What a fitting theme for the first number of our new volume! How it falls in with the whole tone of Christianity as revealed in the Word of God! Reconciliation to God, founded on atonement, laying the basis of the soul’s relationship with God. Would that there was more faith in this. God never sets an unreconciled sinner to walk in the footsteps of Jesus; nor does He instruct and train an unpurged sinner that he may become a bearer of fruit. The knowledge of atonement for sin, and the consciousness of reconciliation to God, are the first steps in the Christian course. The Christian, in the true sense of the name, is one who is “reconciled to God by the death of his Son,”—reconciled on the ground of the work of Jesus on the cross—not waiting in uncertainty to know at some future time whether or not all will be well, but one whose reconciliation to God, and whose acceptance in the Beloved, are settled things, founded on the atoning blood of the Lamb; and all this before he is set to walk one step in the Christian course. If souls were to apprehend this, how many difficulties would be solved. How much more real Christian fruit-bearing we would see around. Instead of the low, depressing state of the generality of Christians, ever occupied with themselves and their sins, we would find happy peaceful hearts occupied with Christ, and with others who love Him; and in praising Him “who loved them and washed them from their sins in His own blood” (Rev. 1:5,6), quite done with themselves and their sins as to their acceptance before God. It comes from the fact that they never yet have rested in faith on the blood of the Lamb at all. Faith believes what God says; it never raises a question as to this.
The moment reasoning begins, faith ends. The language of faith is the language of assurance—perfect rest in the testimony of God.
With these few remarks, we will examine a few points in the chapter we have opened, containing the ceremony of the great day of atonement in Israel. This yearly ceremony of the tenth day of the seventh month was a shadow of the “good things to come.” The faithful Israelite had his conscience cleansed for twelve months; while the day to which it pointed—the great day of atonement on the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ—gives the believer now an eternally purged conscience. “The law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually, make the corners thereunto perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins,” (Heb. 10:1,2) The faithful in Israel rejoiced on that day to know that God’s claims were satisfied, and the savor of the blood of atonement had spoken on the mercy-seat before God; and that his sins had all gone away on the head of the scape-goat to a land not inhabited, never again to be re-called. But his conscience was not “perfected forever.” The services of that day “could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience.” (Heb. 9:9) If this could have been, there need not have been any repetition of the offering; and, therefore, as year by year the day of atonement returned, it showed that the law made nothing, not even his conscience, perfect.
Before we enter on the ceremonies which pointed to, and were a shadow of, the great antitype, we must examine the position in which, the unreconciled sinner is in the world. We read in verse 2nd — “And the Lord said unto Moses, speak unto Aaron thy brother, that he come not at all times into the holy place within the vail before the mercy-seat, which is upon the ark, that he die not: for I will appear in the cloud upon the mercy-seat.” Solemn thought that because God was there, man in his sins could not be there. If God in the essential holiness of his character, and the sinner out of Christ, were to meet, what must ensue? Nothing but unmitigated judgment. The Christian has met God in Christ, and knows what God is. “By Him (Christ) he believes in God;” thus his faith and hope is in the character of that God whom Christ has revealed, and in whom he believes (1 Peter 1:21). When Adam transgressed and fell, and God drove Him out from His presence, and cut off his access to the tree of life, he went outside the presence of God, and begat a son in his own image and likeness—the image and likeness of a fallen man who had been driven out of the presence of God. Every soul of his posterity to this hour are thus driven out in him One may not have sinned as much as another, and may not have brought forth as much of the works of the flesh; and although each has his sins as his own, still, both have the nature of fallen Adam, from which those sins hath come; and neither the nature nor the fruits of it can ever enter God’s presence. How then is the, sinner to be brought to God!
The Lord chose the nation of Israel out of the world, took them out of Egypt, and brought them through the wilderness on their way to the promised land. Just as they were brought out, they rebelled against Him, and made a golden calf, and worshipped it as the god that had brought them out of Egypt (see Ex. 32) God then gave them sacrifices and priesthood as a means of drawing nigh to Him; and as soon as they were appointed, and the priests were consecrated, they sinned and fell. Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, offered strange fire before the Lord, which the Lord had commanded them not, and they died by the judgment of God (Lev. 10); and so, the way into the Holiest, where God dwelt in the glory or cloud on the mercy-seat, was forbidden, “because I will appear in the cloud on the mercy-seat.” Solemn thought, that the one man to whom the privilege of entering God’s manifested presence belonged, was shut out by a vail; the only man in a world of sinners who had the privilege to go there, was forbidden, “that he die not.” Infinite mercy, that God should have thus prevented the access of sinners in their sins to His presence, because death and judgment must ensue. We do not sufficiently realize this. We do not, as we ought, recognize the intense holiness of God, who is “of purer eyes than to behold evil, and cannot look on iniquity “(Hab. 1:13). And until a sinner has a perfect title to stand in His presence of light, within the vail, he cannot walk one step aright. He may be religious after a fashion, be most sincere in his efforts and desires to get into God’s presence, but all this is exercised with a vail between him and God; and, therefore, it is but the servile work of the sinner who, however sincerely, seeks to establish a footing, gain acceptance, and obtain access thus to God.
Reader, pause and ask yourself, Is it thus with me? Are you by your prayers, or your alms, or whatever it may be, laboring without the sense of acceptance, to gain a standing at some future period, in God’s presence? Or, are you one of those who are seeking to serve God in the liberty of grace, and in the enjoyment, as a present thing, of a perfect title to His presence? Let us see, therefore, from our chapter, how the sinner is to be brought to God. How he is to have a title to stand with boldness before God, with such a title as may fully satisfy Him, as suitable to answer his claims. Now God himself has provided this for all; and the moment you believe, you stand in all the value of it before Him.
