Leviticus 1:13

Lev 1:13 But he shall wash the inwards and the legs with water: and the priest shall bring [it] all, and burn [it] upon the altar: it [is] a burnt sacrifice, an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the LORD.

Ver. 13. He shall wash.] {See Trapp on "Lev 1:9"}

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

But he shall wash the inwards and the legs with water,.... As he did the bullock, Lev 1:9,

and the priest shall bring it all: all the parts to the ascent of the altar, as the Jews (i) interpret it; all the parts and pieces of it, even the very wool on the sheep's head, and the hair on the goat's beard, their bones, sinews, and horns, and hoofs (k), all were burnt, as it follows:

and burn it on the altar, it is a burnt offering, an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the Lord; See Gill on Lev 1:9.

(i) T. Bab. Pesachim, fol. 65. 2. & Yoma, fol. 27. 1. Chagigah, fol. 11. 1. (k) Misn. Zebachim, c. 9. sect. 5. Maimon. Hilchot Hakorbanot, c. 6. sect. 2.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

AN ESSAY ON SACRIFICE

BY THE REV RICHARD COLLINS, M.A.

WHAT is the origin, true character, and proper place of sacrifice as a part of religion? Half a century ago, when many of us were schoolboys, there was certain definite teaching on this subject. Probably nine hundred and ninety-nine out of every thousand educated Englishmen, who had seriously turned their thoughts to the matter, were perfectly satisfied with the view, and regarded it as almost axiomatic, that sacrifice was a divinely appointed religious rite, intended to typify and educate the world for one Great Sacrifice, which Great Sacrifice having been accomplished, there was no need for, or even place for, any future sacrifice, truly so called, in the Christian Church. I do not put the matter thus under the idea that the consensus of antiquity is necessarily any warrant for the truth of a doctrine, but only because the view of sacrifice that I have alluded to has seemed to multitudes so scriptural, so simple, so fully to account for the peculiarities and mysteries of the subject, that in reconsidering it we should be led to use the utmost diligence in finally satisfying our minds as to its true place and character.

For we must reconsider it, if not for our own satisfaction, at least for the satisfaction of those we may have to teach. This duty is forced upon us by the fact that the waves of modern opinion have rudely shaken our ancient, and what perhaps we considered our orthodox, notions about sacrifices; and, indeed, it has been not merely a shaking, but a complex shaking one wave rolling the notion in one direction and another in an opposite one, so that we feel that we must first secure the notion before we can assign it its true place in history and in reference to the Christian religion.

Men, probably equals in intellectual force and learning, have lately propounded views as to the nature and office of sacrifice so diametrically contradictory the one to the other that both cannot be true: the truth must either reside in the one, to the total exclusion of the other, or it must be found between the two, or beyond either. According to one view, sacrifice is a mistake of man"s still undeveloped reason in the days of his ignorant wonder. The inexorable laws of nature pressed upon man"s infant intelligence, so that he worshipped them in fear, and exalted them into gods. The inevitable begat the idea of an inflexible, exacting justice which must be satisfied or appeased. Hence arose the idea of propitiation before the presence of this rigorous justice, at length personified, by the immolation of the best a man had the fruit of his body, or some other costly human sacrifice; a sacrifice which was, as human reason became more highly developed, commuted by the offering of animal instead of human life. A further development, as human reason grew, was a mere self-sacrifice, not of blood, but of service, as in the case of the Buddhist. And the last stage of development, according to this teaching, is the elimination from mankind of every sacrificial altar and every dogma having a sacrificial aspect.

According to the other view, not only were animal sacrifices of Divine institution, prospective to the Great Sacrifice, but the duty of offering a sacrifice is still the central duty of the Christian Church. The Catholic Church is truly Christ"s body only so long as it contains a sacrificing priesthood, and a sacrifice as truly such as were the sacrifices of Aaron. The offering of the Holy Eucharist is not a commemorative sacrifice in the sense of its being a commemoration of a sacrifice, but in the sense of its being a true oblation of that which shall plead for the quick, and even, as some hold, for the dead. In short, according to this school of thought, the highest development of human reason in respect to this matter is the exact converse of that previously stated. It is that the life of the Church absolutely depends upon its enshrinement of a true sacrificial altar and upon a continually sacrificing priesthood.

Where lies the truth?

As an exponent of the former view, we may take a recent article in the Nineteenth Century, on Shylock"s bond, "The Pound of Flesh," by Mr. Moncure D. Conway. According to the argument pursued in that article, it is maintained that the idea of sacrifice arose from "non-human nature;" that it was the outgrowth of "nature-worship," the remorselessness of hard "natural" law calling for recompense; and that forgiveness is the highest development of "human nature that mercy is the basis of "purely human religion.

As an exponent of the other extreme, we may take the writings of Mr. Orby Shipley, who states that Christ becomes "incarnate in the hands of the priest" at the consecration of the elements in the Holy Eucharist, and that there and then a sacrifice is offered for the sins of mankind.

I propose to consider the subject of sacrifice

I In its origin;

II In its limits.

