The essence of a sacrifice consisted,
mercy for those for whom he came, unless he had suffered for them as well as taken flesh for them. His offering himself, Isa. 53:10–12, precedes his having a seed. The being and beauty of his seed depend upon the efficacy of his meritorious sacrifice. The offering his soul goes before the pardon of our sin; the payment of the ransom before the sprinkling it on us; the sealing of the covenant before the making good the covenant; his sufferings before his triumph, and the streams of his blood before the treasures of his grace. Upon the account of this sacrifice we enjoy the presence of God, protection against the enemies of our salvation, and receive the blessings necessary for our souls. By all this it appears that Christ is a sacrifice.
This was his intent in coming. His death as a sacrifice was his intention in the assumption of our flesh; the prophecies predicted it, the types represented it; this he pursued, for this he thirsted. The accomplishment of this fiery baptism was the matter of his longing, his thoughts were never off from it, his will shrunk not from it; when his human will shewed some reluctance, it quickly returned to its fixedness: nothing could deter him, nothing could divert him. When he undertook to be mediator, he undertook to be a sacrifice, as a thing necessarily annexed to that office for the honour of God's justice, and the preservation of the rights of his sacred law. Upon which account, when the apostle speaks of this mediator, he adds with the same breath, 'who gave himself a ransom for all,' 1 Tim. 2:5,
6. After the title of mediator follows 'the blood of sprinkling,' Heb.
12:24. A mediator he was by means of his death, Heb. 9:15. It is with good reason, therefore, that in our creed there is so quick a passage from the nativity of Christ to his passion, without any mention of the acts of his life, because he was incarnate, that he might be crucified.
The essence of a sacrifice consisted, [1.] In the slaying or destroying it. [2.] In the offering it to God. Both were done in Christ.
[1.] In the slaying or destroying it. The shedding of the blood, the seat of the spirits, which are the instruments of action, was necessary to an expiatory sacrifice. The scape-goat, indeed, is called a sacrifice,
Lev. 16:5, which was not slain in the temple, nor burned, but sent into the wilderness; and, as the Jews tell us, destroyed by being thrown down a rock, to which purpose men were appointed, who were to give notice of it by some signals from hill to hill, at a convenient distance, before which notice the congregation at Jerusalem did not dissolve. But the other expiatory sacrifices were devoured by fire; fire being the highest representation in the world of the justice of God. The sufferings of Christ extended to soul and body. He was scorched by the wrath of God, Ps. 22; 'His soul poured out to death,' Isa. 53:12, alluding to the blood of the sacrifices poured out; and his human nature dissolved by the separation of the soul and body.
[2.] In the offering it to God. Oblation to God was a main part of the sacrifice; so 'Christ offered himself to God,' Eph. 5:2. To God, as essentially considered, whereby the whole right of rectorship and dominion was acknowledged belonging to God. Had the death of Christ been only for example, it had not been offered to God, who was not capable of any example to be set him. It being, therefore, offered to him, manifests it to be a sacrifice.
Doct. 3. Christ was sacrified for us. ὑπὲρ, when joined with suffering for another, always signifies in another's stead and place. It is so used, Rom. 5:7, 'For a good man some would even dare to die;' i.e. instead of a good man, to free him from the death he was designed to, not only for his sake; so Gal. 3:18, 'He was made a curse for us,' i.e. in our stead, suffering the curse due to us for our sins. He is called 'the Lamb of God,' in regard of God's designation of him; our lamb, our passover, in regard of his substitution in our place; as he died to appease the wrath of God, his death referred to the justice of God; as that justice flamed out against us, his death referred to us; he was a screen between the heat of wrath and the sufferings of the
creature; a mediator, respecting God for his satisfaction and glory, respecting us for our reparation and grace.
This will be cleared, if we consider, 1. That Christ could not be a sacrifice for himself. The Messiah was to be cut off, but not for himself,' Dan. 9:26; he needed no sacrifice for himself, as the other high priests did; they were sinners, he was harmless; they being encompassed with infirmities, needed, or ought to offer sacrifices for themselves, Heb. 5:2, 3; he was 'a lamb without blemish,' 1 Peter 1:19, who 'knew no sin, nor was guile found in his mouth,' nor did he ever do any thing displeasing to his Father, John
8:29. He needed no glory to be purchased for him, for he was from eternity happy in the same essence with the Father, being 'God blessed for ever, over all,' Rom. 9:5, having the command over all, and wanting nothing to a perfect blessedness. The sacrifices, which were types of him, could not be for themselves; they were not capable of sinning, as wanting a rational nature, and therefore a sinful nature. A beast was not capable of sin, because not capable of a law, and therefore its blood was not due for any sin of its own. Christ had no sin, none actual; 'no guile was found in his mouth,' 1 Peter 2:22: nor original; that was stopped by his extraordinary conception by the Holy Ghost, which rendered him immaculate.
