Glories of Christ
Henry Forbes Witherby
Table of Contents
Rest Only in Christ
Evil doctrine is not only damaging to souls, but destructive of Christ's glory. No man, whose heart rejoiced in the glories of Christ, as set forth in the Epistle to the Hebrews, would he attracted by Judaism revived. And God puts forward in His Word the glories of His Son to draw our souls away from the entanglements of error. Our only safeguard is God's Word, and that read under the teaching of His Spirit.
A sight of Christ's glory as the Savior, of the preciousness of His blood, the perfection of His sacrifice, gives peace with God; this teaches us to abhor as worse than useless – as dishonoring to Christ – our doings, our feelings. We cast away the filthy rags of our righteousnesses because the rags dishonor Him in whom we are made the righteousness of God.
In modern Ritualism there is a childishness, a delighting in religious toys, in pretty dresses, illuminated books, candles and shows, which is utterly out of place in the Christianity of the Bible. And as if to exhibit the folly of such faith, such hopeless sentences as “Pity me, O my friends!” “Jesus, mercy!” are often written over their graves, so that after a life spent under priests, confessions, penances, and sacraments, it is to die without assurance of salvation, and to have the very tombstone engraven with want of hope!
In the ritualism of the Scripture we have the divinely ordained system of the tabernacle and its service, in which picture God shows to us Christ in the altar, the laver, the holy, the holiest. Christ in the tent and curtains, the sockets, the boards. Christ the delight of God, portrayed in type by God. Shall God's saints go back to the picture and leave the One of whom the picture speaks?
Let us, with the divinely ordered ritual and the God-planned tabernacle before us, glance at a few of the things which tell us of Christ.
For us as sinners, the sacrifice must come first; this is a moral fact. The sinner who fears God, of necessity goes first to the altar. He has no rest about himself, cannot draw near to a holy God, and until he sees Christ's atoning work in the altar of sacrifice, he is filled with fear.
The first object which presented itself to the transgressing Jew approaching God with his offering at the tabernacle, was the brazen altar. He came to the altar drawn by a twofold force – the sense of his transgression, and faith in God's provision for that transgression. His sin, instead of driving him from God drew him to God, because God had shown to his faith the sacrifice for that sin. So now, he who feels his guilt, and believes God's Word respecting the Lamb of God, comes as a guilty sinner to God in virtue of the sacrifice. On the other hand he who feels his guilt but discredits God's testimony respecting the sacrifice, attempts by a variety of methods to fit himself for God's presence. Hence in the latter case the sinner is pulled away from God, there is only one force in action – the sense of his guilt and unworthiness, and this sets him in motion circling the center of self.
It is the drudgery of a blindfold horse in a mill, going round and round, and during hours of weary work never progressing one inch. How many poor blinded souls are there thus fruitlessly at work at this moment! But there is a straight way to God. And where the twofold force – faith in Christ and sense of sin – is in the soul of the sinner, he takes this direct road to God and the sweetness of His love. Faith in the value of Christ's sacrifice, as well as a Spirit-taught sense of our guilt, draws us direct to God. Instead of revolving round ourselves, we are attracted away from self; instead of year by year, day by day, treading again and again the same ground, we rest in the peace which the blood of the cross has made.
The Jewish tabernacle in the wilderness stands in the center of the tribes. There is one door and only one to its outer court; and the first sight which meets the eye at that door is the brazen altar. In a far distant border of the outlying tribes is a transgressor against God's law. He feels his guilt. He believes God's Word. What shall he do? He comes to the dwelling-place of God, comes to God. He draws near. And how? With what kind of offering? Prayers, works, tears? Does he bring flowers or fruits? He brings a sacrifice – a lamb. And as he reaches the open door of the court, as he looks through the pillars whereon are suspended the curtains, he beholds the brazen altar – the altar of judgment. Thither he leads his sacrifice, to have its life-blood taken, to be burned.
From every quarter, from the four corners of the congregation, from either north, south, east or west, there is but one way, and that way the transgressors tread who believe God.
Reader, so come you to God. Be not the poor, dull, beaten horse in the mill. Come with all your guilt to Jesus. in His blood is full atonement, in Him alone is peace. There is rest for your conscience in His blood, rest for your heart in His love His is a finished work, and faith abides still and calm in the blessing of the finished work of Calvary. Do not turn to the restlessness of your own efforts. Do not practically deny the completed work of Jesus, but rest in the satisfaction which God has in His Son.
The Way to God
We will keep before our minds the tribes surrounding the Tabernacle in the wilderness, and present to ourselves an Israelite, whose conscience, instructed by the law of God, condemns him as guilty of a particular offense. He desires to be at rest according to God's Word concerning his transgression.
There is no rest for him who does not believe God's Word. He may seek to lull his conscience to sleep by worldly enjoyments, or by religious opiates endeavor to dull its bitings; but rest, save by the way set out in the divine book, is impossible. And when we speak of believing God's Word, we intend real, and therefore practical, belief. No doubt, in our land, thousands, in an educational manner, believe that there is a hell, and, in a way, accept the fact that the Son of God came to earth in order to save sinners; but they neither flee from the wrath to come, nor seek the salvation which is in Christ Jesus.
The Israelite before us acted out his faith. He feared the God whose holy law condemned him, while he availed himself of the sacrifice for his sin which the mercy of God provided.
