By Patrick Fairbairn
Published by Smith & English, 1854
BOOK THIRD.
CHAPTER II, SECTION FIFTH.
We proceed now to advance a step farther, and to consider what the law was designed to do for Israel. That it did not come with a hostile intent, we have already seen. Its object was not to disannul the covenant of promise, or to found a new title to gifts and blessings already conferred. It was given rather as an handmaid to the covenant, to minister in an inferior, but still necessary place, to the higher ends and purposes which the covenant itself had in view. And hence, when considered as standing in that its proper place, it is fitly regarded as an additional proof of the goodness of God towards his people: "He made known his ways unto Moses, his statutes and his judgments unto Israel; he hath not dealt so with any people."
1. The first and immediate purpose for which the law was given to Israel, was that it might serve as a revelation of the righteousness which God expected from them as his covenant-people in the land of their inheritance. It was for this inheritance they had been redeemed. They were God's own peculiar people, his children and heirs, proceeding, under the banner of his covenant, to occupy his land. And that they might know the high ends for which they were to be planted there, and how these ends were to be secured, the Lord took them aside by the way, and gave them this revelation of his righteousness. As the land of their inheritance was emphatically God's land, so the law, which was to reign paramount there, must of necessity be his law, and that law itself the manifestation of his righteousness. With no other view, could God have stretched out his hand to redeem a people to himself, and with no other testimony set them as his witnesses before the eye of the world, on a territory peculiarly his own. He must have acted here in the highest sense for his own glory; and as his glory, viewed in respect to his moral government, is essentially bound up with the interests of righteousness, so those whom he destined to be the chosen instruments for shewing forth his glory in the region prepared for them, must go thither with the revelation of his righteousness in their hand, as the law which they were to carry out into all the relations of public and private life.
The same thing might be said in this respect of the land as a
whole, which-the Psalmist declares in reference to its spiritual
centre--the place on which the tabernacle was pitched: "Lord, who shall
abide in thy tabernacle? Who shall dwell in thy holy hill? He that
walbeth uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in
his heart." (Ps. xv.) And again in Psalm xxiv.: "Who shall ascend into
the hill of the Lord, and who shall stand in his holy place? He that
hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul to
vanity, nor sworn deceitfully." There can be no doubt, that the
character here meant to be delineated is, that of the true servants of
God, as contradistinguished from hypocrites--the real denizens of his
kingdom, whose high distinction it was to be dwellers and sojourners
with him. The going up to the hill of God, standing in his holy place,
or abiding in his tabernacle, is merely an image to express this
spiritual idea. The land as a whole being God's land, the people as a
whole should also have been found dwelling as guests, or sojourning
with him. (Lev. xxv. 23.) But this they could only be in reality, the
Psalmist means to say, if they possessed the righteous character he
delineates. In both of the delineations he gives, it is impossible to
overlook a reference to the precepts of the Decalogue. And that such
delineations should have been given at a time when the tabernacle
service was in the course of being set up anew with increased
splendour, was plainly designed to sound a warning in the ears of the
people, that whatever regard should be paid to the solemnities of
worship, it was still the righteousness in thought, word, and deed, as
required in the precepts of the Decalogue, which God pre-eminently
sought. This was what peculiarly fitted them for the place they
occupied, and the destiny they had to fill. Hence, not only the
righteousness of the Decalogue in general, but that especially of the
second table, is made prominent in the description, because hypocrites
have so many ways of counterfeiting the works of the first table. [1]
