Manifestation of God

John 1‑10; EX0 33-34  •  31 min. read  •  grade level: 8
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See Ex. 33; 34 John 1-10
"He that cometh to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek
And yet, surely, this diligent seeking of God is to be conducted by us in our true character. We are not to seek Him as wise ones, or as righteous ones, as those who are either competent to know Him, or worthy to reach Him, of themselves. Our diligent seeking is to be in such character as, without disguise or doubt, we bear in His presence. The schools may make Him their subject to discuss Him, but that is not the seeking of faith, When faith would seek Him, it is a sinner that is seeking Him-and He is found of such. The revelation is then made; and the soul, in more or less brightness, walks in the light of the Lord.
And this light in which the sinner that has sought Him walks, is full light. God must come forth in all His goodness ere a sinner can walk with Him. Partial revelation of Himself will not do for a sinner. It would keep him still at a distance. It must be "all His goodness," His full glory, "the glory of God in the face of Jesus." This, but this only, will do for a sinner. And that is the light of the Lord. It is the revelation of Himself. And blessed is the thought, that God fully revealed, and a, sinner thoroughly convicted, may meet, and do meet, and that for eternity.
The woman of Samaria in John 4 was convicted. But she continued in the light that had convicted her—and thus, her vessel being opened, she was ready to receive what Christ was to her, and had for her. "I that speak unto thee am He," said Jesus, shortly after—and her heart was filled, and filled forever.
This may suggest the general character of John's gospel to us.
"The Word " is the characteristic title of the Son in that gospel; because He is the One who declares God, and reveals or manifests the Father.
Accordingly, when returning, in spirit, to the Father, as at the end of His ministry, in chap. 17, and laying down that ministry as now fulfilled, He says " I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world." And accordingly, also, at the end of His days, on earth, in chap. 18, He says, when answering the Roman governor, " to this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth."
For, the Lord is not a judge, but a witness, in this divine gospel by John; not a judge of man but a witness of God. And that is by far the higher character. God is His object and subject, as I may say. To declare Him, to manifest the Father, is His business. The law may publish rules of righteousness, making man its object; the prophets may tell of divine counsels making God's purposes and plans and government their object; but God Himself is Christ's object-to declare Him or to reveal the Father, is the purpose and business of the Son.
And this revelation of God, which is thus the business of the Word made flesh, is, really, the important thing in the moral history of this world. But the thought of man's heart is different. Man makes himself principal; even religious man does so. To have his heart regulated, his ways ordered, his character improved and cultivated, and the good estate of the scene in -which he has his daily being, maintained and advanced, this is the great end or object, according to the religious thoughts and moral energies of man. As we may see in chap. 9. The disciples say to Jesus, "Master, who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind." They were thinking of law and of retribution, making man the principal in the religious speculations of their mind. But the Lord's answer shows us which was principal with Him. "Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents, but that the works of God should be made manifest in him." According to this, the regulation of man, or the ordering of the world in moral retributive power, was not the great thing, but the revelation of God.
Here, however, we are to introduce ourselves to another truth.
In this revelation of God, which the Lord Jesus thus made principal in the moral history of the world, the sinner's salvation is involved. It would not be a manifestation of God, if it did not suit itself to the need of sinners. There are secrets, divine secrets, secrets about the blessed One, which would be kept back in any dispensation, but that of grace to sinners. God would have no sphere for the making of Himself fully known, but in a self-ruined world. So that, while in John's gospel, the Son is "the Word," or the declarer of God, we find Him fulfilling that ministry in the midst of sinners, and none else. He refuses to shine in any glory but that of the light of life. He will be a judge in due time, He will be a king in due time, He will skew Himself to the world in the appointed day of power-but all this, in John's gospel, He refuses. He was the light of life. The glory that was in Him was full of grace and truth, a glory suited to sinners, and He would not be a judge or a king, a doer of wonders according to His mother's wish in John 2, nor an exhibitor of Himself to the world, according to His brothers' wish in John 7. He was the light of life, and that only. His business was to declare God, to manifest the Father, and that must be, in grace to sinners.