The Tabernacle in the wilderness was in the center of the camp, and within the Tabernacle was Jehovah's Throne. That Throne, with its overshadowing cherubim, stood within the mysterious inner tent, lined with gold, wherein none dared enter, save the High Priest once a year, and then not without sacrificial blood. Over this, the cloudy pillar hung, and this dwelling-place of Jehovah had for its very name the Holy of Holies. Holiness is the first demand of the divine Throne. It is the unyielding requirement of God, the everlasting claim of His being; and its quality must be divine, because God is God.
Approaching God, then, we have the transgressing Israelite; and the question which we ask for him,we ask of ourselves, How shall sinful man draw near to the holy God – by what way enter His presence? for “Our God is a consuming fire?'
Ah! reader, no murder-charged criminal, pale and trembling at the bar of earthly tribunal, has like cause for cold sweat-drops of fear's agony upon his brow as has the sinner in the presence of the Eternal Judge! And, sinner, meet God you must, and meet Him in His justice.
What, then, is the way to God? As we study the Tabernacle in the wilderness, a straight line opens before us which makes the answer plain. Let our reader ponder the diagram opposite, which is a rough ground plan of that erection, and may it assist him in grasping God's purpose.
The transgressor occupies the extreme end of the line; the Throne of God the other. Between the transgressor and the throne lie fire and water. First fire, then water.
There was no way whatever for the Israelite into the Tabernacle save by the appointed entrance, and the commandment of God placed him outside the outer Court of the Tabernacle. There he stood; and as his eye ran up the straight line his vision was barred by Fire – the fire of the brazen altar. Behind the altar was Water – in the brazen laver; afterward came the Tabernacle itself, with its two tents, in the hindermost of which, and concluding the straight line, was the Mercy-seat, or the Throne.
Now every system which looks to man for goodness, improvement, cleansing, denies the divine order – denies that the first demand of God from the sinner is the due of his sins, and that the fire of His judgment can only consume the guilty man who dares approach Him in his own person. He who offers to God of his own soul offers abomination, for he offers sin. Fire is that which tests. It tried Jesus and brought out sweetness, nothing save sweetness, from His sacrifice: but let the fire test fallen man, and it brings out what man's nature is – sin, nothing but sin.
The heart instructed by the Spirit of God concerning holiness rightly feels the need of cleansing, but it cannot reach the water save by the fire. This is the Divine order: God puts the Sacrifice of His Son and the burning of the Victim upon the Brazen Altar, before the daily cleansing of the water by the Word, before the washing of hands and of feet in the Brazen Laver.
There never can be rest of conscience until the excellence of Christ in the altar be seen. We would ask our reader to fix himself in spirit upon that end of the straight line where we have marked “transgressor,” and to ask himself, Is the fire of the altar between me and God? Have I ever stood before the cross of Christ and learned that that cross bars all entrance to God's presence for me as I am in my natural state, while it is, on the other hand, complete deliverance for all who, believing in Christ, have judicially died with Him upon the tree.
God has narrowed the way to Himself, and has so placed the altar that if man will approach Him it must be by fire. Either learn the cross of Christ magnifying God's justice, or turn your back upon God forever. To go to good deeds or to self-improvement is to slight, if not to reject, the cross of Christ; nor can there be any wonder that souls so acting have not peace with God, since their conduct is saying, practically, “Christ's death is not the way to God.”
Look at the diagram, and read the words “No entrance save at the gate.” Upon the three sides of the outer Court of the Tabernacle there was no doorway of any kind. At the eastern end alone – the furthest from the Throne – was the gate. To have attempted entrance by either of the three sides would have been to throw down the wall which God had put up about His throne – an outrage and a sin against His majesty resulting in immediate destruction. But in Christian circles this crime – the penalty for the continuance in which is death everlasting – is of daily occurrence; persons preaching and practicing all kinds of ways to God making, as it were, gateways as they list.
There is no access to God save by the Cross. The first message of God to the sinner is respecting the Cross; upon the very threshold of His Court the Brazen Altar proclaims, “Our God is a consuming fire.” And when Christ's glories in the Altar are seen, what joy, what peace flow into the soul through the truth of God's righteousness! The believer learns that not only his guilt, his transgressions, have been borne, but also that he himself has been judicially dealt with in the person of the Sacrifice. Sin is not passed over; it is judged. Iniquity is not made light of; it is atoned for. In the fire of the Altar of Calvary is the consuming of the believer's sins, absolute and eternal forgiveness; and we ourselves, as children of the first Adam, are judged and put out of sight.
“No I hope to be saved some day”; no “I shall know at the judgment,” but “I am saved now, because Christ has borne the judgment of God against sin on my behalf.” No fear of hell fire, because the fire of divine wrath has been endured by Jesus, the Lamb of God. No looking on to purgatorial flames and their purifying torture, but looking back to the fire of judgment which consumed the Sin offering, and which brought out the sweet savor of the Burnt offering. Such as labor at ordinances and call faith presumption have not yet cast the eye up the way to God, nor have yet stood at the gate and seen the fire of the Brazen Altar.
The cross of Christ, on the one hand, forbids the thought of an unforgiven sinner entering God's presence save to be judged; while on the other it proclaims forgiveness to every sinner who believes.
Reader! as you look by faith to Jesus as He was once upon the cross, does your heart confess, “The Son of God loved me and gave Himself for me?” Do you believe that He took the place of death in your stead? If you do believe, yours is peace with God. If you are still devoid of peace, then, without delay or hesitation, prostrate yourself in faith before the fire upon the Brazen Altar; own yourself to be the sinner, deserving wrath which God says you are – own Christ the Perfect Sacrifice for Sinners which God says He is.