2. Sacrifices implied this. They had a relation to the offerer, and were substituted in his place. The substitution of the sacrifice in the place of the offenders, was always supposed by the heathen; hence did the offering of human victims arise, their opinion being that they could not present to God a nobler creature in their stead than one of their own nature. The notion of all sacrifices was, that they were in the place of a sinner to appease the offending* deity, and exempt the guilty person from punishment. And the actions about the Jewish sacrifices manifested this: the offerer laid his hand upon the head of the beast, signifying by that ceremony its consecration to God, and owning the translation of his guilt upon that creature, and putting it in his place to undergo the punishment deserved by his sin, Lev.
4:24–29. And in this action of laying on hands, both hands, and with all their strength, as the Jews tell us, confession of sin was made by the presenter of the sacrifice, which signified also the disburdening of his guilt upon the head of the victim. By those actions was manifested a transferring of sin from the offender to the sacrifice, and of the death due to the criminal in like manner; besides, the pouring out of the blood, wherein the soul of the beast was supposed to be, was destined for the expiation of the sin of the soul of the offerer, Lev. 17:11–14; not that the blood is properly the soul, but because the vital spirits, which are the instruments of action, and conveying the virtue of the soul to particular members, are seated in the blood.
3. The whole economy of Christ is expressed in the whole. Scripture to have a relation to us. All things preparatory to his sufferings were for us; some were first given to him, before he was given for them:
John 17:9, he took flesh for us; Isa. 9:6, 'Unto us a child is born;' for us he had a 'fulness of grace' in his human nature, John 1:16; for our sakes he did dedicate himself, that we might be sanctified, John
17:19; for us he gave himself, Gal. 2:20; in the very moment of his sufferings, our iniquities were laid upon him, that health, by his stripes, might be derived to us. Christ was a common person for us, as the scape-goat was common to the whole congregation, Lev. 16:21, representing all of them; Christ was a common person for us, as Adam was, to whom, in this regard, he is compared: Rom. 5:14, 'Who is,' i.e. Adam, 'the figure of him that was to come.' The apostle compares one Adam and one Christ; he illustrates the condition and the actions of the one by the condition and actions of the other, what happened to us by Adam and what happened to us by Christ. This typicalness of Adam cannot be in any other regard than as he was a common person, representing all that were in his loins by natural generation. In this regard Christ is called 'the second man,' 1 Cor.
15:47: 'The first man is of the earth earthly, the second man is the Lord from heaven.' Not that he was the second man born in the world (for many ages were run before his incarnation) but the second common root in the world. As when Adam, being the first root of
mankind in a natural way, fell, the curse came upon him and all his posterity, and the standing punishments pronounced against him did reach, and were meant of all his posterity, Gen. 3:19, not only of Adam personal, but of Adam as a representative, and so of all those who were not yet born into the world; as we sinned in Adam as a common root of natural generation, so we were all sacrificed in Christ as a common head of all that are in him by a spiritual union: the one merited death and damnation for all that descend from him; the other life and salvation for all that believe in him.
4. Our sins were imputed to him as to a sacrifice. Christ the just is put in the place of the unjust to suffer for them; 1 Pet. 3:18. Christ is said to bear sin as a sacrifice bears sin, Isa. 53:10–12. His soul was made an offering for it; but sin was so laid upon the victims, as that it was imputed to them in a judicial account, according to the ceremonial law, and typically expiated by them. Christ had not taken away our sins as mediator, had he not borne the punishment of them; as a surety, 'He was made sin for us,' 2 Cor. 5:21, and he bare our sins, which is evident by the kind of death he suffered, not only sharp and shameful, but accursed, having a sense of God's wrath linked to it.
(1.) It cannot be understood of the infection of sin. The filth of our nature was not transmitted to him. Though he was made sin, yet he was not made a sinner by any infusion or transplantation of sin into his nature. It was impossible his holiness could be denied with our filth.
(2.) But that our sin was the meritorious cause of his punishment. All those phrases, that Christ 'died for our sins,' 1 Cor. 15:3, and was
'delivered to death for our offences,' Rom. 4:23, clearly import sin to be the meritorious cause of the punishment Christ endured. Sin cannot be said to be the cause of punishment but by way of merit. If Christ had not been just, he had not been capable of suffering for us;* had we not been unjust, we had not merited any suffering for ourselves, much less for another. Our unrighteousness put us under
a necessity of a sacrifice, and his righteousness made him fit to be one. What was the cause of the desert of suffering for ourselves was the meritorious cause of the sufferings of the Redeemer after he put himself in our place. The sin of the offerer merited the death of the sacrifice presented in his stead.