This is simple, and shows itself with self-widening certainty and clearness in John's gospel.
But being this, being the light of life, He is " the light of the world" also. He is the light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world. He passes partition-walls. He is not merely in the' midst of the lost sheep of the house of Israel, as in Matthew, but He is for " as Many as received Him." He does not, in John, say, as to a Syro-phoenician, " Let the children first be filled;" but at once revealing Himself in fullest, richest grace to a sinner of the Samaritans, He says, " I that speak unto thee am He." And He will abide two days in a village of that people, finding in Sychar of Samaria the home most suited to Him on earth, next to Bethany of Judea. For Bethany or Sychar, Samaritans or Jews, will do equally well for Him who is the light of life, the light of the world, the Savior of sinners.
But further. If God thus reveal Himself, it is the way of faith to look and to listen.. Faith desires, and receives this invitation. " Abraham rejoiced to see my day," says the Lord, " and he saw it and was glad."
In Ex. 33, Moses exhibits the yearnings of a soul 'after a full manifestation of God. The moral ruin of man, that is of Israel, was at that moment under his eye. But before that moment, he had been a witness of the glory of God at the foot of the fiery hill, where the law was delivered. And he had likewise been with the elders of Israel in the presence of the God of Israel, on the hill, after the sending of the national or conditional covenant (chaps. 20 and 24). But he now craved more. Neither of these manifestations of God gave God to him in such a character as suited sinners, or that condition of ruin which now formed the scene before him. The fiery hill presented God as the righteous exacter of righteousness. The hill of the presence of Jehovah, where the Lord of Israel was in His majesty, presented God as in the terms and bonds of a conditional covenant with His people. But such things would not do for Moses now. The breach of the law, the sin of Israel, made other things needful-but such things he blessedly believed were to be found in God, and that neither the foot of the fiery hill, nor the top of the mount itself, had given him all that God was. God, he knew, was not yet fully manifested, because the sinner was not yet fully relieved. Blessed this impression on the spirit of Moses was I Therefore, "Show me thy glory," was now his cry. Man, in his ruins, was before him, and God in His full glory must be before him also.
There was something truly beautiful and excellent in this. Moses apprehended that there must be more in God than he had yet reached, because as yet the revelation of Him had not suited itself to man as a sinner, in moral ruin. And the Lord answers this yearning of the soul; for "He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him." He passes by in his full glory. "All His goodness" passes by; and He satisfies Moses, though Moses still looks on man as ruined, or Israel as a stiff-necked people (see chap. 34:9). He asks for no further manifestation. God in full glory, God in all that He is, was what he needed in behalf of his self-ruined people; and having got that, all that he craved now, was the presence and company of the Blessed One, whom he had now seen and heard.
And, indeed, it is blessed to add, that in this manifestation of God, man is hid. The people were all present, -at the giving of the law, in chap. 20. The elders were on the mount, in the divine presence, occupying their place there as truly and as really as the God of Israel occupied His place, during the great transaction of chap. 24, for Israel was a, necessary party to the conditional covenant. But now, in chap. 31 the people are not present, none but Moses, and he is hid, and God. alone is manifested and declared; and Moses has but to look and to listen, forth from the cleft rock, where like -sovereign grace had assigned him and provided him a place.
Surely, this was a blessed moment in Old Testament times. Moses craved and got, in spirit, what the Son of the bosom, the Word made flesh, who is the light of life, has now brought to us sinners, in our place of guilt and ruin. With this difference, however, Moses sought this manifestation, the Son has brought it unsought. Moses got it as for himself, the Son has given it, that sinners, as sinners whosoever will, may walk in the light of it.
And happy still to add, that as Moses found this manifestation of God to be enough for him, so do all those in John's gospel, who come to Jesus, find Him enough for them. Their joy and liberty are secured. Andrew and Philip and Nathanael, and the Samaritan, and the convicted sinner, and the blind beggar, one and all, equally and fully prove this.
