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Saturday, November 22, 2014

 

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Contents|| Preface || 1 || 2 || 3 || 4 || 5 || 6 || 7 || 8 || 9 || 10 || 11 ||12 ||13 || 14 ||

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Christ on Earth Again


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CHAPTER XIII
SACRIFICE IN THE NEW ERA


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THE central principle of the Kingdom of God is the worship and service of God, as distinguished from human governments, which propose merely the repression and regulation of man. What more befitting than that the head of the kingdom should appear most conspicuously in connection with exercises and appointments that have direct and open reference to God ?
This is the case with sacrifiCe. Sacrifice gets its whole meaning from God's existence and God's
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claims. Nothing could bring Him so distinctly before the mind. In the case of the heirs of the kingdom, it is the sacrifice of God's own son-the real Lamb of God-whose spotless offering up "through the Eternal Spirit" is memorialized every first day of the week in the breaking of bread. Enlightened intelligence never engages in this memorial act without having God opened to the view, Who required this sacrifice at the hands of His Son, that we might be "redeemed unto God by his blood". What if some eat and drink unworthily, undiscerningly; the true nature of the institution remains.
But in its political bearings, the recurring actual sacrifice of the typical animal is more effective. Hence, under the law, it was the type that was kept in the front, with faith behind; and hence, under the kingdom restored, the typical animals are again employed in leading the population into an acceptable attitude to God. This will not be questioned by those who know the testimony in the case. Some such may think it incongruous that the Prince (being Christ and none other) should offer these sacrifices, which include sin-offerings; but the incongruity disappears and actually changes into a suitability that is ravishing when we realize that the offerer of these typical and memorial offerings in the temple restored, is the very Lamb of God who offered his own body on the cross in his character as the antitypical high priest.
There is something sublime in the arrangement by which, in the day of his headship over all people on earth, he will thus publicly identify himself with the one acceptable offering, in a performance which was typical under the old covenant, and is again typical under the new, "in lambs and bullocks slain". In such recurring exercises of service, immortal strength in Jesus and the saints finds scope for congenial and constant activity. Christ is to eat
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the passover and drink the memorial wine with his disciples in the kingdom of God: for so he said (Luke 22: 16-18). What is there more out of keeping in his also offering the memorial sacrifices which derive their chief meaning from himself? It is revealed that he will do this: and all human objections, advanced on whatever ground, are only so many high thoughts, exalting themselves against the knowledge of God.
The whole drift of prophecy involves the temple idea amplified in Ezekiel. If God is to set up a kingdom in which He will govern the nations by His appointed and anointed king (Dan. 2: 44 ;
7: 14; Micah 4: 1-4), and if this kingdom is to be the kingdom of David restored (Amos 9 : 11), worship must neces~arily be its governing feature, and this involves the apparatus of worship; for though worship is of the heart, and an act for every place, yet it seeks appropriate forms and times of expression, especially in national life. And this it is purposed to provide in a new temple, eclipsing all previous erections. This is declared in such forms as these :-Many people shall go and say, "Let us go up to ... the HOUSE of the God of Jacob " (Isa. 2 : 3). The nations " shall go up from year to year unto Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of Hosts ... In that day there shall be upon the bells of the horses, HOLINESS TO THE LORD; and the pots in the LORD'S HOUSE shall be like the bowls before the altar" (Zech. 14: 16, 20). "The glory of this latter house shall be greater than that of the former" (Hag. 2: 9). "Because of thy temple at Jerusalem shall kings bring presents unto thee" (Psa. 68: 29). "He (the Branch) shall build the temple of the Lord" (Zech. 6: 12). "I will set my sanctuary in the midst of them for evermore" (Ezek. 37 : 26, 28). "I will make the place of my feet glorious" (Isa.
60: 13).
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All this is opposed to the current of religious public opinions. But it cannot be contradicted where the Bible is known and accepted. Whatever God appoints must be suitable and beautiful. He has appointed that restored sacrifice shall be a feature of the provisional dispensation of the age to come ; and He has appointed that Christ and the saints shall be the kings and priests, who shall, in that age, rule mankind, and offer those sacrifices; we have but to enquire reverently what may be the object of such an arrangement. We are informed what the object is. From the rising of the sun even unto
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the going down of the same my name shall be great among the Gentiles; and in every place incense shall be offered unto my name, and a pure offering: for my name shall be great among the heathen" (Mal. 1 : 11). It is not possible to conceive a better method of exalting the name of God among the populations of the earth than by requiring a ceremony which has no meaning apart from the supremacy of God, 'and the utter humiliation of man. Ceremony is usually shaped with a view to human honour or human comfort; but here is a ceremony which has nothing to do with either. It is not merely for the happiness of man that Christ reigns, but first for the honour of God; and the happiness of man requires that his dependence on God and the headship of God be kept before his attention in some special way. Sacrifice is the way, and no better could be imagined-sacrifice on every approach.
Sacrifice not only brings the supremacy of God into the foreground: it goes back to the breach that separated man from God, and plunged him into all the evils resulting from !'elf-management. This is perhaps the most beautiful of all the beautiful features of' the Kingdom of God-this feature of reminiscence in the kingdom-this going back upon the past-the justifying of the ways of God during
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the .dark history through which the world is now passmg.
In all human changes of fortune for the better, the past ignominies are covered out of sight and forgotten as fast as possible; because those ignominies were not part of any plan on the part of those suffering them. They were in the chapter of accidents; they stood related to no principle. In the Kingdom of God, it is different in every way. Not only the deliverance, but the evil from which deliverance has taken place, is of God, and is therefore kept in sight as having a reason in them while at the time appearing to outrage all reason.
That the world should suffer is a mystery apart from its explanation: that the friends of God should be in affliction is a dark enigma, if looked at without reference to its object; above all, that the sinless Son of God should have been called upon to endure such contradiction of sinners against himself, and to submit to such a terrible end, looked at by itself, is an inexplicable violation of every principle of righteousness. Yet all is righteous and all will be understood in the happy day that is coming when
the knowledge of the glory of the Lord shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea ".
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