
design of the new ritual was to correct the excesses of unrestrained
animal enjoyment by deepening the sense of guilt and the fear of possible
offences against the sanctity of the divine presence. For it was at these
festivals that the prince was required to offer the atoning sacrifice for
himself and the people.(279) Thus the effect of the whole system was to
foster the sensitive and tremulous tone of piety which was characteristic
of Judaism, in contrast to the hearty, if undisciplined, religion of the
ancient Hebrew feasts.
II. THE STATED SERVICE.—In the course of this chapter we have had occasion
more than once to touch on the prominence given in Ezekiel’s vision to
sacrifices offered in accordance with a fixed rubric in the name of the
whole community. The significance of this fact may best be seen from a
comparison with the sacrificial regulations of the book of Deuteronomy.
These are not numerous, but they deal exclusively with private sacrifices.
The person addressed is the individual householder, and the sacrifices
which he is enjoined to render are for himself and his family. There is no
explicit allusion in the whole book to the official sacrifices which were
offered by the regular priesthood and maintained at the king’s expense. In
Ezekiel’s scheme of Temple worship the case is exactly the reverse. Here
there is no mention of private sacrifice except in the incidental notices
as to the free‐will offerings and the sacrificial meal of the prince,(280)
while on the other hand great attention is paid to the maintenance of the
regular offerings provided by the prince for the congregation. This of
course does not mean that there were no statutory sacrifices in the old
Temple, or that Ezekiel contemplated the cessation of private sacrifice in
the new. Deuteronomy passes over the public sacrifices because they were
under the jurisdiction of the king, and the people at large were not
directly responsible for them; and similarly Ezekiel is silent as to
private offerings because their observance was assured by all the
traditions of the sanctuary. Still it is a noteworthy fact that of two
codes of Temple worship, separated by only half a century, each legislates
exclusively for that element of the ritual which is taken for granted by
the other.
What it indicates is nothing less than a change in the ruling conception
of public worship. Before the Exile the idea that Jehovah could desert His
sanctuary hardly entered into the mind of the people, and certainly did
not in the least affect the confidence with which they availed themselves
of the privileges of worship. The Temple was there and God was present
within it, and all that was necessary was that the spontaneous devotion of
the worshippers should be regulated by the essential conditions of
ceremonial propriety. But the destruction of the Temple had proved that
the mere existence of a sanctuary was no guarantee of the favour and
protection of the God who was supposed to dwell within it. Jehovah might
be driven from His Temple by the presence of sin among the people, or even
by a neglect of the ceremonial precautions which were necessary to guard
against the profanation of His holiness. On this idea the whole edifice of
the later ritual is built up, and here as in other respects Ezekiel has
shown the way. In his view the validity and efficiency of the whole Temple
service hangs on the due performance of the public rites which preserve
the nation in a condition of sanctity and continually represent it as a
holy people before God. Under cover of this representative service the
individual may draw near with confidence to seek the face of his God in
acts of private homage, but apart from the regular official ceremonial his
worship has no reality, because he can have no assurance that Jehovah will
accept his offering. His right of access to God springs from his
fellowship with the religious community of Israel, and hence the
indispensable presupposition of every act of worship is that the standing
of the community before Jehovah be preserved intact by the rites appointed
for that purpose. And, as has been already said, these rites are
representative in character. Being performed on behalf of the nation, the
obligation of presenting them rests with the prince in his representative
capacity, and the share of the people in them is indicated by the tribute
which the prince is empowered to levy for this end. In this way the ideal
unity of the nation finds continual expression in the worship of the
sanctuary, and the supreme interest of religion is transferred from the
mere act of personal homage to the abiding conditions of acceptance with
God symbolised by the stated service.