It makes no essential alteration on the law in this point of view, that it was made to assume the form of a covenant. For what sort of covenant was it? And with what object ratified? Not as an independent and separate revelation; but only, as already stated, an handmaid to the previously existing covenant of promise. On this last, as the divine root of all life and blessing, it was grafted; and rising from the ground which that former covenant provided, it proceeded to develope the requirements of righteousness, which the members of the covenant ought to have fulfilled. It was merely to impart greater solemnity to this revelation of righteousness--to give to its calls of duty a deeper impression and firmer hold upon the conscience--to render it clear and palpable, that the things required in it were not of loose and uncertain, but of most sure and indispensable obligation,--it was for such reasons alone that the law, after being proclaimed from Sinai, was solemnly ratified as a covenant. By this most sacred of religious transactions the Israelites were taken bound as a people to aim continually at the fulfilment of its precepts. But its having been turned into a covenant did not confer on it a different character from that which belonged to it as a rule of life and conduct, or materially affect the results that sprung either from obedience or disobedience to its demands; nor was any effect contemplated beyond that of adding to its moral weight and deepening its hold upon the conscience. And the very circumstance of its being ratified as a covenant, having God in the relation of a Redeemer for one of the contracting parties, was fraught with comfort and encouragement; since an assurance was thus virtually given, that what God in the one covenant of law required his people to do, he stood pledged in the other covenant of promise with his divine help to aid them in performing. The blood of the covenant as much bound God to confer the grace to obey, as it bound them to render the obedience. So that, while there was in this transaction something fitted to lighten, rather than to aggravate, the burden of the law's yoke, there was, at the same time, what involved the necessity of compliance with the tenor of its requirements, and took away all excuse from the wilfully disobedient.
The sum of the matter, then, was this: The seed of Abraham, as God's acknowledged children and heirs, were going to receive for their possession the land which he claimed as more peculiarly his own. But they must go and abide there partakers also of his character of holiness, for thus alone could they either glorify his name, or enjoy his blessing. And so, bringing them as he did from the region of pollution, he would not suffer them to plant their foot within its sacred precincts, until he had disclosed to them the great lines of religious and moral duty, in which the resemblance most essentially stands to his character of holiness, and taken them bound by the most solemn engagement to have the pattern of excellence set before them, as far as possible, realized in practice, through all the dwellings of Canaan. Had they been but faithful to their engagement--had they as a people striven in earnest through the grace offered them in the one covenant to exemplify the character of the righteous man exhibited in the other, "delighting in the law of the Lord, and meditating therein day and night," then in their condition they would assuredly have been "like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season, whose leaf doth not wither, and whatsoever he doth prospereth." Canaan would then, indeed, have verified the description of a land flowing with milk and honey.
We thus see in the immediate
purposes of God respecting Israel,
a sufficient reason for the introduction of the law, and for the
prominent place assigned to it in the divine dispensation. But if we
connect the immediate with the ultimate
design of God in this portion
of his dealings, we see the absolute necessity of what was done, in
order to make the past a faithful representation of the future. Canaan
stood to the eye of faith the type of heaven; and the character and
condition of its inhabitants should have presented the image of what
theirs shall be, who have entered on the kingdom prepared for them
before the foundation of the world. The condition of such, we are well
assured, shall be all blessedness and glory. The region of their
inheritance shall be Immanuel's land--where the vicissitudes of evil,
and the pangs of suffering, shall be alike unknown--where every thing
shall reflect the effulgent glory of its divine author, and streams of
purest delight shall be ever flowing to satisfy the souls of the
redeemed. But it is never to be forgotten, that their condition shall
be thus replenished with all that Is attractive and good, because their
character shall first have become perfect in holiness. No otherwise
than as conformed to Christ's image can they share with him in his
inheritance; for the kingdom of which they are the destined heirs, is
one which the unrighteous cannot inherit, nor shall corruption in any
form or degree be permitted to dwell in it. "Its people shall be all
righteous"--that is their first characteristic, and the second
depending upon this, and growing out of it as its proper result, is,
that they shall be all filled wish the goodness and glory of the Lord.
