4The Passover 88
Its meaning and significance
Leon Morris
This book is written out of the conviction that the cross is at the heart of the Christian way. This is the way of salvation and it is the way of Christian living. I have tried to bring out for people who are not experts in theology or in the study of the biblical languages something of the meaning of the great terms used in the New Testament to convey the significance of the atoning work of Christ. The cross is central to Christianity. It is the new and living way into the very presence of God.
The subject-matter is of course that of my previous book, The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross. I have often been asked to lecture on the subject-matter of that book, not infrequently to groups of lay people who could make nothing of its technicalities. The experience has led me to believe that there would be some advantage in putting on paper in simpler form some of the things I then said.
But this book is not simply a re-hash of the older work. I have made new points in every chapter and I have included some studies not in the previous book, such as the chapters on the Passover and on the Day of Atonement. I have also introduced a chapter on sacrifice which includes matter in the earlier work, such as the section on blood, but which is written from a different perspective and includes much that the older work did not.
I am indebted to many who have commented on my lectures and asked questions. The discussions have been stimulating and I trust have resulted in some clarifications. I am grateful to all who have helped me. I am grateful also to my former secretary, Mrs D. Wellington, for her careful work in typing out the manuscript.
Normally I have used the New International Version for quotations from Scripture, though occasionally I have cited other versions or made my own translation.
LEON Mows
Preface 5
Epilogue 203
Index of biblical references 207
General index 213
Jesus was a Jew. Peter, James and John were Jews. Paul was a Jew. All the first Christians were Jews. Throughout the Gospels it is plain that the whole manner of life of both Jesus and his immediate followers was that of normal first-century Jews. It is true that they did not please the strictest sect of Judaism in some things, for instance in such matters as their attitude to ceremonial cleanness. To give an example, the Pharisees were very pernickety about the way they washed their hands when they came from the market-place and before they ate; they were also particular about washing cups, kettles and the like (Mk. 7:31). There was friction between the Pharisees and the little group about Jesus because these latter did not concern themselves about such trifles. Again, the strict Pharisaic rules for keeping the Sabbath were out of this world. Jesus ignored the rules and maintained that the Pharisees did not understand what the Sabbath was all about. If they had understood the significance of some of the directions Moses gave, they would have acted very differently from the way they did (Jn. 7:22-23).
But the fact that the Pharisees did not like this independent attitude did not mean that Jesus was not a faithful and loyal Jew. There were many Jews who did not go along with the strict party in the way they understood the practice of their religion. There was no question of Jesus' essential Jewishness. He had been circumcised in his infancy (Lk. 2:21) and his parents had gone through the standard Jewish purification ceremonies (Lk. 2:2223). He had been brought up to observe the Jewish feasts (or at least the Passover, Lk. 2:41-42; but if he kept this feast, the presumption is that he kept the others also). It was his custom to worship in the synagogue on the Sabbath (Lk. 4:16). Throughout his whole life he followed the Jewish pattern and his death came about when he was in Jerusalem for the feast of the Passover. It is true that there were some aspects of Jesus' teaching that many Jews found strange, but he said explicitly, 'Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfil them' (Mt. 5:17). It was never his intention to do away with the religion in which he had been brought up.
If we go on to the church that he founded, the story begins with his followers gathered together in Jerusalem to observe another Jewish feast, that of Pentecost (Acts 2:1). They apparently observed the hours of prayer in the temple (Acts 3:1) and such things as purification rites for people who had made vows (Acts 21:23-24, 26). They frequented the synagogue (Acts 9:20; 13:5, 14; etc.). Paul never renounced the religion in which he had been brought up and, for example, he pointed out to the Romans that he was an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham and a member of the tribe of Benjamin (Rom. 11:1). He informed the Philippians that he was 'circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews' (Phil. 3:5).
None of the early Christians seems to have regarded himself as anything other than a faithful Jew. True, they all felt that the Judaism of the day was wrong at certain points, notably in not seeing how the writings of Moses and the prophets, indeed all their sacred Scripture, found fulfilment in Jesus. But they lived as Jews did with no more laxity than many of their contemporaries, people whom the Pharisees criticized but did not excommunicate. But in quite a short time after Jesus' death the Christians were everywhere excluded from the synagogues.
Why?
Why did a movement, cradled in Judaism and consistently claiming to be faithful to authentic Judaism, end by being firmly excluded from the bosom of that religion and even becoming an object of persecution from its adherents (Acts 17:5, 13; 18:12; 1 Thes. 2:14)?
Much could be said in answer to the question. Basically, of course, it concerns the attitude of the first Christians to Jesus. Paul could say that he counted all his proud heritage in Judaism as nothing for the sake of Christ: 'What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of know ing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ' (Phil. 3:8). Such an attitude was plainly the usual one among the Christians, even if they did not express themselves quite as forcefully as Paul did. They put Jesus Christ in the highest place at the same time as they asserted their essential Jewishness.
I have raised the question of the exclusion of the Christians, but I do not intend to pursue it seriously. I simply want to indicate that the emergence of the Christian church as an entity separate from Judaism was not a foregone conclusion. It was neither looked for nor relished by the first Christians. They saw themselves as the authentic Israel, as members of the true people of God. The final split was not their idea. When it came it surprised and grieved many of them.
It was the place of Jesus that made the difference. To see him as the Messiah was to put everything in a new perspective. Not only did the Christians see him as the Messiah, but as the crucified Messiah. For them the central thing was the cross, so that Paul could sum up the message he proclaimed in the words, 'we preach Christ crucified' (1 Cor. 1:23). Whatever subordinate and incidental issues were involved, the essential difference between Judaism and Christianity was the cross (for that matter it is the cross that is the difference between every other religion and Christianity). For the Jews, the Messiah is still to come and when he comes he will be supreme. For the Christians he has come already and when he came they put him on a cross.
It is not at all unlikely that at first the Christians did not realize the full significance of the cross. But in time they came to see that the crucifixion is rightly understood only when it is seen as God's great saving act. It is the means God used to deal with the problem of human sin. The Christians came to emphasize that the way of salvation is not the way of law, as devout Jews held. It is the way of grace. People do not merit salvation but receive it as a free gift from God on the basis of what Christ's death accomplished. That death means something old, for God has always acted by the way of grace, as Paul makes so clear in his discussion of Abraham (Rom. 4); the cross is the continuation of the outworking of his grace. But it also means something radically new, for God had never before done anything like sending his Son to die for people's salvation. That was a new demonstration of God's forgiving love; it meant that sin was really overcome and put out of the way. It meant a new way to God - a new and living way.
We can understand some things about this new way by a close study of some of the words the New Testament writers used to bring out the meaning of the cross. They made use of some vivid picture-words, words that meant much to the people of the day, but which we do not always use in the same way. Thus we sometimes talk of 'sacrifice', or again of 'redemption', but we do not mean by these terms what the New Testament writers meant. It is worth studying the terms in an attempt to rediscover what the first Christians had in mind when they used them.
This book, then, is a study of some of the great words used to bring out the meaning of the cross and is thus a serious attempt to see some of the significance of Christ's atoning work. It is undertaken partly because there is a tendency, in some quarters at least, to minimize the place of the cross. There are not many leading theologians these days who discuss theories of the atonement. We tend to emphasize the incarnation or liberation theology or the reality behind the charismatic movement. With few exceptions people are not writing about the atonement.
But this is to ignore the fundamental New Testament position. Paul could say that Christian preachers 'preach Christ crucified' (1 Cor. 1:23). Again, when he outlines the essential Christian message he begins with 'what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures...' (1 Cor. 15:3), and concludes his summary with 'Whether, then, it was I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed' (1 Cor. 15:11). There are differences in the ways the New Testament writers present the facts, but there can be no doubt that for the New Testament writers as a whole it was the cross that was at the heart of the faith. In the literal sense of the term it was 'crucial'. We are saved, not by some fine theory and not by some blinding revelation and certainly not by our own best effort, but by Christ's atoning death.
Therefore any really serious attempt to understand the Christian way must begin with the cross. Unless we come to see what the cross means we do not understand Christianity, real Christianity in the sense the New Testament writers gave to it. The cross is absolutely central. We must give time and attention to our understanding of what it means.
While the New Testament writers are agreed on its centrality, they do not all bring this out in the same way. Some prefer one kind of imagery, others another. I have picked out what seem to me to be some of the more important of the picture-words these writers used and I have subjected them to close scrutiny. As we see what these words meant to those who used them originally, we shall be led into a fuller understanding of the depths of meaning they found in Christ's cross. We will see something of what it cost Jesus to bring about our salvation and something of the meaning of atonement. I do not claim that at the end we will know exactly how the atonement works. Through more than nineteen centuries the church has been working at that problem and it still has not come up with an agreed solution. But at least we shall know a little more of what the New Testament writers are saying to us.
Basically this will concern the meaning of Christ's atoning work. How does the death of Jesus, so many years ago, bring salvation to all his people, those alive then and those alive now? The question is not easy to answer, but the language of the early Christians helps us come closer to an understanding. We see that there are many facets to the cross. It may be seen as a paying of the price, as a bringing of enemies into a state of friendship, as an opening up of a way of access to God, and much more. These great words tell us much about the way of the cross in the sense that the cross is the means of dealing with all our sins.
They also speak to us about the way of the cross in the sense that Christians are people who live in a certain way. We shall be challenged as we come to see more fully what the cross meant to the New Testament writers. Not only is the cross of Jesus the means of bringing us into salvation, but it is a reminder that we are to take up our cross day by day (Lk. 9:23). To understand that Jesus died for us is to understand that we must live for him. Not for those who follow the crucified Christ are the paths of selfish ease.
The new and living way is, first and foremost, the way that Christ made open by dying on the cross for the salvation of his people. But it is also the way in which his people walk. They are different because they have been brought out of their sins into the way of God. This study is concerned most of all with the former aspect, but no-one can study the meaning of the cross without coming to see that it has its implications also for the daily life of every follower of the crucified one.
It was the last night of Jesus' life. He was at table in the upper room with his disciples. During the course of the meal he took some of the bread that was on the table, gave God thanks, broke the bread and gave it to the disciples with the words, 'This is my body.' A little while later he took a cup of wine, gave thanks over it and gave it to them saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in my blood' (1 Cor. 11:23-25), or perhaps, 'This is my blood of the new covenant' (Mk. 14:24).
As Jesus in this way began the service of Holy Communion, a service which has continued throughout the centuries and has spread throughout the world, he connected the shedding of his blood with the making of a new covenant. There is a slight problem posed by the fact that some ancient manuscripts do not have the word 'new' in the accounts in Matthew and Mark and the whole verse which contains it might possibly be omitted in Luke. The scholars enjoy themselves working out which is likely to be the correct reading in each of our accounts. But for our present purpose we can ignore these delights. There are no such textual doubts about our earliest account, that in 1 Corinthians, and in any case, describe it how you will, any covenant Jesus made had to be a new one, for the old one had been in existence for hundreds of years.
What did Jesus mean by 'the new covenant in my blood'? The answer is not obvious. We use the word 'covenant' today but not in such a way as to make sense of 'the new covenant in my blood' or 'my blood of the new covenant'. The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary defines a covenant as 'A mutual agreement between two or more persons to do or refrain from doing certain acts; sometimes, the undertaking of one of the parties.' It goes on to inform us that nowadays the term is mainly used in a legal or theological sense, and in this latter sense it is'Applied to engagements entered into by and with the Divine Being, as revealed in the Scriptures, etc.'. But, even armed with all this information, we are not really in a position to make much sense of the words of Jesus about blood in connection with the covenant, nor with the idea that the covenant is a new one.
For that we must go back to the Old Testament, where the concept of covenant is frequent and very important. Covenants go back as far as one God made with Noah (Gn. 6:18; 9:9; etc.). Some scholars speak of a covenant with Adam, holding that what the Old Testament tells us about our first father justifies us in thinking that there was a covenant between him and God. Be that as it may, the word 'covenant' is not used in Scripture of this relationship and it is better to confine ourselves to the passages which definitely speak of a covenant.
The covenant with Noah was a covenant between God and a man; but there are also covenants in which God does not feature, covenants between people. It seems reasonable to think that the term was originally applied to such human covenants and that people then reflected that the word could fittingly be applied to God's dealings with them. So it will be profitable to begin with purely human covenants. These covenants are always regarded as very serious affairs. They were a bit like a very solemn business agreement among us, a binding contract, or in many cases like a treaty. But whereas with us such transactions are essentially secular, belonging to the areas of business and diplomacy, with the Hebrews covenants were fundamentally religious. A covenant was an undertaking entered into before God and solemnly ratified with appropriate religious ritual.
In the Old Testament covenant was only occasionally between private individuals. The one purely individual covenant in the whole Old Testament appears to be that between David and Jonathan, and even that may have had wider implications because Jonathan was the king's son and it was presumed that he would be king himself one day. Any solemn agreement into which he entered might then become an affair of state. Whatever be the case with this covenant, all the other covenants were between representative men and they implied that those they represented were equally bound by the covenant. For example, Jacob and Laban made a covenant (Gn. 31:44-54) and clearly this was binding on the clans of which they were the respective heads and not only on these two men as private individuals.
A covenant was always made with good intentions between the parties. There is never a covenant binding the two to harm one another in any way. A covenant is always a pledge by one, and usually by both, that the interests of the other party will be forwarded. A covenant always means being loyal to the other party; it is never simply an agreement to perform some external duty.
There seems to be no passage in which the method of making a covenant is outlined. The ancients knew quite well how it was done and apparently had no urge to set out the various steps for the benefit of posterity. But if we put together what we learn from the making of a number of covenants a procedure something like the following emerges.
1. Agreement on the terms
Obviously there was going to be no covenant unless the two parties were in agreement on some course of action that bound at least one of them (and more commonly both) for the future. And as we have seen, it bound them to benefit and help each other, never to hurt one another.
2. The swearing of an oath
A covenant was not to be entered into lightly. Each party must know that the other had every intention of carrying out to the full the obligations he was taking upon himself. So both swore a solemn oath that they would carry out the covenant obligations. So important was this that on occasion the whole process could be spoken of shortly as 'the oath' (e.g. Lk. 1:73).
3. The offering of a sacrifice
Sacrifice was the universal religious rite in antiquity, but the sacrifice on the occasion of a covenant seems to have had some special features. The animal being offered was cut in two and apparently laid on the ground so that the two parties to the covenant could walk between the parts (Gn. 15:10, and cf. verse 17; Je. 34:18). That this was the distinctive feature of the process is indicated by the fact that the Hebrews did not normally say'to make a covenant', but 'to cut a covenant'. Other ways of putting it are indeed found. They include 'establishing' a covenant, or giving it, commanding it, swearing it, declaring it, and even, on occasion, making it. Obviously there was no stereotyped way of affirming that a covenant had come into existence. But there can be no doubt but that 'cutting' a covenant was the most usual as well as the most picturesque way of putting it.
4. The witness
There was often a witness, but this is not to be understood in our terms. We think of a witness as someone who was there and can testify to what was done. But Abraham and Abimelech had seven ewe lambs as a witness to their covenant (Gn. 21:27-30; NIV here has 'treaty' for the Hebrew b`rith, but this is the word usually rendered 'covenant'). Jacob and Laban made a heap of stones to be their witness (Gn. 31:44-48). The witness was not an independent figure who could speak up and testify to the fact and the terms of the covenant. The witness was rather something that served to remind the participants of what they had done.
5. The feast
It is possible that the sacrifice offered when a covenant was made included a feast (as the peace offering did, Lv. 7:15, etc.). If it did not, then at least on some occasions the making of a covenant was marked by the holding of a feast. The story of the making of the covenant between Jacob and Laban ends with the words: 'So Jacob took an oath in the name of the Fear of his father Isaac. He offered a sacrifice there in the hill country and invited his relatives to a meal' (Gn. 31:53-54).
There may well have been other features. Thus, on the occasion of the covenant Jonathan made with David, Jonathan gave his friend the robe he was wearing, his tunic, his sword, his bow and his belt (1 Sa. 18:4). The exchange of such gifts is attested in similar rites in other lands and it may well have been a regular part of covenant making in Israel, even though we do not read about it often. When we are trying to work out how a covenant was made in ancient Israel we meet the difficulty that much is left unsaid in our sources. We see this clearly in the case of the dividing of the sacrifice. The dividing of the animals and the passing between the pieces is attested in the cases of Abraham and Jeremiah, two examples centuries apart, but nowhere in between. We must assume that it continued unchanged through those hundreds of years, but there is no mention of it. Other features may likewise have escaped mention in our sources. But at least in the points noted above we may feel confident that we have the main features of the making of a covenant in Israel of old.
The meaning of 'cutting' a covenant has been disputed. The reason for this action is nowhere told us and we are left to try to work it out from the nature of the whole covenant scene. Some scholars have seen in this action rather curious meanings. For example, W. Robertson Smith held that it meant that the two parties to the covenant were taken up into the mystical life of the victim. I have never been able to be quite sure what this means and I find it even harder to think that people such as Jacob or Abimelech would have embraced such an idea.
It is much more likely that they looked at the victim, cut in pieces as it was, and as they took their position in the middle of the dismembered pieces solemnly called down on themselves a like fate if they proved faithless to the serious undertaking into which they were entering. A covenant was a grave and important obligation; it should not be undertaken lightly.