I. IN ITS ORIGIN;

The doctrine that sacrifices were originally the offspring of human ignorance reflected on the Deity, is fairly summed up in the following extract from Mr. Conway"s article to which I have alluded: "Side by side," Mr. Conway writes, "in all ages and races, have struggled with each other the principle of retaliation and that of forgiveness. In religion the vindictive principle has euphemistic names; it is called law and justice. The other principle, that of remission, has had to exist by sufferance, and in nearly all religions has been recognized only in subordinate alliance with its antagonist. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, blood for blood, is primitive law. Projected into heaven, magnified into the Divine majesty, it becomes the principle that a Deity cannot be just, and yet a Justifier of offenders. "Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins." Since finite man is naturally assumed to be incapable of directly satisfying an infinite law, all religions, based on the idea of a Divine Lawgiver, are employed in devising schemes by which commutations may be secured and vicarious satisfactions of Divine law obtained. No Deity inferred from the always relentless forces of nature has ever been supposed able to forgive the smallest sin until it was exactly atoned for. For this reason, the Divine mercifulness has generally become a separate personification. The story of the "pound of flesh" is one of the earliest fables concerning these conflicting principles.

Thus, then, if I understand this line of reasoning clearly, we are brought to the theory that all religions have been the imputations of human feelings and experiences to the Deity. And whether the Deity exist as the Great Unknown or be merely a figment of man"s brain, Mr. Conway"s argument remains the same. According to this theory, as the principle of retaliation and that of forgiveness have struggled for ascendency in man"s moral development, so in parallel lines have the god or gods, real or imaginary, been vindictive or forgiving. In this way, the history of the religions of mankind is merely the history of man"s moral growth reflected on another sphere where we see the survival of the moral fittest, human mercy, as a purely human force, gradually supplanting human vindictiveness. And thus Divine law, or justice, is translated by human vindictiveness; and the offering of sacrifices, animal or other, is a human scheme by which "commutations may be secured and vicarious satisfactions obtained" to propitiate, or appease, the supposed Divine vindictiveness.

Mr. Conway illustrates and supports his theory by reference to Brahmanic, Buddhistic, and Semitic examples.

"The following legend," he writes, "was related to me by a Hindu, as one he had been told in his childhood. The chief of the Indian triad, Indra, pursued the god Agni. Agni changed himself to a dove in order to escape; but Indra changed himself to a hawk, to continue the pursuit. The dove took refuge with Vishnu, second person of the triad, the Hindu saviour. Indra, flying up, demanded the dove; Vishnu, concealing it in his bosom, refused to give up the dove. Indra then took an oath that, if the dove were not surrendered, he would tear from Vishnu"s breast an amount of flesh equal to the body of the dove. Vishnu still refused to surrender the bird, but bared his breast. The divine hawk tore from it the exact quantity, and the drops of blood the blood of a saviour as they fell to the ground, wrote the scriptures of the Vedas.

"We may see," Mr. Conway goes on to remark, "in the fable reflection of a sacrificial age; an age in which the will and word of a god became inexorable fate, but also the dawning conception of a divineness in the mitigation of the law, which ultimately adds saving deities to those which cannot be appeased." Versions of this story are traced in some of the Hindu writings; and advancing to the discussion of Buddhism, Mr. Conway says, "With Buddha the principle of remission supersedes that of sacrifice. His argument against the Brahmanic sacrifice of life was strong. When they pointed to these predatory laws of nature in proof of their faith that the gods approved the infliction of pain and death, he asked them why they did not sacrifice their own children; why they did not offer to the gods the most valuable lives. The fact was that they were outgrowing direct human sacrifices preserving self-mortifications and animals were slain in commutation of costlier offerings." The Semitic story adduced is, of course, that of Abraham and Isaac. "In the case of Abraham and Isaac," Mr. Conway writes, "the demand is not remitted, but commuted. The ram is accepted instead of Isaac. But even so much concession could hardly be recognized by the Hebrew priesthood as an allowable variation from a direct demand of Jahve, and so the command is said to have been given by Elohim, its modification by Jahve. The cautious transformation is somewhat in the spirit of the disguises of the Aryan deities, who may partially revoke as gods the orders they gave as hawks. It would indicate a more advanced idea if we found Jahve remitting a claim of his own instead of one made by Elohim.

Thus too the Jewish religion and the Christian religion are brought under the same category with Hinduism and Buddhism, and are made to illustrate the same human principles. The idea, possibility, probability, or claims of revelation are untouched.

I do not enter the arena of controversy to discuss with Mr. Conway the character and revelation of Jehovah; that would be quite beside the mark in this commentary. But standing on the platform of Holy Scripture, I wish thence to consider some portions of his theory.

Now, while Jew and Christian have sufficient reason for believing that certain sacrifices were commanded or sanctioned by Divine revelation, as a part of the religious observances of the Jewish people; yet we find sacrifices of one kind or another common to almost all ancient nations, and practised long before the Israelites were under Mount Sinai. Leaving out of sight, for the present, the object of the Mosaic sacrifices, and the possible question whether Jehovah sanctioned and regulated for the Jewish worship something which was already a part, as it were, of human nature, let us test the question, whether the practice of offering sacrifice can have had any such origin as that suggested by Mr. Conway.