"O house of Israel, come ye, and let us walk in the light of the Lord."
The day broke upon Jacob himself at Peniel; and then his path lay over a plain illuminated and gladdened by the face of God. It was a little heaven to him, a brighter, fairer heaven, than when at Bethel he saw the angels ascending and descending on the ladder. The halting of his thigh was not cared for, by reason of the face of God. A man may surely be content to walk lamely, if his path be across Peniel.
And let me add, in John's gospel, ruined man is not so much exposed as taken up. A full and perfect state of -moral ruin is rather assumed than proved; and God comes, in the Son, to act in healing light. This is rather what we get there. We see one sinner after another -walking in the light, after this healing manifestation of God has visited him. It is not Andrew and Philip and Nathanael, as they had been in the flesh, but Andrew and Philip and Nathanael, in the life-giving light of Jesus. Flesh is not exposed, so much as renewed man, free and happy, is presented-man freshly called into that knowledge of God which is life eternal, and walking in the light, as man new-made.
Luke 15:8-10.
"Count not (vain thought!) upon a lost piece of silver seeking its owner. And count not diligence and the use of the broom to be enough without a light also. Not only do night and dusty floors make candle-light expedient, but by its means a watchful eye can see the light as it is reflected from a piece of lost silver."
1 Peter 2:24.
PE 2:24{The true force of 1 Peter 2:24, has been called in question by those who seek not only to make Christ's life vicarious, but His sufferings, during the time of His active service, penal. The thought that all the sufferings of that blessed One have infinite value, and that they were all for us, every Christian heart would close in with adoringly. There may be obscurity of mind connected with it; but the heart is right. But when intellectual proofs are attempted to be given to sustain unsound doctrine on this /point, so as to undermine the true character and value of atonement, and to cast a cloud on divine righteousness, it is desirable, then, to maintain the truth. I do not hesitate to say that those who speak of the appropriation of Christ's living righteousness to us for righteousness, and hold the sufferings of His active service, to have been penal and vicarious, have, in no case, a full, clear, and Scriptural gospel. I am sure many who, from the teaching they have had, hold it, are as far as my own heart could desire from the wish to weaken the truth of atonement and the value of Christ's blood-shedding, without which there is no remission. They have not seen the deep evil lying. at the root of a doctrine which speaks of vicarious sufferings, and bearing of sins to which no remission is attached. I am quite ready to believe that the most violent accusers of the doctrine which looks to the sufferings of Christ upon the cross as the alone atonement and propitiation for sin do not wish to enfeeble its value. But we may inquire into the justness of all views which we, do not judge to be scriptural, and press too with confidence what we find in scripture. I do not believe in the penal and vicarious character of Christ's sufferings during His active service, nor do I believe in the appropriation of His legal righteousness to me as failing in legal righteousness myself I am satisfied that those who hold it have not a full, true, scriptural gospel; by some it is used for the maintenance of what is horribly derogatory to Christ. I have known many valued and beloved saints who bold that Christ, under the law, satisfied by His active fulfillment of it for our daily failure under it. I believe it to be a very serious mistake, though I may value them as His beloved people still. I believe in His obedience to the law- I believe that all His moral perfectness, completed in death, was available to me as that in which He was personally agreeable to God, and a lamb without 'spot and blemish. But these are not the appropriation to me of legal righteousness. But I am not now purposing to go over all this ground; I merely maintain the ground on which I stand, and the doctrine which I hold as scriptural, and as of immense importance to the church just now. I would do it meekly, patiently, that souls may be delivered from error and bondage into