That this is the meaning seems clear from the way the sacrifice is understood in a passage in Jeremiah where covenant breakers are promised punishment. God says, 'The men who have violated my covenant and have not fulfilled the terms of the covenant they made before me, I will treat like the calf they cut in two and then walked between its pieces' Ue. 34:18). This is quite clear also in the record of a covenant made in ancient Babylon in which a certain Mati'-ilu took part. The text recording proceedings speaks of the sacrificing of a goat and goes on:
As part after part of the animal is identified with Mati'-ilu that worthy should have been left in no doubt about the gruesome fate that awaited him if he should break the terms of the covenant.
Covenants between men were usually between representative men, as we have seen. Thus Abraham made a covenant with Abimelech (Gn. 21:27). The patriarch could put an army of 318 trained men into the field when it was a question of battle (Gn. 14:14), so clearly he was the head of a not unimportant clan, while Abimelech was king of Gerar (Gn. 20:2). Obviously a covenant between two such men was more than a private agreement. It carried implications for the groups of which they were the heads. Indeed, some of this is spelt out when Abimelech says to Abraham, 'God is with you in everything you do. Now swear to me here before God that you will not deal falsely with me or my children or my descendants. Show to me and the country where you are living as an alien the same kindness that I have shown to you' (Gn. 21:22-23). We are not told exactly what it was that Abimelech covenanted to do, but it is certainly implied that he would carry on with the 'kindness' he claims to have shown in the past. Even if he made no specific commitment it would still be a valid covenant. On occasion a covenant might be one-sided, with all the obligations resting on the one partner.
Other covenants between men are referred to from time to time, such as the one suggested between Nahash the Ammonite and the people of Jabesh Gilead (1 Sa. 11:1), a proposal that fell through because Nahash made it a condition that he gouge out the right eye of each of the men of the town. And David made a covenant with 'all the elders of Israel' at Hebron that he should be king (1 Ch. 11:3). There were others. But enough has been said to indicate the general meaning of covenant and to show something of its importance in the life of ancient Israel.
COVENANTS OF KINGS AND NATIONS
The covenants that God made with people were the really important covenants in the Old Testament. In recent years a good deal of attention has been given to suzerainty covenants in the ancient world, mostly those in which the Hittite kings were involved. In such covenants vassals normally pledge their allegiance to some great king, and it has been suggested that covenants of this kind may well have formed the model which the Hebrews used to help convey something of their relationship with their God. Some of the treaties discovered were between equals, as kings pledged themselves to acknowledge one another's borders, return runaway slaves and the like. More important for our present purpose were those with subordinates, when the 'kindness' of the great king is spelt out, as are the duties laid upon the vassal and the curses that will follow if the vassal breaks the treaty. Corresponding blessings for faithfulness are, of course, also listed. Such treaties are found by scholars in the Old Testament. An example of a covenant between equals might be that between Hiram and Solomon (1 Ki. 5; the actual word 'covenant' is not used here, but the relationship appears to be covenantal). And for a suzerainty covenant, that between the Israelites and the Gibeonites is often cited (Jos. 9; the word berth is used several times, verses 6, 7, 11, 15, 16).
COVENANTS WITH GOD
Whether it was this sort of thing that formed the pattern or not, it is beyond dispute that in the Old Testament 'covenant' was a favourite way of referring to the relationship between God and his people. Covenants with God go back to that with Noah. When God told that patriarch that he would bring a great flood on the earth and destroy sinners, he added, 'But I will establish my covenant with you' (Gn. 6:18). After the flood had subsided God said, 'I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you and with every living creature that was with you ... every living creature on earth. I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth' (Gn. 9:9-11). God proceeded to give the rainbow as 'the sign of the covenant between me and the earth' (verse 13).
In this covenant some features emerge which we will find characteristic of covenants with God and which are not necessarily found in purely human covenants. First, the initiative is with God. Noah is not said to have done anything in the matter. God proposed the covenant. God laid down the terms. It is unthinkable that men should negotiate with God, so a covenant with God is always a matter of accepting what God offers. Secondly, Noah is a representative man, so that the covenant includes others than him; in fact its terms have relevance to all life on earth. We are given no information about how the covenant was inaugurated, if there was in fact any set ceremony, but there is a reference to the rainbow as a sign or witness. A further most important feature of this covenant is that it is a covenant of pure grace. Noah is not asked to do anything. God simply makes a promise to him that he will never again destroy the earth with a flood.
God's covenant with Abraham is a very important one, all the more so since in the New Testament it is regarded as of continuing validity (the coming of Christ is seen as the outworking of that covenant, Lk. 1:68-73; cf. also Rom. 4). God promised Abraham a numberless progeny and possession of the land of Canaan (Gn. 15:5-7). When Abraham asked how he could know this, God made a covenant with him. He told the patriarch to bring certain animals and birds. Abraham was to divide the animals and arrange the halves opposite each other (the birds for some reason were not divided). In due course 'a smoking fire pot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces' (verse 17). The light would seem to symbolize the presence of God and the passing between the pieces the solemn entering into covenant. Abraham did not pass between the pieces, but then he was not undertaking any obligations. He was simply the recipient of God's good gift. In all this Abraham was a representative man. The covenant referred not only to him but also to his descendants (verse 18). They are included in the blessing on Abraham.
A little later the requirement of circumcision is laid on the patriarch and his descendants and linked with the covenant: 'This is my covenant with you and your descendants after you, the covenant you are to keep: Every male among you shall be circumcised' (Gn. 17:10). But this does not mean the abandonment of the principle that the covenant was all of grace. Circumcision was not a meritorious work, a virtuous act that earned a place within the covenant for Abraham and his progeny. It is expressly said to be 'the sign of the covenant' (verse 11). In a way similar to that of the rainbow in the covenant with Noah, it is a sign that those who receive the mark are included in the covenant made with Abraham. That covenant is consistently seen as a covenant resting on the goodness of God, not on the achievement of men. It is not a reward for faithful service but a promise proceeding from the love of God.
THE COVENANT AT SINAI
God made other covenants, such as that with Aaron and his offspring (Nu. 18:19) or that with David (2 Sa. 23:5). But perhaps the most important of all is that at Mount Sinai, a covenant with the whole nation of Israel. It is described in Exodus 24. It all began when Moses 'told the people all the LORD's words and laws', to which 'they responded with one voice, "Everything the LORD has said we will do"' (Ex. 24:3). Early next morning Moses built an altar at the foot of the mountain and set up twelve pillars of stone to represent the twelve tribes. Then 'young Israelite men' (interestingly not priests) offered burnt offerings and peace offerings (verse 5). There seems nothing unusual about these sacrifices (except that priests are not mentioned). The blood, however, was treated in a distinctive way. Moses took half of it and put it in bowls, while the other half he dashed against the altar (the Hebrew verb denotes a much more vigorous action than NIV's 'sprinkled'). He read to the people 'the Book of the Covenant' after which they responded, 'We will do everything the LORD has said; we will obey' (verse 7).
Now Moses took the resi of the blood, the half he had put in bowls, and threw it over the people (the same vigorous verb used of throwing the other half of the blood against the altar in verse 6). He said, 'This is the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words' (verse 8). There is then a reference to some of the leaders seeing God and to eating and drinking, evidently the consummation of the sacrifice (verses 9-11).
This covenant was of the utmost importance. The people were now the people of God, people in covenant relationship with the one God. And God was the God of the people, in covenant relationship with this one nation in all the earth. It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that all that happened subsequently in Old Testament days is to be understood against this background. Israel stood in a special relationship to God and this governed all that the later Old Testament writers tell us. This is so even though the covenant terminology was not used by all writers. For, whether they chose to use this language or not, the idea that the nation stood in a relationship to God such as no other nation did dominates Old Testament thinking. This is well illustrated by Walther Eichrodt's treatment of the material in his Theology of the Old Testament. In volume 1, after a chapter on 'The Problem and the Method', he uses the word 'covenant' in every chapter heading: 'The Covenant Relationship', 'The Covenant Statutes', 'The Name of the Covenant God', 'The Nature of the Covenant God', and so on. The covenant with God dominated Israelite religion. It mattered intensely to Old Testament Israel that the nation was in covenant relationship to the one and only God. All its thinking and living revolved round this fact.
COVENANT DISTTNCTIVES
In the ceremony of covenant making in Exodus 24 there are some unusual features, three in particular. The first of these is the element of personal participation. In other covenants there is a representative person who enters the covenant and by doing so takes with him all those he represents. This is what Noah did, for example, and Abraham. But in Exodus 24 we have a covenant with the nation, not with Moses. Moses has a role something like that of Master of Ceremonies. He directs what is done, but he does not enter into the covenant himself (other than as a member of the people). Twice the people took obligations on themselves (verses 3, 7). The blood was put on them, not on chosen representatives (verse 8). Moses evidently regarded this participation as important, for he is recorded as saying: 'The LORD our God made a covenant with us at Horeb. It was not with our fathers that the LORD made this covenant, but with us, with all of us who are alive here today. The LORD spoke to you face to face out of the fire on the mountain' (Dt. 5:2-4; 'Horeb' is another name for Mount Sinai).
We may fairly reflect that there is a limit to what one can do for another. While it is true that in a covenant the father stands in for his own, as Abraham did, it is also true that in the end we must all enter the covenant for ourselves or place ourselves outside its scope. It is not possible to live for ever on the spiritual capital of our ancestors. R. B. Y. Scott can say:
A second unusual feature of this ceremony of covenant making was the putting of the blood on the people. We should probably pay the more attention to this feature because the words, 'This is the blood of the covenant' (Ex. 24:8), which accompanied the putting of the blood on the people, seem to lie behind Jesus' words, 'This is my blood of the new covenant.' As we are unfamiliar with covenant-making ceremonies and with the manipulation of blood in the sacrifices generally, we can easily miss the point that this is a most unusual action. In fact elsewhere in the whole Old Testament blood was put on people in only two ceremonies: the consecration of a priest to his high office and the cleansing of a person who had been cured of leprosy. When Aaron and his sons were formally admitted into the office of priest a ram was killed and Moses put some of its blood on the lobe of the right ear, the thumb of the right hand and the big toe of the right foot, first of Aaron and then of his sons (Lv. 8:23-24). A similar ceremony was performed when anyone was being cleansed after being cured of leprosy (Lv. 14:14): blood was put on the lobe of the right ear, the thumb of the right hand and the big toe of the right foot; in this case there was also the requirement that the priest should sprinkle the man seven times with a mixture of water and the blood of a bird (verse 7).
Nowhere are we given an explanation of the meaning of this ceremony with the blood; but the general use of blood in connection with sacrifice points to cleansing from sin and defilement. There is no reason to doubt that when blood was put on people this was the idea. In the cases both of the priest and of the cleansed leper there is also the thought of dedication to a new life among the people of God. All this seems to form an important clue to our understanding of Exodus 24. The whole people was being cleansed from the sin and defilement of its tainted past and at the same time was being consecrated for its new role as the people of God.
The third unusual feature of this covenant was that the people took on themselves the obligation to obey God's laws. It is not said that they were asked to do this or that it was a condition of the covenant. But when Moses told them 'all the LORD'S words and laws', they 'responded with one voice, "Everything the LORD has said we will do"', after which Moses wrote down what the LORD had said. After the blood had been thrown against the altar Moses read to the people 'the Book of the Covenant' and they said, 'We will do everything the LORD has said; we will obey' (Ex. 24:3-4, 7). From other passages it would seem that the Ten Commandments were especially in mind. Thus there is a passage which equates 'the tablets of stone' which Moses received on the mountain and which contained the Ten Commandments (Dt. 5:22) with 'the tablets of the covenant that the LORD had made with you' (Dt. 9:9). Again, a passage which begins with 'Hear, 0 Israel, the decrees and the laws...' goes on, 'The LORD our God made a covenant with us at Horeb' and shortly afterwards lists the Ten Commandments (Dt. 5:1-2, 6-21). Elsewhere we read that God commanded Moses, 'Write down these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel' and Moses 'wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant - the Ten Commandments' (Ex. 34:27-28). It is possible that in this last passage the 'he' who wrote is actually God, but however we resolve that question the connection of the Ten Commandments with the covenant is clear.
Curiously Exodus says nothing about what God would do. In the other covenants with God it is always what God says he will do that is the significant thing. Those covenants are in fact little more than solemn promises from God; the covenant framework simply adds solemnity. It is unusual to have a covenant with God in which God does not specifically promise anything. It is, however, implicit in Exodus 24 that God will bless the people and this is explicit in other covenant passages. Thus we read: 'I will look on you with favour and make you fruitful and increase your numbers, and I will keep my covenant with you.' This passage goes on to speak of blessings in harvest and of God's dwelling place as being among the people and adds, 'I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be my people' (Lv. 26:9-12; cf. Ex. 19:5-6). There can be no question but that the covenant means that Israel was given a special place in God's plan. Nor should we doubt that it foreshadowed many wonderful blessings.
The people's repeated promise to keep God's commandments remains to be considered. Some have understood this to mean that this covenant was one of works. Their idea is that Israel agreed to do certain things for God and in response God agreed to do certain things for Israel. But this is not the way Exodus 24 reads. The covenant between God and Israel proceeded from God's choice of the nation. It was God's choice that was the first and dominant factor, as is made clear in an earlier reference to the covenant: 'You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself. Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation' (Ex. 19:4-6). It is God's choice that is first and with that God's saving activity in delivering the people from Egypt. Obligations follow indeed ('if you obey me fully and keep my covenant'), but they are not the reason for the choice. There is nothing like 'If you do this for me, I will do that for you', either in the attitude of God or in that of the people.
Jacob's reaction to a vision he had of God is in marked contrast. That patriarch was deeply moved. He made a vow and expressed his feelings in these words:
If God will be with me and will watch over me on this journey I am taking and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear so that I return safely to my father's house, then the LORD will be my God. This stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God's house, and of all that you give me I will give you a tenth (Gn. 28:20-22).
Jacob is certainly saying, 'If you do certain things for me, then I will do certain things for you.' But there is no equivalent attitude on the part of Israel in Exodus 24. Rather, there the people are gratefully accepting God's goodness and pledging themselves to be his servants in response.
The process has been likened to a royal wedding. When a prince marries a commoner the young man would not say to his bride after the wedding: 'My dear, you have made an excellent beginning. If you try very hard to live in the right way you will perhaps one day be admitted into the royal family.' But he could say (if he chose), 'My dear, you have become a member of the royal family. You are royalty. It is important that you live as a member of the royal family should.'
It was like that with Israel. We see the sequence in some words of Moses: 'Be silent, 0 Israel, and listen! You have now become the people of the LORD your God. Obey the LORD your God and follow his commands and decrees that I give you today' (Dt. 27:9-10). The people first became 'the people of the LORD'. That had already happened. It was in the past. Now ('today') came the commands and decrees. They had entered the position of privilege. Now they must live lives that befitted their new station.
That Israel was in a peculiar sense God's people and that God was Israel's God dominated Israel's thinking throughout the Old Testament period. It was not that the people felt that they could appeal to God on the grounds of the covenant. They did this occasionally, as when the Psalmist prayed, 'Have regard for your covenant, because haunts of violence fill the dark places of the land. Do not let the oppressed retreat in disgrace; may the poor and needy praise your name' (Ps. 74:20-21). But this is not frequent, probably because the Israelites were all too well aware that they had signally failed to keep up their end. You cannot appeal to God on the basis of a covenant you have broken comprehensively and often.
But if they could not plead the covenant, they could remember that God was faithful to it. Moses could say, 'Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commands' (Dt. 7:9). God is a faithful God. He can be relied on to keep his part of the covenant, even if Israel did not keep hers. It made a great deal of difference to all Israelite thinking.
It set Israel apart from other peoples. While the idea that God made a covenant with his people was not confined to Israel, generally speaking the little nations around Israel seem to have had the view that in some way their god was kin to them, that he was bound up with them. This led to the comforting conviction that in the last resort he was bound to come to their aid. Thus the people of Moab felt that Chemosh their god might on occasion be angry with them and punish them. But when things got serious they could rely on him to help them. He had to. In the last resort his future was bound up with theirs. If they perished so did he. And in this they were, of course, quite right. Moab has perished and where is Chemosh?
But Israel did not have this comfortable thought. Israel could point to a definite time when God entered into covenant with the nation. He had existed before that. And if he had done it once he could do it again. Israel never made the mistake of thinking that God must save the people if he was to save himself. He could say, 'be holy, because I am holy' (Lv. 11:44). They knew that being in covenant with God did not bind God to come to their aid no matter what. They knew that being in covenant with God meant rather that they must strive to be like him no matter what. The concept of covenant gave a moral emphasis to the religion of the Hebrews that was most important for the future of all mankind.
