THE WHOLE BURNT OFFERING.

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with whom the offerer desired to be in loving oneness. It was an indication of a readiness to enter fully into that inter-union which the blood-covenant brought about between two who had been separated, but who were henceforth to be as one. This offering also must be made with blood; for it is blood-which is the life-that gives the possibility of inter-union. All the outpoured blood of this offering, however, went directly to the altar upon which the offering itself was laid;1 not toward the Most Holy Place, of the Lord's symbolic presence. This offering was not, indeed, understood as in itself compassing inter-union; it indicated rather a desire and a readiness for inter-union-anew or renewed: so both the substitute-body and the substituteblood were offered at the altar of typical surrender and consecration. When other sacrifices were brought, the burnt-offering followed the sin-offering, but preceded the peace-offering;2 again, it might be offered by itself. He who was of the blood-covenant stock of Abraham thereby sought restoration to the full privileges of that covenant, to which he had not been wholly true; and even he who was not of that stock might in this way show his desire to share in its privileges; "for the burnt offering was the only sacrifice which non-Israelites were permitted to bring"3 to the altar of Jehovah.

1 Lev. 1: 5, 11, 15. 2 Lev.8: 14-22; 9: 8–22; 14: 19, 20; 16: 3–25. 3 Edersheim's The Temple, Its Min. and Serv., p. 100.

Following the communion-seeking, or the unionseeking, sin-offering (with its connected, or related, trespass-offering, or guilt-offering), and the self-surrendering burnt-offering, there came the joyous communion-symbolizing peace-offering, with its type of completed union,1 in the sharing, by the sinner and his God, of the flesh of the sacrificial victim at a common feast. And this banquet-sacrifice2 corresponds with the feast of inter-communion which commonly follows the primitive rite of blood-covenanting, and which marks the completion of the inter-union thereby sought after. All the other sacrifices of the Mosaic ritual follow in the line of these three classes. Even those which are in themselves offered without blood presuppose the individual's share in the blood-covenant, by the rite of circumcision and through the high priest's sinoffering for the entire congregation. "The Rabbis attach ten comparative degrees of sanctity to sacrifices; and it is interesting to mark, that of these the first belonged to the blood of the sin-offering; the second to the burnt-offering; the third to the sin-offering itself; and the fourth to the trespass-offering.". The blood which is to secure the covenant-union-anew or re

1" From its derivation it might also be rendered, the offering of completion" (Edersheim's The Temple, Its Min., and Serv., p. 106).

2 See page 149, supra.

Edersheim's The Temple, Its Min. and Serv., p. 86.

LIMITATIONS OF THE SYMBOLS.

251

newed-is of preeminent importance. Then comes the symbol of self-surrendering devotedness. First, the possibility of inter-union; next, the expression of readiness and desire for it. After this, the other sacrifices range themselves according to their signification, until the culmination of the series is reached in the joyous inter-communion feast of the peace-offering.

But, with all the suggestions of the rite of bloodcovenanting in the sacrifices of the Mosaic ritual, there were limitations in the correspondences of that rite in those sacrifices, which mark the incompleteness of their symbolism and which point to better things to come. In the primitive blood-covenant rite itself, both parties receive, and partake of, the blood which becomes common to the two. In all the outside religions of the world, where men reach out after a divinehuman inter-union through substitute-blood, the offerer drinks of the sacrificial blood, or of something which stands for it; and so he is supposed to share the nature of the God with whom he thus covenants and interunites. In the Mosaic ritual, however, all drink-offerings of blood were forbidden to him who would enter into covenant with God; he might not taste of the blood. He might, it is true, look forward, by faith, to an ultimate sharing of the divine nature; and in anticipation of that inter-union, he could enjoy a symbolic inter-communion with God, by partaking of the peace

offerings at the table of his Lord; but as yet the sacrificial offering which could supply to his death-smitten nature the vivifying blood of an everlasting covenant was not disclosed to him.'

Even the substitute blood which he presented at the altar, as he came with his outreaching after a bloodcovenant union with the Lord, did not secure to him direct personal access to the symbolic earthly dwellingplace of the Lord. That blood could be poured out at the base of the altar of consecration, or it could be sprinkled upon its horns. That blood could, on occasions be sprinkled before the veil of the Most Holy Place, or could touch the horns of the altar of sweet incense. But that blood could never pass that veil which guarded the place of the Lord's symbolic presence, save once in a year when the high-priest, all by himself, and that not without a show of his own. unfitness for the mission, went in thither, to sprinkle the substitute blood before the mercy-seat; "the Holy Ghost this signifying, that the way into the Holy Place hath not yet been manifest 2"; that the substitute "blood of bulls and of goats "3 cannot be a means of man's inter-union with God.

Lest, indeed, the Israelite should believe that a bloodcovenant union was really secured with God, rather than typified, through these prescribed symbolic sacri1 Psa. 16: 4, 5.

2 Heb. 9: 8.

3 Heb. 10: 4.

THE SPIRIT ABOVE THE LETTER. 253

fices and their sharing, he was repeatedly warned against that fatal error, and was taught that his true covenanting must be by a faith-filled recognition of the symbolism of these substitute agencies; and by the implicit surrender of himself, in loving trust, to Him wno had ordained them as symbols. Thus in the Psalms :

"Hear, O my people, and I will speak;

O Israel, and I will testify unto thee:

I am God, even thy God.

I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices;

And thy burnt-offerings are continually before me.

Will I eat the flesh of bulls,

Or drink the blood of goats?

Offer unto God the sacrifice of thanksgiving;

And pay thy vows unto the Most High:

And call upon me in the day of trouble;

I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.

"But unto the wicked, God saith:

What hast thou to do to declare my statutes,

And that thou hast taken my covenant in thy mouth?
Seeing thou hatest instruction,

And castest my words behind thee." 1

Again, in the prophecy of Isaiah :

"To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me?
Saith the Lord:

I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed

beasts;

And I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or

of he-goats.

1 Psa. 50: 7-17.