the liberty of the truth of God, which is the only real power of godliness; but I would do it firmly and constantly. In the attempt to maintain the doctrine of Christ's bearing sins all His life, the translation of the text I refer to has been called in question. I am satisfied that it is perfectly correct. As an element in this question, I would now examine it. The English version is, "Who His own self bare our sins in His own body, on the tree." A simple person would, surely, in reading Peter, refer to His sufferings in death. Thus, in chap. 3, I read: " For Christ hath, also, once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us unto God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit.' No one denies that Christ suffered, during His life, sufferings which found their perfection in His death, besides the wrath-bearing, character of it; for He was obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. But the question is, "Was there sin-bearing during His active service, or was He kept up as the Lamb to bear sin?" It turns on the word "bare" ανενεγκε. It is alleged that if it meant "bare," it must be υπενεγκε or εβαστασε or ελαβε. All this is a mistake. A sacrificial word is, I do not doubt, purposely used, but αναφερω means "to bear, or undergo," probably because sacrificial victims, which were offered up, were supposed to bear sins; at any rate, it does mean "to bear, undergo, sustain." The truth is, determining the meaning of a word by etymology, in a cultivated language, is the most absurd thing possible. It is interesting as philological research, but as determining the usus loquendi, it is ridiculous. I might say " hell fire" must mean "covering sins"; for it is the same word as "to heal," used also provincially for roofing; for the same reason, hence, that the fire of hell was purgatorial or remissory. It did originally mean a covered place, hades, and hence, gradually, everlasting punishment. Αναφερω, does mean to offer in sacrifice; it means " to recreate oneself, to remember, to cough up, to return, to cast the sin on another, to weigh or consider," etc. The question is, does it mean to bear, to undergo the pain and burden of, and, when used sacrificially, can it be separated from the altar of sacrifice. I say it does mean "to bear, undergo the pain and burden of anything"; and when used in connection with sacrifice, cannot be separated from actual offering up to God. First, that it means "to bear or undergo." I must turn to the dictionaries for this, and the passages in which it is used. They leave no sort of question. It is only systematizing, and not the facts in the Greek language, which can lead any one to deny it. I turn to Stephanus. I find αναφερειν, ferre, perferre, pati, ut Christus dicitur, ανενεγκειν peccata nostra (1 Peter 2:24; Heb. 9:21). Cit. e, Thucydides φθονους και διαβολους, πολεμον, quod durum sit reddere ferre pericula potiusque verti debeat subire pericula; better "to undergo," that is, than "to bear"; the general sense of "undergoing the burden and pain of," is evident; and that is our point here. There is a reference in the beginning of the article to Aristides; I suppose, Aelius Aristides, the rhetorician, which I cannot verify. So Pape auf sich nehmen, ertragen, "to take on oneself," "to bear," κινδυνους, Thucydides. Φθουνους και διαβολους, πολεμον, that is, "envy, calumny, war," Polybius and Dionysius of Halicarnassus. He adds, New Testament. Liddel and Scott give "to uphold, to take on one, Latin sustinere; quoting Aeschylus (αχθον) and Thucydides. It is thus perfectly certain that the word means " to bear the burden of anything, to undergo." The etymological sense of " to bring up or back" is a mere absurdity here. We have now to examine the scriptural use of it in connection with sacrifice, and in particular the passage in Peter. Amerce, is a sacrificial word. It is used here, if we are to take it as it usually is taken, as referring to Isa. 53:12, for nasa, נשא, which means " to lift up, to bear, to forgive," and here confessedly "to bear." It is alleged—for I have considered diligently what is alleged against it-that it cannot mean "to bear passively with" (על) as would be the case with ανενεγκε επι το. This is a mistake: Aaron was to bear the names of the children upon (על), his heart (Ex. 28; 29). So with the judgment, in ver. 30. It is said that Isa. 53:4, is