Hence, in addition to the moral ends of a direct and immediate kind which required to be accomplished, it was necessary also, in this point of view, to make the experience of God's ancient people, in connection with the land of promise, turn upon their relation to the law. As he could not permit them to enter the inheritance without first placing them under the discipline of the law, so neither could he permit them afterwards to enjoy the good of the land, when they lived in neglect of the righteousness the law required. In both respects, the type became sadly marred in the event, and the image it presented of the coming realities of heaven, was to be seen only in occasional lines and broken fragments. The people were so far from being all righteous, that the greater part were ever hardening their hearts in sin. On their part, a false representation was given of the moral perfection of the future world; and it was in the highest degree impossible that God on his part should countenance their backsliding so as notwithstanding to render their state a full representation of its perfection in outward bliss. He must of necessity trouble the condition and change the lot of his people, in proportion as sin obtained a footing among them. The less there was of heaven's righteousness in their character, the less always must there be of its blessedness and glory in their condition;--until, at last, the Lord was constrained to say: "Because they have forsaken my law, which I set before them, and have not obeyed my voice, neither walked therein, but have walked after the imagination of their own heart; therefore, thus sayeth the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold I will feed them with wormwood, and give them water of gall to drink; I will scatter them also among the heathen, and will send a sword after them, till I have consumed them." [2] Such were the imperfections of the type; let us rejoice, that in the antitype such imperfections can have no place. All there stands firm and secure in the unchanging faithfulness of Jehovah, and it will be as impossible for sin, as for adversity and trouble, to enter into the heavenly Canaan.
The view now given in respect to the primary reason for the giving of the law, is in perfect accordance with what is stated by the apostle in Gal. iii. 19: "Wherefore, then, serveth the law? It was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made." The meaning is, it was added to the provisions and blessings secured in the earlier covenant of promise, because of the disposition in the hearts of the people to transgress the obligations under which they stood, and fall in with the corruptions of the world. To check this disposition--to keep their minds under the discipline of a severe and holy restraint--- and circumscribe and limit their way, so that no excuse or liberty would be left them to turn aside from the right path--for this reason the law was added to the covenant. But for that inherent proneness to sin, now sufficiently made manifest, there should have been no need for such an addition. Had the members of the covenant thoroughly imbibed its spirit, and responded as they should have done to the love God had manifested toward them in making good its provisions, they would of themselves have been inclined to do the things which were contained in the law. This, however, they were not; and hence the law came, pre-supposing and building upon the moral aim of the covenant, and more stringently binding upon their consciences the demands of righteousness, in order to stem the current of their sinful inclinations. It was to these inclinations alone that the law carried a hostile and frowning aspect; in respect to the people themselves, it came as a minister of good, and not of evil; and so far from being opposed to the promises of the covenant, it was rather to be viewed as a friendly monitor and guide, directing the people how to continue in the blessing of the covenant, and fulfil the ends for which it was established.
2. There was, however, another great reason for the law being given, which is also, perhaps, alluded to by the apostle in the passage just noticed, when he limits the use of the law in reference to transgressions, to the period before Christ's appearance. Christ was to be pre-eminently the seed of promise, through, whom the blessings of the covenant were to be secured; and when he should come, as a more perfect state of things would then be introduced, the law would no longer be required as it was before. While, therefore, it had an immediate and direct purpose to serve in restraining the innate tendency to transgression, it might be said to have had the further end in view of preparing the minds of men for that coming seed. And this it was fitted to do precisely through the same property, which rendered it suitable for accomplishing the primary design, viz. the perfect revelation it gave of the righteousness of God. It brought the people into contact with the righteous character of God, and bound them by covenant- sanctions and engagements to make that the standard after which they should endeavour to regulate their conduct. But conscience, enlightened and aroused by the light which was thus made to shine upon them, was ever testifying of transgressions committed against the righteousness required. Instead of being a witness to which they could appeal in proof of their having fulfilled the high ends for which they had been chosen and redeemed by God, the law rather did the part of an accuser, testifying against them of broken vows and violated obligations. And thus keeping perpetually alive upon the conscience a sense of guilt, it served to awaken in the hearts of those who really understood its spiritual meaning, a feeling of the need, and a longing expectation of the coming, of Him who was to bring in the more perfect state of things, and take away sin by the sacrifice of himself.