First, take the central idea, if I understand Mr. Conway aright, that the principle of forgiveness, mercy, is a purely human attribute, and that it has been winning its way against the principle of vindictiveness by a kind of natural selection, in the struggle of the noble against the ignoble in the moral world. I fail to read this fact in the history either of the race or of the individual. The principle of retaliation, vindictiveness, we find today as robust as when the earliest pages of history were penned. Purely human, it has its origin in the instinct of self-preservation, and seems to be an echo in man of what can be traced through the brute creation. But is mercy, as expressed by the forgiveness of the injurious by the injured, of human origin at all? Is it anywhere to be traced in man"s history apart from the influence of the religion of Jehovah? That there is a germ of mercy in the human constitution, there is no doubt; otherwise we could not understand, appreciate, or practise the principle of forgiveness at all. But where in the history of the human race do we find the principle contained in the words, "Forgive your enemies," asserting itself, except in what Christians hold to be a Divine revelation? It is undoubtedly true that Koong-foo-tse taught that men should "do as they would be done by." But we do not know whence he received his philosophy; possibly, in common with Gautama Buddha, from the teaching of pious Jews at the court of Babylon an influence which may well have had a worldwide character. (see Dan_6:25-28) And "Do as you would be done by" comes very far short of "Love your enemies." Buddhism, again, contains no teaching, so far as I have been able to discover, on the subject of forgiveness. The nearest approach to it that I have met with, is a story of the queen Samawati, who, when her enraged husband was about to shoot her with a poisoned arrow, looked at him with a smile of affection, and so paralyzed his arm that he could not draw the bow; an act that was followed by this wise piece of advice, "When you desire to pacify anger, look upon the angered person with love." But this could only be in the case, like her own, when love preexisted. And this story is not related by the Buddhists to enforce forgiveness for its own sake, but to illustrate their doctrine that there is a supernatural power, derived from merit in a former state of existence, which preserves its possessor from danger. Mr. Conway states that "in Buddhism the principle of remission supersedes that of sacrifice." I do not know upon what quotations from Buddhistic writings he would verify this statement. Certainly sacrifice is impossible in Buddhism, since it forbids the taking of all life. But I have no evidence that that peculiar law of Buddha has any especial reference to the sacrifice of animals as a religious observance. And with respect to the principle of remission, or forgiveness, I am not aware of a word though it may be that I have not exhausted the Buddhistic lore in the teachings of Buddha relating to it, either as a duty of man towards man, or as something to be desired from a higher power. Indeed, Buddhism acknowledges no higher power than man, and seeks not forgiveness, but merit, by which the individual man may be freed from the curse of mortality. That the idea of merit, that underlies all Buddhistic teaching, may originally have been connected with the idea of the remission of sins, is not only possible but probable. But in our present ignorance of the true historical origin of the teachings of Buddha, this is a subject, the discussion of which would be without the scope of this essay. The fact with regard to Buddhism as now known is that, while the idea of sacrifice is historically present, it has no reference to remission or forgiveness. Self-sacrifice, which is so essential a part of Buddhism, is nowhere connected with remission, but merit; as when Gautama, while a Bodhisat (i.e., a candidate for the Buddhahood), voluntarily allowed a hungry tigress to devour him, in order to save her life and that of her cubs, as a step towards becoming a Buddha.

In Hinduism, again, there is no teaching on the subject of forgiveness, either as between man and man, or the deity and man, except in a very few passages in some of the earliest hymns of the Rig Veda: as Hinduism progresses, the idea is lost, not developed. When the head of the cock is cut off before the altar of Kali, there is no thought of obtaining forgiveness of the deity; the general idea is, as with the Buddhist, that merit will accrue on the performance of a prescribed act of religion which they have learned from their forefathers. There are whole races of men in whose vocabulary there is no word for forgiveness. The spirit of retaliation seems to be still as potent as ever, apart from the spirit of Christianity. The successful struggle of the principle of forgiveness, as a purely human attribute, against the principle of retaliation, does not appear to me to be made out. There must, therefore, be some other reason why the virtue of forgiveness, theoretically at all events, holds so influential a position in the ethics of the learned men of Europe. The Christian would maintain that this virtue has been learned solely from Holy Scripture by the moderns, and from anterior Divine revelation by the ancients.

Then, again, we have to confront the theory that man, under the influence of a religious instinct (and, of course, the case of the Christian religion is here included), has formed no higher ideal of Divine justice than such as is a reflection of his own innate sense of retaliation or vindictiveness. This, I suppose, to be the meaning of the passages quoted before: "In religion the vindictive principle has euphemistic names; it is called law and justice.... An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, blood for blood, is primitive law. Projected into heaven, magnified into the Divine majesty, it becomes the principle that a Deity cannot be just, and yet a Justifier of offenders.

Now, this is a subject that requires extremely nice discrimination. For that the idea of vindictiveness, or retaliation, has been "projected," so to speak, on the Divine justice by the short-sightedness of man, there is no doubt. But that the idea of the Divine justice that underlies the Christian religion is the offspring of such a principle in man"s heart, is a theory which entirely subverts the truth of Christianity.

We may begin by remarking that our natural views of justice, equity, are not, of course, in any degree the children of our natural impulse towards retaliation. Nor can Mr. Conway be supposed to suggest this. Equity, human justice, represented by the ancients under the symbol of an even balance, so far from being the child of the principle, or spirit, of vindictiveness, is that which alone controls it. Justice determines whether the "pound of flesh" and the debt are really in equipoise; justice stops a man when his instinctive vindictiveness sends him in pursuit of his enemy; the laws of England do not allow a man to retaliate, but endeavour to put him into the hands of justice; and so when our Saviour said, "Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: but I say unto you, That ye resist not evil," he evidently meant that men should curb the impetuosity of personal vindictiveness, and leave their ease in the hands of a more perfect justice.

