OF THE APOSTLE PAUL.

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and to open the seals thereof, for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation :" v, 9. "What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they?...... These are they which caine out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before the throne of God," &c.: Rev. vii, 13-15; comp. i, 5.

In presenting to the reader the testimony of the apostle Paul to a doctrine which he evidently considered as the very basis of Christian truth, I shall, for the present, make no citatious from the epistle to the Hebrews. The following passages, selected from his other epistles (in addition to Rom. iii, 23-26, already quoted) I consider to be of a very satifactory and conclusive character. “When we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For, scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die: but God commendeth his love towards us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more, then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him :" Rom. v, 6-9. “For I delivered unto you, first of all, that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures:" I Cor. xv, 3. God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their tres

3

3 The Greek verbs which express “ reconciliation,” are διαλλάσσειν, καταλλáoosiv, åtoxaradλáσσew, all of which signify generally, to change, commutare, permutare; and thence, more particularly, to change enemies into friends; to reconcile and bring into a state of peace, parties previously hostile. When two parties, at variance with each other, are thus brought into a state of peace; if one is the offended, the other the offending, party, the expressions under consideration are applicable to

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.......

passes unto him For he hath made him to be sin (or a sin-offering) for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him :" II Cor. v, 19-21. "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree:" Gal. iii, 13. "Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God, for a sweet-smelling savour:" Eph. v, 2. "(God) hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son, in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins: ..... for it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell: and (having made peace through the blood of his cross) by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven and you that were some time alienated, and

either of them, and each may be properly said "to be reconciled" (diaλλaooioDai, καταλλασσέσθαι) to the other. These verbs are applied to the offended party in some passages of the Apocrypha; (vide II Mac. i, 5. vii, 33; I Esdras iv, 31;) in all which instances, "to be reconciled" signifies" to be appeased."

In other instances, however, "reconciliation" is predicated of the offending party, and imports "a restoration to favour:" vide Sept. Vers. of I Sam. xxix, 4. Ka! Ev τίνι διαλλαγήσεται οὗτος τῷ Κυρίῳ αὐτοῦ; And how shall this man be reconciled to his master," or "restored to his master's favour?" Matt. v, 24, grov διαλλάγηθι τῷ ἀδελφῷ σου, κ.τ.λ. “ If thy brother have ought against thee— first be reconciled unto thy brother," &c. On the same principle God is represented in II Cor. v, 19, as reconciling (naraλλáσowv) sinners to himself, "not imputing their trespasses unto them;" and sinners are described as being reconciled to God, because they are brought into a condition of peace with him, and restored to his faSo Schleusner in voc. καταλάσσω. “ Deus autem dicitur καταλλάσσειν åvIgúτous ixury, dum veniam peccatorum dat, et homines modum ac rationem consequendi favorem suum docet. Homines autem dicuntur καταλλασσέσθαι τῷ Θεῷ, quatenus habent Deum propitium et immunes sunt a pœnis peccatorum :" vide Magee on Atonement, vol. i, p. 203.

vour.

4 apagría, sin-for sin-offering. This is a common change of meaning in Hebrew, as has already been noticed respecting the word ; and the Hebraism is very naturally transferred by the apostle to the Greek word άuagría, which corresponds with NUM. 'Auagría signifies a sin-offering in the Septuagint version of Lev. v, 9. vi, 25; and probably, iv, 8. xiv, 19; also in Heb. ix, 28. So zádagua, in classical Greek, signifies both the pollution, and the expiatory offering.

MEANING OF SACRIFICIAL TERMS,

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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 unreprovable, in his sight: Col. i, 13, 14. 19–22. "For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself A RANSOM FOR ALL, to be testified in due time:" I Tim. ii, 5, 6; comp. Acts xx, 28; Rom. viii, 3; Eph. v, 25-27; Tit. ii, 14, &c. &c.