The certainty of this effect both having been from the first designed, and also to some extent produced by the law, will always appear the more obvious, the more clearly we perceive the connection between the law and the ritual of worship, and see how inadequately the violations of the one seemed to have been met by the provisions of the other. We shall have occasion to refer to this more fully under the next division. But in some of the confessions of the Old Testament saints, we have undoubted indications of the feeling that the law, which they stood bound to obey, contained a reach of spiritual requirement which they were far from having complied with, and brought against them charges of guilt, from which they could obtain no satisfactory deliverance by any means of expiation then provided. The dread which God's manifested presence inspired, even in such, seraphic bosoms as Isaiah's, "Wo is me, for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips, and mine eyes have seen the king, the Lord of Hosts," is itself a proof of this; for it betokened a conscience much more alive to impressions of guilt, than to the blessings of forgiveness and peace. It shewed that the law of righteousness had written its convictions of sin too deeply on the tablet of the heart, for the ceremonial institutions thoroughly to supplant them by the full sense of reconciliation. But a still more decided testimony to the same effect was given by the Psalmist, when in compositions designed for the public service of God, and of course expressing the sentiments of all sincere worshippers, he at once celebrated the law of God as every way excellent and precious, and at the same time spake of it as "exceeding broad,"--felt that it accused him of iniquities "more in number than the hairs of his head," so that if "the Lord were strict to mark them, none should be able to stand before him,"--nay, sometimes found himself in such a sense a sinner, that no sacrifice or offering could be accepted, and his soul was left without any ostensible means of atonement and cleansing, with nothing indeed to rest upon, but an unconditional forgiveness on God's part, and renewed surrender on its own.
It was this tendency of the law to beget deep convictions of sin, and to leave upon the mind such a felt want of satisfaction, which disposed truly enlightened consciences to give a favourable hearing to the doctrines of the Gospel, and to rejoice in the consolation brought in by Christ. It was this which gave in their minds such emphasis to the contrast: "The law came by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ," and which led St Paul to hold it out as an especial ground of comfort to believers in Christ, that "by him they might be justified from all things, from which they could not be justified by the law of Moses." It was this feature also of the law, which the same apostle had more particularly in his eye, when he described it as a "schoolmaster to lead men to Christ," shutting them up, by its stern requirements and wholesome discipline, to the faith which was afterwards to be revealed. And the contrast which he draws in the 3d chapter of the 2d Epistle to the Corinthians, between the law and the gospel, proceeds entirely upon the same ground in reference to the law; that is, it is viewed simply as by itself, in the matter of its precepts, a revelation of the perfect righteousness of God, and, apart from the covenant of promise, with which it was connected, fitted only to inspire fear and trembling, or to bring condemnation and death. He, therefore, calls it the ministration of condemnation, a letter that killeth, as in Rom. vii. 10, he testifies of having found It in his own experience to be unto death. The apostle does not mean to say, that this was properly the object for which the law was given--for then it had come directly to oppose and subvert the covenant of promise--but that it was an inseparable effect attending it,--arising from the perfection of its character as a rule of righteousness, compared with the manifold imperfections and sins ever discovering themselves among men. And hence it only required spiritual minds, such as would enter thoroughly into the perception of the law's character, first to make them deeply sensible of their own guilt, and then to awaken in them the desire of something higher and better than was then provided for the true consolation of Israel.
