And again: "CHRIST JESUS, Whom GOD set forth Rom. iii. 25, to be a propitiation through faith by His Blood; "* and, "We have an Advocate with the FATHER, JESUS IS. John ii. 1, 2, CHRIST the Righteous, and He is the propitiation for iv. 10. our sins; "† and again: "Herein is love, not that we and 1 S. John loved GOD, but that He loved us, and sent His SON to be the propitiation for our sins." ‡ There are many more passages; it is not necessary, however, to quote them. These are sufficient to show that the Death of CHRIST is distinctly spoken of in Holy Scripture as a Sacrifice and as a Propitiation. in the S. of the Cross, corre II. In our LORD's Sacrifice we may notice five dis- II. Five actions tinct acts, accurately corresponding with the five stages in sacrifice which are clearly set forth in the different sponding with sacrifices under the Jewish Law. those of the Jewish Law: I. The dedica victim. 1. There was the dedication of the victim by the offerer. "If his offering be a burnt sacrifice of the tion of the herd, let him offer a male without blemish he shall offer it of his own voluntary will at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the LORD." § The dedication of the offering in our LORD's case has been variously seen in the institution of the Holy Eucharist; in the great High Priestly Prayer in the seventeenth chapter of S. John, where our LORD says, "For their sakes I consecrate Myself; " || and in the Garden of Gethsemane: "O MY FATHER, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me: nevertheless not as I will, but as Thou wilt." T 2. The identification of the victim with the offerer. "He shall put his hand upon the head of the burnt offering; and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him." ** *Rom. iii. 25. Lev. i. 3. † I S. John ii. 1, 2. I S. John iv. 10. Verse 19. TS. Matt. xxvi. 39. 2. The identification of the victim with the offerer. a mere substi tute for man, sentative of man. While, as we have said, it is not our purpose to enter upon the various questions which arise in connection Our LORD not with our LORD's Atonement, we may observe here, that, whereas the victim under the Law was a mere but the Repre- symbolical substitute for the offerer, our Blessed LORD was in the truest sense the Representative of the human race. The Jewish victims were irrational creatures, distinct from the person of the offerer; in CHRIST, on the contrary, the Gift offered up is included in the Person of the offering Priest. It is His living human Flesh, animated by His rational Soul, and therefore, in the language of Scripture, a spiritual (vεvματiиŃ) and rational (oyian) Offering. Hence, the sacrificial Victim offered by CHRIST is not a merely symbolical, but a real and equivalent Substitute for mankind, on whose behalf It is sacrificed. Again, It is a Victim of immaculate holiness: "The Precious Blood of CHRIST, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot." *† 3. The interior act: the offer ing in will of a life of perfect obedience. 4. The shedding and presentation of the blood. 3. As S. Augustine points out from Holy Scripture, a true sacrifice must be associated with certain interior acts, with which it is offered. Our LORD'S Offering upon the Cross was the consummation and expression of a life of perfect obedience to the Will of GOD, and therefore the dispositions which accompanied that Sacrifice began at the first moment of the Incarnation, and only culminated in the supreme moment of the Sacrifice on the Cross. There our LORD offered in will His whole life, all His acts, all the devotion of a sinless and perfect life. 4. The effusion of the blood. In the Jewish sacrifices, while the slaughtering of the victim was a part, the presentation of the blood was the essential act of * 1 S. Pet. i. 19. † Wilhelm and Scannell, p. 202. victim's the sacrifice. Some have thought that the slaughter The signifiof the victim was merely for the purpose of obtaining cance of the the blood which was to be offered. Others, with deeper death, appreciation of the mystery, see in the act of death a recognition of the penal consequences of sin, and a special character, therefore, given to the blood,— that as the life was in it, and the life was offered, it was a life which had passed through death, a life which had paid the debt due to sin. The blood, by the Levitical Law, was sprinkled seven times before the veil of the Sanctuary,* the veil, that is, which separated the Holy place from the Holy of holies, and which signified that the way into the Holiest of all was not yet made manifest," † free access to GOD being barred by man's sin, for within the Holy of holies was the Mercy Seat, symbolical of