THE NEW COVENANT
But unfortunately, though Israel knew what was implied in being the people of God, Israel did not live up to that knowledge. Like the men of Ephraim, 'they did not keep God's covenant and refused to live by his law' (Ps. 78:10); 'they kept on sinning', 'their hearts were not loyal to him, they were not faithful to his covenant' (Ps. 78:32,37). Isaiah complained, 'they have disobeyed the laws, violated the statutes and broken the everlasting covenant' (Is. 24:5), and Jeremiah, 'Both the house of Israel and the house of Judah have broken the covenant' (Je. 11:10; see also 22:9; 34:18). Ezekiel tells the people that the Lord said, 'you have despised my oath by breaking the covenant' (Ezk. 16:59). The accusation of covenant breaking is clear and it is repeated. Even though God remained faithful there was no real covenant when his covenant partner broke the covenant so consistently.
It was the case, as we have seen, that Israel was not brought into the covenant on condition that she kept the laws. But it was also the case that being the people of God involved living as the people of God, and the people did not live like that. They kept sinning and sinning and sinning. And their prophets kept telling and telling and telling them that they were placing themselves at a distance from God and cutting themselves off from his blessing. It was a hopeless situation. It was hopeless because every attempt to bring the people back and get them to keep the covenant meant trying to do something new with the same old men. Yet God was a covenant-keeping God. He said, 'I will never break my covenant with you' (Jdg. 2:1). What was to be done when a covenant-keeping God was linked to a covenant-breaking people?
The prophet Jeremiah tells of a radical new solution. He passes on this word from God:
This means a radical break with the past. It represents a new approach to the problem of man's relationship to God. It is not that God's high standards are relaxed for one moment. God's law is to be put into their minds and written on their hearts. The moral law is being given a central place. The difference is that the law is now part of the people. It is within them, transforming them. They obey it because of what they are. This is more than the obeying of an external set of commands and ordinances. It points to a whole-hearted transformation. God's people will want to do God's will with mind and heart. Far from there being a relaxation of moral demands or moral standards, these are heightened because they are now to be part of God's people's innermost being.
This involves a knowledge of the LORD. Those who have God's law within them will not need to be told to know the LORD. They will have a personal knowledge of him and this no matter how humble they may be in the world's eyes, or for that matter how great. Neither smallness nor greatness is a disqualification. Not many people in the Old Testament are said to have actually known the LORD. In those days it was rather an aspiration, something that people might greatly long for, but which they felt they were not likely to attain. The new covenant would see a radical alteration of this situation. It would bring all God's people into a personal knowledge of him.
The new covenant would be based on forgiveness, not on a profession of readiness to keep the law of God. It is true that throughout the Old Testament there is a good deal about sin and what must be done about it; and it is true that the sacrificial system bears witness to a concern for sin, a recognition that sin is serious, that it is not to be forgiven lightly, but that God has provided a way of forgiveness. But in the making of the covenant at Sinai the emphasis was not on this. The emphasis was rather on the people's repeated declaration that they would obey God's commandments. Their failure to obey vitiated the old covenant, and this makes it very interesting that the new covenant stressed forgiveness. The new covenant would not be vitiated in the same way as the first covenant was. It makes full allowance for the weakness of sinful people. The fact that sinners can know God rests on the other fact that God has made provision for their sins and their wickedness to be put away decisively. How that will be done the prophet Jeremiah does not say. It is the fact and not the means that he sets forth. But as to the fact he is in no doubt. Forgiveness is basic to the new covenant.
The passage in Jeremiah is the most important passage for the new covenant but it is by no means the only one. Jeremiah tells us later that God will make 'an everlasting covenant with them' (Je. 32:40; so also 50:5), and he brings out the inwardness of it with God's promise, 'I will give them singleness of heart and action' (Je. 32:39). Ezekiel is another prophet who looks forward to God's 'everlasting covenant' (Ezk. 16:60; 37:26); it will be 'a covenant of peace' (Ezk. 34:25; 37:26). Isaiah makes a most important point when he says that the Servant will be 'a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles' (Is. 42:6). The Old Testament normally concentrates on Israel, so this linking of the Gentiles with the covenant is very significant. Isaiah also has the thought that the covenant will be everlasting (Is. 55:3; 61:8) and he has the inner strengthening idea with the thoughts of the Spirit being on the people and of God's words being in their mouths (Is. 59:21).
Such passages make it clear that the prophets did not take Israel's failure as final. They could not imagine that the covenantmaking and covenant-keeping God would remain content with a broken covenant and a lost world. They looked forward confidently to a day when he would intervene decisively and deal effectively with the problem of human sin. And they interpreted that intervention in part in covenant terms - there would be a new covenant.
COVENANT AND TESTAMENT
When we turn to the New Testament we are confronted immediately with a linguistic problem: What is the precise meaning we are to give the Greek word diatheke? Among the Greeks generally this is the ordinary word for a last will and testament, the document in which a man sets forth what he wants done with his property after his death. There is a little scholarly dispute about whether in one or two unusual cases the word may have another meaning, but none as to the fact that in the overwhelming number of cases it means a will, a testament. In both classical Greek and in the papyri it is used often and almost invariably, perhaps invariably, in this sense. This is the way Christians have traditionally understood the word and the title-pages of our Bibles bear witness to this understanding with their references to 'he Old Testament' and 'he New Testament'.
But when the Old Testament was translated into Greek it was this term, diatheke, that was used as the rendering for the Hebrew berth, 'covenant'. This is not an occasional phenomenon, for it happens 277 times. There cannot be the slightest doubt that the translators used diatheke to convey the meaning 'covenant'. They passed over the usual word for covenant, syntheke, and instead used the term which elsewhere was the regular word for a will.
The sixty-four thousand dollar question for interpreters of the New Testament is thus, 'In the New Testament are we to understand diatheke as "testament" or as "covenant"?' Or, 'Do the New Testament writers follow the usage of Greek writings generally or that of the translators of the Old Testament?' The answer is not simple, for they seem sometimes to have followed the one and sometimes the other. Perhaps they did not make as sharp a distinction between the two concepts as we do. The basic idea in diatheke is that of an authoritative disposition, and this applies equally well to a covenant in which God dictates the terms and a will in which we find the directions of a deceased person.
Perhaps we should notice that in ancient Greece a will did not have precisely the same function as with us today. Property automatically became the possession of a man's children when he died and a will was not needed. The children performed important duties in connection with the burial and kept alive the memory of the deceased. But if he had no children, what then? He adopted a son and made a will directing that his property go to the adopted son. As a condition of receiving the property the son would carry out the religious and other duties laid upon him.
Such an adoption was irrevocable. An adopted son could not be repudiated. If a man had no son and adopted an heir and then later had a natural son, he could not disown the boy he had adopted. The adopted son retained his status as a son and the property was shared with the natural son. Actually the adopted son was somewhat better off than the natural son, for the natural son could be disowned and cut off from the family and his inheritance, whereas the adopted son could not. There is one diverting passage which tells of a natural son who had been disowned, then later forgiven and received back into the family. It must have been a tempestuous household, for later the father decided to disown him again. In the document we have the boy claims that his father is not entitled to do this, for he now has the status of an adopted son!
All this emphasizes the fact that among the Greeks diatheke stood for something laid down with final authority. One cannot bargain with a testator to get better terms. He is dead. It is a case of 'Take it or leave it'. Now we have seen that in the Old Testament, while there are some important covenants among men where negotiation is quite proper, the most significant references to covenant and far and away the most numerous concern covenants which God makes with men. Here God lays down the terms. Man cannot negotiate with God in order to get him to change his mind and produce another agreement that better suits the human recipient of his favours. It may well be that the translators of the Old Testament felt that syntheke, the ordinary word for a compact, would convey the wrong impression if used of covenants which God made. It was too much concerned with two-sidedness, with conceding as little as one must and getting as much as one can. It stood for making a deal and that the best deal that one's negotiating skills made possible. This was not what the Old Testament writers were talking about, so the translators forsook the word that might well have conveyed this meaning. Instead they used a word which indicates an authoritative laying down of the terms. And once they had made their choice on the basis of the covenants God made, they had to use it for those other covenants too.
When we turn to the New Testament it seems indisputable that sometimes diatheke means a covenant and sometimes a will. It means 'covenant' in such a passage as Galatians 3:15, where Paul takes an example, as he says, 'from everyday life. Just as no-one can set aside or add to a human covenant that has been duly established, so it is in this case.' So far the words could refer either to a covenant or to a will. But Paul immediately goes on,
The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. The Scripture does not say 'and to seeds', meaning many people, but 'and to your seed', meaning one person, who is Christ. What I mean is this: The law, introduced 430 years later, does not set aside the covenant previously established by God.... (Gal. 3:16-17).
This second use of diatheke shows plainly that Paul is referring to the covenant God made with Abraham. The term must mean 'covenant' here.
But we come to a different conclusion if we turn to Hebrews 9:16-17: 'In the case of a will (diatheke), it is necessary to prove the death of the one who made it, because a will (diatheke again) is in force only when somebody has died....' It cannot be said that a covenant is of force only when someone has died. On the contrary, it is very much concerned with the living. In this passage our term must mean a will.
It is thus clear that we must be on our guard if we would see which meaning is in mind in a given passage. The question is an important one and A. Deissmann argued forcefully for the view that in the New Testament we should always see the meaning 'will'. He said forthrightly: 'no one in the Mediterranean world in the first century A.D. would have thought of finding in the word diatheke the idea of "covenant." St. Paul would not, and in fact did not.'3 Shortly afterwards he writes, 'This one point concerns more than the merely superficial question whether we are to write "New Testament" or "New Covenant" on the titlepage of the sacred volume; it becomes ultimately the great question of all religious history: a religion of grace, or a religion of works?'4 But though Deissmann thus holds his position strongly and reminds us that our traditional use of the terms'Old Testament' and 'New Testament' depends on our taking the term in the sense 'will', his position cannot be sustained. In the example we noted in Galatians 3:15-17 it seems impossible exegesis to take diatheke in any sense other than 'covenant'. Deissmann's point that Christianity is a religion of grace rather than of works can be taken just as well when the word is understood as 'covenant'. We must not try to twist passages to make them fit the meaning 'will'. As we shall see, there are many New Testament passages which require the meaning'covenant'.
Before we leave Deissmann we might give a little more attention to his reference to the title-page of the Bible. We are so used to 'Old Testament' and 'New Testament' that we rarely stop to reflect that in the way we use the word 'testament' these are very curious titles for groups of writings. We would grasp the meaning better if we took the other translation and understood them as 'the Old Covenant' and 'the New Covenant'. The very title-page of the Bible bears witness to the importance of the covenant idea. The writings of Moses and David and the prophets and others are those of the old covenant. But the making of the new covenant by the death of Jesus is a radically new way to God and demands writings of its own to set it forth. Now it is clear that we do not come to God by keeping the law of Moses. We do not come to God by offering animals in sacrifice. We do not come to God by meticulously carrying out all the detailed regulations of the Old Testament. We come to God through Jesus Christ and more specifically by entering into the new covenant he established by his death.
CHRIST'S NEW COVENANT
When Jesus took the bread and broke it, speaking of it as his body, and when he took the wine and said, 'This is my blood of the new covenant', he was indeed referring to the Holy Communion and to his death, but he was also referring to the passage in Jeremiah 31. I do not see how we can possibly import the meaning 'will' into this passage. Jesus is saying that the old prophecy is being fulfilled and that the shedding of his blood is an integral part of the fulfilment. He speaks of his blood as poured out for many' (Mk. 14:24), which clearly means that his blood was shed to secure the forgiveness of the many. Jesus is instituting a rite which will be carried on through the centuries in remembrance of him and he is linking it both with the forgiveness his death will bring to believers and with the new covenant to which the Old Testament writers looked forward.
We have seen that in the Old Testament the idea of covenant was of the utmost importance. No idea is more fundamental to the Old Testament than that God has in love chosen a particular people and has brought them into covenant relationship with himself. The whole life of Israel flowed from this. The laws they followed were laws given by the covenant God, and the sacrifices they offered were those laid down as part of the outworking of the covenant. Covenant dominated everything. Walther Eichrodt has said,
To speak of the making of a new covenant accordingly is not to suggest some minor modification within Judaism. It is to replace what had been seen as central with something new. The cross of Christ is right at the centre. It transforms everything. The sacrifices which were at the heart of the temple have no meaning once the sacrifice of Christ has been offered. The Jews during the New Testament period insisted on the centrality of the law and the fundamental importance of keeping the law as the way of salvation. But this insistence melts away before the insistence on grace.
Jesus, then, is instituting an observance that was to have a profound meaning for his followers through the centuries. He is pointing out that it is the fulfilment of prophecy, for Jeremiah's ,new covenant' is now a reality. He is emphasizing that the forgiveness of sin flows from his death as the sacrifice that inaugurates the new covenant.
And this is absolutely revolutionary. Jesus is replacing the whole way of approach to God that his Jewish contemporaries emphasized so strongly and loved so much. He is pointing to a new and living way.
THE PEOPLE OF GOD
In other New Testament passages we find out a good deal about this new covenant. On the negative side, it is not brought about by the keeping of the law. This is quite clear in Galatians 3, where Paul points out that the law, which was so much the pride of the Jews of his day, was given 430 years after God had made his covenant with Abraham. He argues that once a covenant has been duly established no-one can alter its terms. Thus the law cannot affect the approach to God which was made plain in the case of Abraham and which in the end reaches out to all the nations of the earth (Gal. 3:15-17; cf. Gn. 12:3). Paul goes on to pose an antithesis: 'For if the' inheritance depends on the law, then it no longer depends on a promise; but God in his grace gave it to Abraham through a promise' (verse 18). We can't have it both ways. Law and grace are mutually exclusive as ways of salvation. The conclusion is plain. The law had its place in the purposes of God, but that place was not the bringing of salvation. God has made it abundantly clear in his dealings with Abraham that the only way is the way of grace. Nothing can alter that, certainly not the law. The law was 430 years too late.
Elsewhere Paul makes it clear that'what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering' (Rom. 8:3). The law will not do. The way of salvation depends on Christ's atoning death, not on man's keeping of the law. It is clear throughout the New Testament that God's way is the way of grace and always has been. The place of the law is important, but it is not the way of salvation.
THE COVENANT WITH ABRAHAM
An interesting feature of New Testament teaching is that the covenant that God made with Abraham is consistently regarded as being on a different footing from the covenant at Sinai. The new covenant takes the place of the Sinai covenant; there is all the difference in the world between a covenant which places the written law in a central position and one which is essentially inward, one where the law is written on the heart.
But the covenant with Abraham is different. That had no reference to the keeping of law; in it God promised to bless all the people of the earth through Abraham. The Abrahamic covenant is not superseded by the new covenant but remains in full force. We have seen how Paul brought this out in his letter to the Galatians. We see its importance also in the song of Zechariah which Luke records. That aged priest praised God 'because he has come and has redeemed his people. He has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David' (Lk. 1:68-69). Clearly this is a reference to the coming of Christ to bring men salvation. It might conceivably be followed by a reference to the new covenant. But the song goes on to the way God has acted 'to show mercy to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant, the oath he swore to our father Abraham' (verses 72-73). The coming of Christ did not mean the end of the covenant with Abraham. On the contrary it is the way the covenant with Abraham is brought to its consummation.
Paul has an important passage about Abraham in which much the same point is made, though without specific reference to the covenant (Rom. 4). He argues that Abraham was justified by faith, not works, and that circumcision, which was, of course, the sign of the covenant (Gn. 17:10-11), was 'a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised' (Rom. 4:11). This enables him to argue that Abraham is 'the father of all who believe' (ibid.), whether they are circumcised or not, and again that Abraham is the father of all believers (verses 16-17). Even though he does not use the covenant terminology here it is plain that Paul is thinking of Abraham as having come into right relationship with God, a right relationship which Christians in Paul's own day shared.
We should draw a similar conclusion from Paul's allegory of Sarah and Hagar, two wives of Abraham. Sarah was a free woman but Hagar a slave, and Paul takes them as representing 'two covenants' (Gal. 4:24). Hagar 'stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present city of Jerusalem, because she is in slavery with her children' (verse 25). Clearly this refers to the Judaism which Paul repudiates. It is the way of law and thus of bondage. But in contrast 'the Jerusalem that is above is free, and she is our mother'; 'brothers, we are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman' (verses 26, 31). Again it is the way shown in the covenant with Abraham that is of permanent significance. We Christians, Paul is arguing, have come to God by Abraham's way, the way of trust. We are included in the covenant with Abraham, a covenant of grace and faith and freedom.
A BETTER COVENANT
The writer to the Hebrews is especially fond of covenant as a way of looking at Christ's saving work. In fact he uses the word diatheke seventeen times, while all the rest of the writers of the New Testament manage only sixteen between them. Clearly he liked the term and found it a satisfactory and helpful way of bringing out important truths.
Repeatedly he assures his readers that the covenant Jesus made is a'better' covenant than the old one. When Christ'became a priest', God swore an oath that this priesthood would be 'for ever'. Our author reasons, 'Because of this oath, Jesus has become the guarantee of a better covenant' (Heb. 7:21-22). There was something firm about this covenant, backed as it was by an oath. There was nothing equivalent in the covenant on Sinai (the writer explicitly makes the point that the Aaronic priests had no divine oath behind their priesthood, verse 20).