An important connection thus arises between the law and the gospel, and both are seen to hold respectively their proper places in the order of the divine dispensations. "It is true," as Tholuck has remarked with sound discrimination, "that the New Testament speaks more of grace than of sin; but did it not on this very account pre-suppose the existence of the Old Covenant with the law, and a God who is an holy and jealous God, that will not pass by transgression and sin? The Old Covenant was framed for the conviction of sin, the New for the forgiveness of sin. The moral law, which God has written in indelible lines upon the heart of every man, was once also proclaimed with much solemnity from Sinai, that it might be clear that God, who appeared in fire and flame as the revealer of his holy law, is the same who has imprinted the image of holiness deep in the secret chambers of the bosom. Is not Israel, incessantly resisting with his stiff neck the God of love, until he has always again been reduced to subjection by the God of fiery indignation, an image of proud humanity in its constant warfare against God, who seeks to conquer them by anger and love?" [3] Hence, the order of God's dispensations is substantially also the order of each man's experience. The sinner must be humbled and bruised by the law, or, by some manifestation of God's righteousness, he must have his conscience aroused to a sense of sin, before he can be brought heartily to acquiesce in the gospel method of salvation. Therefore, not only had the way of Christ to be prepared by one, who with a voice of terror preached anew the law's righteousness and threatenings, but Christ himself also needed to enter on the blessed work of the world's evangelisation, by unfolding the wide extent and deep spirituality of the law's requirements. For, how large a portion of the Sermon on the Mount is taken up in giving a clear and searching exposition of the law's righteousness, and rescuing it from the false and extenuating glosses under which it had been buried? Nay Christ, during his personal ministry, could proceed but a small way in openly revealing the grace of the gospel, because after all the work of the law was so imperfectly done in the hearts even of his own disciples. And so still in the experience of men at large; it is because the sense and condemnation of sin are so seldom felt, that the benefits of salvation are so little known. [4]
3. The necessary connection that subsisted between the law and the ceremonial institutions of the Old Testament, may be given as a still further reason of its revelation and enactment--although, when properly understood, this was not so much a distinct and separate end, as a combination of the two already specified. This law, perfect in its character, and perpetual in its obligation, formed the groundwork of all the symbolical services afterwards imposed; as was distinctly implied in the place chosen for its permanent position. For, as the centre of all Judaism was the tabernacle, so the centre of this again was the law--the ark, which stood enshrined in the Most Holy Place, being made for the sole purpose of keeping the two tables of the covenant. So that the reflection could hardly fail to force itself on all considerate and intelligent worshippers, that the observance of this law was the great end of the religion then established. Nor could any other use be imagined, of the strictly religious rites and institutions, which so manifestly pointed to this law, as their common ground and centre, than--either to assist as means in preserving alive the knowledge of its principles, and promoting their observance--or as remedies to provide against the evils naturally arising from its neglect and violation.
These two objects plainly harmonize with the reasons already assigned for the giving of the law, and present the ceremonial services and institutions to our view, as partly subservient to the righteousness it enjoined, and partly conducive to its ulterior end of leading souls to Christ. It will be our endeavour in the next Book to bring fully out, and illustrate this relation between the law of the two tables, and the symbols of Judaism. But at present we must content ourselves with briefly indicating its general nature.
(1). In so far as those symbols had in view the first of the objects just mentioned, they are to be regarded in the same general light as the means and ordinances of grace, under the New Testament. It is through these that the knowledge of the Gospel is diffused, its divine principles implanted in the hearts of men, and a suitable channel also provided for expressing the thoughts and feelings which the reception of the Gospel tends to awaken. Such also was one great design of the law's symbolical institutions, though with a characteristic difference suited to the time of their appointment. They were formal, precise, imperative, as for persons in comparative childhood, who required to be kept under the bonds of a rigid discipline, and a discipline that should chiefly work from without inwards, so as to form the soul to right thoughts and feelings, while, at the same time, it provided appropriate services for the exercise of such when formed. Appointed for these ends, the institutions could not be of an arbitrary nature, as if the authoritative command of God were the only reason, that could be assigned for their appointment, or as if the external service were required simply on its own account. They stood to the law, in the stricter sense--the law of the ten commandments--in the relation of expressive signs and faithful monitors, perpetually urging upon men's consciences, and impressing, as it were, upon their senses, the essential distinctions between right and wrong, which the law plainly revealed and established. The symbolical ordinances did not create these distinctions; they did not of themselves even indicate wherein the distinctions stood; and in this partly appeared their secondary and subservient position, as compared with the law of the two tables. The ordinance, for example, respecting clean and unclean in food, pointed to a distinction in the moral sphere---to one class of things to be avoided as evil, and another to be sought after as good; but it gave no intimation as to what might actually be the one or the other. So, again, the ordinance respecting leprosy had respect to sin as a deadly evil, which was sure to bring down upon him who indulged in it, the judgment of God; but it was silent as to what really constituted sin, referring for the knowledge of this to the fundamental revelation of law--the testimony laid up in the ark of the covenant. To that everything belonging to the legal economy pointed as its ground and centre; and it was not to add anything to its obligations of duty, or to certify aught that it left doubtful, that such a multitude of external services was imposed, but to bring its solemn enactments constantly to remembrance, and bend the will into compliance with what they enjoined.