Let us now look at some details of the scheme in which this important idea
is embodied. The foundation of the whole system is the daily burnt‐
offering—the _tāmîd_. Under the first Temple the daily offering seems to
have been a burnt‐offering in the morning and a meal‐offering (_minhah_)
in the evening,(281) and this practice seems to have continued down to the
time of Ezra.(282) According to the Levitical law it consists of a lamb
morning and evening, accompanied on each occasion by a minhah and a
libation of wine.(283) Ezekiel’s ordinance occupies a middle position
between these two. Here the tamîd is a lamb for a burnt‐offering in the
morning, along with a minhah of flour mingled with oil; and there is no
provision for an evening sacrifice.(284) The presentation of this
sacrifice on the altar in the morning, as the basis on which all other
offerings through the day were laid, may be taken to symbolise the truth
that the acceptance of all ordinary acts of worship depended on the
representation of the community before God in the regular service. To the
spiritual perception of a Psalmist it may have suggested the duty of
commencing each day’s work with an act of devotion:—
Jehovah, in the morning shalt Thou hear my voice;
In the morning will I set [my prayer] in order before Thee, and
will look out.(285)
The offerings for the Sabbaths and new moons may be considered as
amplifications of the daily sacrifice. They consist exclusively of burnt‐
offerings. On the Sabbath six lambs are presented, perhaps one for each
working day of the week, together with a ram for the Sabbath itself
(Smend). At the new moon feast this offering is repeated with the addition
of a bullock. It may be noted here once for all that each burnt sacrifice
is accompanied by a corresponding minhah, according to a fixed scale. For
sin‐offerings, on the other hand, no minhah seems to be appointed.
At the annual (or rather half‐yearly) celebrations the sin‐offering
appears for the first time among the stated sacrifices. The sacrifice for
the cleansing of the sanctuary at the beginning of each half of the year
consists of a young bullock for a sin‐offering, in addition of course to
the burnt‐offerings which were prescribed for the first day of the month.
For the Passover and the Feast of Tabernacles the daily offering is a he‐
goat for a sin‐offering, and seven bullocks and seven rams for a burnt‐
offering during the week covered by these festivals. Besides this, at
Passover, and probably also at Tabernacles, the prince presents a bullock
as a sin‐offering for himself and the people. We have now to consider more
particularly the place which this class of sacrifices occupies in the
ritual.
III. ATONING SACRIFICES.—It is evident, even from this short survey, that
the idea of atonement holds a conspicuous place in the symbolism of
Ezekiel’s Temple. He is, indeed, the earliest writer (setting aside the
Levitical Code) who mentions the special class of sacrifices known as sin‐
and guilt‐offerings. Under the first Temple ceremonial offences were
regularly atoned for at one time by money payments to the priests, and
these fines are called by the names afterwards applied to the expiatory
sacrifices.(286) It does not follow, of course, that such sacrifices were
unknown before the time of Ezekiel, nor is such a conclusion probable in
itself. The manner in which the prophet alludes to them rather shows that
the idea was perfectly familiar to his contemporaries. But the prominence
of the sin‐offering in the public ritual may be safely set down as a new
departure in the Temple service, as it is one of the most striking
symptoms of the change that passed over the spirit of Israel’s religion at
the time of the Exile.
Of the elements that contributed to this change the most important was the
deepened consciousness of sin that had been produced by the teaching of
the prophets as verified in the terrible calamity of the Exile. We have
seen how frequently Ezekiel insists on this effect of the divine judgment;
how, even in the time of her pardon and restoration, he represents Israel
as ashamed and confounded, not opening her mouth any more for the
remembrance of all that she had done. We are therefore prepared to find
that full provision is made for the expression of this abiding sense of
guilt in the revised scheme of worship. This was done not by new rites
invented for the purpose, but by seizing on those elements of the old
ritual which represented the wiping out of iniquity, and by so remodelling
the whole sacrificial system as to place these prominently in the
foreground. Such elements were found chiefly in the sin‐offering and
guilt‐offering, which occupied a subsidiary position in the old Temple,
but are elevated to a place of commanding importance in the new. The
precise distinction between these two kinds of sacrifice is an obscure
point of the Levitical ritual which has never been perfectly cleared up.