translated ελαβε, by divine inspiration, and hence it could not be ανενεγκε, in ver. 12. But this proves, if anything (for the word may be translated differently in different places according to the sense, but if it be the Spirit's purpose to make the difference here it proves this,) that he would not use a sacrificial vicarious word in ver. 4, but would in ver. 12; that is, that the " bearing," in ver. 4, was not sacrificial, but is in ver. 12; for Heb. ix. 28, that Christ was once offered εις το πολλων ανενεγκειν αμαρτιας, are the very words of Isa. 53:12. So that if this is of any value, we have not an inference that it cannot be used in one place because it is not in another; and that Peter, if he had quoted it, would have used another word for " nasa" in ver. 12, because Matthew did in ver. 4 (an argument, when said to be from inspiration, which I decline characterizing), but a direct proof that inspiration will not use a vicarious sacrificial word as to Christ's living sympathies and sorrows; but that it will, and does, use it when it speaks of bearing sins when offered up to God. And now, leaving argument, which I am glad to do, what is the scriptural use of αναφερω, in connection with sins and sacrifices, with or without επι το? The 'following instances will show: Num. 14:34, και ανοισουσι τηω πορωειαν υμων. The use of it in this passage is the more noticeable, because, save in Lev. 20:19, the word always used for bearing the consequence of our own, or a father's, sin (and under the old covenant, this is the same thing) is λαμβανω, in the Sept. In Lev. 20:19, it is αφοισουσι. In Ex. 28:29, it is ληψεται τα ανοματα επι το λογιον; and for the same words in ver. 30, it is και οις ει τας κρισεις επι του. Indeed, the argument as to λαμβανω, may justly be carried much farther, for λαμβανω is regularly used for bearing the fruit of one's sin, bringing sin on oneself in its consequences. It is not bearing it vicariously, but as a con-sequence on oneself. The only apparent exceptions that I am aware of, and they are only apparent, are Lev. 16:22, the scapegoat; and Ezek. 4.4, 5, 6; but the first is ληψεται εις γην αβατον, " He shall carry them into a land not inhabited," and in the case of Ezekiel, it was clearly not (נשא) vicarious, but representative (םבל) and the same as the ordinary case. In a word, αμαρτιαν λαμβανειν, is not used for vicarious bearing, but bearing the consequence of one's own fault, coming under the effect of it oneself, poenas luere. But what is important, is to see the actual use of αναφερω, when used with sacrifice. Num. 14:34, and Isa. 53.11, are plain proofs that it is used for bearing sins penally. But now, as to sacrifice. The reader must bear in mind that the act of having the sin on the victim is not in itself the expiation. That puts the victim in the answering place. For the other, death and the judicial action of God must come in to put it away. It must be slain and offered on the altar. As it is said, "by means of death." Christ had to take our sins on Him, and therefore die; give His life a ransom for many. Every one, therefore, believes He had taken them on Him before He gave up the ghost. The question is, did He take them on Him in order to suffer on the cross, and suffer the penal judgment of them there, as the victim was brought up to the altar, then the sins confessed on His head, and. then the victim itself, thus made sin, slain, and burnt? Or was Christ born into this penal state, suffering it before He actually gave Himself up to be offered on the cross? Was He under the penal consequences of sin in the sufferings of His active service, was that penally from God; or in the sufferings of the cup He took to drink upon the cross from God? I believe the latter, that it was after the victim was presented as an offering to the altar -in Christ's case we must say presented Himself as a spotless victim to the cross-that the penal sufferings for sin were on Him, because our sins were on Him, and that it is to this bearing of sins alone that the passage in Peter applies. Christ offered' Himself without spot to God. Jehovah laid, then, the iniquity upon Him. He who knew no sin was then made sin. Did the Lord lay the iniquity upon Him before He offered Himself without spot, a proved Spotless lamb? One who knew no sin was made sin when He had bowed to His Father's will to drink that cup.