Such being the connection between the moral law in the legislation of Moses, and the symbolical rites and services annexed to it, it was plainly necessary that the latter required to be wisely arranged, both in kind and number, so as fitly to promote the ends of their appointment. They were not outward rites and services of any sort. The outward came into existence merely for the sake of the religious and moral elements embodied in it, for the spiritual lessons it conveyed, or the sentiments of godly fear and brotherly love it was fitted to awaken. And that such ordinances should not only exist, but also be spread out into a vast multiplicity of forms, was a matter of necessity; as the dispensation then set up admitted so very sparingly of direct instruction, and was comparatively straitened in its supplies of inward grace. Imperfect as those outward ordinances were, so imperfect that they were at last done away as unprofitable, the members of the Old Covenant were still chiefly dependent upon them for having the character of the divine law exhibited to their minds, and its demands kept fresh upon the conscience. It was therefore fit, that they should not only pervade, but should even be carried beyond the strictly religious territory, and should embrace all the more important relations of life, that the Israelite might thus find something in what he ordinarily saw and did, in the very food he ate and the garments he wore, to remind him of the law of his God, and stimulate him to the cultivation of that righteousness which it was his paramount duty to cherish and exemplify.
Were these things duly considered, another and worthier reason would easily be discovered for the occasional intermingling of the moral and the ceremonial parts of the Mosaic legislation, than what is very commonly assigned. This did not arise from a confounding of the positive and moral, the shadowy and the abiding, as if they stood upon the same level, and no distinction were recognised betwixt them. The position of the law of the ten commandments in the ark of the covenant, as we have already stated, to say nothing of the other marks of distinction belonging to it, stood as a perpetual sign before the eyes of the people, that the things there enjoined held immeasurably the highest rank. And the coupling together of the symbolical and the moral, and passing without a break from the one to the other--as is done, for example, in chap. xix. of Leviticus--did not arise from any failure to discern the essential difference between them, but to shew that, in the people's experience, the one could not exist apart from the other; that the symbolical was appointed for the sake of the moral, and could not fall into abeyance without leading to a neglect of the weightier matters of the law. We find in fact, the very same intermixture, and for the same reasons, in the hortatory parts of New Testament Scripture, as when, in the tenth chapter of Hebrews, the injunction to provoke one another to love and to good works, is immediately followed by the warning, not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together; or when, in the third chapter of the epistle to the Coiossians, the exhortation to have the word of Christ dwelling in us, and to make frequent use of psalms and hymns, appears in the midst of the most strictly moral precepts. Not that the things are in themselves equal; the one is but the means, while the other is the end; but let the means be neglected, and what soon shall become of the end?