When we contemplate the very numerous scriptural declarations which have now been adduced respecting the Christian doctrine of atonement, we cannot fail to be struck with the variety, as well as with the force and harmony, of the terms in which that doctrine is expressed. Jesus Christ is set forth as carrying our sorrows, as bearing on himself the burthen of our iniquities, as procuring for us the forgiveness of sins and reconciliation with the Father, through his death; as giving himself for us; as giving his life a ransom for us; as suffering and dying, not only for our sakes, but instead of us; as a sin-offering; as a passover sacrifice; as a propitiation, or atoning sacrifice; as purchasing us with a price; as undergoing for us an exacted penalty; as made a curse for us; as redeeming us from the curse of the law; as cleansing us, washing us, from our sins, in his blood.

It will be observed, that these terms are, in general, sacrificial, and, with a due allowance for their superior fulness, variety, and strength, they may be considered as closely corresponding with the phraseology which, in the Old Testament, is applied to the typical ordinances of sacrifice prescribed by the Jewish law. When, however, we recur to the books of Moses, for the assistance which they obviously afford us in the inter

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pretation of some of these terms, we ought always to bear in mind, that the law is the shadow and figureChrist the substance and reality: and while there is an admirable analogy to be observed between the leading features of the Jewish sacrificial ordinances, and the one great sacrifice of Christ, it follows, from the very nature of that analogy, that the terms now alluded to assume a far deeper and more extensive significance, when they are applied to the Mediator of the New Covenant, than can possibly be attributed to them, when they are descriptive only of the types and ceremonies, the priests and victims, of the Mosaic institution. In order to the elucidation of this remark, we may briefly advert to a few plain particulars, in which there are to be observed at once a perfect analogy, and an essential and sometimes infinite difference, between the sacrifices of the law, and the sacrifice of Christ, and between their respective circumstances and consequences.

The victims, offered under the law, were free from all external blemish or spot. Christ, the great sacrifice of the Gospel dispensation, was sinless, absolutely devoid of all moral pollution. The blood, or life, of the burnt- the peace- and the sin-offerings, atoned for the ceremonial and legal offences of the ancient Israelites. The blood, or life, of Jesus Christ, who offered himself to God on the cross, atoned for the moral iniquities of the "whole world." In a merely figurative and ceremonial point of view, the animals slain in sacrifice at the temple, and the goat who escaped to the wilderness, bare the pollutions of those who offered them. But it was in deed and in truth that Jesus "bare our sins in his own body on the tree." The animals sacrificed under the Jewish ritual were vica

AND TO THE GOSPEL.

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rious sufferers, because they underwent that physical death which the strictness of the Mosaic law would else have required to be inflicted on the erring Israelites themselves. Jesus Christ was a vicarious sufferer, because his death on the cross was graciously undergone by him, and as graciously accepted by the Father, in the place of that everlasting death, to which all men would otherwise have been exposed, as the certain punishment and legitimate consequence of sin. The sacrifices of the law were rites of reconciliation, in as much as they were the appointed means of restoring offenders to the privileges of that polity and worship, over which God himself condescended to preside. But it is through the sacrifice of Christ, that men are truly reconciled to the Father, because through faith in its saving efficacy, they are reinstated in his spiritual favour, and are enabled to hold a peaceful communion with him, in filial love. The former procured for the Jews some important external privileges, both of a civil and of a religious nature. The latter has obtained, for all men who believe and obey, unsullied, unutterable, and eternal, happiness.

On the whole, then, the sacrifices of the law, in a figurative and subordinate sense, were a ransom, an atonement, a propitiation, for the people. But these terms, and others of the same general import, are applicable far more precisely, and in a sense very much more substantial and comprehensive, to the sacrifice of Christ. While, therefore, it is not to be denied that information respecting Christian doctrine may sometimes be derived from the figures of the Jewish ritual, we ought, in our perusal of Scripture, always to remember that the Gospel is not to be explained by the law, but the law by the Gospel.