Offering has, in scripture, a double character. It is used for presenting the victim, or indeed any offering, חקדיב הביא, heevi or hikriv," to cause to come nigh"; but αναφερω επι το, is not used for this, though in grammar, I know not why it should not be. It is for hard causes in judgment in Deut. 1:17, ανοισετε αυτα επ' εμε, " You shall bring them to me." But not for offering that I can find. If the reader take the first chapter of Leviticus, he will find for these words προσφερειν or προσαγειν, to bring up. This was the presenting the offering which was to be a victim. But as soon as the victim, or part of it, is spoken of as burnt on the altar (Lev. 3:5), then it is ανοισουσιν αυτα επι το θυσιαστηριον, so in ver. 9, the general idea of offering is προσοισουσι, hikriv, and in ver. 11, the burning of it on the altar, ανοισουσιν επι το. And this is the regular use of it in Leviticus, and elsewhere, as Ex. 29:18, 25; 30:20; Lev. 2:16; 3:16; 4:10, 20, 26, 31; 6:15, 35; 7:21; 8:16, 19, 20, 27; 9:10, 20; 16:25; 17:6; Num. 5:26; 18:17. This last has the same force, but there is not επι το θυσιαστηριον. That is αναφερω επι το, is the technical expression for consumption or offering up to God by fire, when on the altar, in contrast with bringing up to the altar. When επι το is not used, it has practically the same force when used of offerings- that is, offering to God; but αναφερειν επι το has the proper peculiar force of bearing them as a victim on the altar, under the consuming fire of God, not of bringing up to it. It answers to hiktir, not to hikriv. It is impossible that the use of language can be made plainer by the facts of that use. There is another word for which it is used, which confirms this, עלה, halo (Gen. 8:20; 22:2; so Ex. 24:5; Lev. 14:19,20), where the reader will remark, comparing ver. 13, that in both cases of the sin or trespass-offering and the burnt-offering, they are killed before they are offered in this sense of the word. In Christ both went together, He died on the cross; but it is of importance to remark it here, because it shows that hala as well as hiktir is not bearing the sins up to the altar, but the being offered (in consuming fire) on the altar to God. The word is used in some passages generally as a burnt-offering, an offering made by fire, the sense being assumed to be known; but this shows the strict sense is, the ascending up to God as a sweet savor under the proving and consuming fire -not the bringing up sin to the altar. And this is so true, that as these burnt-offerings were of a sweet savor, so no offering not made by fire was a sweet savor: Compare Lev. 2:9 and 12, determining the use of this word in the most positive way they were to bring it up (takriv) as an offering, but they were not to offer it (yakala) as a sweet savor, very justly as to the sense translated " burnt" in the English. It was not to be made to ascend as a sweet savor, that is, to be burnt and mount up to God as such. The general use may be seen in Num. 28:2; Deut. 12:13, 14; 27:6, is a proof that the notion of επι το, i.e. επι, with an accusative (see below) is not so absolute, but proves that ανοισει, in any case, does not mean necessarily bringing up to, for here it is used with the genitive. Judg. 13:19, again shows distinctly what αναφερω επι το means (here επι την, because it was a rock), for it is added, " For it came to pass, that when the flame went up," behaaloth, " from off" the altar. The victim was offered on the rock, and in the going up of the flame. That is what hala refers to, not the bringing up to the altar. Additional cases will be found in Kings and Chronicles, David's and Solomon's offerings; but it is only repeating similar cases, which confirm, but are not needed, to prove the point. The words for which αναφερειν επι το θυσιαστηριον are used, namely, burning, or causing to ascend on, the altar, and the uniform use of them prove distinctly that the force of the word is the bearing under consuming fire on the altar, and not bringing sins up to it. I may quote another proof; strongly confirming the use of this word in 2 Chron. 29:27. Verse 24, the victim was killed; ver. 27, Hezekiah commands it to be offered ανενεγκειν επι το θυσιαστηριον. I add, on this occasion, it is never used for bringing or bearing sins up to the altar. It is used for bringing victims to the house; but this I quote because there it is not επι. The sins were not yet upon them, they were the spotless victims that were to become sin-bearers, and sweet savors of offerings made by fire, αναφερειν επι το θυσιαστηρτον is never used for bringing or bearing sins up to the altar; what it is used for has been fully shown. But the supposition that επι, with an accusative, means actively bringing up to and then rest is a mistake. There may be grammatically the idea by implication that that which is επι το is not always and naturally there; but as a matter of fact, it does mean resting on a place or thing at the time spoken of. Thus Matt. 