And there is another conclusion that grows out of what has been said. For, since the symbolical institutions of Judaism re-echoed the lessons of the moral law, and confirmed its testimony, it is plain that God never could be satisfied with a mere outward conformity to the letter of the Mosaic ritual. Support has often been sought in Scripture itself for such an idea, especially in regard to the sacrifices, but no proper foundation exists for it there. Hengstenberg justly remarks, that "there cannot be produced out of the whole Old Testament one single passage, in which the notion, that sacrifices of themselves, and apart from the state of mind in the offerers, are well-pleasing to God, is noticed, except for the purpose of vigorously opposing it. When, for example, in Lev. xxvi. 31, it is said in reference to the ungodly, 'I will not smell the savour of your sweet odours,' and when in Gen. iv. 4, 5, we find that along with an outward similarity, the offerings of Cain and Abel met with such a different reception from God, and that this difference is represented as being based on something personal to the individuals, it is all but expressly asserted, that sacrifices were regarded only as expressive of the inner sentiment." [5] And again: "That the law, with all its appearance of outwardness, still possessed throughout a religious-moral, an internal, spiritual character, is manifest from the fact, that the two internal commands of love to God, and one's neighbour, are in the law itself represented as those in which all the rest lie enclosed, the fulfilment of which carried along with it the fulfilment of all individual precepts, and without which no obedience was practicable: 'And now, Israel, what does the Lord thy God require of thee,' &c, (Deut. x. 12, vi. 5, xi. 1. 13, xiii. 3, xxx. 15. 20; Lev. xix. 18). If everything in the law is made to turn upon love, it is self-evident, that a dead bodily service could not be what was properly required. Besides, in Lev. xxvi. 41, the violation of the law is represented as the necessary product of 'an uncircumcised heart,' and in Deut. x. 16, we find the remarkable words: 'And ye shall circumcise the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiff-necked,'--which condemn all Pharisaism, that is ever expecting good fruit from bad trees, and would gather grapes from thorns, and figs from thistles."--What is called the ceremonial law, therefore, was in its more immediate and primary aspect, an exhibition by means of symbolical rites and institutions of the righteousness enjoined in the Decalogue, and a discipline through which the heart might be subdued into some conformity to the righteousness itself.
(2). But the more fully the ceremonial parts of the Mosaic legislation were fitted to accomplish this end, they must so much the more have tended to help forward the other end of the law; viz. to produce conviction of sin and prepare the heart for Christ. "By the law is the knowledge of sin"--the sense of shortcomings and transgressions is in exact proportion to the insight that has been obtained into its true spiritual meaning. And the manifold restrictions and services of a bodily kind, which were imposed upon the Israelites, as they all spoke of holiness and sin, so where their voice was honestly listened to, it must have been with the effect of begetting impressions of guilt. They were perpetually uttering without the sanctuary the cry of transgression, which was rising within, under the throne of God, from the two tables of testimony. They might be said to do more. For of them especially does it hold, "They entered that the offence might abound," since, while calling upon men to abstain from sin, they at the same time multiplied the occasions of offence. The strict limitations and numerous requirements of service, through which they did the one, rendered it unavoidable that they should also do the other; as they thus necessarily made many things to be sin, which were not so before, or in their own nature, and consequently increased both the number of transgressions, and their burden upon the conscience. How comparatively difficult must it have been to apprehend through so many occasions and witnesses of guilt the light of Grod's reconciliation and love! How often must the truly spiritual heart have felt as heavy laden with its yoke, and scarcely able to bear it! And how glad should have been to all the members of the covenant the tidings of that "liberty with which Christ makes his people free!"