A little later we find that the new covenant was 'founded on better promises' (Heb. 8:6). The writer does not detail what these promises were, but it is clear from his whole writing that he had especially in mind the promise of forgiveness of sin. That was written into the new covenant in Jeremiah 31:34 and it is in mind in the New Testament wherever the new covenant is mentioned. The wonderful thing about the new way is that it is all of grace. Our sins are forgiven. We do not merit our salvation in any way, but receive it as God's free gift. There is nothing better than this promise. Our author goes on to emphasize this by pointing out that'if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another' (Heb. 8:7). This leads him on to a long quotation from Jeremiah 31, which he cites as showing that God did in fact find fault. The old covenant was not satisfactory. It was replaced with a better one. We should perhaps add to this the fact that in the new covenant the blood 'speaks a better word than the blood of Abel' (Heb. 12:24). This takes us right back to the beginning of things. The implication is that the new covenant is 'better' than anything that has been since the infancy of the human race.
Paul can also argue about the superiority of the new covenant. He tells the Corinthians that it is a covenant 'not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life' (2 Cor. 3:6). Clearly a covenant that gives life is better than one that kills. Paul's point here is not unlike the one he makes in Galatians 4: the new covenant spells freedom over against the old which is so much involved with the keeping of specific regulations. He adds the point that the new covenant is more glorious than the old. He reminds his readers of the time Moses' face shone so that it had to be covered (Ex. 34:29-35). He is in no doubt but that the old covenant was glorious. But he points out that that glory was no more than temporary ('fading', 2 Cor. 3:7), which means that it was inferior to the glory that does not fade away, the glory that arises from 'the ministry of the Spirit' (verse 8). He goes on to detail other ways in which the new covenant is more glorious, but they all boil down to this, that the new covenant brings an effectual and lasting salvation, whereas the old ends in nothing but condemnation.
That the superiority of the new is to be seen in the forgiveness it brings, in contrast to the old and its demands which men could not fulfil, comes out in a number of places. It is instructive to notice the way the writer to the Hebrews uses the quotation from Jeremiah 31 which foretells the establishing of the new covenant. In chapter 8 he quotes it at some length, beginning with the promise of the new covenant and not stopping until he reaches the words about forgiveness (Heb. 8:8-12). Later he refers to the same prophecy of Jeremiah, but quotes it much more shortly. The second time he cites the words about the making of a covenant and the writing of God's law in people's hearts and minds. 'Then he adds: "Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more"' (Heb. 10:16-17). He mentions just those two things: the inwardness of the new covenant and the forgiveness of sins it brings about. He omits everything else. Plainly it is the inwardness of the new covenant and especially its provision for effectual forgiveness of sins that matter to him. The new covenant does not merely tell us about forgiveness. It brings it.
Once our author makes the point that even pious people who lived under the first covenant had their sins forgiven only through what Christ has done. 'Christ is the mediator of a new covenant,' he writes, 'that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance-now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant' (Heb. 9:15). Pious people of old approached God by way of the sacrifices. But 'it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins' (Heb. 10:4). All that the sacrifices effected was a 'reminder of sins' (verse 3). What really took those sins away once and for all was the sacrificial death of Jesus. The offering of animal sacrifice was the way God mediated forgiveness in the days of the first covenant, but it was the death of Christ, not that of the animals, that really delivered people from their sins. There is no other way of dealing with sin and obviously this makes the new covenant superior not only to the old one, but to any other that might conceivably be devised. It is God's way of putting away our sin and it puts sin away once and for all.
Sometimes there is the thought that in the new covenant people are consecrated or set apart for God. Thus we read of 'the blood of the covenant that sanctified' the Christian (Heb. 10:29). This writer does not use the 'sanctify' words in quite the same sense as does Paul. With Paul they refer to the process of becoming holy, the progressive growth in grace. But in Hebrews it is rather the initial act of being set apart to be God's. We should probably see this also in the passage about Abel to which we have already referred. Our author speaks of coming 'to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel' (Heb. 12:24). The sprinkling of blood points to cleansing and consecration. Abel's blood cried to God for vengeance (Gn. 4:10), but the blood of Jesus brings forgiveness and consecration to the service of God. The forgiven belong to God. This may be seen also in the opening greeting in 1 Peter where election is 'for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by his blood' (1 Pet. 1:2). The sprinkling of blood is linked with obedience and it thus points to that setting apart to be God's that we have just seen in Hebrews.
One further thing we should certainly notice. In his great benediction at the end of the letter the writer to the Hebrews says, 'May the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep...' (Heb. 13:20). With this we should notice his references to Christ as having suffered 'once for all' (e.g. Heb. 9:12). The main point in the argument right through this letter is that the new way that Christ made open to God by his death is God's final way. There were preliminary indications of various kinds in the Old Testament, but all that they did was to prepare the way for the coming of Jesus. In him is God's final word. His death for sin, Son of God as he is, puts sin away finally and definitely. 'There is no longer any sacrifice for sin' (Heb. 10:18). The old way was superseded by what Christ did, but his followers need not fear that the way he established will ever be replaced while the world stands. There is an utter finality about the new covenant. It is eternal. To the end of the earth and to the end of time there is no other way.
To see the death of Jesus as establishing a new covenant, then, is to see it as a radical re-shaping of all religion. It is the offering of the sacrifice that not only establishes a covenant but does so by taking sin away. This is clear in the record of Jesus' words in Matthew: 'This is my blood of the (new) covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins' (Mt. 26:28). This being so, there is no need for the multiplicity of regulations governing approach to God which were so characteristic of Judaism and against which Paul made such vigorous protest. The way to God is now seen to be through Christ and through him alone. 'Salvation is found in no-one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved' (Acts 4:12).
As Paul saw so clearly, this gives us a freedom that is not found elsewhere. We are not bound to approach God by this or that liturgical path, or by keeping this or that series of regulations. We come boldly in the name of Christ. All else falls away. Nothing else matters. Of course, being a follower of Christ is a whole-hearted and full-time affair. But it is this because this is involved in the living out of what it means to belong to Christ.
Every Christian enters the covenant by faith, and here the references to the covenant with Abraham as of continuing force are important. Abraham is the classic example of faith for the New Testament writers and to be involved in the covenant with Abraham means to live by faith as that patriarch did. Not all the descendants of Abraham were caught up in his covenant with God, and Paul specifically makes the point that in the sense that matters Abraham's children are those who believe, whether they are his physical descendants or not, whether they are circumcised or not. And, of course, a consideration of the place of faith in the covenant calls us to consider the reality of our faith. Without faith, there is no membership in the covenant.
The Holy Communion is a constant reminder of the place of the covenant. Every time we eat the bread and drink the wine in that service we 'proclaim the Lord's death until he comes' (1 Cor. 11:26). We proclaim to others and to ourselves our deep conviction that the Lord's death is central. It is by that death alone that our sins are put away and that we are brought into right relationship with God. Our participation is a pledge that we, whose covenant with God has been established at such cost, will live in a manner befitting the covenant.
As we saw in Hebrews and as it is at least implied throughout the New Testament, the new covenant is God's final way. The covenant is eternal. There is no way of improving on an eternal covenant. Jesus is 'the guarantee of a better covenant'.
For further study
1. Consider the covenant with Abraham (Gn. 15; 17:1-7, 19-21; Lk. 1:67-75; Rom. 4). What may we learn from these passages about the Christian way?
2.Compare the passages about the old covenant (Ex. 24:1-8) and the new covenant (Je. 31:31-34). What do they teach us about the new and living way?
3. What light do the passages that speak of the institution of the Lord's Supper shed on the new covenant? (See Mt. 26:26-29; Mk. 14:22-25; Lk. 22:14-20; but especially 1 Cor. 11:23-34.)
4. The epistle to the Hebrews speaks of the new covenant as 'a better covenant' (Heb. 7:22). From your reading of the whole letter, in what ways is it 'better'?
5. What changes should you make in your own life as a result of your close study of the new covenant?
Sacrifice is a term we use quite often, but in a very different sense from that which the ancients gave it. We dimly realize that once there were people who literally offered animals in sacrifice to their gods and we perhaps reflect that there are still some who do just that. But when we use the word it is almost always in a metaphorical sense. We are not talking about any offering of animals. We are talking about some act we do at cost to ourselves and for the benefit of others (or sometimes for some future good for ourselves). Thus we may speak of the sacrifices some parents make to give their children a good education. Ancients like me remember that during the years of the Second World War we were frequently called upon to make sacrifices to assist our country. That meant forgoing comfort and pay rises and it involved making do with inferior substitutes instead of insisting on the superior article; on occasion it meant going without something altogether. Or we may speak of the sacrifices an athlete makes in training. For the greater good set before him in the future he forgoes present ease and leisure. All such usages bring out the idea of a deprivation of one kind or another. For us sacrifice means cost.
The idea of cost or personal deprivation is certainly involved in the way the people of the Bible used the expression. But they normally had a more specific idea in mind. They thought of the sacrifices offered up in the temple. There was a great variety in the forms of sacrifice and modem scholars usually find it impossible to put all sacrifice under any one heading as though to say, 'Sacrifice is this' or 'Sacrifice is that'. There is no one idea in sacrifice, no common source for all the varieties. Some of the Old Testament sacrifices were offerings of cereals or of liquids (wine mostly), but this class of offering does not feature prominently in the New Testament. There the references are mostly to the animal sacrifices and of these the Old Testament knows four main types: the burnt offering, the peace offering (which NIV renders 'fellowship offering'), the sin offering and the guilt offering. These are not often mentioned by name in the New Testament, though sometimes specific sacrifices are used as descriptions of the offering of Christ. Thus, according to NN, Paul speaks of God as 'sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering' (Rom. 8:3) and most would agree that the translation can be justified. Hebrews quotes from Psalm 40 a passage which includes the words, 'with burnt offerings and sin offerings you were not pleased' (Heb. 10:6; cf. verse 8). A scribe agreed with Jesus that 'to love your neighbour as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices' (Mk. 12:33). The Passover sacrifice is spoken of once (1 Cor. 5:7) and, while the term 'Day of Atonement' is not actually mentioned, the Day of Atonement sacrifices are clearly in mind on at least one occasion (Heb. 9:7).
But this kind of specific reference is rare. It is more usual to have a general reference, such as when we read that'Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God' (Eph. 5:2). Again, Christ'has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself' (Heb. 9:26). We can scarcely doubt that sacrifice is in mind when we read the words of John the Baptist, 'Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!' (Jn. 1:29) or those of the Seer of Revelation: 'Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain' (Rev. 5:6). We should also see sacrifice behind many of the passages which refer to blood, such as 'To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood' (Rev. 1:5).
There cannot be the slightest doubt that sometimes the men of the New Testament used 'sacrifice' as a helpful category when they wanted to bring out something of what Christ's death meant. It thus becomes important for us to find out, if we can, what this kind of language meant to those who wrote it and those who first read it. This means, in the first instance, that we must examine what the Old Testament says about sacrifices and about the blood that was shed in them.
We immediately come across a difficulty, because of the number and the complexity of the references to sacrifice in the books of the Old Testament. This is especially true of Leviticus, which has detailed regulations for most of the sacrifices. Often they mean little to people like us who have never seen an animal sacrifice, and in any case the sheer bulk of the regulations makes it easy for us to get bogged down in the multiplicity of the rules and the occasions. On a first reading it is bewildering. But it may help put some order into this apparent chaos if we notice that, despite the obvious differences between the sacrifices, there is an impressive similarity in broad general outline. When any of the four great animal sacrifices was being offered we may discern five or six stages (see the table on p. 46).
1. The 'bringing near'
The first stage was when the worshipper 'drew near' the animal he proposed to offer. To us this seems no more than the necessary preliminary to a sacrifice and an obvious one at that. How could a sacrifice be offered unless the worshipper brought the animal near? But to the Hebrews this was seen as a significant action, so much so that the causal form of the verb 'to draw near', i.e. that form of the verb that means 'to make to draw near' or 'to bring near', became a technical expression with the meaning 'to sacrifice'. It was not necessary to say to what one drew near or what it was that one drew near. The verb 'to make to draw near' was enough to convey the idea of sacrifice.
There were of course some implications. When a worshipper made an animal draw near he had the intention of worshipping. He wanted to honour God, to get rid of his sin, to live in fellowship with God and man. He came obediently, bringing the prescribed offering. For most sacrifices the young of one of the domestic animals was specified (ox, sheep or goat, in some cases pigeons; some animals were excluded such as the horse or the donkey). It must be ceremonially clean and, with a partial exception in the case of certain freewill offerings (Lv. 22:23), it must be without blemish, perfect of its kind.
2. The laying on of hands
The worshipper laid his hand on the head of the animal (Lv. 1:4, etc.). The Hebrew verb means something like leaning on the animal. It was a firm contact, not a casual touch. The meaning of this is disputed. Some hold that it meant that the worshipper was identifying himself with the offering. If this is the way of it, the action said, This is my sacrifice. This is the animal I am offering.' It certainly did this at least. But others think that the action was a symbolic transferral of the sins of the worshipper to the animal, so that when it died it was taking the punishment due to the worshipper for his sins. It was being treated as the sins it bore deserved. They hold that this is the obvious symbolism and that it is supported by the fact that in later times at least there are passages which tell us that, as the worshipper laid his hands on the animal, he confessed his sins. It is not easy to see what the laying on of hands means if there is no symbolic transfer to the animal which was to die of the sins being confessed.
3. The killing of the animal
The animal was killed by the worshipper. If the offering was a bird the priest would perform this action (Lv. 1:14-15; 5:7-8, etc.), but this was probably on account of the small size of the victim. The next stage was the manipulation of the blood, and with a little bird there may have been a problem in having one person do the killing and another collect and use the blood. But for animals it was certainly the worshipper who performed the act of killing (Lv. 1:3-5; 3:1-2, etc.). In this way he gave symbolic expression to his recognition that his sin merited the severest punishment. He himself performed the act which set forth the truth that he deserved death.
4. The manipulation of the blood
So far the actions have been the same whatever the sacrifice. It did not matter whether it was a burnt offering, a peace offering, a sin offering or a guilt offering. In all cases stages 1-3 were identical. Differences emerge with stage 4. Here everything depends on which sacrifice is being offered.
And it is here that the work of the priest begins. Up to now it has been the worshipper who did everything. But at stage 4 it is the priest who collects the blood and proceeds to use it. At least in the later temple he collected it in a conical vessel. This shape made it impossible for him to set it down and this meant that the priest must move without delay to the prescribed actions so that the blood had no chance to settle and coagulate.
If the sacrifice was a burnt offering the priest was required to 'bring the blood and sprinkle it against the altar on all sides' (Lv. 1:5, 11); if a bird was offered its blood was 'drained out on the side of the altar' (Lv. 1:15). The procedure was the same for a peace offering (Lv. 3:2, 8, 13). The big differences came when the sacrifice was a sin offering and here it depended on the person(s) for whom the sacrifice was being offered. If it was for a priest or for the whole congregation the blood was sprinkled seven times in front of the curtain that marked off the Holy of Holies. Then the priest put some of the blood on the horns of the altar of incense (a small altar in front of the curtain) and poured the rest of it at the base of the altar of burnt offering (Lv. 4:5-7, 16-18). When the sacrifice was offered on behalf of a sinning ruler or a wayward member of the community, there was no sevenfold sprinkling in front of the curtain. The blood was put on the horns and poured out at the base of the altar of burnt offering (Lv. 4:25, 30, 34). Where the offering was a bird part of the blood was sprinkled 'against the side of the altar; the rest of the blood must be drained out at the base of the altar' (Lv. 5:9).
It is not completely clear what was done in the case of a guilt offering. We read that its blood 'is to be sprinkled against the altar on all sides' (Lv. 7:2), which is exactly the provision made for the burnt and peace offerings. This would lead us to think that the blood was treated in the same way in these three offerings. But in Leviticus 5 there seems to be no great difference between the guilt and the sin offering and some hold that the same ritual was observed for both. In support of this it may be pointed out that there is one law for them both (Lv. 7:7). Some scholars hold that the guilt offering had more to do with offences against one's neighbour and the sin offering with those against God. They point out that a monetary compensation goes with some at any rate of the guilt offerings (Lv. 6:5). But there is also a monetary compensation when the sin is against God (Lv. 5:1416), so this does not prove much. The fact is that we do not have enough information to be dogmatic. But for our present purpose that does not matter. We simply note that the solemnity of the sin offering was heightened by an elaborate blood ritual and that this must have had the effect of making it plain that sin could not be taken lightly.
5. The burning on the altar
Some part of the animal was always burnt on the altar, this apparently being regarded as God's portion as it ascended heavenwards in the smoke rising from the altar fire. It was 'an aroma pleasing to the LORD' (Lv. 1:9, 13, 19). In the case of the burnt offering the whole animal was consumed in the altar fire, so that stage 5 completed that sacrifice. In the case of the other three, certain prescribed parts were burnt on the altar, mostly the internal fat. No difference appears to have been made between one of these sacrifices and the others. The sin offering is specifically said to involve the same parts as the peace offering (Lv. 4:8-10, 26, 31, 35), while the description of the relevant parts in the guilt offering seems to match that of the peace offering (Lv. 7:3-5; cf. 3:3-5).