The Altar
The Tabernacle in the Wilderness had two Altars – the Brazen, for Sacrifice; the Golden, for Incense – the positions of which are indicated upon the diagram overleaf. The corner to God from the outlying camp had to do with the Brazen Altar; the comer to God within the Holy Place, with the Golden. Outside the Holy Place, man needed Sacrifice; within, Incense. The sinner in his sins needs the blood of Jesus; the saint in the light needs the intercession and advocacy of Jesus.
Upon the Brazen Altar were sacrificed Burnt Offerings, Meat Offerings, and Peace Offerings, while the blood of the Sin and Trespass Offerings was poured out at its foot. The four classes of sacrifices, which are treated of in the early chapters of Leviticus, are summed up thus in Hebrews 10. “Sacrifice, and Offering, and Burnt Offerings, and Offering for Sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein; which are offered by the law; then said He, Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that He may establish the second. By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once.”
Upon the Golden Altar it was forbidden that either blood or sacrifices should be offered; but therefrom rose up the sweet fumes of the divinely ordered incense.
The Brazen Altar pertained to the outer Court, and to the people of Israel generally. It was open to the gaze of all amongst the tribes who would approach God – the first object which met the eye of him who drew near. The Golden Altar, on the contrary, pertained to the Holy Place and the priests alone. It was hidden from the people by the outer veil, and gave forth its fragrance only upon behalf of those who served within the Tabernacle.
Christ's glories shine in both altars. His glories in connection with His sacrifice in the Brazen – His glories in connection with His intercession in the Golden. In the one altar we see Him upon the cross, meeting the sinner's need and bringing him to God. In the other, we behold Him maintaining the saint in spiritual things in that nearness into which the sacrificial blood has brought all who believe.
Sweet savor arose to God from each altar; within the Holy Place, the perfume of “perpetual incense before the Lord”; without “the fire ever burning.” Constant sweetness, ceaseless delight to God, ever the preciousness of Christ for His saints and for sinners.
The Israelite, with the guilt of his transgression not put away, stood before the Brazen Altar. At the foot of that altar the blood of the Sin Offering was poured out; and if not removed by fire his sins forever remained. Sinner, troubled about your unforgiven sins, occupy your soul with Christ as meeting every requirement of the just and the sin-hating God! You cannot meet the demands of God about your sins; not all the holy men who ever lived can satisfy God on account of their own sins; yours they can never bear or atone for. Fix your gaze upon Christ, His sin-bearing alone can relieve you of your guilt. His Person alone could fulfill the claims of divine holiness, and seeing His glory as the Sin-Bearer you shall obtain peace.
The Brazen Altar was made of shittim wood, overlaid with brass. Within its hollow center was a grate, or network. It was thus designed, in order both to endure and to contain the fire for the sacrifices. The shittim wood is the figure of the Lord's humanity; the brass shows to us His Divine nature whereby He endured the fire of God's wrath against sin; the grate in the midst of the altar supporting the fire teaches that the Lord in His own Person could sustain all that God's justice required.
Fire is the great emblem of divine testing in Scripture, “The fire shall try every man's work.” The fire of God tested Jesus, and brought out His perfections. The flame which devours wood renders gold only the more beautiful. The wrath of God against sin, endured by the sinless Sin-bearer upon the cross resulted only in glory to God. A firm step towards solid peace is made when we believe who Jesus is in relation to divine Justice. None save He could give what justice claimed; but He has glorified God in the fire, He has exhausted the flames, and now God regards all who look by faith upon His Son, with perfect satisfaction. Jesus has borne and ended the wrath of God against the sins of all who put their trust in Him. The fire of judgment is burnt out in His Person, the claims of God's holiness are magnified by Him upon Calvary.
The security of the believer rests upon the excellence of the Person of Christ. No Altar of Salvation is there for the sinner but the cross; no judgment freeing him from hell save Calvary. Of what punishment shall they be thought worthy, who, hearing of this Sacrifice, this Altar, offer to the Holy God the sacrifices of their doings, their works, upon the polluted altars of their own persons, or who go to saints or to angels for salvation?
Reader, believe God! Accept His love. Reject not His justice. Whoever will may draw near, and whoever draws near by the Altar and the Cross of Calvary shall find that God is magnified respecting the very sins the sinner dreads. Poor prisoner, dragged down to dungeons of despair, behold your judgment borne, and God glorified on your account by Jesus! “We are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once.”
We now ask our reader, persuaded of the preciousness of the Altar of Sacrifice, to look at the diagram, page 18, remembering these words, “Having, therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the Holiest.” Within the Holiest is your place. You are brought to God. You are sanctified, set apart, once and forever, by the spotless sacrifice; you are brought near to serve within the Holy place. And having been thus once brought near by the blood of a crucified Savior, you now need the constant service of the living Jesus; you need Him, as the incense altar sets Him forth.
The Golden Altar was put within the Holy Place, just outside the inner veil, separating the Holy from the Holiest. Like the Brazen Altar, it was formed of shittim wood, only its covering was of gold. It was not of the plain construction of the other altar, for around its top a crown of gold was wrought. Gold in Scripture is a figure of divine righteousness; hence this altar figures to us Christ's perfect humanity clothed with divine righteousness: its crown the exaltation of a risen Christ. Sweet perfume arose from this altar continually, “a perpetual incense before the Lord throughout your generations.” Within the Holy Place, nay, the Holiest, you as a priest, a servant of God in holy things, need the incense of the intercession of Jesus. When the priest of old trimmed the candlestick, he put fresh incense upon the altar; and ever as God's people give out their light for their Lord they need His intercession. The holiest of our service is in itself impure. The sweet savor of His past sufferings has satisfied the Holy God upon the behalf of all who trust in Him; the sweet savor of His present intercession maintains them in moral nearness to God as saints.