In the system of Ezekiel, however, we observe that the guilt‐offering
plays no part in the stated service, and must therefore have been reserved
for private transgressions of the law of holiness. And in general it may
be remarked that the atoning sacrifices differ from others, not in their
material, but in certain features of the sacred actions to be observed
with regard to them. We cannot here enter upon the details of the
symbolism, but the most important fact is that the flesh of the victims is
neither offered on the altar as in the burnt‐offering, nor eaten by the
worshippers as in the peace‐offering, but belongs to the category of most
holy things, and must be consumed by the priests in a holy place. In
certain extreme cases, however, it has to be burned without the
sanctuary.(287)
Now in the chapters before us the idea of sacrificial atonement is chiefly
developed in connection with the material fabric of the sanctuary. The
sanctuary may contract defilement by involuntary lapses from the stringent
rules of ceremonial purity on the part of those who use it, whether
priests or laymen. Such errors of inadvertence were almost unavoidable
under the complicated set of formal regulations into which the fundamental
idea of holiness branched out, yet they are regarded as endangering the
sanctity of the Temple, and require to be carefully atoned for from time
to time, lest by their accumulation the worship should be invalidated and
Jehovah driven from His dwelling‐place. But besides this the Temple (or at
least the altar) is unfit for its sacred functions until it has undergone
an initial process of purification. The principle involved still survives
in the consecration of ecclesiastical buildings in Christendom, although
its application had doubtless a much more serious import under the old
dispensation than it can possibly have under the new.
A full account of this initial ceremony of purification is given in the
end of the forty‐third chapter, and a glance at the details of the ritual
may be enough to impress on us the conceptions that underlie the process.
It is a protracted operation, extending apparently over eight days.(288)
The first and fundamental act is the offering of a sin‐offering of the
highest degree of sanctity, the victim being a bullock and the flesh being
burned outside the sanctuary. The blood alone is sprinkled on the four
horns of the altar, the four corners of the “settle,” and the “border”:
this is the first stage in the dedication of the altar. Then for seven
days a he‐goat is offered for a sin‐offering, the same rites being
observed, and after it a burnt‐offering consisting of a bullock and a ram.
These sacrifices are intended only for the purification of the altar, and
only on the day after their completion is the altar ready to receive
ordinary public or private gifts—burnt‐offerings and peace‐offerings. Now
four expressions are used to denote the effect of these ceremonies on the
altar. The most general is “consecrate,” literally “fill its hand”(289)—a
phrase used originally of the installation of a priest into his office,
and then applied metaphorically to consecration or initiation in general.
The others are “purify,”(290) “unsin,”(291) (the special effect of the
_sin‐offering_) and “expiate.”(292) Of these the last is the most
important. It is the technical priestly term for atonement for sin, the
reference being of course generally to persons. As to the fundamental
meaning of the word, there has been a great deal of discussion, which has
not yet led to a decisive result. The choice seems to lie between two
radical ideas, either to “wipe out” or to “cover,” and so render
inoperative.(293) But either etymology enables us to understand the use of
the word in legal terminology. It means to undo the effect of a
transgression on the religious status of the offender, or, as in the case
before us, to remove natural or contracted impurity from a material
object. And whether this is conceived as a covering up of the fault so as
to conceal it from view, or a wiping out of it, amounts in the end to the
same thing. The significant fact is that the same word is applied both to
persons and things. It furnishes another illustration of the intimate way
in which the ideas of moral guilt and physical defect are blended in the
ceremonial of the Old Testament.
The meaning of the two atoning services appointed for the beginning of the
first and the seventh month is now clear. They are intended to renew
periodically the holiness of the sanctuary established by the initiatory
rites just described. For it is evident that no indelible character can
attach to the kind of sanctity with which we are here dealing. It is apt
to be lost, if not by mere lapse of time, at least by the repeated contact
of frail men who with the best intentions are not always able to fulfil
the conditions of a right use of sacred things. Every failure and mistake
detracts from the holiness of the Temple, and even unnoticed and
altogether unconscious offences would in course of time profane it if not
purged away. Hence “for every one that erreth and for him that is
simple”(294) atonement has to be made for the house twice a year. The
ritual to be observed on these occasions bears a general resemblance to
that of the inaugural ceremony, but is simpler, only a single bullock
being presented for a sin‐offering. On the other hand, it expressly
symbolises a purification of the Temple as well as of the altar. The blood
is sprinkled not only on the “settle” of the altar, but also on the
doorposts of the house, and the posts of the eastern gate of the inner
court.