There are three points in our chapter which I would press upon my reader:—
1. The purity and spotlessness of Christ, whose blood alone is this title; and His presenting Himself to do the will of God (vs. 4-7).
2. The value of His sacrifice in God’s eyes (vs. 12, 13, &c.)
3. The result of His word to all who believe (vs. 20-22).
We may remark that in verses 4-7 there is no question of blood-shedding. Aaron, clad in white linen garments, presents the victims before the Lord. Now, what Aaron was thus officially and typically, Christ was personally. Aaron, thus clad in pure white garments, represented Christ in His own pure and spotless perfection and His holy nature, upon which no sin could come. Such was the impossibility that He could contract defilement, although surrounded with it, and in contact with it daily and hourly, that when the poor defiled leper presents himself to be cleansed, “He puts forth his hand and touched him;” contact which would only have brought defilement to another, but not to Christ. When Aaron presented the victims before the Lord, it pointed to the great antitype Himself, presenting Himself to accomplish the will of God, according to Psa. 40. There we find that the sacrifices of the law could not put away sin; they could, and did, doubtless, point to Christ. Their continual presence and repetition proved that sin was there; and consequently they were not satisfying to God’s heart, except as they pointed to the sacrifice of His Son. Christ presents himself to accomplish all, and thus do God’s will. “Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire; mine ears hast thou opened: burnt offering and sin offering hast thou not required. Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart,” (Psa. 40:6-8). How blessed! God’s will was to be accomplished in the salvation of the sinner. Christ presents Himself to do His will; and so He sets aside the sacrifices of the Law as unable to do this, and establishes the will. “He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second,” (Heb. 10:9). How this reveals God’s heart I Love to the sinner, hatred to his sins, are somewhat of what we learn in this. It is not the legal thought of our hearts that God must be propitiated in some way towards us. All is changed when we see that our salvation as sinners originated in the will of God.
But then, were not the claims of God to be met? Surely something was due to one so justly offended by sin; and this brings us to the second point. For, precious and pure and spotless as was Christ, still, of what avail was His life to us without His death? None whatever. Had He gone away to heaven ere He died, of what avail to us was all His purity? And so we read of Aaron casting lots between the two goats; one for the Lord, and the other for the people. Let us remember what this conveys. There are ever two sides to Christ’s sacrifice; its aspect Godward, and its aspect towards sinners. These two goats teach us this. The claims of God’s nature against sin must be met, and the need of the conscience of the sinner. The former must be first. The person who has been offended must be satisfied, before the heart of him who has offended Him can be set at rest. And in verse 12Th, &c., we read after the scape-goat’s blood was shed, on which the Lord’s lot fell, that Aaron brought the blood into the Holiest, within the vail, in a basin, and sprinkled the blood seven times on the mercy seat; and that as he did this the holy place was filled with a cloud of incense! Would that the sinner’s heart might learn the precious truth conveyed in this! The fragrance of Christ’s sacrifice in all its excellence in God’s eyes, filling His holy presence with its sweet savor and rich odor. How well and how righteously can He be gracious to the vilest, when He deals with such according to the merits of Jesus, and the value of His blood! Valued as making good all God’s attributes, fully answering all His claims, and glorifying Him as to sin.
How precious to learn this, however poorly! My fellow-sinner, it is the sheerest unbelief—a device of the enemy, if you doubt your interest in the atoning blood. Can you doubt it? Impossible. “There is none that doeth good, no, not one,” is the divine complaint. “All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God,” is the divine sentence. The moment I see this, the moment I have submitted to the divine sentence; that moment I am fit to be cleansed by the blood of the Lamb And here I learn it has spoken on the mercy-seat, that its fragrance has filled the Holy place; and that God is acting on the ground of the blood, declaring Himself a just God, and yet a Saviour. None too vile to be cleansed. The day of grace still runs on. The blood is on the mercy-seat, wide enough in its aspect for a world of sinners. None are precluded; there is ample provision for all.
But there is something more. Not only has the blood spoken on the mercy-seat, but Christ has put Himself as substitute in our place on the cross. Jesus left His own place in the glory on high, and put Himself under the weight of our sins; and God has given us the place of Jesus, and in Him in the glory on high. This brings us to the third point, which we find in verses 20-22. Aaron took the live goat, and confessed on his head all the sins, and all the transgressions, and all the iniquities of the people; and sent him away by the hand of a fit man, into the wilderness. How the conscience of a godly Jew must have been relieved, when he saw the goat led away; and still more so, when he beheld the “fit man” returning without him How his heart must have rejoiced to know with divine certainty that for twelve months all was gone. And, how the resurrection of Christ, like the dismissal of the scape-goat, on whose devoted head all our sins, and all our transgressions, and all our iniquities have been laid, must speak its true story to our consciences, telling us of sins put away, and buried in the grave of God’s forgetfulness, never to be recalled, no more to rise against us forever; but with this difference, that what had its efficacy for twelve months to the Jew of old, pointed to that which gives us now an eternally purged conscience—eternal peace! so that we are now in His presence without fear, our consciences forever set at rest by the work of Christ.
What then, is the exhortation of the Holy Spirit, founded on all this, to us? How are we to do honor to this perfect title God has given us? “Having, therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which He hath consecrated for us, through the nail; that is to say, his flesh; and having an high priest over the house of God; let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with• pure water” (Heb. 10:20,22).