13:2, " All the multitude stood," επι τον αιγιαλον. So Matt. 14:28, " Ye shall sit on twelve thrones," επι δωδεκα θρονους. Acts 10:17; 11:11, επεστησον επι τον πυλωνα επι την οικιαν. Winer's Grammatik (section 583) may be seen for this use and the use of επι, with a genitive for motion. See a singular example in Lev. 3:5, the pieces of the peace-offering on the burnt-offering, επι τα; on the wood, επι τα; on the fire, επι του: this may be from the fire being always there belonging to the altar, whereas the wood was brought there: ουσιν will be understood then before it. In many cases, I have no doubt that the real cause of the accusative is this; when the preposition of the compound verb implies motion, there will be the accusative, though the whole sense will be rest. I do not think you would ever have ειναι επι το with εφιστημι αναφερω you will have the accusative; so ειστηκε επι το, in contrast with Christ's sitting in a boat on the sea; but Mark, ησαν επι γης. But this is grammar, and I pursue it no farther. It remains only to adduce the cases of αναφερειν, in the sense of bearing or offering. We have first Heb. 7:27, " who needeth not daily as those high priests to offer up sacrifice for this he did once when he offered up himself." Now, 'here it is perfectly certain that it has nothing to do with the victim bearing sins up to the altar, but with what we have seen to be its usual and uniform sense, the High Priest's offering it on the altar, where it was a victim—so, also we have distinct proof that it is no vicarious life, for He 'did it once when He offered up Himself, and it was for sins. When, consequently, it may have a more general meaning of giving Himself up to be a, victim, we have the word- used for that in Leviticus, προσφερω, Heb. 9:16. Hence we have in ver. 28, " once offered (προσενεχθεις), to bear (αναφερειν) the sins of many." Thus He was once offered, and offered to bear sins as thus offered, of which it said that He had not to offer Him-self often, for then He must often have suffered; but now He has appeared once in the consummation of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself- that is His offering, His suffering, was the sacrifice of Him-self. His being born was not His sacrifice. He offered Himself, one who was a man, though by the Eternal Spirit, or there could be no offering; that is, He was a man before He offered Himself, His own blessed voluntary act, the perfect act of Christ, though. in obedience, and Himself already the spotless lamb. He was thus the man, the spotless one, offered to bear the sins of many. This, there can be no doubt, refers to Isaiah 53:12.
We have, further, James 2:21, " When he had offered up Isaac on the altar"; and 1 Peter 2:5, " Offer up spiritual sacrifices," which give no proof, save that the last shows this, that it was the offering up to God, which is very important in this way, that' it shows it was not the brining up the sins when laid on the victim's head to the altar. The offering of the victim to God is προσφερω, the consumption on the altar was its offering up as a sacrifice to God, this is αναφερω. The notion of bringing up a living victim to the altar is unknown to scripture; the animal was slain when he had been offered (προσενεχθεις), slain by whom it might be, and the blood sprinkled on the altar, and the fat, or the whole victim burnt; the altar had to do with death and the judgment of fire, and there was the sacrifice—a living victim bringing up sins to the altar, is a thought foreign to and contrary to Scripture, when the victim had been presented, and the hands of the offerer had been laid upon it, it was slain at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. Death was the way sin was dealt with in the victim (we know Christ's death was on the cross, as well as the full drinking of the cup of wrath) the thought of bringing sins up livingly, as if He offered Himself and His sins, is an impossibility. No; He offered Himself, and bare (ανενεγκε) our sins, when offered (προσενεχθεις), as a dying victim. Death was the wages of sin. Thus I return to 1 Peter 2:24, with the full evidence of scripture and the Greek use of the word. All the scripture order of sacrifice, and the language of scripture, confirming it, that the simple-hearted reader may rest in all confidence in his English translation, "He bare our sins in His own body on the tree." The word "bare" has a sacrificial character; but that no Christian reader ever doubted in this passage.
I do not see, I confess, how any scriptural locution could be made more certain. I doubt that any other could have so ample and absolute a proof of its actual meaning; and refutation of the meaning attempted to be put upon it, and the desired change in the authorized version.
"Who [Christ] did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth: who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that, judgeth righteously: who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed." 1 Peter 2:22-24).