6. The disposal of the rest of the carcase
As we have seen, there was no stage 6 in the burnt offering. The whole carcase had been burnt up in stage 5, though we should notice that the destruction was not quite total - the hide of the animal belonged to the officiating priest (Lv. 7:8). If the sin offering was being made for a priest or for the congregation prescribed parts were burnt on the altar, then the remainder of the animal was taken to a clean place'outside the camp' and there burnt up, hide, flesh, head, legs, inner parts, offal - all are specified (Lv. 4:11-12, 19-20). If, however, the offering was being made for a non-priestly individual the flesh was to be eaten by the officiating priest (Lv. 6:25-26) and other priests (verse 29). A further regulation links the guilt offering with the sin offering: They belong to the priest who makes atonement with them. The priest who offers a burnt offering for anyone may keep its hide for himself' (Lv. 7:7-8). This last sentence looks like a regulation about the burnt offering tacked on to rules about the guilt offering, but it may be held to show that the hide was a regular priestly perquisite in all sacrifices. If not, we do not know what happened to the hide in the other offerings.
The big difference was with the peace offerings. The usual parts were burnt on the altar, as we have noticed. Then prescribed parts were set aside for the officiating priest, namely the breast and the right thigh (Lv. 7:31-34). The rest of the animal was eaten by the worshippers (Lv. 7:15-21). This made the offering of such a sacrifice a very joyful occasion. People would come together in festive mood and enjoy a good meal as the consummation of the act of sacrifice. This kind of sacrifice was offered on great occasions, often in conjunction with burnt offerings. Thus we find the combination when the covenant was renewed under Joshua with the conquest of Canaan nicely under way (Jos. 8:31) and peace offerings were made when Saul's kingship was confirmed (1 Sa. 11:15). The dedication of the Temple was an obvious occasion for holy joy and Solomon offered a large number of peace offerings (1 Ki. 8:63). But these offerings might also be offered in times of difficulty, for example when the Israelites 'sat weeping before the LORD' after a defeat in battle (Jdg. 20:26; 21:4). A curious example is that of the woman 'dressed like a prostitute and with crafty intent' (Pr. 7:10) who seduced the simple young man, saying among other things 'I have peace offerings at home' (verse 14). Clearly, in such a case, the peace offering was little more than a conventional religious symbol, the real thing being the enjoyment of the meat meal.
ADVANTAGES AND DEFECTS
Such in broad outline was the sacrificial system. It had some clear advantages. Nobody who came thoughtfully to God by the way of sacrifice could be in any doubt but that sin was a serious matter. It could not be put aside by a light-hearted wave of the hand but required the shedding of blood. And it was not fuzzy and indefinite. Worshippers knew what they had to do. It held out to them the prospect of fellowship with God. People were not left to wonder whether and how they could approach him. They had a clear-cut, definite path by which they could approach with assurance. The striking ritual, when duly carried out by people who came with proper internal dispositions, must have been a valuable expression of religious feeling. The devotion of the worshippers would have been stirred and stimulated. An essential element in the sacrificial approach was the element of cost. David could say to Araunah, 'I will not sacrifice to the LORD my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing' (2 Sa. 24:24). No-one who came to God by the way of offering the best in his flock would put a low value on the privilege of such an approach. He would realize, as many of us today do not, that the service of God must cost us something.
But if there were important values in the sacrificial system there were also some demerits. The very externality of the system made it possible for people to overlook the spiritual truths that sacrifice so splendidly enshrined. We can scarcely regard the lady of Proverbs 7 as a shining example of spiritual excellence, though she had evidently gone through the motions of offering sacrifice. The prophets made a frequent target of those who offered the sacrifices punctiliously but who passed over weightier matters like upright dealings with their fellows and genuine worship of God. In every age people have found it easier to perform outward actions than to live pure lives.
Many scholars hold that there is a serious defect in the whole system, in that the sins covered by the sacrifices were of the less serious kind, mostly sins of inadvertence and transgressions of ritual taboos. They point out that for sins done'with a high hand' ('defiantly', NIV) there was no sacrifice (Nu. 15:30). We should be clear that the whole sacrificial system was meant for people in covenant relationship with God, perhaps we might say for those in a state of grace. But sins that put them outside the covenant put them outside the sphere of the sacrifices also. Thus the sins of Eli's sons and his failure to restrain them were so serious that 'The guilt of Eli's house will never be atoned for by sacrifice or offering' (1 Sa. 3:14).
There were certainly limitations on the type of offence for which sacrifice might be offered. But it is surely going too far to say that the only sins for which it availed were sins of inadvertence and ritual defilement. There is not the slightest reason for thinking that the only sins covered were those specifically mentioned in Leviticus. The sins listed there can be no more than examples. It is impossible to hold that for centuries a whole nation carried on a sacrificial system as costly and elaborate as that in Leviticus while firmly believing that it availed for nothing more than a few comparatively minor offences while their real sins, those that deeply troubled their consciences, went unprovided for. Certainly in rabbinic times, when specific offences are mentioned, sacrifice was held to avail for serious sins and there is every reason for holding that this was the case from the very first.
The Old Testament never tells us in set terms why sacrifice was held to do away with sin. It was enough that it was so. We are told many times that sacrifice was offered 'to make atonement' or the like, and, as we have already noticed, the term 'blood' was often used. In the actual offering of the sacrifices the manipulation of the blood of the animal was a most important feature, especially in the sin offering. In modem discussions it is often held that it is the blood that gives us the clue to what sacrifice meant. It will repay us to devote attention to this aspect of our subject.
THE BLOOD
The word 'blood' is used in the Old Testament 362 times in all, so it is not exactly rare. On 103 occasions it refers to the blood of sacrifices, ninety-four being sacrifices in the Levitical system we have just been looking at. There are also half a dozen occasions when blood is mentioned in connection with the first Passover, while the other three refer to heathen sacrifices.
But far and away the most frequent use of the term is to indicate death with violence, a use which is found 203 times. For example we read, 'Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed' (Gn. 9:6), where the first occurrence of the word plainly points to murder and second equally plainly to execution. There are some subdivisions of this category, such as when we read of 'innocent blood'. There may be references to shedding innocent blood (which Manasseh did, 2 Ki. 24:4), or the idea may be found without the verb, as when Jeremiah told his persecutors that if they killed him they would'bring innocent blood' on themselves (Je. 26:15; NW inserts 'the guilt of' before 'innocent blood', but this is not in the Hebrew; it is enough to say simply 'innocent blood'). A dozen times there are references to one's blood being on oneself (e.g. Jos. 2:19), while five times there are references to the blood of animals which are done to death, as when Joseph's brothers killed a goat and dipped his robe of many colours in the blood (Gn. 37:31).
BLOOD AND LIFE
But the passages which have featured in recent discussions are those which connect life and blood. There are seven of these, of which perhaps the most striking is Leviticus 17:11: 'For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one's life.' Most would understand the last part of the verse differently, as in the translation of RSV : 'it is the blood that makes atonement, by reason of the life.' This understanding of the Hebrew signifies that it is because of the connection of life and blood that blood makes atonement. This is held to be reinforced by the prohibition of eating meat with the blood still in it. The passage in Leviticus goes on, 'None of you may eat blood, nor may an alien living among you eat blood.' It then provides that, when an Israelite hunts 'any animal or bird that may be eaten', he is to drain out the blood and cover it with earth 'because the life of every creature is its blood. That is why I have said to the Israelites, "You must not eat the blood of any creature, because the life of every creature is its blood; anyone who eats it must be cut off- (Lv. 17:12-24).
Such passages certainly show that the Israelites saw life and blood as closely connected and that they treated blood with great respect. This may be strengthened by noticing occasional metaphorical statements, such as that made on the occasion when three of David's mighty men broke through the ranks of the Philistines to bring their leader some water from the well near the gate of Bethlehem. David had longed for a drink from this well; but when the mighty men brought it at the risk of their lives he counted it too precious to drink. He poured it out as an offering to God, exclaiming, 'Is it not the blood of men who went at the risk of their lives?' (2 Sa. 23:17). But we must bear in mind that this is a metaphorical use. David is not suggesting that to drink the water would be literally to drink the blood or the lives of the men in question.
Then there are passages which put 'life' and 'blood' in parallel in such a way as to indicate (it is said) that there is not much difference between them. Thus we read, 'for your lifeblood I will surely demand an accounting... from each man, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of his fellow man' (Gn. 9:5). Or again, 'From oppression and violence he redeems their life; and precious is their blood in his sight' (Ps. 72:14, Rsv; NIV translates the expression that means 'redeems their life' as 'will rescue them'). But not too much should be deduced from passages like this. In the first example, while the words 'life' and 'blood' are used, the plain meaning is murder. If anyone murders another then God will hold him responsible. The passage lends no support to any view that rejects the link of blood with death. As for Psalm 72, there is certainly a parallelism between 'life' in the first clause and 'blood' in the second. But the meaning appears to be given by the very similar words in Psalm 116:15, 'Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints."Blood' is to be given its normal meaning in Psalm 72:14 and 'redeeming the life' in parallel will mean 'saving from death'.
The men of the Old Testament certainly saw life as specially linked with blood. Obviously, when the blood was taken from the body of an animal or man, so was the life. Some scholars have put a great deal of emphasis on this and have gone so far as to argue that, for the Hebrew, 'blood' spoke of life, not of death. Thus F. C. N. Hicks could write:
On this view blood and death have little to do with one another. It is life, not death, that blood signifies. When the priest stood by his altar with a basin full of blood it was not really blood: it was a basin full of life. It was the animal's hard luck that the priest could not get his basin full of life without the animal dying. But its death was no significant part of the ritual. It was the release of its life that mattered.
BLOOD AND DEATH
For all its popularity in some circles, however, this view is difficult to maintain on the evidence of the Old Testament. We have already seen that the Old Testament writers use the term 'blood' 203 times out of its 362 occurrences to denote violent death. Moreover, the use of the term for the blood of the sacrifices tends to be concentrated in Exodus-Leviticus, where it occurs seventy-eight times (nineteen in Exodus and fifty-nine in Leviticus), leaving only twenty-five references in all the rest of the Old Testament. But the use of 'blood' for violent death is not specially concentrated anywhere; it is widely spread throughout the whole Old Testament. It is simply not true, as Hicks says it is, that we must dissociate blood from the idea of death if we are to understand the Old Testament. The opposite is the case. With the exception of two books, right through the Old Testament the idea most commonly suggested by 'blood' is death by violence.
Actually the passages which link 'blood' and 'life' support this view too. It is only by taking a few passages very literally and ignoring the majority that the equation Hicks and Taylor seek can be made out. Careful examination of the'life is in the blood' passages actually shows that the meaning is 'life given up in death' and not simply 'life'. We have already noticed that in the words, 'for your lifeblood I will surely demand an accounting... from each man, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of his fellow man' (Gn. 9:5) what is in mind is murder, however close we may find the linguistic link between 'life' and 'blood'. The passage is telling us that anyone who kills another will be held responsible for the murder. It is nonsense to claim that such a passage speaks to us of life released and not death.
The blood of the sacrifices seems to mean much the same. We have seen that in Leviticus 17:11 the blood is closely connected with atonement and this is the case in other places also. But this should not be exaggerated. Atonement is not usually specifically linked with blood; the priest is simply required to manipulate the blood in such and such a way. A dozen times, however, there is a connection in the style of Leviticus 17:11. For example, we read of a bull and a goat'whose blood was brought into the Most Holy Place to make atonement' (Lv. 16:27). Passages like this are seized upon as proving that atonement is made, not by death, but by the offering of life.
But consider this very similar passage where murder is being discussed: 'Bloodshed pollutes the land, and atonement cannot be made for the land on which blood has been shed, except by the blood of the one who shed it' (Nu. 35:33). The words about atonement are the same as those used in describing the effect of the sacrifices. But there is no question about the meaning of 'blood' in the following phrase. 'The blood of the one who shed it' means the execution of the murderer. It is death and not life to which 'blood' points in this passage and in others like it.
Those who link blood and life do not usually notice that the Hebrew word nephesh, translated 'life' in Leviticus 17:11 and other passages, does not mean exactly what the English word 'life' means. It often has a meaning like 'life given up in death'. It is found in passages which speak of 'taking away', 'losing', 'destroying', or 'giving up' life, while thirty times it refers to those trying to murder someone as 'seeking his nephesh' (e.g. Ex. 4:19; Ps. 35:4). This is not so very different from the English use, but other uses are quite unlike anything we say. Thus the Hebrew might speak of 'lying in wait for the nephesh' or'laying a snare for the nephesh' when murder is being planned (e.g. 1 Sa. 28:9; Pr. 1:18). Or we might notice the prayer of the sailors as they prepared to throw Jonah into the sea, 'let us not perish for this man's nephesh' (Jon. 1:14, Rsv; Nrv inserts 'taking' before 'this man's nephesh', but this is not in the Hebrew). They are referring to his death. Similarly Joab got the wise woman from Tekoa to speak to King David about people who wanted to put a man to death 'for the nephesh of his brother whom he killed' (2 Sa. 14:7).
Then there is a string of passages where nephesh is actually translated 'dead' or the like. Thus there is the injunction, 'Do not cut your bodies for the dead' (Lv. 19:28). Again, there is an interesting sequence in Isaiah where the LORD makes the nephesh of the Servant 'a guilt offering', and the passage goes on to say that the Servant 'poured out his nephesh unto death' (Is. 53: 10-12). The guilt offering and death are closely linked.
I am not suggesting that nephesh should not normally be taken to mean 'life'. It does mean life. But we should not overlook these links with death. A word which may be used in this fashion can scarcely be taken as unambiguous proof that it means 'life' rather than 'death' when it refers to blood that has been taken out of a body.
We should also bear in mind that the Hebrews put a strong emphasis on the link of life with the body. It is regularly pointed out that they thought of life after death not in terms of the immortality of the soul but of the resurrection of the body. For them 'life' and 'the body' went together. If they found it difficult to think of human life as continuing after the body had died, why should we hold that they thought of the life of a slain animal as persisting in the basin the priest held? Such a conception seems quite out of keeping with the normal Hebrew way of looking at life and death.
In any case there are many passages which leave no doubt that the sacrificed animal or bird was thought of as dead when its blood was used. To take an example more or less at random, when the priest was conducting the ceremony for the cleansing of a house that had been unclean because of some infection variously translated as 'a fretting leprosy' (AV), 'a malignant leprosy' (RSV), 'a destructive mildew' (NIV), he was 'to take the cedar wood, the hyssop, the scarlet yarn and the live bird, dip them into the blood of the dead bird...' (Lv. 14:51). Here we have a clear reference to 'blood' in a sacrificial and cleansing context, and there can be no doubt but that it is death that is in mind. The bird whose blood it is is expressly called 'the dead bird'.
ATONEMENT APART FROM WORSHIP
Those who hold to the 'blood'='life' equation maintain that the death of the victim has little or no significance when a sacrifice is offered. What matters, they say, is the release of life. Atonement is secured when life is surrendered, released, set free for a new function. But we should not overlook the fact that sometimes atonement is attempted or accomplished quite apart from the ritual of the tabernacle or temple. Examination of such passages should tell us something about the way the Hebrews understood atonement and whether it was normally connected with life or not.
Sometimes atonement was brought about with money. At the time the census was taken each of the Israelites was to pay the LORD 'a ransom for his life at the time he is counted' (Ex. 30:12). The money is expressly said to be 'atonement money' (verse 16) and twice it is said in set terms to make atonement (verses 15, 16). There are other such examples where there is no question of life or death and which accordingly do not help our inquiry very much. Except that both the payment of money and the killing of an animal may perhaps be thought of as kinds of price.
There are some passages, however, in which there is no question but that atonement is seen as due to death. Thus on the occasion when the Israelites made the golden calf and worshipped it, Moses impressed on them the fact that they had sinned greatly: 'You have committed a great sin.' But he wanted to put things right. He said, 'But now I will go up to the LORD; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.' Then he went to the LORD, asking that they be forgiven. He added, 'but if not, then blot me out of the book you have written' (Ex. 32:30-32). His method of seeking atonement was to ask that he himself be blotted out. He offered his death to atone for their sin.
Another time atonement was looked for during the wilderness wanderings. Some Moabite women had seduced Israelite men and led them to join in immoral conduct and the worship of idols. Phinehas took resolute action in killing an Israelite, Zimri, and the Moabite woman with whom he was having intercourse, a certain Cozbi, the daughter of a Moabite tribal chief. It is recorded of Phinehas that 'he was zealous for the honour of his God and made atonement for the Israelites' (Nu. 25:13). Again atonement is by way of death, in this case the death of two of the principal sinners against God.
A third example is the procedure for dealing with a murder by a person or persons unknown. The elders of the nearest town were to take a heifer that had never been worked, bring her to a valley that had never been ploughed and planted and where there was a flowing stream. They were to break the heifer's neck and wash their hands over its body saying, "'Our hands did not shed this blood, nor did our eyes see it done. Accept this atonement for your people Israel...." And the bloodshed will be atoned for' (Dt. 21:1-8). The death of the heifer atoned for any sin that might be thought to rest on the town. In this passage the word 'blood' is mentioned four times in verses 7-9 and the verb kipper, 'to make atonement', twice, but atonement is not connected with blood in any of these instances. It is the death of the heifer by means of a broken neck and not any life released in blood that brings atonement.