This, however, was not the whole. Had the ceremonial institutions and services simply co-operated with, the Decalogue, in producing upon men's minds a conviction of guilt, and shutting them up to the necessity of salvation, the yoke of bondage would indeed have been intolerable, and despair rather than the hope of salvation must have been the consequence. They so far differed, however, from the precepts of the law, that they provided a present atonement for the sin, which the law condemned--met the conscious defect of righteousness, which the law produced, with vicarious sacrifices and bodily lustrations. But these, as formerly noticed, were so manifestly inadequate to the end in view, that though they might, from being God's own appointed remedies, restore the troubled conscience to a state of peace, they could not thoroughly satisfy it. First of all, they betrayed their own insufficiency, by allowing certain fearful gaps in the list of transgressions to stand unprovided for. Besides, the comparatively small distinction that was made, as regards purification, between mere bodily defilements and moral pollution, and the absolute necessity of resorting anew to the blood of atonement, as often as the sense of guilt again returned, were plain indications that such services "could not make the comers thereunto perfect as pertaining to the conscience." To the thoughtful mind it must have seemed, as if a struggle was continually proceeding between God's holiness and the sin of his creatures, in which the former found only a most imperfect vindication. For what just comparison could be made between the forfeited life of an accountable being and the blood of an irrational victim? Or between the defilements of a polluted conscience and the external washings of the outward man? Surely the enlightened conscience must have felt the need of something greatly more valuable to compensate for the evil done by sin, and must have seen, in the existing means of purification, only the temporary substitutes of better things to come. Such, at least, was the ultimate design of God; and whatever may have been the extent, or clearness of view in those who lived among the shadows of the law, regarding the coming realities of the gospel, it is impossible that they should have entered into the spirit of the former dispensation, without being prepared to hail a suffering Messiah as the only true consolation of Israel; and prepared also to join in the song of the redeemed, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing."
At the same time, there can be no doubt, that here peculiarly
lay the danger of the members of the Old Covenant--a danger, which the
issue too clearly proved, that but a small proportion of them were able
properly to surmount. Not seeing to the end of the things amid which
they were placed, and wanting the incalculable advantage of the awful
revelation of God's righteousness in Christ, the law failed to teach
them effectually of the nature of that righteousness, or to convince
them of sin, or to prepare them for the reception of the Saviour. But
failing in these grand points, the law became a stumbling-block and a
hindrance in their path. For now men's consciences adjusted themselves
to the imperfect appearances of things, and acted much in the spirit of
those in present times, who, as a sensible and pious writer expresses
it, "try to bring up the power of free-will to holiness, by bringing
holiness down to the power of free-will." [6] The dead letter,
consequently, became everything with them; they saw nothing beneath the
outward shell, nor felt any need for other and higher realities than
those with which they had immediately to do. Self-righteousness was the
inevitable result; and that rooting itself the more deeply, and
towering the more proudly aloft with its pretensions, that it had to
travel the round of such a vast multiplicity of laws and ordinances,
For great as the demand was, which the observance of these made upon
the obedience, still, as viewed by the carnal eye, it was something
that could be measured and done---not so broad but that the mind could
grasp it--and hence, instead of undermining the pride of nature, only
supplying it with a greater mass of materials for erecting its claims
on the favour of heaven. This spirit of self- righteousness was the
prevailing tendency of the carnal mind under the Old Dispensation, as
an unconcern about personal righteousness is under the New. How many
were snared by it! And how fatally! Of all "the spirits in prison,"
to whom the word of the Gospel came with its offers of deliverance,
those proved to be the most hopelessly incarcerated in their
strongholds of error, who trusted in themselves that they were
righteous, and stumbled at the rock of a free salvation.
1. See Hengstenberg and Calvin on Ps, xv. 2.
2. Jer. ix. 13-16.
3. From a work, Die Lehre von der Sunde und vom Versohner, as quoted by Bialloblotzky, De Abrogatione Legis, p. 82, 88.
4. The use of the law now described, though properly but its secondary design, is very commonly given by popular writers of this country, as its chief, or almost only use, to the Israelites. Thus Bell on Cov. p. 142, speaking of God's design in giving the law from Sinai, says, "God gave it in subserviency to the promise, to shew unto sinners their transgression and their guilt, and of consequence to drive them unto it." So another still more strongly; "God made it (viz. the covenant of law, which is regarded by the author as the same with the covenant of works) with the Israelites for no other end, than that man being thereby convinced of his weakness, might flee unto Christ.'' (Marrow of Modern Div. P. i. c. 2). Their putting this design first, and making it in a manner all, arose from their viewing the religion of the Old Covenant too exclusively in a typical aspect, as if the things belonging to it had not also had an immediate and direct bearing.
5. Introduc. to Ps. xxxii
6. Authentie, ii. p. 611, 612.
7. Fraser on Sanctification, p. 298.