Man has the power of realizing a perfect, even-handed justice, however often and however far he may have abused the principle in practice. And although he may have reflected his own imperfections on false gods, and may have made them vindictive, the Divine justice that underlies the Christian religion owns none of this imperfection, but is in accordance with that perfect ideal that man is capable of forming, though not always of practicing.

How, then, does the Christian religion regard the Divine justice in relation to the forgiveness of sins? Does it impute to that justice vindictiveness, or retaliation, and then "devise a scheme by which a commutation may be secured, and a vicarious satisfaction obtained," to meet the inexorable demands of that Divine retaliation? The Scripture does indeed say that "by the deeds of the Law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight." But this is no threat of retaliation; for it simply states a self-evident fact, that a man cannot be both guilty and guiltless. And there is no part of Holy Scripture which says that "the Deity cannot be just, and yet a Justifier of offenders." On the contrary, it says that "God can be just, and yet the Justifier of the ungodly;" and it makes it a part of the justice of God that he does forgive offences, for "He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins." But it will be said, this act of God"s justice, in forgiving offenders, is only extended, according to the Christian Scriptures, in view of the "satisfaction" made to the Divine justice in the death of the Saviour Jesus Christ as a vicarious offering; and that a satisfaction implies something to be satisfied. This is in a certain sense true; but there is no word in the New Testament which represents the satisfaction as made to any principle of retaliation. And I may note, in passing, that the word itself, "satisfaction," though occurring in the Prayer of Consecration in the English Prayer-book, does not anywhere occur in that connection in the New Testament. The utmost care is needed in enforcing the doctrine of the atonement from the pulpit, lest the idea of retaliation should be inferred. The spirit of retaliation would make God thirst for the blood of the sinner, whereas God "willeth not the death of a sinner;" it would represent the Deity as injured, whereas God cannot be injured. We cannot shut up the doctrine of the atonement under the naked formula, that man must be punished on account of his sins unless some one else can be found to be punished for him; that the justice of God must have suffering somewhere, if man is not to suffer. To provide suffering was not the one only object of the atonement; it was not merely to balance suffering against suffering that the one Great Sacrifice was offered.

To what, then, was satisfaction made? It is made to absolute justice, to the truth of God; and it is made not only by the sufferings, but by the perfect life of Jesus, as the perfect man, in obedience to the Law. Justice not retaliation demands that what a man sows, that shall he reap. Man sows sin, and reaps the necessary results death, the forfeiture of God"s presence. Man cannot be pardoned and restored on his own merits. The merits of another are offered to him. The picture of atonement in the Old Testament is that of a covering of sins, and in the New Testament is reconciliation of man to God. In the English version of the New Testament the word "atonement" occurs once, and translates the word which is elsewhere translated "reconciliation" (katallage). The satisfaction on which this covering of sins and reconciliation of man to God is based embraces the life, death, resurrection, ascension, and mediation of the Saviour God-man. The object in view of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus was not one, but manifold. It was to manifest God ("God manifest in the flesh"); to reconcile man"s heart ("You, that were sometimes alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight"); to show man that he has a Mediator ("the one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus"); to prove his love ("Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends"); to enter death that he might show man that he is the victor over it, as the Firstfruits from the dead ("If Christ be not raised, then is our hope in vain"); to read a lesson to other spheres ("To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the Church the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord"). In all this he stood in man"s place to suffer; the "chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed;" "he redeemed us from the curse of the Law, being made a curse for us." His merits were so perfect that they outweighed all man"s demerits, so that for his sake man can be justified and accepted according to the covenant of grace. Nay, this doctrine of the atonement is too wonderful, the mysteriously great, too deep to be gauged by man; we have not yet fathomed its depths; nor had even the inspired apostle, who wrote, "Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!" But to introduce the spirit of vindictiveness, or retaliation, on the part of the Jehovah of the sacred Scriptures, as thirsting for the blood of the sinner, and demanding the sufferings of Christ from any principle analogous to the human principle of retaliation as though he would demand the pound of flesh because he could not obtain the sheltered dove is one of the greatest insults ever offered to the Christian religion, which declares that the whole motive power towards salvation was love. "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

The fact, however, remains, that the Christian religion does centre round a Sacrifice; and the further fact remains, that not only was the Jewish religion a religion of sacrifices, but that in almost all, if not all, nations sacrifices have been offered from the earliest days of historical man, and in many cases up to the present moment. What has originally given birth to the idea of sacrifices? It is asked, "Are they not substitutions, that have suggested themselves to man, by which to propitiate and avert from himself the supposed Divine vindictiveness, which he has euphemized as Divine law and justice?" The answer must be, first, that it seems impossible that man could invent the system of sacrifice. Suppose a man, in the dawn of human reason, who should have no better idea of Divine justice than as interpreted by his own innate vindictiveness. We may even suppose him to have reasoned up to the conclusion, that the deity cannot be just, and yet the justifier of the guilty; that is, that a man cannot be held to be guiltless unless his complete innocence is manifest. And to this he adds, from his own nature, that Nemesis must overtake him. But what is there in human nature to suggest to him to make an offering in blood, whether human or animal? He fears, it may be, the vengeance, the vindictiveness, or even the malignity of an unseen deity on himself. But what is there in that to suggest the idea of a propitiatory offering, a commutation, a vicarious satisfaction, in lieu of his own person, in blood? Nay, what is there to suggest any offering of any kind? Human vindictiveness might lead him to hurl a dart at the imagined deity, could he hope to reach him; but of what avail would any kind of offering be? Would he think of bribing the deity not to injure him, as he might bribe an earthly judge? Should such a thought arise in his mind, it would perish at the first attempt; for what man would try twice to bribe an earthly judge who persistently refused the bribe? And what man, in fear of an earthly judge, would think of going to his door with the lifeblood of his son, or of the best of his flock?

