The Atonement and the Priestly Work of Christ
by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive," 1 Cor. 15:21, 22; and again, "For as through the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the one shall the many be made righteous," Rom. 5:19. This also explains how he could say, "Him who knew no sin He made to be sin on our behalf; that we might become the righteousness of God in Him," 2 Cor. 5:21.
It should be noted that in the covenant of redemption Christ became the legal representative, not of all men, as Adam was, but only of those whom the Father gave unto Him. These are variously designated as "the children whom God hath given" Him, Heb. 2:13,
"the seed of Abraham," v. 16, and "His brethren," v. 17. Only for them does He intercede, John 17:9, and only for them does He claim the reward, v. 24. If this limitation of the covenant had always been borne in mind, there would have been little need of discussing the extent of the atonement. It would have been understood at once that Christ undertook and finished His atoning work for a limited number, namely, for those who were chosen in Him before the foundation of the world, Eph. 1:4.
The Atonement and the Priestly Work of Christ The offices of Christ.
THE atonement should also be studied in connection with the priestly office of Jesus Christ. While it is perfectly true that the Mediator functions in the work of redemption, not only as priest, but also as prophet and king; in His atoning work He stands out preeminently as the great High Priest. In modern liberal theology the doctrine of the offices of Christ does not meet with great favor. As a matter of fact it is often conspicuous by its absence. And if it is still
mentioned, it is usually for the purpose of pointing out that the work of Christ cannot properly be subsumed under the three offices of Christ, since it is a unity and cannot be distributed in that fashion.
Moreover, the terms "prophet," "priest," and "king," as applied to Christ, are often regarded only as so many figurative descriptions of the different aspects of the work of Christ. Christ is not considered to be a real prophet, a real priest, and a real king. It is no wonder therefore that many modern works on the atonement are silent about the priestly office of Christ. The modern spirit is quite averse to the official Christ, but greatly in love with the self-denying and selfsacrificing Jesus. And even so it does not stress His priestly but rather His prophetic work.
It should be emphasized at the outset that, according to Scripture, Jesus is a real priest. As over against the priests of the Old
Testament, who were merely shadows and types, He may be called the only real priest. He was revealed among men as the truth (i. e. the reality) of all the shadows of the Old Testament, and therefore also of the Old Testament priesthood. He is priest according to the order of Melchizedek, and the superiority of this order, as compared with that of Aaron, is clearly brought out in the seventh chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews. It is a mistake to think that He is a priest only in the sense in which devotees of art and literature are sometimes called priests. This is after all a very incorrect and entirely unwarranted use of the term "priest." The Bible never employs it in such an arbitrary way. When Jehovah swore, "Thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek," He constituted the Messiah a real priest.
The nature of the priestly office.
And if we desire to get an idea of the nature of the priestly office, we can do no better than to turn to Heb. 5:1, where we read: "For every high priest, being taken from among men, is appointed for men in things pertaining to God, that He may offer both gifts and sacrifices
for sins." This passage contains a rather complete description of the nature of the priestly work. Several elements are indicated here.
The priest taken from among men, appointed for men.
It should be noted first of all that the priest is taken from among men. This is of the greatest importance and may even be called absolutely essential, since he must act in a representative capacity. It is often correctly said that, while the prophet comes to men as the representative of God, the priest draws near unto God as the representative of men. The priest had to be taken from among men because his services symbolized the truth of man's making atonement for sin, and because he typified the man Christ Jesus in His atoning work. Christ could not have served as our great High
Priest, if He had not Himself been man. Some wrongly claim that this truth is contradicted by Heb. 7:28. The high priest is appointed for men, that is, in the interest or for the benefit of men. And he has his appointment from God. This is not expressed in the passage under consideration, but is clearly stated in the fourth verse, "And no man taketh the honour unto himself, but when he is called of God, even as was Aaron." Dr. Martin in his excellent work on The Atonement would seem to be putting an undue strain on the plural
"men" when he infers from its use that the work of the priest, and by implication also the work of Christ, is personal right from the start, that is, seeks to promote the spiritual interests of certain definite persons, and not of mankind in general. However true this thought may be in itself—and it finds abundant warrant in Scripture—, it can hardly be based on this passage in a way that carries conviction. The plural is in all probability simply used to make it correspond to the preceding plural, "being taken from among men, is appointed for men." Dr. Martin seems to be interested in finding the thought here that Christ performed His work for the benefit of a certain specific number of men. But it should be borne in mind that the author of Hebrews does not directly speak of Christ until he comes to the fifth verse. However, the passage does clearly teach by implication that
Christ was divinely appointed for the performance of an official task, a thought that is distasteful to modern liberal theology.
