even when with their lips they utter the word. It is
The blood, which was sprinkled on the mercyseat, was from without. The sacrifice was not slain in the inner courts, but in the outer. It was blood from without that was carried in the priestly basin within the veil, sprinkling the veil, the floor, the ark, the mercy-seat, and the feet of the cherubim as they stood upon the golden covering. In being carried within, it lost none of its expiating virtue and value: nay, it seemed to acquire more virtue and more value as it lay upon the furniture of the holy of holies.
Its efficacy, when thus brought within the veil, was enhanced; and it did not the less speak to those without because itself was within. It had come from without, and its voice spoke to those who were without. It spoke but from one small point, yet it goes beyond the tabernacle, beyond Israel, beyond Palestine, to the men of every kindred and nation, and tongue and people. It contained a world-wide message, so that each one hearing of that atoning blood might at once say, Then God is summoning me back to Himself; He is saying to me, "be thou reconciled to me"; He is sending to me, from the altar and the mercy-seat, an invitation of mingled righteousness and grace.
This propitiation rests on substitution. In all these symbolical transactions we have one vast thought,--the transference of guilt from one to another, legally and judicially; the presentation of one death for another, as perfectly valid for all ends of justice, and quite as suitable before God as the judge, to meet every governmental claim as the direct infliction of the appointed penalty on the actual transgressor.
There are two things which the whole Levitical service assumes, and without which it is simple mockery of man, that Sin is reality, and that Substitution is righteousness.
1. Sin is a real thing. Men do not think so, even when with their lips they utter the word. It is but a shadow to them, a mere name, no more.
Sin is a sore evil. It is not felt to be so, yet it is not the less truly such. It is not hated, it is not shunned as an evil,--an evil whose greatness no