We will suppose the case of such a primitive man, totally unacquainted, from whatsoever cause, with any portion of a Divine revelation. He embodies in his imagination the phenomena of the atmosphere as the attributes of a personal deity, whom we may call Indra. From Indra he receives the bounties of the sun and rain which mature his harvests, and also the floods, torrents, tempests, and. thunder and lightning, which make him fear. He surrounds this deity with a moral atmosphere of inflexible, uncompromising remorselessness the moral shadow, we may say, of the character he attaches to the physical heavens. Suppose, then, that one day, when he and his sons are reaping their harvest, their great desire being for a cloudless heaven to dry their sheaves, an ominous cloud gathers; the heavens are soon black, the forked lightning darts with angry quiver from cloud to cloud, and from cloud to earth; the thunder seems to split the firmament in rage; till out darts a forked tongue of flame, and slays his youngest son at his feet. Will he regard this as Indra"s retaliation on account of some offence he has been guilty of? Suppose it is so. What would human nature suggest to him to do in order to escape, if possible, Indra"s further vindictiveness? Is there anything in his nature that would lead him to cut the throat of his eldest son, and, hurling him on a pile of faggots, to consume his body with fire, as a holocaust, to appease the supposed wrath of Indra, and so, under the idea of sacrificing a substitute of the greatest worth in his estimation, to ward off danger from himself? Would he be likely to fling the blood of his lamb or his kid towards the heavens, under the idea of sheltering himself from Indra"s retaliative stroke? Or could anything in his own nature suggest to him that Indra required some voluntary sacrifice? We cannot touch even the elements of such a thought in man"s nature, much less trace their development. There is nothing whatever, surely, in human nature to suggest such thought or action.

But there is a kind of sacrifice which man has always understood self-sacrifice for the sake of another. Mr. Conway"s illustrations would seem to me to touch this thought rather than the idea of commutation by sacrifice. History is full of this phase of sacrifice. When Gautama Buddha, as related above, was pictured as giving his body as food to the tigress, the idea was self-sacrifice for the sake of the starving animal and her young. The bravery of Horatius Cocles, though his life was spared, is an illustration of the same thought. There is the idea of substitution: but it is a substitution in the sacrifice of one"s self at one"s own hands for the salvation of another. This is a doctrine which man can understand. But the idea of thrusting forward a substitute for the sake of guarding one"s self is foreign to man"s innate nobility.

Turn the matter as we will, nothing is more difficult than to try to realize what there is in man that would lead him of his own accord to offer the life of a bullock, a sheep, a goat, or a dove, to propititate the Divine justice. But it has been done in all ages. How has the custom originated?

It has arisen about the world-sacrifice of Jesus Christ. That was a self-sacrifice of the highest conceivable import; but it involved the shedding of a life. And that one Sacrifice, coupled with the life, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ, was in all its bearings the most significant event that ever happened in the history of the human race. Should not, then, the world of all time be educated for that one great central "mystery of godliness," the reconciliation of the world by "God manifest in the flesh," the outward circumstance of which was the life-shedding of Jesus on Calvary?

The world has often been divinely taught by signs; and the deeper the degradation of man, the simpler and more pointed the sign. Jeremiah, with his "marred girdle," his "potter"s clay," his "good and evil figs; "Ezekiel, with his "tile," his "razor," his "staff upon his shoulder," and his "seethingpot," are familiar examples. In these days of the Christian Church we are taught by a very significant symbol to realize, as we look upon it, the offering of Jesus Christ on the cross; a symbol appointed by his own words and acts do in remembrance of me." The breaking of bread and the eating it, the pouring out of wine and the drinking it, are the symbol under which we are to "show the Lord"s death till he come.

But how was the world to be educated in prospect of that Sacrifice? The great central fact to be taught was the shedding of a life the salvation and life of the world. We are taught now to look upon that Sacrifice at a meal, because the atoning power must always be connected with the life-giving power. The eating of bread and the drinking of wine are signs distinct enough to keep the world in memory of the fact and character of the death of Christ, the Life of the world. The Lord"s Supper is, moreover, a bridge of history, taking us back by unerring steps to the hour of its institution, and the hour of Christ"s agony. But to prepare the world for this great idea, to perpetuate through succeeding generations, before the event, an expectation of the coming "mystery," something more distinct was appointed.