We may now pass on to the second application made by Ezekiel of the idea
of sacrificial atonement. These purifications of the sanctuary, which bulk
so largely in his system, have their counterpart in atonements made
directly for the faults of the people. For this purpose, as we have
already seen, a sin‐offering was to be presented at each of the great
annual festivals by the prince, for himself and the nation which he
represented. But it is important to observe that the idea of atonement is
not confined to one particular class of sacrifices. It lies at the
foundation of the whole system of the stated service, the purpose of which
is expressly said to be “to make atonement for the house of Israel.”(295)
Thus while the half‐yearly sin‐offering afforded a special opportunity for
confession of sin on the part of the people, we are to understand that the
holiness of the nation was secured by the observance of every part of the
prescribed ritual which regulated its intercourse with God. And since the
nation is in itself imperfectly holy and stands in constant need of
forgiveness, the maintenance of its sanctity by sacrificial rites was
equivalent to a perpetual act of atonement. Special offences of
individuals had of course to be expiated by special sacrifices, but
beneath all particular transgressions lay the broad fact of human impurity
and infirmity; and in the constant “covering up” of this by a divinely
instituted system of religious ordinances we recognise an atoning element
in the regular Temple service.
The sacrificial ritual may therefore be regarded as a barrier interposed
between the natural uncleanness of the people and the awful holiness of
Jehovah seated in His Temple. That men should be permitted to approach Him
at all is an unspeakable privilege conferred on Israel in virtue of its
covenant relation to God. But that the approach is surrounded by so many
precautions and restrictions is a perpetual witness to the truth that God
is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity and one with whom evil cannot
dwell. If these precautions could have been always perfectly observed, it
is probable that no periodical purification of the sanctuary would have
been enjoined. The ordinary ritual would have sufficed to maintain the
nation in a state of holiness corresponding with the requirements of
Jehovah’s nature. But this was impossible on account of the slowness of
men’s minds and their liability to err in their most sacred duties. Sin is
so subtle and pervasive that it is conceived as penetrating the network of
ordinances destined to intercept it, and reaching even to the dwelling‐
place of Jehovah Himself. It is to remove such accidental, though
inevitable, violations of the majesty of God that the ritual edifice is
crowned by ceremonies for the purification of the sanctuary. They are, so
to speak, atonements in the second degree. Their object is to compensate
for defects in the ordinary routine of worship, and to remove the arrears
of guilt which had accumulated through neglect of some part of the
ceremonial scheme. This idea appears quite clearly in Ezekiel’s
legislation, but it is far more impressively exhibited in the Levitical
law, where different elements of Ezekiel’s ritual are gathered up into one
celebration in the Great Day of Atonement, the most solemn and imposing of
the whole year.
Hence we see that the whole system of sacrificial worship is firmly knit
together, being pervaded from end to end by the one principle of
expiation, behind which lay the assurance of pardon and acceptance to all
who approached God in the use of the appointed means of grace. Herein lay
the chief value of the Temple ritual for the religious life of Israel. It
served to impress on the mind of the people the great realities of sin and
forgiveness, and so to create that profound consciousness of sin which has
passed over, spiritualised but not weakened, into Christian experience.
Thus the law proved itself a schoolmaster to bring men to Christ, in whose
atoning death the evil of sin and the eternal conditions of forgiveness
are once for all and perfectly revealed.
The positive truths taught or suggested by the ritual of atonement are too
numerous to be considered here. It is a remarkable fact that neither in
Ezekiel nor in any other part of the Old Testament is an authoritative
interpretation given of the most essential features of the ritual. The
people seem to have been left to explain the symbolism as best they could,
and many points which are obscure and uncertain to us must have been
perfectly intelligible to the least instructed amongst them. For us the
only safe rule is to follow the guidance of the New Testament writers in
their use of sacrificial institutions as types of the death of Christ. The
investigation is too large and intricate to be attempted in this place.
But it may be well in conclusion to point out one or two general
principles, which ought never to be overlooked in the typical
interpretation of the expiatory sacrifices of the Old Testament.