There is the constant sweetness of the savor of Christ's sacrifice rising up to God, day and night, ever the same. There is the perpetual incense of the Lord's intercession above, lasting throughout all the generations and all the journeyings of His pilgrims here below. Ever a perfect Savior for sinners; ever a perfect Intercessor for saints. And either for sinners or for saints, His work is always a sweet savor to God.
None other intercession save His avails, and to imitate His is a deadly sin. Of old, the sentence ran, “whosoever shall make like unto” the incense “to smell thereto, shall even be cut off from his people.” Alas, for the spurious incense and its compounders, of which this day so proudly boasts; woe to the lying mixtures of priests, who imitate to the delusion of longing souls, the perfect, available intercession of Christ on high. Do these men indeed know their crime against the Christ of God. Prayers presented to God in virtue of a priestly office are as vain as the office which is supposed to give effect to them. “The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man,” whoever he be, “availeth much,” and all believers ought to be intercessors, for all are made priests to God by Christ's blood; but it is Christ and Christ only, the Priest on high, the benefits of whose intercession, the fragrance of whose prayers, maintain God's people in their walk before Him. Cling, Christian reader, to Christ; it is His glory and His joy to bear you up, and to intercede for you as you journey heavenward.
By the Brazen Altar, the sinner has become a saint. By the Golden Altar, the saint is maintained in communion with his God.
The Perfect Sacrifice: the Sinner's Substitute
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.
The Perfect Sacrifice: Divine Righteousness Satisfied
Amongst the sacrifices for sin ordained by God to express from different points of view the perfection of the sacrifice of Jesus, that of the Day of Atonement stands out with peculiar importance. It was the yearly offering for Israel, and covered, as it were, the people's sins for twelve months. By it God could dwell among Israel, and the Israelite draw near to God.
The blood of the Sin offering, as we have just seen, was taken merely within the Holy place – the outer of the two rooms comprising the Tabernacle – but the blood of the sacrifice of the Day of Atonement was taken within the Holiest of All, that sacred inner chamber, the dwelling-place of Jehovah between the cherubim, which none dared enter save the High Priest once a year.
This type has teaching, for us of vast moment, for upon the great Day of Atonement (the day when Jesus died) “Behold the veil of the Temple was rent in twain, from the top to the bottom,” and until now it remains rent, and, all who believe, are exhorted to draw near to God in that place which spiritually is, the HOLIEST – to enter freely at all times wherein the High Priest of Israel could only pass once a year. We ask our readers to compare Leviticus 16 with Hebrews 9-10, where these things are taught us. This access is the privilege of all God's people, a privilege which does away with the barriers and the restrictions for drawing near to Him which the “priests” have set up. It sweeps away all holy places and all degrees of sacredness of buildings, tolerates no screens, but lays bare the heart of God to all. “Let us draw near” is the God – given exhortation. Yes, draw near to God Himself, to the throne of His Mercy and His Justice; and in the sure faith that our access is based upon the efficacy of the blood of the great Sin-Offering, and the ever-availing presence of Jesus in the glory! Not a veil of thinnest tissue between! Not the faintest hiding of God whatever! Complete liberty! Holy boldness! Yes, with the Word of God in our hand we may fearlessly assert that any system which hangs a veil between God and His people is dishonoring to God according to the thickness of the obstruction.
There were two goats dealt with in connection with sib upon the Day of Atonement. Lots were “cast upon the two goats; one lot for the Lord, and the other for the scape-goat.”
Upon the head of the scape-goat, “all the iniquities” of Israel and “all their transgressions in all their sins” were confessed, whereupon the goat was led into the wilderness “to bear upon hint all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited,” to wander away and be utterly forgotten. Forcible illustration of the sins of the sinner being transferred to Jesus, and being carried by Him into oblivion. “Their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.” Sins, not only forgiven but forgotten by God. Oh let us rejoice in this perfect grace of God!
The Lord's lot was dealt with in an entirely different manner. It was “the goat of the sin-offering” and was slain. Its blood was carried within the veil, into the Holiest of all, and was sprinkled “upon the Mercy-seat and before the Mercy-seat.” We remember that from between the overshadowing Cherubim the voice of God's judgment issued, and thus the sacrificial and atoning blood was brought up to, and sprinkled upon, the very throne of Jehovah. Sins called for that blood; but the blood, not the sins, spoke upon and before the throne of Justice. The claims of God's holiness demanded the death of the sinner, but the death of Jesus for the sinner speaks, from the throne on high, divinely made peace, to those who deserved to die. The Cherubim over the Ark were in perfect rest, for they looked down upon the Mercy-seat gazing, as it were, upon the blood, figuratively the death, of Christ for us. Those in the Garden of Eden were in activity holding the flaming sword of Justice, which turned every way to guard the Tree of Life. Does our reader rest his soul where the Justice of Jehovah rests? or is his way to life barred by the sword? Thanks be to God, Justice is now ranged upon the side of Mercy: they have met together, and from the wounds of the once crucified but now glorified Jesus, their united voices utter the gospel of God. Righteousness is revealed from heaven, and declares to all, and for all who believe, peace by the blood of Jesus.
