The Apostle Paul gloried not in circumcision, nor in hereditary religion, nor in his grand
earthly titles, nor in his magnificent energy, but he gloried in the cross of Christ. By that cross to him circumcision was nothing, hereditary religion beggarly, earthly titles and human energy worthless. As a man, albeit the very sample of his religious race, by the dead body of the Christ, he was no more. Dead to honor, dead to reproach. As a responsible child of Adam, instead of living the life of self-amendment, he was buried and clean gone from God's sight, and by faith's privilege entitled to reckon himself to he so. Freed from circumcision, temples, law, sin, by the cross of Christ.
So long as the heart is in the circle of things anterior to the death of Christ, it is impossible fully to realize the excellence of His sacrifice. The attempt of the present scheme for the overthrow of that great liberty, which trumpeted over sleeping Christendom, “The just shall live by faith,” is to restore the Jewish order of ritual, or rather to set up a spurious and deadly imitation of those “weak and beggarly” elements. But no heart of a child of God, established in the sweetness of the sacrifice of Jesus, will ever be attracted to “the reformation of the deformation,” as would-be officiating priests and advocates of an unfinished work of Salvation designate their movement, and that of the Spirit of God when boo years ago the light of His word was given to “the dark ages.”
Christ by His death brought the old race to a judicial end; risen, He is the head of the new race. To go back to circumcision, temples, law, sin, is to deny the place of liberty and power which is ours who are “in Christ,” and to make light of that death of His by which the liberty is obtained.
The cross of Christ comes not as the climax of the system of Judaism, but it originates a new system altogether; it is not the last of an order of sacrifices, but shines in freshly-born brilliancy, separate and distinct from every other sacrifice. The cross of Christ is no ornament to human nature; no aid to natural religious feeling; no force to elevate man's fallen self; on the contrary, the cross of Christ is the judgment of man as man, the close of his religion, the end of the fallen race. This termination of man in his old and sinful life is the origin of the new divine life given to all who believe; the cross, the doom of the old, is the joy of the new creation; it is the force which silences into the stillness of the grave of Christ, all that is of sinful self; and the power by which eternal praises arise ever fresh from those who are horn again.
Fully to apprehend the cross would be to measure the infinite, but God has, by types and shadows, helped us to understand some of its perfections, both in its acceptability to Himself and its availability for man. The opening chapters of Leviticus give us four distinct aspects in which we may view Christ's sacrifice. First, the Burnt offering – the free will offering of Himself to God in atonement, the sweet savor of His death as before God. Second, the Meat (meat is used in the general sense of food) offering – the unsullied beauty of His person, the Spirit given without measure to Him, the whole life of Jesus a sweet savor to God, and that life ending in death. Then the Peace offering – the communion, the participation of faithful hearts in the sacrifice. And, in the fourth place, the Sin offering – the death of our Lord meeting the requirements of divine justice regarding the sinner in his sins.
Our consciences must feel the utter impossibility of delighting with God, of having communion with God, concerning the sacrifice of Jesus until we have full peace. Hence, what God records in the fourth place, is, to the awakened sinner, the primary requirement of his soul. True, when he has precious faith and rests in the sacrifice of Jesus, he then may have communion with God respecting that sacrifice, he practically partakes of the Peace offering. He also worships God because of what Jesus was as a man upon earth, and because of what His sacrifice is; in the language of the type, he brings the Meat offering unto the Lord; his heart is tilled with the sweet savor of the Burnt offering which rises up to God.
There cannot be communion with God, nor worshipping God, until there is full faith in the death of Christ. We must begin at our true place, our place as sinners. We must begin at the Sin offering. Christianity without heart-faith in Christ's cross is a vain show. It is merely decking out the lifeless corpse of “the flesh,” to the contempt of God's grace, and the confusion of the sinner.
Now what was the action of the transgressor of Israel? He came to God about his guilt. He came with the Sin offering. He identified himself with the victim. He laid his hand upon it. As it were; his transgressions were transferred to the substitute. This was done before the Lord – in the divine presence. And then the victim was slain. In effect, the sinner was slain in the person of his substitute; and because of this, the sacrifice made sin was burned without the camp. Such a sacrifice was not a sweet savor offering consumed upon the Brazen Altar; on the contrary, it was a sacrifice identified with guilt and transgression, taken outside the camp for burning. It was man's need met. And man's first need when he approaches God is the forgiveness of his sins, and until his sins are gone lie can neither have communion with God nor worship Him. The blood of the Sin offering was taken within the Holy place, and sprinkled before the Lord. Its efficacy upon behalf of the transgressor was presented within; in the secret of God's presence. And so the blood of Jesus shed upon earth, now maintains the claims of divine holiness above, while it brings the sinner it has cleansed into the light and peace of God's presence.
Thus, viewing himself as identified with the Sin offering, the sinner beholds himself taken outside the camp, consumed, and no more in God's sight. He is not allowed an entrance as a sinner into God's presence, for, when as a sinner he approaches God, the holy God to whom he draws near has provided a sacrifice for him, which is burned in his stead. His sins which drew him to God are transferred to the substitute; the substitute is slain, and in the death of the substitute the sins are gone. Thus atonement is made for him and his sins are forgiven him.
Now, reader, how is it with you? We do well to ask ourselves how it is with us in God's sight. Never, never can a sinner in his sins, as he is, enter God's presence, save for the display of divine justice against those sins. We may draw near, and are invited by God to draw near, and in mercy to find the perfection of Christ upon our behalf. You have seen Christ upon the cross; the righteousness of God there making Him sin for us – Him, the spotless victim, who knew no sin. Do you believe? Faith is not a dead thing! If you believe, you are not busied with “dead works:” the blood of Christ has purged your conscience, it has cleansed you from the dead works, from officiating priests, from sacramental purifications. You are serving the living and true God in the liberty of His Spirit – you are rejoicing in the end of self, the forgiveness of sins, and in the living Christ at God's right hand.