In the first place atonement is provided only for sins committed in
ignorance; and moral and ceremonial offences stand precisely on the same
footing in the eye of the law. In Ezekiel’s system, indeed, it was only
sins of inadvertence that needed to be considered. He has in view the
final state of things in which the people, though not perfect nor exempt
from liability to error, are wholly inclined to obey the law of Jehovah so
far as their knowledge and ability extend. But even in the Levitical
legislation there is no legal dispensation for guilt incurred through
wanton and deliberate defiance of the law of Jehovah. To sin thus is to
sin “with a high hand,”(296) and such offences have to be expiated by the
death of the sinner, or at least his exclusion from the religious
community. And whether the precept belong to what we call the ceremonial
or to the moral side of the law, the same principle holds good, although
of course its application is one‐sided, strictly moral transgressions
being for the most part voluntary, while ritual offences may be either
voluntary or inadvertent. But for wilful and high‐handed departure from
any precept, whether ethical or ceremonial, no atonement is provided by
the law; the guilty person “falls into the hands of the living God,” and
forgiveness is possible only in the sphere of personal relations between
man and God, into which the law does not enter.
This leads to a second consideration. Atoning sacrifices do not purchase
forgiveness. That is to say, they are never regarded as exercising any
influence on God, moving Him to mercy towards the sinner. They are simply
the forms to which, by Jehovah’s own appointment, the promise of
forgiveness is attached. Hence sacrifice has not the fundamental
significance in Old Testament religion that the death of Christ has in the
New. The whole sacrificial system, as we see quite clearly from Ezekiel’s
prophecy, presupposes redemption; the people are already restored to their
land and sanctified by Jehovah’s presence amongst them before these
institutions come into operation. The only purpose that they serve in the
system of religion to which they belong is to secure that the blessings of
salvation shall not be lost. Both in this vision and throughout the Old
Testament the ultimate ground of confidence in God lies in historic acts
of redemption in which Jehovah’s sovereign grace and love to Israel are
revealed. Through the sacrifices the individual was enabled to assure
himself of his interest in the covenant blessings promised to his nation.
They were the sacraments of his personal acceptance with Jehovah, and as
such were of the highest importance for his normal religious life. But
they were not and could not be the basis of the forgiveness of sins, nor
did later Judaism ever fall into the error of seeking to appease the Deity
by a multiplication of sacrificial gifts. When the insufficiency of the
ritual system to give true peace of conscience or to bring back the
outward tokens of God’s favour is dwelt upon, the ancient Church falls
back on the spiritual conditions of forgiveness already enunciated by the
prophets.
Thou desirest not sacrifice that I should 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.(297)
Finally, we have learned from Ezekiel that the idea of atonement is not
lodged in any particular rite, but pervades the sacrificial system as a
whole. Suggestive as the ritual of the sin‐offering is to the Christian
conscience, it must not be isolated from other developments of the
sacrificial idea or taken to embody the whole permanent meaning of the
institution. There are at least two other aspects of sacrifice which are
clearly expressed in the ritual legislation of the Old Testament—that of
homage, chiefly symbolised by the burnt‐offering, and that of communion,
symbolised by the peace‐offering and the sacrificial feast observed in
connection with it. And although, both in Ezekiel and the Levitical law,
these two elements are thrown into the shade by the idea of expiation, yet
there are subtle links of affinity between all three, which will have to
be traced out before we are in a position to understand the first
principles of sacrificial worship. The brilliant and learned researches of
the late Professor Robertson Smith have thrown a flood of light on the
original rite of sacrifice and the important place which it occupies in
ancient religion.(298) He has sought to explain the intricate system of
the Levitical legislation as an unfolding, under varied historical
influences, of different aspects of the idea of communion between God and
men, which is the essence of primitive sacrifice. In particular he has
shown how special atoning sacrifices arise through emphasising by
appropriate symbolism the element of reconciliation which is implicitly
contained in every act of religious communion with God. This at least
enables us to understand how the atoning ritual with all its distinctive
features yet resembles so closely that which is common to all types of
sacrifice, and how the idea of expiation, although concentrated in a
particular class of sacrifices, is nevertheless spread over the whole
surface of the sacrificial ritual. It would be premature as well as
presumptuous to attempt here to estimate the consequences of this theory
for Christian theology. But it certainly seems to open up the prospect of
a wider and deeper apprehension of the religious truths which are
differentiated and specialised in the Old Testament dispensation, to be
reunited in that great Atoning Sacrifice, in which the blood of the new
covenant has been shed for many for the remission of sins.