(3.) Our sins were charged upon him in regard of their guilt. Our sins are so imputed to him, as that they are not imputed to us, 2 Cor. 5:19, and not imputed to us, because he was made a curse for us, Gal. 3:13.
He bore our sins, as to the punishment, is granted. If he were an offering for them, they must in a judicial way be charged upon him.
If by being made sin be understood a sacrifice for sin (which indeed is the true intent of the word sometimes in Scripture), sin was then legally transferred on the antitype, as it was on the types in the Jewish service by the ceremony of laying on of hands, and confessing of sin, after which the thing so dedicated became accursed, and though it was in itself innocent, yet it was juridically and substitutivè nocent. † In the same manner was Christ accounted, as on the contrary believers are personally nocent, but by virtue of the satisfaction of this sacrifice imputed to them they are judicially counted innocent. Christ, who never sinned, is put in such a state as if he had; and we, who have always sinned, are put into such a state by him as if we never had. As we are made righteous in him, so he was made sin for us. Now, as justifying righteousness is not inherent in us, but imputed to us, so our condemning sin was not inherent in Christ, but imputed to him. There would else be no consistency in the antithesis: 2 Cor. 5:21, 'He hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin.' He knew no sin, yet he became sin. It seems to carry it further than only the bearing the punishment of sin. He was judicially charged in our stead with the guilt of sin. Our iniquities were laid upon him, Isa. 53:6. He had spoken, ver. 5, of his bearing the chastisement of our peace, the punishment of our sin, and then seems to declare the ground of that, which consisted in God's imputation of sin to him in laying upon him the iniquities of us all.
What iniquities? Our goings astray, our turnings every one to his own way. He made him to be that sin which he knew not; but he
knew the punishment of sin; the knowledge of that was the end of his coming. He came to lay down his life a ransom for many. He knew not sin by an experimental inherency, but he knew it by judicial imputation. He knew it not in regard of the spots, but he knew it in regard of the guilt following upon the judgment of God. He was righteous in his person, but not judicially or juridically pronounced righteous as our surety till after his sacrifice, when he was 'taken from prison and from judgment,' Isa. 53:8. Till he had paid the debt, he was accounted as a debtor to God.
[1.] The apostle distinguisheth his second coming from his first by this: Heb. 9:28, 'He shall appear the second time without sin unto salvation.' It is not meant of the filth of sin, for so he appeared at first without sin, but without the guilt of sin which he had at his first coining derived, or taken upon himself to satisfy for, and remove from the sinner. He shall appear without sin to be imputed, without punishment to be inflicted. At the time of his first coming, he appeared with sin, with sin charged upon him, as our surety arrested for our criminal debts. He pawned his life for the lives which we had forfeited, and suffered the penalty duo by law, that we might have a deliverance free by grace. In his first coming, he represented our persons as an undertaker for us; our sins were therefore laid upon him. In his second coming, he represents God as a vicegerent, and so no sin can be charged upon him.
[2.] He cannot well be supposed to suffer for our sins, if our sins in regard of their guilt be not supposed to be charged upon him. How could he die, if he were not a reputed sinner? Had he not first had a relation to our sin, he could not in justice have undergone our punishment. He must in the order of justice be supposed a sinner really, or by imputation; really he was not, by imputation then he was. How can we conceive he should be made a curse for us, if that which made us accursed had not been first charged upon him? It is as much against divine justice to inflict punishment where there is no sin, as it is to spare an offender who hath committed a crime, or to clear the guilty, which by no means God will do, Exod. 34:7. The
consideration of a crime precedes the sentence, either upon an offender or his surety. We cannot conceive how divine justice should inflict the punishment, had it not first considered him under guilt.
