3. Ceremonial sacrifices, under the law, could not be sufficient for
To conclude this. The most excellent satisfaction and sacrifice becomes the dignity of an injured God, and such a satisfaction, that there cannot be imagined a greater by a creature; but whatsoever satisfaction can be given by men or angels, is not so great as may be imagined and apprehended by a creature; for such an one may be imagined as may proceed absolutely holy from the person offering, and be attended with an immutable innocence, without any possibility of a charge of folly, which is a condition above a created state. God was made lower than any creature by sin; and therefore such a satisfaction was suitable, as might render God infinitely higher than any creature, and demonstrate the highest and most glorious perfections of his nature. This was wrought by the death of the Son of God, and could not have been evidenced in that height by the death of any creature.
3. Ceremonial sacrifices, under the law, could not be sufficient for this affair. The Jews, indeed, did rest upon them; thought that, if not by their own virtue, yet by the virtue of God's institution, they purged away their sin, Isa. 1:13, 14. But, [1.] This was against common reason. Common reason would conclude, that the sin of a soul could never be expiated by the blood of a beast, and that a nature so inferior could not be a compensation for the crime of a nature so much superior to it. The prophet spake but the true reason of mankind, when he asserted, that the Lord would not be pleased with thousands of rams, or ten thousands of rivers of oil, nor the first-born of the body be a satisfaction for the sin of the soul, Micah 6:6, 7. The first-born and fruit of a man's own body was too low, much more the first-born of a beast. The soul was the principal in sin, and what fitness had a corporeal blood to make amends for the crime of a spiritual nature? A rational sacrifice only was fit to be an atonement for the sin of a rational being. The brutish nature was not the human, there was no agreement between the nature of man and that of a bullock. The transgressing nature was to suffer, the soul that sins, that shall die, Ezek. 18. A beast had no communion in nature with man, whereby it might respect the sinner,
nor any worth in itself, whereby it might respect God, nor any willingness or intention for such an end. Can any think sin so light, as to be expiated by such pitiful mean blood? The remedy ought to be suited to the disease and the party afflicted.* The sin consisted in rebellion and hatred of God; the remedy then must consist in perfect righteousness, exact obedience, and intense love to God; all which beasts were uncapable of. A man must put off his own reason, and have very debasing apprehensions of the perfections of God, if he thinks infinite holiness scorned, infinite justice provoked, infinite glory rifled, can put up all upon the offering brutish blood, that knows not why and to what end it is offered. It was too base a thing to be thought to bear a proportion to an infinite offended nature.
What should the flesh and blood of goats signify to a spiritual nature, with which it had no agreement? Ps. 50:13. It was not agreeable to the wisdom of God. A wise earthly lawgiver would not think the life of a beast to be a fit recompence for the capital crime of a malefactor.
The wisdom of God knew that they were unproportioned to the end of an expiatory sacrifice. And was it not inconsistent with this perfection, for God to be contented with so vile a thing, after such terrible thunderings from mount Sinai, and giving the law with so much solemnity? What a ridiculous thing would all that ado appear to be, if a beast's blood were powerful enough to quench the force of those flames, and put to silence the thunders of the divine fury, if the transgression of any part of it might be washed away by so cheap an offering? Besides, the same wisdom surely would not let man, the most excellent creature, be beholden to brutes for the merit of righteousness, nor could they be agreeable to the justice of God in the law, which required the death of the party offending. If all the beasts of Lebanon were sacrificed, and the cedars cut down for wood for the burnt-offerings, all could not be a sweet-smelling savour before God. There is an infinite disproportion between this kind of satisfaction and the divine majesty. With God only is plenteous redemption, Ps. 130:7, 8; with God, not in the blood of beasts, but in the true sacrifice, and ransomer; yet with God, and not then manifested to the world.
[2.] The repetition of those sacrifices shewed their imperfection and insufficiency. It is from this head the apostle argues their weakness and impossibility to take away sin, Heb. 10:1–4. There was after them a remembrance of sin; the offerer was not so bettered by them, but still he had need of new ones to keep him right with God. Had any thing been perfected by them, they had ceased, only the new application of an old sacrifice had been required; but there was no ground for an after application of a past sacrifice upon new sins, because the efficacy of the blood ceased as soon as it was shed and sprinkled, so that multitudes of them could not constitute an inexhaustible treasure of reconciliation and merit. The variety of them manifested that there was nothing firm in them. As many medicines shew their own inefficacy, so the many sacrifices and purifications did evidence that a firm and efficacious propitiation was to be sought elsewhere. If the great annual sacrifice, the most solemn one in that whole institution (of which you may read, Levit.
16:29, 23:27), could not effect it, much less could sacrifices of a lower dignity. It is from the repetition of this great sacrifice Paul argues the insufficiency of it. This was the most solemn sacrifice, because it was offered by the high priest himself, and for all the people, and the blood sprinkled in the holy of holies. A less sacrifice could not have a larger virtue than the greatest, yet the repetition of this shewed its imperfection.