GOD's Presence. Into the Holy of holies, and therefore into the Presence of GOD, the high priest alone, the representative of the people, entered once a year. The fact that, although the blood of each victim was sprinkled towards the veil, it still remained unmoved, signified that the blood of the legal victim was not able to take away that effect of sin typified by the veil, namely, separation from GOD. The priest then put some of the blood upon the horns of the Altar of Sweet Incense, which was in the Holy place in the Tabernacle of the Congregation, after which he poured all the blood of the victim at the bottom of the Altar of Burnt Offering, which was at the entrance of the Tabernacle of the Congregation. This symbolic act seems to mean that the blood had been offered, and had failed to remove the obstacle which barred free access to GOD. Some of the blood was then put upon * Lev. iv. 5-7. † Heb. ix. 8. and of the sprinkling of the Levitical the blood in Law. On the Cross ing of the Victim and the sprinkling of the Blood find place. the horns of the Altar, to plead for the individual offerer, and the rest was poured at the bottom of the altar, in token that it was powerless to take away this effect of sin. In our Blessed LORD's Sacrifice on the Cross we have both the slay- clearly brought before us both the slaughtering of the Victim and the presentation of the Blood. As all the blood of the victim was used in the sacrifice, so our LORD there shed all His Precious Blood for us. But what the blood of the legal victim could never effect was at once accomplished by the Precious Blood of CHRIST; for (unlike the sprinkling of the blood before the veil of the tabernacle), the effect of the shedding of our LORD's Blood was seen in the rending of the veil of the Temple, thus showing that the Sacrifice was efficacious, accepted by GOD for the pardon of man's sin, and that the way of access to GOD was opened. The significance of the rending of the veil of the Temple. There seems to be no other possible explanation of the rending of the veil of the Temple. That veil had always stood as the symbol of separation from GOD. Once a year the high priest, the representative of the people, entered within it, to signify that the day should come when the true Representative of humanity would enter for ever into the Presence of GOD, through His own Blood, and so become THE WAY* by which man might freely approach GOD. When, therefore, our LORD," by His one Oblation of Himself once offered," made upon the Cross "a full, perfect, and sufficient Sacrifice, Oblation, and Satisfaction for the sins of the whole world," we are explicitly told by all three of the Synoptists that "the veil of the Temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom." † * S. Johu x. 9, xiv. 6. † S. Matt. xxvii. 51; S. Mark xv. 38; S. Luke xxiii. 45. victim. 5. There is but one ceremony of the sacrificial rite 5. The cremastill to be noticed, -the cremation of the victim, which, tion of the in the case of the burnt-offering, was wholly consumed upon the altar, while in that of the sin-offering, only certain parts of it were burned. This action expressed the idea of the sacrifice ascending as a sweet savour before GOD. The fire which consumed the sacrifice originally descended from heaven upon the altar of the first Tabernacle, and afterwards upon the altar of Solomon's Temple, as we are expressly told. * There is, too, a similar tradition in regard to the sacrificial fire in the second Temple. This is fulfilled on the Cross in two ways: i. As the great act of love by The descent of the fire from heaven was a sign of The signifiGOD's acceptance of the offering; a symbol of the God- cance of fire. head, especially of the HOLY GHOST; and also a token of love e. g., "The LORD thy GOD is a consuming Fire; "the Burning Bush; "I am come to send fire on the earth;"§ the HOLY GHOST at Pentecost.|| In two ways we may trace the fulfilment of this ceremony in our LORD's Sacrifice on the Cross. First, it was the great act of love of GOD for man. As S. Paul says, CHRIST also hath loved us, and hath given Himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to GOD for a sweet smelling savour ; Tin which text, as we have already seen, the terms are distinctly sacrificial, and the words a sweet smelling savour' evidently refer to the burnt-offering of the Jews. On the Altar of the Cross, therefore, the Victim was consumed in the flames of Divine Love. "GOD so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten SON."** * Lev. ix. 24; 2 Chron, vii. I, † Deut. iv. 24. ? S. Luke xii. 49. || Acts ii. 3. which the world was re deemed. + Ex. iii. 2. ¶ Eph. v. 2. ** S. John iii. 16. |