To take the Mosaic dispensation as a starting-point, we find under that dispensation the great analogue to the Lord"s Supper in the system of sacrifice. And we have the authority of the Epistle to the Hebrews for saying that the Jewish sacrifices were a figure of Christ. Then also the symbol was connected with a meal; or had in every case at least some reference to food. Except in the case of the whole burnt offering, either the priests and the offerers of the sacrifice, or the priests alone, solemnly ate the offering, and that for the most part, in "the holy place." Nor was the animal sacrifice the only sacrifice: the "meat offering" (minchah) was as truly a sacrifice as the lamb, part being also consumed in the holy fire, and part eaten by the priest. Every animal sacrifice was an animal or bird used for food. But to the ritual of the animal sacrificial meal was added a most elaborate ritual as to the previous slaying of the animal itself, and the sprinkling of its blood, the offerer putting his hand on the head of the victim, and being taught to regard the sacrifice as a picture of atonement, the Hebrew idea of which was a covering, or a hiding of sin; and the blood was called the blood of the covenant. Thus, while the lesson of life by food is the same in the Lord"s Supper and the sacrificial feast, the symbol of breaking of bread in token of the death of the Lord"s body is replaced by a much more powerful symbol in the slaying of the animal that supplies the feast, and the solemn sprinkling of its blood. The two ordinances are from the same hand; and while we see the exquisite beauty of the symbolism in the commemorative Supper of the Lord, we cannot fail to see the beauty of power in the parallel symbolism of the shedding of blood in the prospective Old Testament dispensation.

But for the Jews to realize that power they must have been instructed in the fact that God would provide a greater, a perfect atonement in the person of the long-promised Messiah. They must have had an intelligent knowledge of what the "covenant" meant. The Eucharistic service of the Church of the Christian dispensation could have no meaning for the man who was unacquainted with the atonement of Christ. Nor can we conceive the intelligent and devout Jew seeing in the mere blood and death of an animal a covering for his sin. The Jew was not taught that the death of the animal was accepted instead of his punishment; but he was instructed to look upon it as a foreshadowing of a perfect Offering to come. This may not be apparent on a cursory glance at the Pentateuch; but the New Testament commentary leaves no doubt on the question. "It is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins;" the first tabernacle was "a figure for the time then present;" "the Law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image" (or full revelation) "of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect." This is not a contradiction of the Old Testament, but an explanation of the Mosaic dispensation. Of Moses we know, through our Saviour"s own words, that he saw through and beyond the type to the Antitype: "Had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me;" as of Abraham, that he "saw Christ"s day, and was glad." That the sacrifices were nothing in themselves is a lesson constantly brought before the Jews. "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." That the offering of the sacrifice was efficacious in itself for atonement as an opus operatum, was man"s perversion of the truth; a perversion that is consonant with all that we know of human nature, of which every age testifes that it wilt hold tenaciously to the outward forms of religion, and with difficulty maintain its spirit. The Jew was never taught that the slaying or offering of the animal was an atonement in itself. Neither the animal nor the minchah was a substitute for something else a commutation, but a foreshadowing, an educating of the world for the appreciation of the one atonement. As the sabbatical divisions of days and years were to familiarize Israel with the idea of a final rest; as the cities of refuge were to familiarize them with the idea of salvation; as the most remarkable institution of the goel, the kinsman-redeemer, was to familiarize them with the idea of redemption; so the most elaborate ritual of sacrifice was to train them for the expectation of the offering of Jesus Christ once for all on the cross, for the reconciliation of the world. It was the great sacrament of the old world.

Thus, then, the nature and the object of the Mosaic sacrifice seems very evident; and its origin, with that of all its most remarkable accompaniments, was Divine. The further question now arises, What was the origin of other and previous sacrifices? First of all, the idea of sacrifice, as connected with the worship of Jehovah, was not originated under the Mosaic dispensation. Jethro, before the institutions of Mount Sinai, "took a burnt, offering (olah) and sacrifices (zebachim) for God." These are the same words that are in use afterwards under the Mosaic dispensation, "And Aaron came, and all the elders of Israel, to eat bread with Moses father-in-law before God" (Exo_18:12) not an ordinary, but, no doubt, the sacrificial feast, the old-world sacrament. Again, Jacob, on the eve of his memorable parting with Laban, "offered sacrifice upon the mount, and called his brethren to eat bread." The sacrifice here, again, was the zebach; and was not the "eating bread" the same sacrificial feast? Noah also on coming out of the ark "builded an altar" (mizbeach, from zabach, to slay), "and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl" (i.e., such as were eaten), "and offered burnt offerings (oloth) on the altar." Of Abel also, in the very first generation of historical men, we know that he "brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof," as an offering unto the Lord; and why was his offering acceptable but that it was brought in obedience to God"s own express direction?

The animals sacrificed were always food animals. Twice the sacrifice is mentioned in connection with a meal. And in Exodus, "to hold a feast" and "to sacrifice" seem to refer to the same event. The inference, therefore, is by no means extravagant, that the pre-Mosaic sacrifices were of precisely the same kind as those of the Mosaic dispensation. The "clean" animals used for sacrifice were so used because they were the animals used for food. (The theory, it may be observed, that animal food was not used before the Deluge seems to rest on no foundation whatever.) And if food was consecrated to the worship of Jehovah from the days of Adam, as food is now consecrated by the words of Jesus himself to the same worship in the Lord"s Supper, where shall we seek for the origin of that significant feast, and the ritual of its observance, but in Jehovah himself?