A fourth incident is that in which there was a famine during the reign of David and it was revealed to the king that this was due to the fact that King Saul had put certain Gibeonites to death (2 Sa. 21:1). The Gibeonites should have been inviolate as far as Israel was concerned in terms of the agreement recorded in Joshua 9, but evidently Saul had violated the agreement on some unrecorded occasion. Now David summoned the Gibeonites and asked, 'How shall I make amends... T where the Hebrew means 'How shall I make atonement... T (verse 3). The Gibeonites replied that they did not look for silver or gold and that they had no right to put anyone to death. When David pressed them further they said, 'let seven of (Saul's) male descendants be given to us to be killed' (verse 6). It is a gruesome story and we need not think that the God of Israel approved of the execution of seven innocent descendants of the earlier king. For us the significant thing is the fact that both the Gibeonites and David accepted without question that the way to make atonement was to bring about death.
There is then quite a bit of evidence that in ancient Israel it was accepted that atonement could be brought about by the death of the relevant victim, and this quite apart from any sacrifice in the temple. It is not necessary for us to agree with the ideas of Moses about the value of his own death, nor with the Gibeonites in their estimate of the importance of executing some of Saul's descendants, before we can see what they thought atonement meant and how it could be secured. Of course the fact that death was a suitable means of securing atonement apart from the sacrifices does not prove that this was the way the sacrifices secured it. But at least it raises a question about the argument from the equation of blood and life. If atonement is secured by releasing life, we are justified in arguing, then why should atonement outside the sacrifices be repeatedly sought not by any release of life but by the infliction of death? Since the sacrifices involved the deaths of animals, should we not see these deaths as significant?
ATONEMENT IN THE TEMPLE
Where atonement is held to be secured by some activity within the framework of Israel's worship, the most common way of putting it is to refer quite generally to the whole sacrifice as effective. A typical example is the provision in Ezekiel's vision whereby the prince 'will provide the sin offerings, grain offerings, burnt offerings and fellowship offerings to make atonement for the house of Israel' (Ezk. 45:17). This does not locate atonement in any one part of a sacrifice, nor for that matter in any one sacrifice. The general impression left by a number of such passages is that it is the whole act of sacrifice rather than any one ritual detail that is important. Indeed, in the example quoted it is not even any one sacrifice that is singled out. Atonement is linked quite generally with them all. While it is true that sometimes it is said that the blood is connected with atonement (as in Lv. 17:11), this is far from universal.
Indeed sometimes the making of atonement is connected specifically with some other part of the sacrificial process. For example, we read that the worshipper 'is to lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering, and it will be accepted on his behalf to make atonement for him' (Lv. 1:4). In similar fashion it is said, 'He shall burn all the fat on the altar as he burned the fat of the fellowship offering. In this way the priest will make atonement for the man's sin' (Lv. 4:26; so also verses 31, 35). It is possible that such references to the fat, coming as they do at the end of the rite in each case, may be meant to summarize the whole. But as they stand they look very much like statements that it is the burning of the fat that secures atonement. Certainly they do not link atonement specifically with the blood.
The fat is always regarded as specially important: 'All the fat is the Loiw's' (Lv. 3:16). The eating of fat and of blood are prohibited in the same terms and indeed sometimes in the same expression: 'You must not eat any fat or any blood' (Lv. 3:17). The manipulation of the blood is, of course, an essential part of sacrifice, but then the burning of the fat on the altar is no less essential. Outside worship we see much the same attitude. 'The blood of the slain' and 'the fat of the mighty' (so rather than 'flesh' of NJV) are linked in David's elegant lament over Saul and Jonathan (2 Sa. 1:22). If we are to think of blood as a symbol of life, fat would seem to be no less so. But, of course, in both cases it is death rather than life that is in mind. Both blood and fat are mentioned in Isaiah's denunciation of the people for their wrong attitude to sacrifice (Is. 1:11; cf. 34:6). Clearly fat is very important for an understanding of the efficacy of sacrifice. And equally clearly there is no reason for equating fat with life.
Now and then there is language which seems to show that atonement was held to be brought about in the sacrifices by means other than the release of life in the blood. Thus when Aaron and his sons were solemnly set apart as priests of the LORD they were instructed 'to eat these offerings by which atonement was made' (Ex. 29:33). The reference is to some bread and to the meat of a ram from which, of course, all the blood had been drained. There is definite reference to atonement where blood is excluded and where there is nothing else that might symbolize life. There is another reference to eating that which made atonement in the incident following the deaths of Nadab and Abihu (Lv. 10:17), in this case a query as to why it had not been eaten. In both passages it is the dead body that is in question and it is not easy to see how this could be brought into a symbol of life. In each case it is plainly the death of the victim that is the important thing.
So is it in some metaphorical passages which use the imagery of sacrifice as a symbol for slaughter. Thus Jeremiah speaks of a day of vengeance: 'The sword will devour till it is satisfied, till it has quenched its thirst with blood. For the Lord, the LORD Almighty, will offer sacrifice...' (Je. 46:10). There are some grim words of Zephaniah: 'The LORD has prepared a sacrifice; he has consecrated those he has invited. On the day of the LORD's sacrifice I will punish the princes...' (Zp. 1:7-8). In passages like these it is plain that sacrifice means death. The prophets are speaking of the slaughter of evil men and speaking of it as sacrifice to make their point more vividly. On the view that sacrifice is essentially the release of life for higher purposes such passages are meaningless. Clearly their force arises from the fact that the prophets see sacrifice in terms of death and thus as a suitable metaphor when it is the death of the Lord's opponents which they have in mind.
We should possibly add references to the institution of the Passover, where blood was the means of averting destruction. It was to be put on the lintels and doorposts so that the destroying angel would pass over them (Ex. 12:7, 13, 22-23). It is true that this first Passover was not quite the same as a normal liturgical sacrifice. But it has cultic overtones and it led into the annual Passover sacrifice. And in this use of blood once again there seems no place for understanding the imagery as pointing to life. It is the death of the atoning victim that is in mind (even though the offering is not said in set terms to make atonement).
The evidence that the Hebrews understood blood to symbolize life or that they identified the two is thus not as abundant or as clear as would be needed to establish the point. It depends on taking certain passages linking life and blood very literally and seeing in them the explanation of all the others.
But this ignores the fact that the Hebrews were fond of using 'blood' in vivid metaphorical ways. Thus David complained that Joab shed the blood of war in peace and put the blood on his belt and in his shoes (1 Ki. 2:5). If blood=life, what are we to make of this? Again, the Psalmist speaks of the righteous as bathing their feet in the blood of the wicked (Ps. 58:10; cf. Ps. 68:23). Job exclaimed, '0 earth, do not cover my blood' (Jb. 16:18) and Isaiah passed on the word of the LORD, 'Your hands are full of blood' (Is. 1:15). There are some well-known words in Joel which speak of God showing wonders in heaven and on earth, 'blood and fire and billows of smoke' and which go on to speak of the moon being turned to blood (Joel 2:30-31). Examples could be multiplied. The Hebrews tended to use the term 'blood' in picturesque metaphors, more particularly as a vivid way of referring to death.
When a sacrifice was offered we should see it as a killing of the animal in place of the worshipper and the manipulation of the blood as the ritual presentation to God of the evidence that a death has taken place to atone for sin. When the New Testament writers refer to the death of Christ as a sacrifice, we should not understand them to be making some far-fetched identification of his blood with his life. Rather they are solemnly referring to the significance of his death.
BLOOD IN THE NEW TESTAMENT
The term blood is not used as often in the New Testament as it is in the Old (it is found ninety-eight times). But, as in the Old, the most frequent single classification is that which refers to violent death. Thus Paul tells us the words of his prayer on one occasion, recalling 'when the blood of your martyr Stephen was shed...' (Acts 22:20). Now Stephen was killed by stoning, a form of death in which the actual amount of blood shed was small. Clearly the shedding of blood is being taken as equivalent to death by violence. We see the same thing in another prayer, that of the martyrs in Revelation: 'How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?' (Rev. 6:10). They are described as 'those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained' (verse 9) and the reference to their blood must be held to cover all forms of death by violence. It makes no sense to say that only those whose deaths had been brought about by the actual, physical shedding of blood are in mind. It means all those put to death because of their faithfulness, no matter what the method of their execution. So with 'the blood of Abel' and 'the blood of Zechariah' (Lk. 11:51). These expressions are very similar to 'the blood of Christ' (Eph. 2:13) and show that this should be taken to mean 'the death of Christ'.
A dozen times 'blood' is used of the blood in the Jewish sacrifices. These need scarcely detain us, for they add nothing to what we saw in our treatment of the Old Testament. They simply show that the former way of speaking continued on in New Testament days.
The references to the blood of Christ often show clearly that it is his death that is in mind. For example, Paul speaks of 'the blood of his cross' (Col. 1:20; NIV paraphrases), where the meaning is surely 'his death on the cross'. Crucifixion (like stoning) was a form of execution in which little blood was shed, so there cannot be any emphasis on blood as such. It is simply a way of referring to death. So is it with the expression 'justified by his blood' (Rom. 5:9), which in the context cannot be so very different from 'reconciled ... through the death of his Son' in the following verse (though, of course, 'justified' and 'reconciled' are different ways of looking at atonement; it is 'blood' and 'death' which are much the same).
THE SACRIFICE OF CHRIST
The usage of 'blood' in the New Testament, then, does not lend support to the view that it points to life. We are not to think that when the New Testament writers used the word they referred to life set free from the bondage of the body and available for new and greater purposes. They meant that Christ had died. And if they used the expression in a way that recalls the sacrifices and the blood shed in them, then they meant that the death of Jesus is to be seen as a sacrifice which accomplishes in reality what the old sacrifices pointed to but could not do.
Explicit sacrificial language is used in a variety of ways. There are two words to be considered, 'sacrifice' (thysia) and 'offering' (prosphora), which sometimes occur together as in the 'Sacrifice and offering' cited in Hebrews 10:5. Mostly when the sacrifices of the old way are considered the thought is that they could not bring the worshippers forgiveness. As the writer to the Hebrews put it, 'it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins' (Heb. 10:4); they 'were not able to clear the conscience of the worshipper' (Heb. 9:9).
By contrast, the sacrifice that Jesus made is effective. It was a sacrifice offered in love: 'Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God' (Eph. 5:2). We should notice further that there can be emphasis on the actual physical sacrifice Christ offered. Thus the writer to the Hebrews points out, in a passage in which he dismisses burnt offerings and sin offerings and stresses the importance of doing the will of God, that 'by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all' (Heb. 10:10). The will is important and we should not overlook the contrast between Christ's willing sacrifice of himself and the uncomprehending, involuntary sacrifices that necessarily occurred when animals were offered. But we must not go on to the extreme of saying that all that matters is the yielded will, that Christ saved us by being perfectly submissive to the will of God. There is truth in that, but what Hebrews is saying is that the will of God in question meant 'the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ'. What happened on Calvary mattered. The yielded will was important; but so was the broken body.
The writer is ready to concede a certain effectiveness to the Levitical sacrifices in their own sphere. But when we are thinking of the reality of heaven, he holds, it is necessary to be purified 'with better sacrifices than these' (Heb. 9:23). Animal sacrifice can never produce a purification valid in heaven. But Christ's sacrifice can. 'He has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself' (Heb. 9:26). 'The sacrifice of himself' means an infinitely better sacrifice than any that was possible under the Levitical system.
That is one point that this author emphasizes. Another is the finality of Christ's atoning sacrifice. Repeatedly he tells us that Christ offered himself 'once and for all' or the like. Believers have been made holy'through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all' (Heb. 10:10); he 'offered for all time one sacrifice for sins' (verse 12); 'by one sacrifice he has made perfect for ever those who are being made holy' (verse 14). And he removes decisively the possibility of any further offering by saying that, when sins have been forgiven (as they have been through what Christ has done), 'there is no longer any sacrifice for sin' (Heb 10:18). The utter finality of Christ's sacrifice is an important truth.
SPIRITUAL SACRIFICES
There are other references to sacrifice. The New Testament Christians liked to use this imagery to bring out important aspects of the service they render God as their response to the great salvation God has brought about through the sacrifice of his Son. To see Christ as having offered the perfect sacrifice that brings us salvation is not to enter a realm of cheap grace. It does not mean that we offer no sacrifice. It means that our sacrifice is of a different order. It is not atoning, but a costly response to a sacrifice that is atoning.
The way of salvation is a way of sacrifice. That means basically that it is the sacrifice of Christ that takes away sins once and for all. But it also means that those for whom the sacrifice was offered live sacrificially. They offer their bodies 'as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God' (Rom. 12:1). Paul speaks of himself as being made a sacrifice in the service of other Christians (Phil. 2:17) and he refers to the gifts the Philippian Christians sent him as 'a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God' (Phil. 4:18). The writer to the Hebrews refers to 'a sacrifice of praise - the fruit of lips that confess his name' and he speaks of doing good and sharing with others as sacrifices with which God is well pleased (Heb. 13:15-16). Peter is another who sees Christians as offering 'spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ' (1 Pet. 2:5). Clearly there is an important element of sacrifice in the service that Christians are expected to render to God.
THE ONE ATONING SACRIFICE
But in the New Testament, when the sacrificial terminology is used, it is mostly to emphasize what Christ has done. The sacrifice that matters is the death of Jesus on Calvary's cross. This was not a sacrifice in the literal sense any more than the redemption that he brought about is a literal redemption. But just as redemption sets before us vividly some aspects of our salvation, so is it with sacrifice. The people of New Testament days were people who had stood by their altars and watched while the priests collected the blood of animals offered in sacrifice on their behalf. They had seen them use that blood in the prescribed fashion. They had witnessed parts or all of their designated victims ascend in the flames of the altar. With a somewhat different idea of fragrance from ours they had recognized this as a sweet-smelling odour.
And through it all, as the writer to the Hebrews makes especially clear, they must have been assailed by doubts. Sacrifice was a splendidly solemn way of dealing with sins. It stirred the emotions and gave the worshipper something to do. But did it really take away sins? Could any thinking person believe that the death of some poor animal, a bull perhaps, or a goat or a lamb, would put him in the right with a God who was holy and just?
But the sacrifice of Christ was a different matter. All the old and familiar imagery helped them to understand what Christ's death was about. They could appreciate references to blood as cleansing and to death as a means of putting away sins. And what was no more than dimly hinted at in the case of the animals they could see perfectly accomplished in Christ.
No more than any of the other ways of looking at the cross does this one tell us the whole story. But it is an important chapter. It brings out the meaning of the cross in its own distinctive way. We may say that it puts emphasis on these things at least.
1. Sin is defiling
In an ancient sanctuary everything was arranged to put emphasis on the holiness of God. Even ceremonial faults were seen as defiling and sin was much more so. Sin stained the worshipper and made him unclean. Sin meant that he was not fit to approach the holy God.
2. Purification
When a sacrifice was offered the worshipper was cleansed. Whether it was a ceremonial defilement or a moral lapse, the offering of sacrifice was seen as purging the sin so that the worshipper was now in a state of purification. His sin was completely removed.
3. The death of the victim counts
In a sacrifice the blood must be manipulated in prescribed ways and part or all of the animal must be burnt on the altar. All this speaks of the necessity for death, nothing less, if sin is to be put away. Sin is not some trifle, to be airily dismissed with no effort. Sin means death (Ezk. 18:4; Rom. 6:23) and nothing less suffices to take it away.
4. Salvation is at cost
David showed an insight into the meaning of sacrifice when he said to Araunah, 'I will not sacrifice to the LORD my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing' (2 Sa. 24:24). The use of the terminology of sacrifice means that the way of forgiveness is costly. It is not until we come to the death of Jesus on the cross that we can see the full meaning of costliness. But inherent in the concept is that forgiveness comes only at cost.
5. Spiritual sacrifices
The New Testament writers look for a response to the sacrifice of Christ. The believer must offer himself as a living sacrifice, which certainly means that his whole way of life is to be different because of what Christ has done for him. The sacrifice of Christ means that the way of salvation is free; but it does not mean that it is cheap.
But the really important thing is that Christ has made the perfect sacrifice, and 'there is no longer any sacrifice for sin'.
For further study
1. From Leviticus 1-7; Psalm 51; Hebrews 7:11 - 10:18, list the advantages and defects you discern in the sacrificial system of the Old Testament. What lessons does this system teach for your own spiritual life?
2. What do we learn about the nature of sacrifice from the passages that connect 'life' and 'blood'? (Use a concordance.)
3. Make a list of passages referring to the sacrifices Christians are expected to offer. (Find them by looking up New Testament references to 'sacrifice' in a concordance.) What do they tell us about the nature of the Christian life?
4. What can we learn from the epistle to the Hebrews about the sacrifice of Christ?
Approach to God was a tricky business in the days of Moses and Aaron. On the one hand it was the greatest of blessings and nobody wanted to be without God's promised presence. In the wilderness period God had said, 'My Presence will go with you' (Ex. 33:14) and Moses regarded that presence as essential. Without it he did not want to move: 'If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here' (Ex. 33:15). But God did grant his presence and spoke of 'their camp, where I dwell among them' (Nu. 5:3). The presence of God might even be referred to casually, as something that might almost be taken for granted, as when 'Moses took the staff from the LORD'S presence' (Nu. 20:9).