Work of the Priest before God.
The priest is appointed for men in things pertaining to God. He is to represent men before God. Whatever business they have with God, he must transact, cf. also 2:17. The business which he is called upon to transact before God is described in the epexegetical statement
"that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins," cf. also 7:27; 8:3; 9:9; 10:10. The same thought is expressed in Heb. 2:17 in the following words, "to make propitiation for the sins of the people." On the basis of these passages we may say that it was the task of the priest to offer up sacrifices for the purpose of propitiation. This does not mean that it was his function to change the disposition of God by offering expiatory sacrifices—an idea prominent in pagan religions— for the divine disposition in itself does not admit of change; but rather that it was his official task to ward off the divine displeasure by interposing the sacrificial blood between God and the sinner as a covering for sin. This establishes the important point that the work of the priest has primarily a God-ward reference, a point which is utterly ignored and implicitly denied by all subjective theories of atonement. The advocates of these theories not only ignore the objective reference of the atonement of Christ, but as a rule positively repudiate the idea that He presented Himself to God as a sacrifice of expiation or atonement. The remarks of Dr. Martin on the use of the plural rather than the singular in the expression "for sins" seem to us rather irrelevant, especially in view of the fact that the author of Hebrews does not hesitate to use the singular "sin" exactly where he speaks of the sacrifice of Christ, 9:26. Notice also that John the Baptist introduces Jesus as "the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world," John 1:29. Sin manifests itself in a multiplicity of sins, and did this especially for the consciousness of the Old
Testament priests, with whom the writer is comparing Christ, since they were generally bringing sacrifices for particular sins.
Personal reference of the work of Christ.
While the thought that the work of the Old Testament priests, and therefore also the work of Christ, had a personal reference and effected atonement only for certain definite persons, or for a definite group and not for all mankind, can hardly be based on the plurals
"men" and "sins" in Heb. 5:1, it is nevertheless a scriptural idea. The Old Testament priests in the great majority of cases offered sacrifices for certain specific persons. In some cases they did it for the priesthood or for the nation of Israel as a whole, but never for all men or all mankind. Sacrifices were brought for the nation in its theocratic character as symbolizing and typifying the true people of God. It is significant that they could not be brought for the sins of individuals who in effect terminated their relationship to the theocracy. In the New Testament the sacrifice of Christ is represented throughout in relation to the Church. He died sacrificially for many, Isa. 53:11, 12; Matt. 20:28; 26:28; Heb. 2:10;
9:28, for His people, Matt. 1:21; Tit. 2:14, for his sheep, John 10:11, 15 (cf. 26–29); Heb. 13:20, for His brethren, Heb. 2:11, for the children of God, John 11:52; Heb. 2:13–15, for His Church, Acts
20:28; Eph. 5:25, or for us as believers, Rom. 5:9; 8:32; 1 Cor. 5:7; Eph. 1:7; Col. 1:14; Heb. 9:14; 1 Peter 3:18; 1 John 4:19; Rev. 1:5, 6;
5:9, 10. This means that Christ in performing his sacrificial work had certain definite persons in mind right from the beginning. This is the rock on which all other theories of the atonement suffer shipwreck.
Their advocates do indeed admit that the atonement of Christ results in the salvation of only a limited number of persons, but deny that the salvation of those persons only was intended by Christ from the start.
Christ active in His sufferings.