It may not be unimportant, as a confirmation of such a view of the matter, to note here that the Mosaic dispensation, in probably every point, would seem to have been a renewal of former Divine directions as to the externals of worship. The leading features of the Mosaic dispensation wear the appearance rather of a reformation than of an initial institution. Thus the very form and character of the tabernacle itself, and after it of the temple of Solomon, were precisely the same as we now find in many Hindu temples. We cannot think that the Hindus copied at any time the form of the tabernacle in the wilderness or of the temple on Mount Moriah. Rather we must suppose that the Hindus still perpetuate what was the most primitive form of a temple for Divine worship, the fane with its two rooms and the surrounding court; and that that form was reinstituted under Mount Sinai. Nor was there anything new in the Aaronic priesthood: Melchizedek was a cohen; Jethro was a cohen. Then, again, as to the sacrifices, the minchah is still the daily offering in the Hindu temple; food is offered before the idol in the inner room of the fane, a handful is consumed on the sacrificial fire, and the meal is eaten by the priests. The same kind of food offering was made both by Greeks and Romans, The sacrifice of food. animals has also been perpetuated by various other nations. Such were the principal sacrifices among the Greeks and Romans, and among the Hindus there is still the sacrifice of the lamb. Some even of the minutia too of the more ancient rites evidently remained intact for ages; as, for instance, compare Num_19:2, "They shall bring thee a red heifer... upon which never came yoke," with Ovid ("Fasti," 3:375, 376)"Tollit humo munus caesa prius ille juvenca, Quae dederat nulli colla premenda jugo,

We cannot account for these things by supposing that the heathen nations learned the rules of sacrifice from the Jews. The only rational supposition is that they retained many of the externals of primitive worship, while the worship of the Jews was truly the primitive worship divinely restored. Heathen religious rites and sacrifices are fossils of the old-world Church history, the exuviae of dead faiths. Incrusted, indeed, they are with superstitions many and grievous, petrified, the true primitive life long since crushed out of them; but yet unmistakably the remains of an ancient garden of the Lord"s, of a primitive sacrificial and sacramental worship, the analogue of that which was again seen in the days of Moses, David, and Solomon.

If such be the case, we cannot hesitate to conclude that the whole system of heathen sacrifice, however degraded and distorted in its present application, bears ample witness to a Divine origin. The theory that sacrifice is an outcome of human nature does not bear examination. The fact that man will cling to the externals of religion while losing its spirit, is attested by all history. The very existence, therefore, of priest and sacrifice as worldwide facts would seem to point hack infallibly to a day of pure religion and a God-appointed worship.

II. IN ITS LIMITS

Is there a sacrifice, a priesthood, and an altar in the Christian Church? This question is so suggestive, and related to so much that is collateral, that only salient points must here be touched upon, and such as have reference to what has gone before, or this essay would very soon exceed its due limits.

First, perhaps, it is well to guard one"s self against an idea too commonly expressed, that the Mosaic dispensation was "imperfect." The thought has arisen around the expression in the Epistle to the Hebrews of the "greater and more perfect tabernacle." The Mosaic dispensation was imperfect, as all human things must be, even when of Divine appointment, when compared with Christ; but it was not imperfect as a dispensation. No ordinance from God"s hands can be imperfect. The sacrificial system must have been the very best method of teaching the ways of God to man, or it would not have been instituted. We must not, therefore, approach the words, "sacrifice," "priest," "altar," with a prejudice. They were once God"s ordinance. Are they so still?

The Lord"s Supper is manifestly a modification of the ancient prospective sacrificial system, for the edification of the Church in retrospect. In what particulars, as regards directions actually recorded, does the institution given under Mount Sinai differ from the Saviour"s institution? In both the Saviour is typified by food at a meal. But in the latter there is no direction as to an "offering;" neither is the Church nor the individual instructed to "present" the bread and the wine before God, as under the former sacrificial system. There is no direction as to animal food; indeed, practically it is prohibited. There is, therefore, no ritual of blood. There is no command to confess sins in connection with an offering, as when under the older dispensation the offerer laid his hand on the head of the victim. There is no command to burn a portion of the food in the sacred fire; no sacred fire is vouchsafed. Hence no altar, of the same character as the Jewish altar, is required; nor is one mentioned by the Saviour. There is no mention made of a priest; those who were commanded to perpetuate the ordinance were not called cohens by Christ, but "apostles," missionaries. Nearly all the actual ancient sacrificial duties, both of priest and people, were practically abrogated at the institution of the Lord"s Supper, the only point authoritatively preserved being the partaking of the minchah with wine. The Lord"s Supper, then, in that it is a typical feast, a part of the ancient feast, picturing the blessed Redeemer in his sacrifice for the life of the world is my body, which is given for you;" "This is my blood of the new covenant has most distinctly a sacrificial aspect; but it is denuded of almost all the observances peculiar to the ancient sacrificial feast. It points to the same offering as the old-world sacrifices, and by the same method, but accompanied, as it is apparently intended to be, with much less elaborate circumstance. An adaptation, however, of the more ancient sacrificial system it most manifestly is; such an adaptation as seemed to him, who is the All-wise, best fitted for the edification of the future Church.