But on the other hand God was awe-inspiring and powerful. To approach him in the wrong way might be disaster. That is the point of the story of Nadab and Abihu. They 'offered unauthorised fire before the LORD, contrary to his command' (Lv. 10:1). The result was that 'fire came out from the presence of the LORD and consumed them, and they died before the LORD' (verse 2). Just exactly what their offence was is not clear. But the offering of incense was carefully regulated (Ex. 30:7-9) and clearly these two young men had chosen to impose their way of doing things rather than accept what God had commanded. This was all the more serious in that they had just gone through the solemn ceremony of being made priests, at the culmination of which 'the glory of the LORD appeared to all the people. Fire came out from the presence of the LORD and consumed the burnt offering and the fat portions on the altar' (Lv. 9:23-24). This above all times was a time for sticking closely to what God had commanded. These men had a position of high privilege, and those who stand close to the Lord must above all people be responsive to the commands of the Lord. Nadab and Abihu were not, and their fate was an impressive warning to all that God must be approached carefully.
But that did not mean that there was no approach to God. Right through the literature that tells of the wilderness wanderings there runs the thought that God willed to be among his people and to be known by them. But approach must be made in the right way. Men must not think that God might be presumed on or that they could rush into his presence any time they wanted and just as they were. So we read: 'The LORD said to Moses: "Tell your brother Aaron not to come whenever he chooses into the Most Holy Place behind the curtain in front of the atonement cover on the ark, or else he will die, because I appear in the cloud over the atonement cover"' (Lv. 16:2; 'Most Holy Place' and 'atonement cover' areNW's translations of expressions traditionally rendered 'Holy of Holies' and 'mercy seat'). Not even the high priest is entitled to presume on the presence of God. The little room that was in a special sense the place of God's presence was not to be entered lightly. Anyone who presumed to enter in the wrong way and at the wrong time must expect to die, as the fate of Nadab and Abihu showed. God is majestic and powerful - and remote. This must never be forgotten.
But on just one day in the year approach was permitted. It must be done in the right way and with the proper preparation and even then only one man entered the Holy of Holies. But it might be done. It was done in connection with the putting away of the nation's sins, which added to the importance and the solemnity of the occasion.
It was a day of fasting, which in itself was significant. In the Jewish liturgical year there were several feasts but just one great fasting day, the Day of Atonement. On this most solemn day the people remembered the greatness and the majesty of God and the pickle they had landed themselves in by the sins they had committed. So they engaged in picturesque and unusual liturgical action in order that those sins might be put away. They had, of course, a regular sacrificial system in which animals were offered on the altar every day. Some of the sacrifices expressed homage to God and some expressed fellowship or thanksgiving, but many were directed towards atoning for sin. But clearly they were not adequate. They did not cover all eventualities and even after they had been offered in the correct manner the people had the uncomfortable feeling that God might still be displeased with something not atoned for.
So, on the tenth day of the seventh month, there came this solemn time of fasting and penitence. Special rites, used only on this day, brought home the seriousness of sin and the importance of dealing with it. This was the day of the 'scapegoat' (='escapegoat'), the animal that carried the sins of the people away as it was lost in the wilderness. And it was the one day in all the year when the high priest entered the Holy of Holies. Obviously the day was very special.
THE CEREMONIES OF THE DAY OF ATONEMENT
The high priest began the day by bathing himself (Lv. 16:4). This in itself was distinctive, because on other days he was required in the exercise of his ministry to do no more than wash his hands and his feet (Ex. 30:19-21). But this was a very special day and there was a whole-heartedness about the approach to cleansing (as about everything else). After bathing, the high priest put on plain white linen clothing, which symbolized holiness and suited the humble approach that characterized the day better than the gorgeous robes of his office did. Then he collected the animals that would be used for the main sacrifices. For himself and his household he took a young bull for a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering; for the Israelite community he took two male goats for a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering (Lv. 16:3, 5). Other sacrifices would be offered that day (Nu. 29:7-11), but these were the important ones.
The high priest began with the bull and offered it 'for his own sin offering to make atonement for himself and his household' (Lv. 16:6). And now, early in the day, came the first moment of excitement and tingling tension.
The high priest entered the Holy of Holies.
He took a censer full of burning coals from off the altar and two handfuls of incense and went behind the curtain into that little dark room that was the Holy of Holies (verse 12). He promptly put the incense on the coals and such a plentiful supply as two handfuls would guarantee a thick cloud of smoke to cover the mercy seat'so that he will not die' (verse 13). This was apparently done to hide the mercy seat, the symbol of the presence of God, from human gaze rather than to cover the priest and shield him from the divine wrath. The effect was to retain the concept of a God who had mystery about him, but also to keep the high priest safe. Thus protected he proceeded to bring the blood of the bull into the Holy of Holies. There he sprinkled it once against the face of the mercy seat and then seven times in front of it (verse 14).
After the offering of the bull the high priest cast lots over the two goats, 'one lot for the LORD and the other for the scapegoat' (Hebrew, 'for Azazel'; verse 8). The one 'for the LORD' he proceeded to offer as a sin offering for the people. When it came to the use of the blood of this animal there came the second thrilling moment - the high priest went into the Holy of Holies for the second time and did with this blood what he had done with that for his own sin offering: 'In this way he will make atonement for the Most Holy Place because of the uncleanness and rebellion of the Israelites, whatever their sins have been.' The regulation goes on, 'He is to do the same for the Tent of Meeting, which is among them in the midst of their uncleanness' (verse 16).
The point of this is that the circumstances of everyday life made it easy for people to contract forms of ceremonial defilement, while rebellion against the Lord was endemic among the Israelites (as among all men). All this meant that they had defiled the place where they came to worship and this part of the day's ceremonies was directed to removing the uncleanness. This is probably in mind also when the high priest came 'to the altar that is before the LORD' and put some of the blood of both animals on all the horns of the altar and sprinkled it on the altar seven times (verses 18-19). Leviticus does not say specifically which altar this was; most commentators today hold it to be the altar of burnt offering, though the Rabbis thought it was the incense altar.
Now the high priest and the place of worship were both ceremonially clean. Attention moved to what we at any rate would regard as more serious, all the sins of the people. The high priest laid both his hands on the head of the remaining goat and confessed 'all the wickedness and rebellion of the Israelites - all their sins'. We saw in the last chapter that there is some dispute about the laying on of hands in the ordinary run of sacrifices, but there is none about this one. We read specifically that the high priest shall 'put them [i.e. the sins] on the goat's head'. Thereafter 'He shall send the goat away into the desert in the care of a man appointed for the task. The goat will carry on itself all their sins to a solitary place; and the man shall release it in the desert' (verses 21-22).
This was the great, central activity of the day. The nation's sins had been solemnly confessed and dealt with in accordance with God's command. They were no longer laid to the charge of the people.
Now sin and defilement had been dealt with. The high priest took off the simple linen garments in which he had officiated as he led the people in those purifying and cleansing rites. He put on his glorious robes and offered burnt offerings for himself and the people (the rams of verses 3, 5), offerings which expressed the homage of the people of God and their representative. It was at this point also that he burnt the fat of the sin offering. The carcases of both the bull and the goat were taken outside the camp and burnt up in their entirety (verse 27).
Such were the events of the day according to Leviticus 16. Apart from this chapter we have little information about the day. But any time it is mentioned it is a day of special solemnity. People must not do any work on it and they must 'deny themselves', i.e. fast, 'from the evening of the ninth day of the month until the following evening' (Lv. 23:32). Anyone who did not observe this fast 'must be cut off from his people', while the Sabbath obligation is enforced in that the Lord will'destroy from among his people anyone who does any work on that day' (Lv. 23:29-30). Quite apart from the unusual offerings we have already noticed, special sacrifices were offered to mark the annual observance (Nu. 29:7-11). The making of atonement on the horns of the altar of incense is spoken of briefly in Exodus 30:10 (cf. Lv. 16:18), but this adds little to what Leviticus 16 tells us. It simply underlines the truth that the Day of Atonement had wide-ranging importance for the whole of the Jewish worship. There is one more reference: when the year of jubilee came, it was ushered in with the blowing of the trumpet everywhere throughout the land on the Day of Atonement (Lv. 25:9).
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE DAY OF ATONEMENT
All this shows that the day was one of special importance and solemnity. The careful performance of rites which took place once a year only must have impressed on the worshippers the truths that sin matters and that something must be done about it if it is not to separate people from God. That it was prescribed at all seems a tacit admission that the sacrificial system did not remove all sin, though this conclusion does not seem to have been drawn in Old Testament days. But the writer to the Hebrews drew it. He makes a good deal of the fact that the Day of Atonement shows that the sacrifices normally offered could not remove sin (Heb. 9:7-9), and indeed he goes further and says that even the Day of Atonement could not do this (Heb. 10:1-4).
There are two specially noteworthy features of the observance of this day. The first, of course, is that on this day and on this day alone in all the year there was admission to the Holy of Holies. It was perhaps not much to crow about, for it was a very restricted admission. Only the high priest could enter and he only after taking the most stringent precautions. But at least it did hold out the hope of access into the very presence of God, if only by a representative.
The other is the placing of the sins of the people on the scapegoat. There is dispute about the meaning of the expression 'for Azazel' ('scapegoat' in Nrv and other translations). Some scholars hold that this was the name of a demon, perhaps even of Satan himself, so that evil was, so to speak, being sent back where it belonged. Others think that it means'complete destruction' (the sins are no more), while a third view is that it signifies 'rocky precipice' (at least in later times the goat was finally pushed over a precipice). With the information available to us it is impossible to be certain. What is clear is that the people saw their sins completely removed. The sins were laid on the goat, and taken into the wilderness so that they saw them no more.
The day was a great national occasion and many scholars hold that, in accordance with this, it was the sins of the nation as a whole rather than those of individuals that were primarily in mind. This is not unreasonable. But certainly in later times it was held that the sins of individuals were covered by the observances of this day and it is not at all improbable that this idea was there from the first. The ceremonies witnessed to a conviction that the normal offering of sacrifices did not cover all the sins people committed. Something more was needed, a point which will be taken up and given emphasis in the New Testament.
THE RABBIS' AND THE DAY OF ATONEMENT
Leviticus 16 does not give us a complete guide to the ceremonies of the Day of Atonement. The main outline is clear and we may well argue that everything that is needed is said here. But it would not be possible to go through all the ritual with nothing more to guide us than the directions given in this chapter and the gaps might conceivably be filled in more ways than one. To cite one small example, the high priest is directed to take a censer full of burning coals into the Holy of Holies together with incense with which to make a cloud of smoke (Lv. 16:12). But there is no direction about taking it out. Did censers pile up in the Holy of Holies from year to year? Did the high priest remove last year's censer when he took this year's in? Or did he take his censer out at a later point in the day's activities? There is no indication. The main points are quite clear and there would have been no difficulty in filling in the gaps by customary procedures. All that I am saying is that there were gaps.
In the rabbinic writings there is a good deal of information which shows us how the gaps were filled in in later times. There is, of course, no way of knowing whether this was the way things were done in the Old Testament period, but the Rabbis show us the procedure during New Testament times. This will be the Day of Atonement as the New Testament writers knew it. In general the effects of the additions the Rabbis made to the Old Testament material is to emphasize the solemnity of the day. There are many statements which put it on the level of the Sabbath and some which regard it as more solemn still. Other regulations are aimed at securing punctilious attention to the correct performance of every detail of the ceremonial. The importance the Rabbis attached to the Day of Atonement may be gauged from the fact that in the Mishnah an entire tractate is devoted to this one day
Proceedings began seven days before the day of the fast itself. At that time the high priest was taken from his house to the temple, so that he could more easily be shielded from accidental uncleanness. If he contracted uncleanness he would be debarred from officiating on the great day and then where would Israel be? Just in case the worst came to the worst, a deputy was appointed to officiate in his stead if for any reason he was unable to proceed. He might contract a seven-day defilement. Or he might die! In fact the high priest never was disqualified and this was accounted one of the ten wonders about the temple (Aboth 5:5; this is one of the tractates of the Mishnah). According to one scrupulous Rabbi another wife was put on standby lest his wife should die before the offering of sacrifice. His reasoning was that the high priest was required to offer a sin offering not only for himself but also for 'his household' (Lv. 16:6), and the absolute minimum for a household is a wife. However this learned view was rejected by the majority on the common-sense grounds that 'If so there would be no end to the matter' (Yoma 1:1; to be consistent there would have to be a standby for the standby wife and so on, and where would the process end?).
Throughout the seven days the high priest was to perform the priestly duties of presenting the blood, burning the incense, trimming the lamps and the like, apparently to keep his hand in in priestly ceremonial actions so that all would go smoothly on the day. In the same spirit, on the night before the great day the animals to be used in the sacrifices were brought before him so that he would be familiar with them. On the third and seventh days he was sprinkled with the ashes of a heifer in case he had unwittingly contracted some uncleanness which neither he nor anyone else knew anything about. An interesting provision is that he was to be continually instructed in the correct ritual and urged to recite it himself 'lest thou hast forgotten or lest thou hast never learnt' (Yoma 1:3). On the eve of the Day of Atonement he was solemnly adjured not to change any of the things his mentors had said to him (Yoma 1:5). This appears to be a reference to a dispute between the Sadducees and the Pharisees. The former held that the incense should be lit outside the curtain, but the Pharisees abhorred this dreadful action and maintained that it should be lit only inside the curtain.
On the evening before the great day the high priest had a light meal (a heavy one would encourage sleep and he was not going to get any). A bevy of priests saw to it that he was kept awake all night (according to Maimonides, 'lest any impurity might affect him'). He spent the time reading and expounding Scripture or else hearing someone else engage in these pious practices.
When it was morning he immersed himself in water. On this day all told he immersed himself five times; he immersed himself every time he changed his robes. In addition he washed his hands and his feet ten times. This first immersion was in the temple court in a place separated from the public gaze by a linen sheet (all his other immersions were 'in the Temple by the Parwah Chamber', Yoma 3:3; this was to the south of the Court of the Priests). After his immersion he put on his golden robes and offered the daily burnt offering.
Now the special offerings of the day began. The high priest immersed himself a second time, then changed into the simple white linen that characterized him on that day. He laid his hands on the bull and confessed his sins and those of his household. A noteworthy feature of this confession was that in his prayer he used the sacred name of God, that name indicated by 'LORD' (as spelt in many translations) and which scholars think was something like 'Yahweh'. Normally this name was never pronounced for fear it would be used wrongly and thus someone would be breaking the command not to take it in vain. People used a reverential substitute like 'Lord' or 'The Holy One'. But on this day the high priest used 'LORD' ten times.
The lots used to decide the fate of the two goats were originally wooden, but later golden ones were used. One was marked 'For the LORD' and the other 'For Azazel'. They were placed in a casket which the high priest shook. Then he put in both hands and pulled them out, one in each hand. He put the lots on the heads of the goats and said, 'A Sin-offering to the LORD', apparently making no distinction between the two animals. He tied a cord of crimson wool on the head of the goat for Azazel and a similar cord about the throat of the goat that was to be slaughtered (Yoma 4:1-2).
Now he came to the bull a second time and laid both hands on the animal. His confession differed from the one he used on the first occasion in that this time he associated with him in the sins he was confessing not only his own household but also 'the children of Aaron, thy holy people'. He slaughtered the bull and gave the blood in a basin to a man who had the responsibility of stirring it to make sure that it did not congeal.
IN THE HOLY OF HOLIES
The high priest then took coals from the altar in a censer of gold and he put two handfuls of incense into a ladle. These he took into the Holy of Holies, the censer in his right hand and the ladle in his left. The Mishnah says that there were two curtains guarding the entrance with the space of a cubit between them. The outer curtain was looped back on the south side and the inner one on the north. The high priest could thus pass between them with both hands full. In the Holy of Holies he set the censer down between the two poles used to carry the ark (Yoma 5:1). After the ark was taken away the custom was to set it down on a stone called 'Shetiyah' ('Foundation'), a stone three fingerbreadths high. Then he heaped the incense on the coals so that the whole place was filled with smoke.
Next he slaughtered the goat that had been marked 'for the LORD'. He collected its blood and did with it what he had done with that of the bull. That completed his work inside the curtain, but he had more to do outside it. He began with the blood of the bull and sprinkled it on the outer side of the curtain with an eightfold sprinkling, counting as he had done before. He set down the blood of the bull, took the blood of the goat and sprinkled it in the same way on the outer side of the curtain. He proceeded to pour the blood of the bull into that of the goat, then to pour the mixed blood into the container that had previously held the blood of the bull (apparently to ensure a thorough mixing). The next bit of the ritual is rather complicated. He took some of the mixture, sprinkled the horns of the golden altar of incense with it, sprinkled some of it on that altar and poured the rest of it at the western base of the altar of burnt offering. He must have kept some of the blood back, for he went on to sprinkle the outer altar and finally to pour the residue at the southern base of that altar. A curious note informs us that the two streams of blood joined in the channel and flowed into the Kidron, where it was sold to the gardeners as manure (Yoma 5:6), an interesting blend of piety and practicality.