Will our reader now turn to the diagram overleaf. Note that we have removed from the Tabernacle the intervening veil, for the Mercy-seat is now open to faith's gaze. The Lord has entered the true Tabernacle, which is above; He has passed through the heavens. Look up to the glory where He is, it is a direct line, there is nothing now between God and you. Jesus is seated at God's right hand, a Savior for you. There is no veil of God's ordaining. God looks down from His glory on high upon men, in His perfect love and perfect righteousness. Through the veil – that is the flesh of Jesus – through the sacrifice of Jesus we see God's love and God's righteousness, and learn, to our rejoicing, that God is upon our side; that He has taken up man's cause, dealt with man's sin, and made an access to Himself for the chief of sinners. And now God proclaims from the Holiest His grace to sinners.
Mark how God sets forth the Mercy-seat for the blessing of sinners. In the Epistle to the Romans, immediately upon the guilt of man being proved, God's righteousness upon his behalf is proclaimed. And from where? The Mercy-seat! God sets forth the Propitiatory in all its availability for sinners. He displays Christ at His right hand, a Mercy-seat through faith in His blood. (See Rom. 3:25.) The Sacrifice for Sin-Jesus, once slain, but now the High Priest in the true Tabernacle, and alive for evermore – is the object of faith.
But a veil exists. What is it? It is Unbelief How is it made? It is made out of misrepresentations of God, and out of confidence in self. These two are woven together and form the obstruction which blinds men's eyes to God. Oh! if this be before your eyes, reader, may God tear it down! Believe, and know God.
The sacrifices of old were repeated because they were but types of the reality. That of Jesus being perfect cannot be repeated. “It is finished.” It is eternal. These of old “could never take away sins,” if they could “would they not have ceased to be offered?” Their repetition evidented their character. Our sins are gone and “where remission of these is there is no more offering for sin.” Faith knows the impossibility of a second sacrifice, and rejects with utter abhorrence and with holy scorn every kind of abomination which is paraded before Christendom by the traducers of the one offering of Christ, and of the truth contained in the veil once rent by God.
In the ancient Tabernacle there was no seat for the priests; their work was perpetual, hence they could not rest. And how true this is practically of all who do not rest their souls where God's heart rests – in the finished work and in the Person of the Lord. They know no peace, no abiding place, no repose for heart and conscience. They are always doing something. They cannot sit down, for they have no seat. But God has “made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:6).
The order of sacrificing-priests was recognized by God no longer, after that Christ had offered Himself to God. The occupation of the “priest standing, daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices” vanished when God rent the veil of the Temple, in order to display to all who had eyes to see, the Mercy-seat in the glory on high.
Doubt not, distrust not. Look up to heaven. There Jesus lives. There He is seated. There He has entered for all who believe on Him in the efficacy of His own blood; by that blood you may enter where Christ has gone, you may draw near to God in His light. “Therefore, brethren, having 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 veil, that is to say, His flesh, and having an High Priest over the house of God, let us draw near, with a true heart and in full assurance of faith” (Heb. 10:19-22).
The Perfect Sacrifice: the Sweet Savor Sacrifice, the Spotless Life, Communion with God Concerning Christ
The perfection of Christ as the Sin offering – fully meeting the sinner's need and entirely satisfying God's requirements – being laid hold of by the soul, room is made for faith to receive the thought of God's delight in the sacrifice of Jesus. As sinners, guilty and conscious of our guilt, we approach God in the efficacy of the blood of the cross, and our sins being taken away, and we being brought near to God by that blood, we learn that the offering of Jesus, which has entirely met our case, is the most precious act ever rendered to God. Looking at ourselves and our sins, we see Jesus being consumed without the Camp, and forever satisfying divine justice for us; looking to God we see His infinite delight in the voluntary sacrifice of His Son in being made sin for us, the “sweet savor unto the Lord.” Thus the sacrifice, which brings the sinner near to God, calls out the worship of the saint. Has our reader been by the cross of his Savior so delivered from fear of sin's punishment, and from expectation of finding good in himself, that he can occupy his heart with God's joy in the sacrifice of Jesus? When believers have not solid peace of conscience before God, it is that, instead of rejoicing in Christ, they are living as if they were not believers in all God's Word and in all Christ's work, but believers crediting only a small portion of what Christ has done for those who put their trust in Him. And sad it is, that so little leisure from self and its things, the world and its circumstances, is found amongst those who do truly and fully believe the work of Christ, wherein their hearts may be occupied with what Christ was to God.
We begin by learning how Jesus meets our need, but God begins the record of the sacrifices by placing the first Burnt offering, which expresses His delight in the sacrifice of His Son. In the Burnt offering the offerer came to God, because his heart delighted to render glory to God. This sacrifice was Jehovah's portion; the whole of it rose up from the altar within the holy enclosure to the heavens in a sweet savor unto Him. It was an expression of Christ's offering Himself in atonement, glorifying God in the place where sin was judged, and becoming a sweet savor, in which the worshipper is eternally accepted. The worshipper laid his hand upon the head of the sacrifice, and he became accepted according to the acceptability of the offering to God. The believer is not only forgiven by the blood of Christ, he is accepted in Christ. His sins are taken away, but he himself is received. Well it is for the heart to worship God, because the perfect sacrifice of Jesus has not only met our every need, but the whole measure of God's heart. And in Him we are accepted. God's joy in His Son is as great as His own heart, and the love of Christ in freely giving up Himself for sinners was an occasion for a new motive for the Father's pleasure in Him, as we read” Therefore doth My Father love Me, because I lay down My life, that I might take it again” (John 10:17).
