life, that both thou and thy seed may live, that thou mayest love the Lord thy God, and that thou mayest obey His voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto Him; for He is thy life and the length of thy days: that thou mayest dwell in the land which the Lord sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them” (Deut. xxx. 19, 20).

They did what God had provided to enable them to walk with Him, and when they erred or failed to keep His holy law they brought the means of reconciliation He had appointed.  In such way a man might do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with his God, which is the whole duty of man.

“Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright, for the end of that man is peace” (Ps. xxxvii. 37), might be applied to such an one, and the model may perhaps be useful in enabling us to understand the higher perfection required by the Gospel.  “If we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin” (1 John i. 7).

If we look for the essential principle of this elaborate system of priestly mediation for the forgiveness of sins, as well as for presenting to God the freewill offerings or devotions of the people, it will be found in the 11th verse of the 17th chapter of Leviticus, viz.: “For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.”

Such were the conditions under which the law given from Mount Sinai was presented to or enjoined on the people.  They were to choose between life or death, blessing or cursing, obedience with the Divine favour, or refusal to obey, with the Divine displeasure.  The eyes of the Lord would be over the righteous, and His ear open to their cry; but the face of the Lord would be against them that did evil, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth—Ps. xxxiv. 15, 16—conditions so different as to constitute the highest happiness man was capable of at that time, or the deepest degradation and misery which he could endure in this life, with no better prospect beyond.

The consequences of God’s favour and blessing are set forth with peculiar strength in Deuteronomy (see pp. 33, 34), together with the consequences of His favour being withdrawn, which we may do well to ponder; as the language quoted above from the Psalms is adopted by the Apostle Peter as applicable equally to Christian times, and the principles of the quotations from Deuteronomy are equally applicable to the old or new dispensations—viz., obedience to the revealed will of God with life and blessing, or disobedience with death and misery.

“He that despised Moses’ law died without mercy under two or three witnesses; of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and done despite unto the Spirit of Grace?” (Heb. x. 28, 29).

CHAPTER III.

THE HEBREW SACRIFICES FROM THE CHRISTIAN POINT OF VIEW.  THE SACRIFICE OF CHRIST THEIR TRUE COMPLEMENT.

When we consider the bearings of the Mosaic laws on the religion of Christ, it is impossible to avoid a careful attention to the Epistle to the Hebrews, which so clearly sets forth the unity of design between the different revelations, and the manner in which the institutions of the former prefigured and led up to the higher, purer, and holier covenant of the Gospel.

The mode in which the author deals with the highest subjects and persons bespeaks for him the position of one of the chiefest apostles, to whom abundance of revelations had been made, and whose mind was disembarrassed from the prejudices of the past, and accepted without reserve the fully developed light and spirit of the Gospel.  Who else could venture on language like the opening verses of this book; or those words in the second chapter, “For it became Him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings” (Heb. ii. 10).

To him the transition from the Law to the Gospel is perfectly natural and necessary.  As the morning dawn passes on into the perfect day, so the Law, having done its preparatory work, merges into the glorious light of the Gospel of Christ; or, to use the author’s own simile, the Law decays, waxes old, and vanishes away just as the glory of the Gospel appears.  The one must increase, the other decrease; the type be swallowed up in the antitype.  Nothing is discordant; everything fits naturally to its bearings on the other.  Moses as lawgiver gives place to the Prophet whom the Lord would raise up to His people.  The priesthood of Aaron and his sons is superseded by the High Priesthood of Christ.  The blood of animals, which had no inherent healing power—by the blood of Him, who (uniting the Divine and the human—God and Man), “through the Eternal Spirit, offered Himself without spot to God,” “an offering and a sacrifice of a sweet smelling savour” for the sins of men.  The beneficent provisions of the Mosaic laws—of which Moses could say (Deut. iv. 8): “What nation is there so great, that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law which I set before you this day?”—give place to the yet purer principles of the Gospel of Christ.

Had it not been for the long course of typical sacrifices, continued through so many ages, how would it have been possible in the latter days to establish the value and efficacy of the sacrifice of Christ?  The sacrificial rites of heathen nations, so degrading to morality and purity of thought and life, would alone have led no one to imagine such a sacrifice as His: although when viewed as corruptions of revealed truth they have, as accessories, a valuable significance.

We propose now to look at the intrinsic value of the sacrifices under the Mosaic institutions from the Christian point of view, and the superiority of the sacrifice and religion of Christ, as explained in the Epistle to the Hebrews.

Chapter 1 sets forth that God, who had formerly spoken to men by Prophets, has now spoken to us by His Son, who, being the brightness of His glory and express image of His person, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.  Here is the first recognition of the teaching and High Priesthood of Christ.  He speaks to us the things of God, and purges away our sins by Himself (vers. 1–3).

Chapter 2 opens with the exhortation that for this reason we ought to give the more earnest attention to what He taught. [42]

Chapter 2 sets forth also that Christ had passed through suffering, in order that He “might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people” (c. ii. 17).

Chapter 3 opens with an invitation to consider this Apostle and High Priest of