The fact that Christ was not merely a sacrifice, but also functioned as priest gives due prominence to another important truth, namely, that he was active in His sufferings. He was not an unwilling victim of circumstances, such as the evil environment in which He moved or
the wicked plottings of the Jews, but deliberately gave Himself to bitter sufferings and a shameful death. He was the great High Priest who brought the supreme sacrifice, which was adumbrated by all the sacrifices of the Old Testament. On more than one occasion He made it perfectly clear that He might have escaped, if He had so desired. It is generally admitted, of course, that Christ was active during His life, but the point that is frequently missed, if not explicitly denied, is that He was active as priest in offering a sacrifice on the altar of God, active especially in the supreme moment when He laid down His life for sinners. He was active on the cross just as the Old Testament high priest was active on the great Day of Atonement in bringing the special sin-offerings for the people. If He was not active at that moment when He completed His sacrificial work by laying down His life, then He failed at the crucial point. But in the light of Scripture there can be no doubt about it that He was active even in His death.
We are told that "He poured out His soul unto death," Isa. 53:12, and that "He loved the Church and gave Himself for it," Eph. 5:25; Gal.
2:20. In Eph. 5:2 Paul makes the significant statement that "Christ gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for an odor of a sweet smell." As the good Shepherd He laid down His life for the sheep and He made it abundantly clear that this was his deed by saying: "Therefore doth the Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No one taketh it away from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again." John 10:17, 18. Here the power to lay down His life is equated with the power exerted in the resurrection. This truth deserves special emphasis at the present time in view of the widespread tendency to regard Christ as exclusively passive in His death, a victim of adverse circumstances. All Example and Moral
Influence Theories, as well as modern liberal theology in general, find the value of His atoning work in His life rather than in His death. They can hardly interpret His death otherwise than as the death of a martyr to a worthy cause. Shailer Mathews speak of Jesus as the innocent victim of maladjustment, and says: "The tragedy of His execution is all the darker since He was a victim of religious
idealism and political order." The Atonement and the Social Process, p. 199.
The Sacrifice of Christ prefigured.
Finally, it also deserves attention that the sacrifice of Christ as the great High Priest was prefigured in the old dispensation. The points to be noted particularly are that the sacrifices of the Old Testament were piacular or expiatory, vicarious, and typical in character. A great many scholars under the influence of the Graf-Wellhausen school deny their penal and substitutionary character. Some are willing to admit that this character was sometimes ascribed to them during the period of the Old Testament, though at a comparatively late date, but claim that there is no warrant for this in the Old
Testament itself. Stevens says: "We must conclude, therefore, that whatever may have been the popular interpretation of Jewish sacrifice, neither its original nor its intended and prevailing meaning was penal or substitutionary." The Christian Doctrine of Salvation, p.
14. He admits that it is not easy to give a simple and clear answer to the question, "What was the object of the sin-offerings if not penal satisfaction?"
Theories respecting the O. T. sacrifices.
Various theories have been broached as to the fundamental character of the Old Testament sacrifices. It has been suggested (1) that they were gifts to please the deity, to express gratitude, or to placate the wrath of the divine being; (2) that they were essentially sacrificial meals, expressive of communion between the deity and man; (3) that they were divinely appointed means whereby the heinousness of sin should be confessed and attested; or (4) that, in so far as they embodied the idea of substitution, they were merely symbolical expressions of the fact that God accepts the sinner, in lieu of actual obedience, in the sacrifice which expresses his desire to obey and his longing for salvation. The advocates of the Governmental and Moral
Influence Theories of the atonement usually resort to some such
explanation of the Old Testament sacrifices as indicated under (3) and (4). We cannot enter upon a discussion of these various views here, but can only give our reasons for maintaining that the Old
Testament sacrifices contained an expiatory element, which was most prominent in the sin-and trespass-offerings, but was also present in burnt-and peace-offerings; that as expiatory sacrifices they were vicarious or substitutionary; and that they typified and therefore pointed forward to the great sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
The Mosaic sacrifices were Piacular.