As the believer enters into God's thoughts about Christ, so does he magnify the Son, and so do the difficulties of his soul disappear, overwhelmed in the infinite pleasure of God in Christ. His heart made free from self, delights in God's delight in Christ. Henceforth his spirituality is not simply that of a sinner rejoicing in being saved, but that of a saved sinner, a saint, delivered from self and placed within the circle of God's joy in Jesus. Let us inquire, have we thus realized who the Christ of God is? Are we amongst these true worshippers? Do we indeed know the value of the Burnt offering, and God's great grace in accepting us in the Beloved One?
The second of the four orders of offerings – the Meat or Meal offering – expresses the perfection of Christ's humanity. The fine flour: the perfect evenness of Christ's life, a life which ever sought the Father's will and pleasure, and never had nor could have in it, one single particle of selfishness or self-pleasing. The frankincense the perpetual sweetness of that life to God, a sweetness so great that it called forth from opened heavens the approving words, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” The oil: the Holy Spirit given without measure to Him. This most holy offering was burnt upon the same Altar as that whereon the Burnt offering was consumed.
In the whole life of Jesus upon earth there was naught save perfection; each act, word, and thought was pleasing to God. The believer established in Christ's work for him upon the cross, turns with ever fresh delight to the four gospels, to meditate on Christ's path upon earth. It is all frankincense! No honey of mere kindness, no leaven of malice. Love, not the amiability of human nature, so lauded by men, but divine love flowing out of a Man. A holiness which is absolute; ever according to God.
We are privileged to occupy our souls with Christ's ways, and to worship God as we meditate upon Him in His life below. And the better a believer is built up in what Christ is for the sinner as the Sin offering, and in what He is to God as the Burnt offering, the more capable will he be of rejoicing before God and worshipping the Father, for what Jesus was as a Man upon earth.
The third of the four classes of offerings is the Peace offering. It has this peculiar feature in it – the offerer ate his portion of the sacrifice; thus it expresses communion, as we read, “Behold Israel after the flesh, are not they which eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar?”
Our readers will have observed that the offerer did not partake of the Burnt offering. It was God's special sweet savor, and all was burnt. Neither did the offerer partake of the Sin offering; it was all required to make satisfaction for the sin he had committed; and it was burnt outside the camp. God has a joy in His Son's giving up of Himself as the Voluntary and Spotless Sacrifice, which is beyond all the joy of all the redeemed in the Redeemer, it is infinite – it is measureless. Our joy in Christ is finite, for we are finite. The believer also well knows that he cannot partake of the sufferings which Christ endured for him upon the cross – that the agonies of the cross are solitary – that none could bear what Jesus bore, none could effect what He effected by His blood! This we know, and in this we rejoice. The Sin offering was all for us.; the blood was shed, the debt was paid, the wrath was borne by Jesus alone, but for us, and by that sin-bearing we are brought into the blessings of the gospel.
The great work was effected between Him and God; and as sinners we rest (as said one in her dying hour) “upon the solitary dignity of the blood of Christ.”
But in the Peace offering the offerer did partake of the altar. A portion of the sacrifice was burnt before God, a portion eaten by the offerer. The saint and his God together have joy in Christ! And true it is, Christian reader, that God rejoices over your joy in Christ, small as your joy may be. True, also, that your heart feeds upon the Christ, in whom God's heart forever joys.
There are features in Christ's life and death wherein communion is held between God and His people, wherein the heart of God and the hearts of men rejoice together. There is praise to God rising up from the secret of the heart of His people, who feed in spirit upon Christ, and who have thoughts about Jesus, acceptable to Him.
In the days of the type some offerers had a larger offering to bring than others, and now the spiritual capacity of believers differs: though Christ is for all alike, yet some have vastly greater and nobler thoughts of Christ than others; though all are loved by God alike, yet some are far nearer to God's heart than others. Some, alas! have not yet learned Christ as their peace, but others have gone on to find in Him their only delight and satisfaction. He is the center of the circle of their thoughts – their very beings. These are the giants amongst the people of God, for what makes a believer great is having God's thoughts concerning His Son, and communion with God about Him. But while the measure of the apprehension of what Christ is may differ, it is the same Christ that each believer has for his own. And God in His grace comes down to the level of the feeblest soul who delights in His Son, and allows that soul communion with Him about Jesus. Whether it was the large bullock or the little lamb, whether a great or a small offering, yet it was the same Christ of which each spoke.
We have very briefly glanced at these sacred things. May the reader search the Word concerning them, and may it not be only the mental understanding of the Word of God which satisfies us, but may the eyes of our hearts behold Christ in it so vividly –
“ That with His beauty occupied
We elsewhere none may see.”
We append a few texts of Scripture from the New Testament as bearing upon the different aspects of the sacrifice of Christ foreshadowed in the four orders of offerings under the ritual of old.
THE BURNT OFFERING
“ Lo! I come to do Thy will, O God.” “Therefore doth My Father love Me, because I lay down My life.” “Christ, through the Eternal Spirit, offered Himself without spot to God.”
THE MEAT OFFERING
“ This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye Him.” “The Father hath not left Me alone, for I do always those things that please Him.”
THE PEACE OFFERING
“ We have an altar, whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle. By Him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to His name.”
THE SIN OFFERING
“ He hath made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” “His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree.”