But is it not evident that, by the method of our Saviour"s institution, many details were left to be otherwise determined? Nothing can be more distinct than the matter, the form, and the intention of the Lord"s Supper; but there is no direction as to the how, the when, or the where. Under the Mosaic dispensation every, the most minute, particular was provided for by Divine ordinance. Time, place, person, and manner are most exhaustively described. But our Saviour did not in like manner appoint the priest, the vestments, the accompaniments, the ritual of the Holy Meal. The commission, "Do this in remembrance of me," was given to the sacred society of apostles, or missionaries, who afterwards received that further commission, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature." They, therefore, were the first celebrants; but their exact method of procedure has not been handed down to us. They were inspired men; had they subsequently any Divine directions? All we know on this matter is found in 1Co 11. Were the apostles left to their private judgments as to the arrangements necessary for the suitable celebration of the Lord"s Supper? or were they divinely directed? We cannot know. But we do know that very early in the history of the Church the Lord"s Supper was separated from the agapee, and administered at a special service; that at this service there were customs which seem to be a modified revival of the customs of the ancient sacrificial system, notably the confession of sins by the congregation, and the public declaration of God"s acceptance on repentance. It could not have escaped the early Christians, especially the Jewish converts, that the Lord"s Supper (established, too, as it had been, during the observance of the most significant and important of the Jewish sacrificial feasts) was a retrospective adaptation of the once prospective sacrifice. We cannot wonder, therefore though we know not the exact customs of the apostles themselves that we should early read of the Christian sacrifice, the Christian priest, the Christian altar. The "elements" of the feast were a continuation of the "meat offering," the minchah, part of every former sacrifice; the presbyter, elder, or president, who served at the table, though nora priest of the Aaronic line, yet might well be called, in a certain though modified sense, a priest; and the table at which he served, though no longer the seat of the sacred fire, or sprinkled with blood, was to the Christian what the altar had been to the Jew that from which he fed on the picture of Christ. And I cannot doubt, on a candid examination of the expression, though I once held to the contrary, that there is a reference to the table of the Lord"s Supper in Heb_13:10, "We (Christians) have an altar, whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle." True it is that Christ"s divinity is the actual altar of the universe, which upheld, sustained, and sanctified the humanity of Jesus in his sacrifice of himself; yet, as the Jewish altar was that which held the picture of the Sacrifice to come, and from which the Jew ate the emblematic feast, so the holy table from which we Christians feed in memory of Christ"s death, is, in a parallel though modified sense, an altar. To refuse to the Christian Church, then, the very names of sacrifice, priest, and altar would seem almost to be to deny the propriety and solemnity of the words under the earlier dispensation, and to interfere materially with our understanding the real significance of our Saviour"s institution as an adaptation of the divinely appointed sacrificial system to the Christian dispensation.

Yet as different views may, no doubt, lawfully be taken as to the intention of our blessed Saviour"s silence at the moment of the institution of the Lord"s Supper, we should surely allow that latitude of thought to others who, like ourselves, love the Lord Jesus in sincerity.

What is the error that has grown up about the words "sacrifice," "priest," and "altar"? It is idolatry; that is, making the picture more than a picture. When the Jew believed that the blood of bulls and of goats could take away sin, he perverted the truth and the ordinance of God; and when the Christian holds that there is in the Lord"s Supper a propitiatory sacrifice for the quick and the dead for the remission of sins, he equally abuses the truth of God and the beauty of the ordinance. It is the confounding of the inward spiritual grace in the sacraments with the rite itself that has been at the root of the chief of the religious errors of mankind. The inward spiritual grace is the apprehension and appropriation by the intelligence and the affections of that which the outward observance typifies, and therefore to the faithful the actual reception of its benefit; and the observance itself, when rightly understood, becomes an instrument in arousing that apprehension, as well as a pledge and means, by virtue of its institution, of our receiving that grace. But to make a sacrament an opus operatum, to convert the image into that which it represents, is idolatry. It is this astounding, though truly human, error that plunged the ancient world into heathenism, the Jewish world into Pharisaism, and the Christian world into what is now commonly called Popery. The fall of the intelligence when the floods of superstition are let in upon the soul, is great indeed; so that a man can even hold the blasphemous doctrine that the blessed Redeemer can become incarnate in the sacramental elements of bread and wine in the hands of the priest, and that it is necessary for salvation that the body, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ should be digested in the human stomach. This is a fall sorer than any fall on record of the Jews; however much we may pity their unbelief, we have no evidence that any Jew ever taught that every Passover lamb and every victim brought to the altar was God incarnate; and yet, if it be true of the Christian element of sacrifice, it must have been true of the Jewish. We cannot wonder at the reformers of the English Church expunging the word "altar" from the Prayer-book, when we know how the idea of the Christian altar was perverted to serve the purposes of the grossest idolatry. But in meeting the doctrinal errors that have entwined themselves, like Laocoon"s snakes, around the Christian altar, it is surely not necessary for us to blind ourselves to the fact that our Saviour did perpetuate for the Church the principle and method of the ancient sacrificial feast; and that, therefore, in some sense at least, we have, as the Church seems from very early times to have expressed herself, a sacrifice, a priest, and an altar; always remembering that, in reference to sacrifice, that sense, as defined by St. Chrysostom and others in the early Church, who speak of the Eucharist as a sacrifice, is that it is a commemoration of a sacrifice" (vide St. Chrysostom on Heb_10:9).

The points to be kept, then, constantly and prominently before the Church are: first, that we must not misinterpret the character of the Jewish sacrifice itself; second, that we must maintain, as a truth for all time, that an image of a thing cannot be the thing itself; and third, that as the Jewish sacrifice was not truly in itself propitiatory, but only the figure and pledge of propitiation and spiritual life, so there is no propitiation, but only a figure and pledge of the propitiatory and life-giving office of Christ in the Holy Eucharist. And then we need not fear to use the Old Testament terms, as in one instance appears to me to have been done in the Epistle to the Hebrews, for designedly parallel Christian ordinances.

And the conclusion of the whole matter seems to be, that the Church still has, in a reasonable though modified sense, not an offering for sin, but still a sacrifice, which the Church of England calls a "sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving."

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.