[3.] God never intended them for the expiation of sin by any virtue of their own. The majesty of God, that sin fought against, was infinite; the sacrifice then must be infinite; but none of those sacrifices under the law were so. Why then did God constitute them? Not with any intention to purge away the sin of the soul, but the ceremonial uncleanness of the flesh: Heb. 9:13, 14, 'The blood of bulls sanctifies to the purifying the flesh.' The apostle compares those and the sacrifice of Christ together, shewing that one purified only the flesh, the other the conscience. It was not a moral guilt they were intended to remove, but a ceremonial, as when one was defiled by touching a dead carcase or a leprous body, which was in estimation a defilement of the body, not of the soul. It was a guilt judged so by God, not by
any law of nature, but a positive law, an arbitrary constitution, which punished it not with death, but with a suspension from communion till it were expiated by a sacrifice; and therefore God might settle what compensation he pleased of a lower nature, for that which was not a moral guilt, for there was nothing in those ceremonial impurities which might waste the conscience, or be accounted a dead work, ver. 14, or infect the soul.* But as to moral crimes, they were rather the confessions than expiations of them. And, indeed, God often discovered their weakness, and that they could not give him rest, or recompense the injury received by sin: Isa. 66:1, 'Where is the house that you build me, and where is the place of my rest? For all those things have my hands made, and all those things have been, saith the Lord.' By the house or temple, is meant all the Jewish economy, and the lump of sacrifices; all those things, though God appointed them, and though they had been used and performed, God had no rest in. They neither satisfied his justice, nor vindicated the honour of his law, nor could they ever take away sin, Heb. 10:11. And, therefore, the only wise God never instituted them for that end, unless we will say he was deceived in his expectations, and mistaken in the end of his appointments. God therefore rejected them, not only upon the hypocrisy of the offerers (as sometimes he did), but upon the account of their own nature, being unable to attain the end of a propitiatory sacrifice, Heb. 7:18. They were disannulled for the weakness and unprofitableness of them. Though they had been practised for so many ages, yet not one sin had been expiated by them in that long tract of time.
[4.] God did therefore appoint them to prefigure a more excellent sacrifice, able to do it. The vileness and poorness of a beast appointed for sacrifice might admonish the Jews that such light things were insufficient for so great a work as the taking away of sin, the wrath of God, and eternal punishment, and redeeming the soul of man (more precious than all the beasts of the field or birds of the air); they must needs conceive sin was too foul to be washed away with such blood; and this would naturally lead them to conceive that they prefigured a sacrifice more excellent and sufficient for those
ends. They were but shadows, Heb. 10:1, and did typically respect a crucified, dying Christ as the substance; and what virtue they had was not in and from themselves, but from their typical relation to that which they shadowed. They signified the sacrifice of Christ, by whose blood, in the fulness of time, the sins that were past were to be expiated, Rom. 3:25; and as shadows received what value they had from their substance. They did not as shadows purge away any sin, but represent that which should. The shadow of a man shews like a man, but hath not the virtue and power of a man, whose shadow it is, to act what he doth. They easily might collect from them that they were not able to expiate their sins themselves, that it must be done by death, and by the death of some other, not the offender, but of one too that was innocent, and whose sacrifice might be of perpetual virtue; and this those shadows signified to any inquisitive mind.*
And the Scripture evidenceth this, the will of God was the reparation of mankind; and when those were insufficient for it, Christ steps in as the great sacrifice wherein God had pleasure, to do this will of God, viz., man's restoration in a way congruous to the honour of God, Heb. 10:6–8. So that what pleasure God had in the institution of legal sacrifices, did not arise from anything in themselves, nor was terminated in them, but in this sacrifice, more excellent than the sacrifice of worlds of creatures.
[2.] Since all these were insufficient, some other must be found out to effect it. And this was Christ only, the Son of God. To fancy a satisfaction below the demerit of the offence, and disproportioned to the injury committed, is to wrong the wisdom and justice of God, and to vilify God in such low thoughts of his nature. That only can be properly called a satisfaction, which is suited to the majesty of God, and is equivalent to the sin of man. Now, since none else were able to offer to God anything for the reparation of his glory, there must be something offered to God, which is greater than everything that was not God. There was therefore a necessity of some divine person to give that satisfaction which was necessary for the honour of God; that, as a father saith, there might be as much humiliation in the expiation as there was presumption in the transgression. If God
would have accepted a satisfaction less than infinite, he might as well have pardoned sin without a satisfaction at all.