The Laver-The Constant Need
The need of the sinner is perfectly provided for, once and forever, by the sacrifice of Christ. His sins are washed away in the blood of Jesus, and of that washing there is no repetition for time or eternity. He is brought to God, brought within the veil into the holiest of all, as near to God as the Christ by whom he is represented in the glory. He is accepted in the Beloved, for no lower standard than Christ, in the perfection of His person, is the measure of the believer's acceptance by His God and Father. Never in His Word does God term the believer in Jesus – a sinner; but God calls him a saint, a holy person; so thoroughly are God's people separated to Him by the blood of His Son. Such a position, impossible to be forfeited by the believer, unassailable by Satan, and fortified by the glory of God, being ours, it may he asked, What more can be needed?
If our reader will turn to the diagram opposite he will observe there one spot within the tabernacle's court, and upon the straight line to God, which is occupied by the Laver.
The Laver was a brazen vessel, filled with water, standing between the brazen altar and the door of the Tabernacle, and it stood there to meet the constant need of those who served in the holy things. Suppose a priest having passed the brazen altar, with his feet upon the line of approach to God, what meets his eye? The Laver is between him and his worship. His thoughts are occupied with it. The Laver has a voice to him. Before he can enter the Holy Place, upon the service of the holy things, he must first wash both his hands and his feet. He does not go back again to the fire and the blood, but he goes onwards to the water. And this is what the Lord expresses to us when He says, “He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit.” He that is washed once from head to foot needs not a second immersion, but stepping out of the bath he comes in contact with the soil of the earth and his feet require cleansing.
The Christian does not need a second application of the blood of Jesus for the salvation of his soul, because, once cleansed he is always cleansed, and when cleansed he is saved; but he does need a continual washing, so far as his walk upon earth is concerned. He does need the death of Christ applied to the things of daily life; the water to purify as well as the blood to atone. For “He that saw it bare record, and his record is true, and he knoweth that he saith true, that ye might believe”; and his record is, that “one of the soldiers with a spear pierced His side, and forthwith came thereout blood and water.” The Lamb was slain, the sacrifice had been offered; sin was atoned for, sins borne, divine righteousness satisfied, when the soldier's spear pierced the side of Jesus. And the blood flowed first, the water next. The blood first, which atones for the soul, then the water, which being applied to the cleansed is their practical sanctification. Our separation to God is measured by the death of Christ, whereby a soul is severed from the world and brought to God; and our daily life should witness to the great fact of Christ's death. Hence we say that the believer needs to apply the death of his Redeemer to his daily duties; needs to ask himself, am I walking as one separated to God by Christ's death. Does this or that action become one, who by Christ's death is dead to the world, to self, to sin? There is no practical holiness save as reckoning ourselves to be dead unto sin, and by being connected practically with Christ Himself in the glory.
And this being so, we feel at once how sorely we fall short of practical sanctification, that is of living to God as those who are one with Christ in heaven! Hence, even in service, in the holiest things, we are deeply sensible that we require purifying; and, if in the holiest moments of our lives, how intensely do we need the washing in our daily and earthly duties! The priests washed not only before entering the tabernacle, but also when returning from it. Either going in or coming out, the need for the water was the same.
What, then, is the water which meets our need as sinning or failing saints? We know that the blood met the judgment due to our sins as sinners. There is a word of scripture which is in itself the reply, namely, Eph. 5:25-27. “Christ loved the church, and gave Himself for it” – this is the Altar, the sacrifice for sin; the one offering of Himself once offered, of which there is no repetition. But beyond this, and for those who are washed in the blood, there is the love of Christ, exercised in their continual cleansing, as we read in the latter part of the verse – “that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word.” This is the Laver, and the water it contains. The water of the Word is the means by which Christ keeps practically clean those whose sins are washed away in His blood. His love for His people constantly applies the purifying influence of the word to their thoughts and actions. He brings Himself dying for our sins before us, and proves to us the exceeding sinfulness of sin by the cost it was to Him to cleanse us. Thus we learn by grace to hate what, as unconverted men, we loved. We begin to abhor the very things which were once the pride and the pursuit of our hearts.
The more sensitive the heart and conscience become by communion with Christ the greater will the need of this washing be felt, and the more true will be the apprehensions of the soul respecting sin. Thus we find that the more holy people practically become, the more they see the stains and spots which contact with the world leaves upon them; and the more they turn from self and reckon it the dead thing which the cross of Christ proves it to be. There is, then, a continual sanctifying and cleansing by the water of the Word, even as there was a solitary sanctifying and cleansing by the blood of the cross. Those who rejoice in the first, rejoice also in the second. But we know the second after the first: we go from the fire to the water, from the Brazen Altar to the Brazen Laver. It was love which constrained the Son of God to give Himself for us, and it is love which this very moment unweariedly watches over us in order to remove from us everything that is contrary to His own perfect holiness. The love, which in the past, found us in our sins, and washed away those sins in blood, is the love which at this present hour sanctifies and washes us by the water of the Word, and which will in the future present us to Himself in perfect holiness, “not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing.”
This love of Jesus, daily expressed towards His own, is one of the most tender features of His grace. It links our affections with Him. We consider that, day by day, our shortcomings, errings, transgressions, and sins are the subject of the Lord's thoughts. He brings back our souls to His Father's love by applying, through His Spirit, the word to our hearts and consciences. He brings about self-judgment and confession of sins by His Word. He induces in the hearts of His own, a thirst after holiness, a desire to be more as He was when here. Ask, believer, whence the returning to warmth after seasons of coldness? whence the present faith that there ought never to be winter in the heart, but always uninterrupted growth and gladness – a ceaseless spring? Whence these bright and blessed desires and expectations The answer is: It is the Lord's love sanctifying and cleansing with the washing of the water by the Word.