THE SCAPEGOAT
Now came the turn of the scapegoat. The high priest laid his two hands on the animal and made confession of 'the iniquities and transgressions and sins which thy people, the House of Israel, have committed and transgressed and sinned before thee' (Yoma 6:2). The goat was then led away. Theoretically any man could perform this duty, but it became the custom to have a member of one of the priestly families do it. Ten booths were established along the way to the ravine at intervals of half a Sabbath-day's journey, each being under the charge of eminent citizens of Jerusalem who would invite the man leading the goat to have food or water. Then they would escort him to the next booth and go back again to their own, the return journey thus not exceeding the limit prescribed for the Sabbath.
Nobody went with the man from the last booth. They simply stood and watched while he divided the scarlet cord into two pieces. He tied one piece to the rock and the other to the goat's horns. Then from behind he pushed the goat over the precipice. It rolled over and over and was broken in pieces before it had gone half-way down (Yoma 6:6). Having thus made quite sure that the animal would not come back, the man returned to the last booth and remained there until nightfall (when another day began).
Meantime the high priest completed his work on the animals slaughtered earlier. He cut off the sacrificial portions and burnt them on the altar. He put the remainder of the carcases on carrying poles, so that they could be taken out to the place of burning. Presumably he delivered them to the men who would carry them there, but this is not said.
The arrival of the scapegoat at the wilderness was signalled all the way back to Jerusalem by the waving of towels. One of the Rabbis, R. Ishmael, thought that this was not really needed. He maintained that a cord of scarlet wool was tied to the door of the sanctuary and that when the scapegoat reached the wilderness the wool turned white in accordance with the words of the LORD through the prophet Isaiah, 'Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow' (Is. 1:18). According to the Talmud this sign ceased forty years before the destruction of the temple (Yoma 39b; 'Talmud' means 'Teaching' and is the name given to a later and fuller collection of rabbinic teaching than the Mishnah; 'Yoma' is the title of one of its divisions.)
Be that as it may, when the signal was received the high priest went to the court of the women and began to read from the Law, the prescribed passages being Leviticus 16 and 23:26-32, after which he recited from memory Numbers 29:7-11. He concluded this part of the day's activities with some prayers. He could do the reading and praying either in the linen garments or in his own white robe. While he was doing this the carcases of the animals were being burnt up.
THE NOTE OF JOY
The penitential part of the day was over. The high priest underwent another immersion and changed into his golden robes. Majesty and splendour were now the order of the day rather than the penitence and simplicity that had marked the earlier observances. The high priest offered his ram (Lv. 16:3) and that of the people (Lv. 16:5) and seven male year-old lambs (Nu. 29:8).
It will be recalled that the high priest had left the censer in the Holy of Holies. He had put it down on the stone called Shetiyah, together with the incense ladle, and there they had remained. At this point he went back for them. First he had to change into the simple linen robes (preceded of course by another immersion!). Thus arrayed he went back into the Holy of Holies, retrieved the censer and ladle and came back out (Yoma 7:4).
He had one final immersion and changed back into his golden robes. This was the correct vesture in which to burn the afternoon incense and to trim the lamps. That completed his duties for the day and he was free to go home. There he made a feast for his friends 'for that he was come forth safely from the Sanctuary' (Yoma 7:4). It had been a dangerous adventure. It was well to rejoice at its safe conclusion.
In another tractate we read of a further expression of joy at the end of the Day of Atonement: 'the daughters of Jerusalem used to go forth in white raiments; and these were borrowed, that none should be abashed which had them not.... And the daughters of Jerusalem went forth to dance in the vineyards' (Taanith 4:8). The day was a solemn one, with a concentration on the serious business of the nation's sins. But at the end of the day, when atonement had been made and the high priest had survived his entrances into the Holy of Holies, the dominant notes were those of relief and joy.
THE REMOVAL OF SIN
During the New Testament period Judaism attached great importance to the correct performance of the prescribed ritual on the Day of Atonement. All the additions to the regulations of the Old Testament seem to be designed to ensure that all was done in proper order and that the worshippers were left in no doubt about the seriousness of their sin and about the importance of taking God's way of getting rid of it.
But we should not think that the ritual was held to be valid of itself, as though all that was needed was to go through the right actions and recite the right words. Repentance and restitution were seen as necessary and they were insisted on in strong terms.
If a man said, 'I will sin and repent, and sin again and repent', he will be given no chance to repent. (If he said,)'I will sin and the Day of Atonement will effect atonement', then the Day of Atonement effects no atonement. For transgressions that are between man and God the Day of Atonement effects atonement, but for transgressions that are between a man and his fellow the Day of Atonement effects atonement only if he has appeased his fellow (Yoma 8:9).
The Day of Atonement is clearly regarded as important, but only if there are the right internal dispositions and if the person has done what he can to undo the effects of his sin. Sometimes it is suggested that in fact it was the attitude that was all important and that the rites were no more than a piece of pageantry, a series of dramatic symbols. The reality was the prayer and the fasting. Now and then a rabbinical statement can be found to support this position, for example, 'Though no sacrifices be offered, the day in itself effects atonement." But this kind of thing appears to be a rationalization from a time subsequent to the destruction of the temple. When sacrifice was no longer possible people looked for some other way.
But there is no evidence that while the temple was still functioning any responsible Jews held that the sacrifice did not matter. To read through the tractate Yoma is to enter an atmosphere where every ritual detail is ordained by God and must be performed accordingly with scrupulous care. We see this, for example, in the requirement that everything must be done in exactly the right order; otherwise it did not count. If the high priest became confused and did some things in an incorrect order, he had to go back to the place where the original mistake occurred and start again from that point (Yoma 5:7). The ritual must not be varied in any way. There can be no doubt but that repentance was rated very highly and its absence made the rite void (though occasionally we find the view that the Day of Atonement availed for all Israelites except those who cut themselves off from Israel). But there is nothing to indicate that while the temple was still standing responsible people held that repentance was enough without the performance of the divinely ordained ceremonies. All must be performed as God had directed.
Precisely what it was that effected atonement is not completely clear. There is a saying of R. Simeon:
As the blood of the goat that is sprinkled within (the Holy of Holies) makes atonement for the Israelites, so does the blood of the bullock make atonement for the priests; and as the confession of sin recited over the scapegoat makes atonement for the Israelites, so does the confession of sin recited over the bullock make atonement for the priests (Shebuoth 1:7).
Here atonement is associated both with the blood and with confession, and with three different animals, the bull, the goat for the sin offering and the scapegoat. The Rabbis do not seem to have tied atonement to any one part of the day's activities and we are probably right in seeing it as due to the whole of the observance rather than specifically to any one moment.
But when the right internal attitude is joined to the due performance of the ritual of the Day of Atonement, it is plain that the Judaism of the New Testament period saw the nation's sins as removed. This is strikingly brought out in the scenes of rejoicing that brought the day to its close. Linked with this of course was the fact that the high priest had emerged unscathed from the Holy of Holies. Purification from sin and access to God were both prominent in the ceremonial of this day.
Some Old Testament scholars raise questions about the kind of sin that the whole sacrificial system was held to remove. They hold that only inadvertent sins and ritual defilements were in view. Even the Day of Atonement, they maintain, was concerned with this kind of thing, with the involuntary defilements that people contracted through the year and with which they consequently defiled their place of worship. On this view the Day of Atonement was directed towards making the temple ceremonially clean once more. I am more than doubtful whether there is satisfactory evidence for such a position, but whatever the truth about the way the day was viewed in the Old Testament period there is none about its scope as the Rabbis saw it.
For uncleanness that befalls the Temple and its Hallowed Things through wantonness, atonement is made by the goat whose blood is sprinkled within (the Holy of Holies) and by the Day of Atonement; for all other transgressions spoken of in the Law, venial or grave, wanton or unwitting, conscious or unconscious, sins of omission or of commission, sins punishable by Extirpation or by death at the hands of the court, the scapegoat makes atonement (Shebuoth 1:6).
The day was a wonderful provision of God. Properly observed, the Rabbis held, it availed for all the sins of all the people.
THE DAY OF ATONEMENT IN THE NEW TESTAMENT
The Day of Atonement receives serious treatment in the epistle to the Hebrews, though elsewhere it does not attract much attention from the New Testament writers. It is referred to simply as 'the Fast' in Acts 27:9, but this is no more than a note of time and there is no treatment of what the day signified. It is arguable that the idea of the day, though not the exact term, lies behind a few passages (notably 2 Cor. 5:21; Gal. 3:13). But this is not a rich harvest and we must turn to Hebrews for a clear and meaningful treatment of the significance of the day. As in the Old Testament and in the rabbinic writings there is a twofold emphasis - the day points to access and to cleansing.
Just as is the case in Leviticus 16, the writer to the Hebrews introduces his treatment with a reference to access to the presence of God. He speaks of the tabernacle furnishings and points out that the high priest was the only person permitted to enter the Holy of Holies and he on one occasion only in the whole year. He draws a conclusion: 'The Holy Spirit was showing by this that the way into the Most Holy Place had not yet been disclosed as long as the first tabernacle was still standing' (Heb. 9:8). The line of approach is not 'This is the way the sins of Israel are remitted' but rather, 'This is the way the high priest may enter the Holy of Holies.' Of course there is a connection. Indeed, there is a double connection, for in the first place it is sin that inhibits access and thus must be dealt with if access is to be obtained, and in the second place the purpose of the access into the Holy of Holies on this day was that sin should be dealt with.
It is probably this connection with sin that motivates the emphasis on blood. The high priest entered the sacred place ,only once a year, and never without blood' (Heb. 9:7). It was an adventure for the high priest to enter the Holy of Holies and one whose outcome could not be foreseen. Thus it was essential that his entrance be attended by every precaution, and a most important precaution was the presentation of the blood of a sacrificial victim. Only with the blood could the people's representative be cleansed from his sin and be accepted as fit to approach the presence of God.
The writer to the Hebrews bears this in mind. He points out that Christ entered the heavenly Holy Place not 'by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption' (Heb. 9:12). The contrast between the blood of Christ and the blood of animals is important, for 'it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins' (Heb. 10:4). Just as it was impossible for animal blood to take away sin, so it was impossible for it to secure access. Christ's blood is different. It really opens up the way into the presence of God.
Our author contrasts the limited nature of the access secured by the high priest with that secured by Christ in two ways. First, the high priest dealt only with an earthly tabernacle or temple, but Christ with 'the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not man-made, that is to say, not a part of this creation' (Heb. 9:11). Putting it another way, he says, 'Christ did not enter a man-made sanctuary that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God's presence' (Heb. 9:24). The access with which the high priest concerned himself was to the tiny dark room in the temple which was a symbol of the presence of God. The access with which Christ was concerned was access into the very presence of God in heaven.
The second contrast concerns people. The high priest could do no more than enter the Holy of Holies himself. He could not take anyone with him. And he could enter only on the one day in the year. The fullest exercise of his ministry with all the solemnity at his command obtained only a very limited access: access on one day for him only. The people must forever be content with access by proxy. But in Hebrews there is emphasis on two wonderful truths: Christ secured access into the very presence of God in heaven (as we have just seen, Heb. 9:11-12, 24) and access not for himself only but for all his people as well. Our writer exhorts us:
Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith... (Heb. 10:19-22).
Because Christ's blood was shed, all who believe in him have access into the very holiest of all, a truth incidentally which was given expression in another way when the Synoptists tell us that at the moment of Jesus' death the curtain in the temple 'was torn in two from top to bottom' (Mt. 27:51; Mk. 15:38; Lk. 23:45). The Day of Atonement ceremonies bring home to Christians the fact that because of what Christ has done they find the way into the very presence of God open before them.
PUTITNG AWAY SIN
We turn now to the other idea so prominent in the Day of Atonement activities, purification from sin. There is no question that this was a prominent thought in the Old Testament observances of the day, though it is not easy to be sure of exactly what was thought to bring about atonement. The high priest confessed the people's sins as he laid his hands on the head of the scapegoat and 'put them on the goat's head'. As a result, 'The goat will carry on itself all their sins to a solitary place' (Lv. 16:21-22). This seems clear enough, but there is a difficulty in that the high priest has already offered the other goat as a sin offering (which, of course, is expiatory), after which we read that he had 'made atonement for himself, his household and the whole community of Israel' (Lv. 16:17). Nor can we solve the difficulty by appealing to Jewish tradition, for the Mishnah makes no difference in the confessions made over the two goats. In general it gives no indication that atonement was affected by one part of the day's activities rather than another.
There seems merit in the suggestion that the two goats were really one sacrifice, a suggestion which is supported by the requirements that they should be as nearly as possible identical and that they should even have been purchased at the same time. If this view be accepted we have the thought that the one offering of the two goats secures access into the Holiest and also takes away sin. A complicating factor is the further confession over the bull and the requirement of repentance. Perhaps our safest course is to hold that the whole of the day's activities were needed to secure the blessings and that no attempt was made to differentiate sharply between the various parts of the comprehensive whole.
However this problem be resolved, there is no doubt about the fact that the Day of Atonement was seen as the occasion when sin was put away. Josephus speaks of the scapegoat as 'being intended to avert and serve as an expiation for the sins of the whole people',' a view which would have been accepted by most Jews of his day. But the author to the Hebrews takes up this very point. He vigorously repudiates the view that the ceremonies of the Day of Atonement take away sin. 'Those sacrifices', he says, ,are an annual reminder of sins, because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins' (Heb. 10:3-4); they are no more than 'external regulations applying until the time of the new order' (Heb. 9:10); 'sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean' the blood and the ashes may 'sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean' (Heb. 9:13), but more they cannot do. The very fact that they continue to be offered year after year shows our author that they cannot perfect the worshippers who make use of them. If they could, would they not have done their job and then cease to have been offered (Heb. 10:2)?
But what the animal sacrifices in general and those on the Day of Atonement in particular could not do, that Jesus has perfectly accomplished. Jesus 'entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption' (Heb. 9:12). There can be no improvement on eternal redemption'. Jesus did not 'enter heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year' (Heb. 9:25). Repeatedly our author stresses the fact that Jesus offered himself once and for all (Heb. 7:27; 9:12,26,28;10:10,12,14,18). The finality of his sacrifice is impressive over against the annual repetition of the high priest's work on the Day of Atonement.
There is also a contrast between the high priest and Jesus. The former must offer for his own sins (Heb. 7:27; 9:7). But Jesus is 'holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens' (Heb. 7:26). Such a high priest does not need to offer sacrifice for himself. His sinlessness indeed is an integral part of the perfection of his offering.
Perhaps we should notice a point at which the two are alike. In the Levitical system all the sacrifices, including those of the Day of Atonement, were regarded as being of divine origin. When the high priest entered the Holy of Holies, or put the people's sins on the head of the scapegoat and sent them away into the wilderness, he was doing what God in his mercy commanded to be done. There is no hint that any magic is being applied or any attempt being made to coerce God. There are no pagan ideas of appeasement of an offended deity. Atonement is of divine origin and sin is put away only because God wills it and has ordained means whereby it can be accomplished. We see this in the work of Christ. The epistle to the Hebrews opens with a majestic sentence which stresses that God has always taken the initiative in his dealings with his people and that this divine initiative comes to its climax in the work of Christ. The writer never loses sight of the fact that salvation is all of God. Specifically, when he thinks of the atonement of Christ in terms of the Day of Atonement ceremonies he quotes Psalm 40 and applies it to him who came to do the will of the Father, 'And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all' (Heb. 10:10). All is of grace, for all is of God.
The Day of Atonement, then, has its place in the New Testament picture of Christ's saving work. It contributes to the idea of the new and living way two thoughts: access and forgiveness.
1. Access
Our sins separate us from God (Is. 59:2). We have no way of remedying the situation. But Christ has opened for his people the way into the very presence of God. This does not mean an occasional access. Christians live day by day in the assurance that the way into the presence of God is open wide. They need the mediation of no earthly priest. Indeed, now all of life is lived in God's presence. This is a most important truth for the average Christian. The average person is just that - average. He or she has no great importance in the eyes of the world. Indeed that is one of life's frustrations. When an injustice is done to us we have no access to the great ones who might put things right. We are continually pushed around by low-grade bureaucrats and kept in our place by office receptionists. It is possible to spend hours awaiting the pleasure of some subordinate official.
This is part of life and if anything can be done about it I do not know what it is. But believers have access where it really counts. Christ's fulfilment of the Day of Atonement ceremonies has opened up the way into the very presence of God for the humblest of his people. Nothing on earth can take away what this means in terms of prayer and of companionship.
2. Forgiveness
The imagery of the scapegoat, fulfilled in Christ's perfect bearing of sins, means that sins are really forgiven. The blood of animal sacrifices could never cope with the problems of man, made in God's image as he is. But the blood of Christ can and does. Our Day of Atonement was the day of the cross. Jesus 'suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood' (Heb. 13:12).
For further study
1. How was approach to God restricted and safeguarded in Old Testament times? What do we learn about God from this?
2. The writer to the Hebrews uses the ceremonies of the Day of Atonement to teach important lessons about the work of Christ. Make a list of the contrasts and the resemblances he finds.
3. What light does the scapegoat shed on the work of Christ as sin-bearer?