The pre-Mosaic sacrifices may be left out of consideration here, though there are reasons to believe that they too were of a piacular character, cf. Gen. 8:20, 21; Job 1:5; 42:7–9. It appears that all the Mosaic sacrifices, burnt-and peace-offerings as well as sin-and trespass offerings, contained an expiatory element, Lev. 4:13–20;
7:7; 1:3, 4; 3:1, 2; 23:27, 28; Num. 28:22. The expiatory character of these sacrifices has been denied, but these denials have been met with cogent arguments time and again. The following particulars point to the propitiatory and substitutionary character of these sacrifices: (1) The animals that were chosen for offerings were those which stood nearest to man and could therefore best serve as substitutes. (2) They had to be without blemish, that is, perfect in their kind to symbolize the fact that only a sinless one could take the place of the sinner, 1 Peter 1:19. (3) The offerer had to confess his sins in the presence of this sacrifice, and then lay his hands upon its head in token of the transference of his sins to the offering. (4) The offering was actually slain, as we are repeatedly told, for the purpose of making atonement for the offerer. (5) Time and again we are assured that the sacrifice effects the pardoning of the offerer's sin. If all these things were taken into consideration and given due weight, it would hardly seem possible that anyone should deny the expiatory and vicarious nature of these sacrifices. The services on the great Day of Atonement were particularly instructive. Two goats were brought for a special sin-offering: the one had to be slain and its blood sprinkled on and before the mercy-seat, to "make atonement for the
Holy Place, because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel, and because of their transgressions, even all their sins"; and the other had to be "sent into the wilderness; and … bear upon him all their iniquities unto a solitary land." Lev. 16:16, 21, 22.
Sacrifices for moral offenses.
Some have maintained that in the Mosaic dispensation sacrifices were not brought for moral offenses at all, but only for ceremonial transgressions or for sins of ignorance to which no moral character could attach. Now it is quite true that the external sacrifices as such affected only the ceremonial standing of the Israelites; but even breaches of the ceremonial law might very well involve moral turpitude, to judge by the state of mind which they indicated.
Moreover, the so-called sins of ignorance not only included sins that were done from want of knowledge, but also unintentional sins and sins that resulted from weakness or carelessness; and such ignorance, weakness, or carelessness might certainly be criminal.
Notice that offerings were required in cases of theft and were permitted in some cases of fornication. Moreover, on the great Day of Atonement sin-offerings were brought for all the sins of the people. It is true, however, that there were certain offenses for which no sacrifice could atone even in the ceremonial sense. Sins committed with a high hand (intentional sins) were to be punished by death, since they were regarded as capital offenses against the state or against the moral order of society. Ceremonial restoration and cutting off from the people could not go hand in hand. Naturally, this does not mean that these sins could not be forgiven by God.
Mosaic sacrifices not spiritually efficacious.
The point that deserves special emphasis is that the Mosaic sacrifices were not in themselves efficacious to expiate moral transgressions.
They were not the real sacrifice that could atone for moral guilt and remove moral pollution, but only shadows of the coming reality.
Speaking of the tabernacle, the writer of Hebrews says: "Which is a
figure for the time present; according to which are offered both gifts and sacrifices that cannot, as touching the conscience, make the worshiper perfect." Heb. 9:9. He points to the shadowy character of the law when he says: "For the law, having a shadow of the good things to come, not the very image of the things, can never with the same sacrifices year by year, which they offer continually, make perfect them that draw nigh." 10:1. And again, he speaks of the ineffectual character of the Old Testament sacrifices, saying: "For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins," 10:4. The reason for all this is not that God did not appoint them for that end, but rather that they were not fit to serve that purpose. Various reasons can be given for this: (1) They did not properly express the greatness of God's displeasure against sin, and thus failed to reveal the exceeding sinfulness of sin. (2) They bore no proper relation to man either in point of nature or of legal obligation: they could not serve as his proper substitutes, because they were far inferior to man and were not under the law which he had broken. (3)
They were not sufficient to maintain the inviolable rectitude of the moral law, which demands the death of the sinner, and cannot be satisfied with the death of an animal instead. (4) Their value was not at all proportionate to the life that had been forfeited, the life of a rational, moral, and immortal being. The only thing in which these sacrifices, as such, were effectual, was in the symbolical restoration of the sinner to his outward place and privileges in the commonwealth of Israel.
O. T. Sacrifices typical of the sacrifice of Christ.
But what was said does not exhaust the meaning of the Old Testament sacrifices. Some regard ceremonial restoration as the only purpose which they served, but this can hardly be called a scriptural view. According to the Bible they were designed to prefigure, to typify, the vicarious sufferings and death of Jesus Christ. The connection between them and Christ is already indicated in the Old
Testament. "Sacrifice and offering thou hast no delight in: Mine eyes hast thou opened; burnt-offering and sin-offering hast thou not