The Lord said, “Sanctify them through Thy truth, Thy word is truth,” and true holiness is attained by the means of the truth. It is not attained by our own consciousness or experience, for then holiness would be the result of a mere human realization. They who by grace have the truth before their souls measure holiness by the standard of the Divine Word, and to them perfection is nothing less than the image of Christ in the Glory.
“If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with Me,” said Jesus to Peter, who would have refused the Master's service of love. And there can be no communion, no part with Christ, when the soul rejects the Laver and its water. And this let us ever remember is a constant, even as that of the blood is a completed washing. We are in a sinful world, and have sinful natures: “in me, that is, in my flesh, dwells no good thing” is as true of the strongest as of the feeblest believer. May we have faith to believe in holiness through Christ. It is not holiness, but insensibility to inward evil, which is the attainment of such as profess not to need the daily washing. Instead of practical godliness sin is made light of; and what honest Christians call evil is passed over as of slight moment. The standard is lowered to suit low spirituality. The Christian as surely needs the Laver as the sinner needs the Sacrificial Altar, for “without holiness no man shall see the Lord.”
An Ascended Christ
We have endeavored to trace, very briefly, some of the glories of our Lord in His death, and in the service of His love – His glories as the Perfect Savior. The priesthood of old, and the robes of glory and beauty which Aaron wore also spake of Him. The glory of His Son is the grand thought of God in the Scriptures, and there is no detail of the old economy, which in some manner does not tell us of Jesus. To see Jesus crowned with glory and honor” in the heavens, is to have done with the tinsel and the trappings of modern priests. Shall we have priests between our hearts and Jesus? Shall we pour into their ears the longings which our Lord above loves to satisfy? Far be the thought.
It was but yesterday that the enthusiasm of superstition asserted itself in a pilgrimage from this land to the supposed bones of a questionable “Saint.” Hundreds, in their “voluntary humility,” kissed the glass case where, gaudy in tinsel and gay robes, lay the wax figure covering the bones. Before this relic, the noble and the educated, as well as the poor and ignorant, prostrated themselves. They sang and wept in their frenzy. They tore up handfuls of grass, plucked leaves, and filled their pockets with earth, to carry home their treasures from the spot which the crafty priests called sacred! Pitiable spectacle of unsatisfied hearts and consciences! Earnest yet deluded men and women; the sport of their own rejection of Christ at the Father's right hand! Yet worse than the shame of their folly – worse than their worship, which has not in it even “any honor to the satisfying of the flesh “ – their despite to Christianity, their degrading the high and heavenly gospel of God to the base level of heathenism. For in what, save name, differs the relic – worship, and the priest-service of the heathen, from that which “enlightened” countries still call Christian religion?
Did they but know Christ in glory as their Life – were the hope of their souls to be like Him as He is – relics, priests, and ritual would be swept out of their hearts in a moment; swept clean away by the Spirit of God as loathsome and abominable, as utterly hateful to Christ. “The weak and beggarly elements” of Judaism are repugnant to Christianity; but what language shall describe the poisonous mixture of Judaism
and Paganism which is now called Christian faith?
What then, reader, shall keep God's people from this going back to earthly religion – to these rudiments of the world? What is the deliverance from the sense-entrancing religiousness which leads souls captive to priests and relics, and chains them down, heart and mind, to the things of the earth? “If ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances?” is the question of God, which supplies the answer.
Christ, who in His perfect obedience to God kept the law (He fulfilled it and observed the feasts, has died to temples and earthly religion. He has gone up on high. He has entered heaven itself, and there He now is, the center of a new worship; and more, He is the Head, and from Him personally, by His Spirit's agency, all spiritual nourishment and direction come to the “members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones” upon earth.
When Christ died to the rudiments of the world – to everything which is of the earth and sense, His people died with Him. They are with Him dead to meats, to drinks, to holy days, new moons, and Sabbaths; dead to the shadow, but in Christ – alive from the dead, seated on high – they live in the fresh atmosphere of the new creation, and are fed by Himself.
What have these ordinances to do with the new life which is ours in the risen Christ? Who, knowing Christ in glory, would care to touch – would lower Christ so as to kiss – the glass case of a wax figure, wherein were shrined certain bones tied together with gold wire? or to take a Ritualistic and not Romanistic example, who would worship God before crucifix and candles in his chamber?
It is not for us, whose “life is hid with Christ in God,” to stoop to the level of the hapless heathen, to lower the might and the magnificence of “Christ in you the hope of glory,” to any sort of earthly ceremonial, or to any kind of Sensuous assistance.
Reader! be sure of this; it is only as in Christ that God accepts you; anything lower is death. God views man either as in Adam, or as in Christ – as dead in self, or alive in His Son. Do you know Christ – Christ in heaven? The way to His glory is His cross. Do you believe on Him who “was made sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him?” Do you know Him who was crucified for sinners, but who lives for evermore? A risen and glorified Jesus is the truth for the day. This shall save you from countless delusions; this, as God's Spirit fills your heart and mind therewith, shall preserve you in the midst of Satan's wiles. “If ye, then, be risen with Christ, set your affection on things above,” set it not on the rudiments of the world, set it not upon music, or stained glass, or incense, or priests, or gorgeous robes, shrines, or relics; set it upon the risen Christ and His heavenly things. And thus delighting in the Man at God's right hand – having Christ in your heart as the hope of glory – having likeness to Him on high for your prospect, your destiny – you shall be emancipated forever from every thrall, whether of doubts or fears, infidels or priests.
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