Chapter III: The End Purpose of the Ceremonial Laws, § 26.
CHAPTER III: THE END PURPOSE OF THE CEREMONIAL LAWS
§ 26. Based on these points, it is easy to deduce the purpose of the ceremonial laws. The primary and chief purpose was to signify and foreshadow the benefits of Christ (Col. 2:17; Heb. 8:5; 10:1). Here belongs the revelation given to Moses from God in Exod. 25:40: “See that you make them after the likeness and pattern shown to you on the mountain.” Heb. [9:9] renders this as παραβoλή [“an analogy”]. Justin (Dial. cum Tryph., p. 177): “The new law wants you to keep the eternal Sabbath.” Page 178: “This is a sign and symbol of the unleavened bread of sincerity, that you no longer do the works of wicked leaven,” etc. Page 202: “If I also list all the other things commanded by Moses, I could show that they are figures, marks, and announcements of those things which were to happen to Christ and which Christ Himself was going to do.” Jerome (Ad Paulin.): “It is clear in the Book of Leviticus that every sacrifice—in fact, almost every syllable, even Aaron’s vestments and the entire Levitical order—manifest the mysteries of heaven.” Augustine (De civ. Dei, bk. 7, ch. 32): “Through the rites, priesthood, tabernacle or temple, altars, sacrifices, ceremonies, feast days, etc., were signified and foretold those things which we believe were fulfilled in Christ for the eternal life of the faithful, and those things which we see are being fulfilled or are yet to be fulfilled.”
** Augustine again (De civ. Dei, bk. 10, ch. 4): “Whatever things we read were variously commanded by God in the ministry of the tabernacle or temple regarding the sacrifices signify love for God and love for one’s neighbor.” **
Again (De civ. Dei, bk. 18, ch. 11): “Moses prophesied Christ by the figures of carnal observances in the tabernacle, priesthood, sacrifices, and the many other mystical mandates.” The benefits of Christ were not only foreshadowed in those Levitical ceremonies, but they were also applied to believers through their use of the sacraments and sacrifices. Thus whenever animals were slain for use in the sacrifices, a figure of Christ’s death was set forth, for He is the unique God-pleasing sacrificial victim, depicted in the types of the sacrifices for the Israelites to look upon in true faith and receive forgiveness of sins before God.
Many less significant and secondary purposes for the ceremonial laws can be established in accordance with the diversity and variety of those rituals: (1) They were the cords of the public assemblies and the bonds which tied the people together since most of the Levitical ceremonies were administered in the public exercise of the worship of God. (2) They were marks of one’s profession, signs, and markers that distinguished the Mosaic state from all other nations, for by these ceremonies the Israelites were separated as if by a fence and wall from the idolatrous practices of other peoples (Deut. 4:8; Eph. 2:14). (3) They were warnings about sin (Heb. 10:3). This is quite clear in the various types of Levitical uncleanness and the various animals slain for use in the sacrifices. (4) They were exercises of obedience toward God, seeing as, by observing these divinely prescribed rituals, the Israelites were confessing that they acknowledged and worshiped the true God, who had promulgated those laws through Moses along with the promise of the coming Messiah. (5) They were the external pedagogues which restrained them from imitating Gentile idolatry (Deut. 12:30). So Justin says (Tryph., p. 227) that these were imposed upon the Jews “due to their hardness of heart and their proclivity to idolatry.” Irenaeus (bk. 4, ch. 28): “God did not need any of these things, for He is always full of all good things, having every sweet fragrance and all the vapors of sweet oils within Himself even before Moses existed. Rather, through His many admonishments He was instructing this people which easily returned to idols,” etc., “calling them through the secondary to the primary, that is, through the typological to the true, through the temporal to the eternal things, through the carnal to the spiritual, and through the earthly to the heavenly.” Tertullian (Advers. Marcion., bk. 2, ch. 18): “Let no one find fault with the burdens of the sacrifices nor the detailed rituals of the solemn feast days and the offerings, as if God desired such things strictly for Himself,” etc. “Rather, let him perceive the diligence of God in wanting to bind a people close to His religion by such obligations since they were prone to idolatry and sin. By these [religious obligations] worldly superstition was driven out so that He might call them away from it by ordering them to do these things for Him as if He desired them, lest they sin by making idols.” (6) They were supports to preserve the ministry. Through the meats of certain sacrifices as well as the tithes of the firstborn and the offerings of the firstfruits, the needs of the Levites and their families were taken care of.