Though the first designation of the Redeemer to a suretyship or sacrifice for us was an act of God's sovereignty, yet the inflicting punishment after that designation, and our Saviour's acceptation of it, was an act of God's justice, and so declared to be: Rom. 3:26, 'to declare his righteousness, that he might be just,' that he might declare his justice in justification, his justice to his law. Can this highest declaration of justice be founded upon an unjust act? Had that been justice or injustice to Christ, to lay his wrath upon the Son of his love, one whose person was always dear to him, always pleased him; had he not stood as a sinner juridically in our stead, and suffered that sin, which was the ruin of mankind, to be cast with all the weight of it, upon his innocent shoulders? After by his own act he had engaged for our debt, God in justice might demand of him every farthing, which, without that undertaking, and putting himself in our stead, could not be done; which submission of his, and compliance with it, is expressed twice, Isa. 53:7, by his not opening his mouth; and no wrong is done to a voluntary undertaker. Add this too. It is from his standing in our stead as guilty that the benefit of his death doth redound to us. His death had had no relation to us, had not our sin been juridically adjudged to be his; nor can we challenge an acquittance at the hands of God for our debts, if they were not our debts that he paid on the cross. 'He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities,' Isa. 53:5. The laying hands upon the head of the sin-offering was necessary to make it a sacrifice for the offender, without which ceremony it might have been a slain but not a sacrificed beast. The transferring our iniquities upon him must in some way precede his being bruised for them, which could not be any other way than by imputation, whereby he was constituted by God a debtor in our stead, to bear the punishment of our sin. He being made sin for us, our sin was in a sort made his; he was made sin without sin, he knew the guilt without knowing the filth, he felt the punishment without being touched with the pollution. Since death was the wages of sin, and passed as a penalty
for a violated law, Rom. 6:23, it could not righteously be inflicted on him had not sin first been imputed to him. In his own person, he was in the arms of his Father's love; as he represented our sinful persons, he felt the strokes of his Father's wrath.
5. The sufferings of this sacrifice are imputed unto us. He took our sins upon himself, as if he had sinned, and gave us the benefit of his sufferings, as if we had actually suffered and satisfied.* He 'offered one sacrifice for sin for ever,' Heb. 10:12, i.e. 'to take away sin,' if you compare it with ver. 11; to remove the wrath due to us by reason of iniquity was the end he aimed at. As our sins were imputed to him for punishment, so his sufferings are imputed to us for acceptation:
Eph. 1:6, 7, 'Who hath made us accepted in the beloved, in whom we have redemption through his blood.' Christ had the relation of an undertaker for us, and we the relation of debtors to God. Our debts then being charged upon him, his payment must be imputed to us; the surety and the principal are legally regarded as one person, so are the representative and the persons represented by him. As Adam and all mankind were as one person, and as all Israel were called Jacob from the common root of them, so Christ and believers are as one person, and what he did, is as if a believer himself did it, as the suffering of the sacrifice was accepted in lieu of the life of the sinner.
By the stripes of our sacrifice we are healed, Isa. 53:5, an exchange is made, stripes to him, health to us; he was made a curse that we might be freed from the curse, Gal. 3:13. The first thing rising upon faith from the sufferings of Christ is a non-imputation of sin: 2 Cor.
5:21, 'Not imputing their trespasses unto them.' They are not imputed to a believer, because borne by the undertaker for him. The main end of his death as a sacrifice was to communicate a righteousness to us: Gal. 2:21, 'If righteousness come by the law, then
Christ is dead in vain.' If this were the main or only thing that would make the death of Christ a mere vanity, then the great and main end of his death was to procure a complete righteousness for us, a righteousness whereby he was to be glorified, a righteousness whereby we might be justified; his sufferings procured it, his resurrection endured it, Rom. 4:25. All the world stands guilty before
God, cannot present God with a righteousness of their own commensurate to the law; not one act any man can do can bear proportion to it, all strength to do anything suitable to it was lost in Adam. Since no righteousness of our own can justify, it must be the righteousness of the Son of God which must be imputed to us, in the same manner our sins were imputed to him. As it is accepted by God for us, so it is accounted by God to us: 2 Cor. 5:21, 'He hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.' Sin was in us, but charged upon Christ; righteousness is in Christ and imputed to us; therefore the apostle adds him, to signify that it is not our own righteousness, but another's, not inherent in us, but imputed to us.
The redounding of these sufferings to us ariseth, 1. From the dignity of the person undertaking to be a sacrifice for us, and the union of our nature with his. He assumed our nature that he might be a common person, and stand in our stead; he had not been a fit representative of us without it. But the main consideration is,
'the fulness of the Godhead dwelling in him bodily,' Col. 2:9, and his being the man God's fellow, Zech. 13:7, whereby what he did and suffered in our stead became, according to the value of the person performing it, infinitely meritorious for those for whom he suffered, being infinitely more than all the obedience of men and angels, and more meritorious of happiness than sin could be of misery. As infinite sin deserves an infinite punishment, because it receives its aggravation from the dignity of the person against whom it is committed, so the sufferings of Christ, though finite in regard of his human nature, received an infinite value from the infiniteness of his person, equivalent to the debts of all that come to him. Sin is finite in regard of the subject, infinite in regard of the great God against whom it is. The sufferings of Christ are infinite in regard of the subject, and infinitely please the governor of the world, unto whom the offering is made, and therefore are of more force to convey a righteousness and beauty to the creature, than sin is to convey guilt