(1.) Christ was the fittest, and only capable of effecting it. He was more excellent than all the creatures of the lowest and highest rank put together. There was none whose merit and dignity could equal the greatness and infiniteness of the injury done to God by sin. None could compensate the blackness of the offence with such a greatness of satisfaction. And indeed we cannot imagine that God would expose his Son to so cruel a death, were it not necessary or highly convenient for his honour, or that the Son himself would have taken such a task upon his shoulders, to redeem man in a way of perfect justice. The death of Christ was necessary, our redemption could not else have been in the most perfect manner. None but a divine person could offer a price of redemption worthy of God. His person was infinite, and therefore was able to compensate an infinite injury. He was the prime male in the world, and therefore called the first-born of every creature, Col. 1:15, i.e. the basis and foundation of the whole creation.* He was innocent; he was free from everything that might render him an unsavoury sacrifice. He was like us, and in that had what was necessary for a sacrifice, but sin excepted; and in that he wanted what would have made him incapable of effecting our redemption. It was necessary that we should have such a surety and satisfier as was not only innocent, but immutably so, that could not by any means be bespotted by sin; and that the apostle intimates,
Heb. 7:26, 'holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners,' and from sin. Had he only been holy, without being immutably so, the election of God had not stood firm; for since God chose some to bring to glory, and that in Christ, it had been a tottering and uncertain resolution, had the perfecting the redemption of his chosen ones depended upon the transactions of a mutable person, that could not eternally secure himself from offending. Had it been possible for the Redeemer to sin, it had been possible for the absolute decree of God to become vain, and of no effect. He had also strength to do it; his own arm brought salvation, Isa. 63:5. He paid
God that which he was not bound to pay; he paid an obedience as
man, which was not due from him as God. He was made subject to the law, Gal. 4:4; not, he was subject to the law by his nature, but made so by his incarnation. He was the fittest, in regard of his being the second person in the Trinity.† It was not fit the Father should suffer, he is regarded as the Governor of the world; who should then have been judge of the satisfaction, whether it had been sufficient or no? Was it fit the Father should have appeared before the tribunal of the Son? Nor was it so fit that the Spirit of God should undertake it; because, as there was a necessity of satisfaction to content the justice of God, so there was a necessity of applying this satisfaction, and quickening the hearts of men to believe and accept it, that they might enjoy the fruits of this sacrifice. The order of the three persons had then been disturbed; and that person whereby the Father and the Son execute all other things, had changed his operation.
He was fit, in regard of both natures in union.‡ Since neither man nor angel could do this business, and there is no nature above theirs but the divine, it must be the divine nature and human together: human, because man had sinned; divine, because the satisfaction should equal the offence. Here they are both in conjunction; the substance of the satisfaction is made in the human nature suffering, and the value of the satisfaction is from the divine. Had he not been mortal, he could not have undergone the punishment sin had merited; and had he not been divine, he could not have given a reparation equivalent to the damage by sin; he was man to perform it, and God to be sufficient for it.
(2.) The honour of God was most preserved and elevated thereby.
This way mercy did not invade the rights of justice, nor justice trespass upon the bowels of mercy; both contain themselves in their own spheres. Mercy was preserved from being injured by seeing man solely punished, and justice was preserved from being wronged by seeing man solely pardoned. Thus was the nature of God glorified, without one attribute clashing against the other. Justice could not so well have been declared without the death of Christ, he was therefore set forth ἐις ἐνδέιξιν, Rom. 3:25. To declare his righteousness, as an
index of justice, to point to every head and part of it in the nature of God. In this way God saved us as a judge, a lawgiver, and a king, Isa.
33:22; as a judge in the manifestation of his righteousness, as a lawgiver in the vindication of his holiness, as a king in the demonstration of his sovereignty, in such a way as that his justice is cleared, his law righted, and his sovereignty acknowledged. His hatred of sin was more clearly manifested, and his truth in his threatenings made good and established, and sinners more obliged to God, and engaged upon the account of ingenuity to a greater abhorrency of sin, and a fear and love of God, which, by the suffering of any creature, could not have had so strong a foundation in them.
God set a high value upon his law; it was his royal law; and had it been wholly neglected, the royalty of God had not only been violated, but his holiness and righteousness had been disparaged, which shone forth in the law, and made up the whole frame of it; and since death was required by the law, death must be suffered, that there might be an agreement between the threatening and the suffering, the punishment and the justice of God, which required it. We may reasonably think it had been a greater act of wisdom to make no law, than to let it be violated always, without preserving the honour of it.
The doctrine of the death of Christ is the substance of the gospel.* Though there be many doctrines in it besides that, there is no comfort from any of them without the consideration of the cross of Christ; for, though God be merciful in his own nature, yet since sin hath made a separation between God and his creature, it is impossible to renew any communion with him, without a propitiation for the offence. We see, then, Christ is the only meritorious cause of our justification; nothing that we can do can satisfy God, we must be wholly off from ourselves and our own righteousness, as to any dependence on it, and act faith in the death of the Son of God, if we would be secure here in our consciences, or happy hereafter.
As to suffer death was the immediate end of the interposition of Christ; and the veracity of God in settling the penalty of death did