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dignities, its responsibilities and its duties. It is by the offering of themselves in sacrifice to God that they bring salvation to their brethren (2 Cor. iv. 10-12). Jesus, the Head, so offered Himself for us, and, as the Head of humanity, for the sins of the whole world. But we are called to be sharers in His sacrifice, to yield up our old natural manhood to death, to fill up that which is behind in His afflictions for His body's sake, the church (Col i. 24; Phil. iii. 10), to lay down our lives for the brethren, to have great heaviness and sorrow of heart for our brethren and kinsmen according to the flesh who yet know not Him, (Rom. ix. 2, 3), and to be sharers in that love for the world that gave Him to be the propitiation for its sins (1 Jno. iv. 8-10). This is that spiritual seed, Abraham's true children by faith, in whom all the families of the earth are to be blessed. But they can become a blessing only as the Christ-nature is formed in them, leading them to sacrifice and service, to take upon their own hearts the sins, the woes and burdens of their brethren, to stand for them in the place of death, and so to transmit to others the power of that redemption which Christ has brought to them, and of which He is the only source to the world. They thus fulfil the first-born's duty of penalty, of sacrifice and of redemption. Jesus, as the First-Born of humanity, did this for the race. But the race is to be saved by generations, by families and kindreds. These terms, as constantly used in Scripture, show how we are bound together by organic ties. The pious Jew was not taught to expect his personal salvation apart from that of his own people. Race-life, lines of lineage, corporate communities bound together by ties of

kindred and sharing in a common ancestral life, seem to be embraced in the sweep of this redemption. The taint of evil goes down to the third and fourth generation. The second commandment teaches this. After that the remedial power in the principle of life would seem to be able to neutralize or eliminate the evil. The good effects of piety and virtue go down, however, to thousands of generations. Such is the law of heredity. And such

the priestly efficacy for good to coming generations in those who rise above the level and the downward tendencies of the life of the race, and of their ancestral life. They lift up those who are to come after, and especially those of their own blood. The channels of their family life become purified. In this domain, physical and moral transformations proceed together.

It is easy enough to perceive and confess this in respect to those who come after us. But how about those who have gone before, the brethren of our lineage who have fallen in the battle of life, who are now lying maimed and captive in the land of the enemy. What reference to them is there in the Scripture promises " All generations shall call Him blessed?" Will God's faithfulness be made known to the generations past, as well as to come? Psalm lxxxix may teach us something upon this point. After proclaiming God's faithfulness in the opening verses the writer seems to raise this very question in the closing verses. He asks, is it possible that death has defeated all these promises and made void these sure mercies of David to the generations who have gone down to death?

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'For what vanity hast Thou created all the children of men!

What man is he that shall live and not see death, that shall deliver his soul from the power of Sheol? Lord, where are thy former mercies which Thou swarest unto David in thy faithfulness? Remember, Lord, the reproach of thy servants: How I do bear in my bosom the reproach of all the many peoples; wherewith thine enemies have reproached, O, Lord, where with they have reproached the footsteps of thine anointed."

This is but one of many Scriptures which imply that death has broken God's covenant and made void His promises unless He shall prove Himself victorious over death, and in spite of it, find a way to bless the generations who have gone down to Sheol. But this is the very thing He sent His Christ to do. As the First-Born of Jehovah, as well as of the race (vs. 27), He was raised from the dead to perform for us the near kinsman's part, to raise up the name of the dead upon their inheritance, to gather under a new headship the generations of men, to set the scattered and solitary ones in families, to bridge the chasm between the dead and the living, and to prove Himself the Lord of both. He is eminently the Priest upon His throne for all mankind. But under Him, His brethren, who are also a kingdom of priests, and who are the first to share His triumph over death, must hold a special relation in this work to the generations and families from which they sprang. The first in the line of their ancestral life to rise into the glory and strength of the eternal life, they must especially be helpers of their brethren and kinsmen according to the flesh. These organic ties which hold men together as one in race, and lineage, and family are made too much of in Scripture for us to deny that they will have no place in the unfolding of God's redemptive plan. That plan provides for the

salvation of a chosen seed out of all kindreds and tongues, a first fruits unto God and the Lamb, who fulfil in blessed completeness the office of first-born to their brethren. Saved themselves, they become saviours of others. Paul, as one born before the time, became a first-born priest toward a saved remnant of his brethren. This remnant, according to the election of grace, became the first fruits of all Israel (Rom. xi). For if the first fruit be holy, the lump is also holy. First-born from the dead imply later born. The first-hopers in Christ are the first-ordained vessels of His grace in the dispensation for the gathering together in one all things in heaven and on earth (Eph. i. 10-12).

We shall not be far out of the way, therefore, if we conclude that the "kings and priests" of God's kingdom are to be occupied in saving ministries, which shall prove them to be indeed brothers born for adversity to their captive brethren who, for their sins, have gone down as prisoners in the pit, who have lost their heritage of life and blessing, and who, on earth, were ignorant and out of the way because no man cared for their souls, or told them the way of life.

And what motives from this point of view open up to us for faith in, and devotion to, the Lord Jesus Christ, beyond the selfish one of individual salvation. We are

called into fellowship with Christ in His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death, not only that we may attain unto the resurrection from among the dead, but that, like Him, we may help others to attain it. fight this battle of life through to victory for ourselves, we shall help others of our kind in the struggle.

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become princes and priests to our own kindred in this larger field of God's working to bless all the kindreds of the earth. And what new power would such a gospel

carry with it to the heathen. It would mean to the Chinaman, for example, taught to reverence his ancestors, that God was calling him into fellowship with His Son, that, as sharing in his sacrifice and service he would be qualified to bring this divine healing and salvation within the reach ot his ancestors who had died without the sight So might he be baptized for the dead. Faith on the Lord Jesus Christ would thus acquire that larger meaning given to it in the first sermons of the apostles, where faith for ourselves as individuals is merged into a broad faith in Him as a Messiah for the race, anointed to restore all things and to be the Judge, in the large Old Testament conception of that office, of both the living and the dead. And the eternal life to which we are invited, and which stretches out before us in boundless prospect, would be seen to be no life of selfish ease and indolent enjoyment, but a life filled up with royal and priestly ministrations which shall show forth unto the ages to come the manifold wisdom of God, and bring Him glory by the church unto all generations, world without end.

A full view of this whole subject requires us, however, to note that there was such a thing as "a cutting off from among his people" repeatedly spoken of in the old Testament (Ex. xii. 15, 19; Lev. xvii. 4, 9; xx. 3, etc.). No encouragement is given, by this principle of family priesthood, to men to go on in sin in the hope of such future intervention in their behalf. For sin must surely be

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