true not only of each type or prophetic symbol in detail, but also of the entire system as a whole. It is a grand historical fact that the ancient temple, its ritual services, and its ministers and their functions, prefigured and pre- pared the way for the advent and work of Christ for nearly two thousand years. It is also a grand historical fact that the priestly work of Christ ¢mmediately and definitely superseded the work’ of the Levitical priest- hood. The sacrifice of Christ made the Levitical priest, ipso facto, functus officio.
Hence we argue, since the ancient high priest was a type of Christ, and since he was a literal, and not a metaphorical high priest, that it certainly follows— (1.) That since “Christ is the one Mediator between
* See our chapter on the Sacrifice of Christ.
CHRIST THE HIGH PRIEST. 149
God and men” in his character of High Priest (compare 1 Tim. ii. 5, with Heb. ix. 11-15), he cannot be primarily the medium of divine influences upon men, but, on the contrary, the mediating person, propitiating God in be- half of men, acting in behalf of men in those things which have a bearing upon God. (2.) It follows that Christ must have been in a strict sense the Representative of those for whose benefit he acted. (3.) That the design and effect of Christ’s piacular sacrifice of himself as the high priest of his people could not have been to bring all men into a salvable condition, in which the remission of their sins is possible; but they must have been to secure with certainty the actual remission of the sins of all those for whom he died. And (4.) It follows that Christ must make intercession for all those for whom he made expiation. But (a) Christ’s intercession is always efficacious. It is offered from a throne at the right hand of his Father. His formula of intercession is ‘‘ Father, J will.” His testimony is, that the “ Father heareth him always.” And (b) he intercedes only for his own people: John xvii. 9, “I pray not for the WORLD, but for them which THOU HAST GIVEN ME.”
CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER Pere i _aY
Bush- nell’s per- version of the phrase
“* Vicari- ous ” il- lustrated and dis- proved.
CHAPTER X. CHRISI’S SUFFERINGS WERE STRICTLY AND DEFINITELY VICARIOUS.
| PRESENT, as my fifth argument, that large
i class of scriptures which teach that Christ’s sufferings were vicarious; that is, that he suffered, in the strict sense of the word, as the substitute of his people—not merely for their ad- vantage, but strictly in their room and stead.
Bushnell has lately written a remarkable work, the logic of which may be judged of from the relation sustained by its title to its doctrine and design. It is entitled Vicarious Sacrifice; and its design is to prove that the sufferings of Christ were not vicarious, but simply philanthropic—in sympathy with men and for their benefit: ‘The true conception is that Christ, in what is called his vicarious sacrifice, simply engages, at the ex- pense of great suffering, and even of death itself} to bring us out of our sins themselves, and so out of their pen- alties ; being himself profoundly identified with us in our fallen state, and burdened in feeling with our evils.” ... “Love is a principle essentially vicarious in its own nature, identifying the subject with others, so as to suffer their adversities and pains, and taking on itself the burden of their evils.” .. . ‘ Motherhood, friendship, patriotism, are all vicarious.” ... “The eternal Father before Christ, and the Holy Spirit coming after, and the good angels both before and after, all alike have borne
CHRIST’S SUFFERINGS VICARIOUS. 151
the burdens, struggled in the pains of their vicarious feeling for men; and then, at last, now Christianity comes in to its issue, in begetting in us the same vicari- ous love that reigns in all the glorified and good minds of the heavenly kingdom.”... “What we call the vicarious sacrifice of Christ is nothing strange, as regards the principle of it—no superlative, unexampled, and therefore unintelligible grace. It only does and suffers, and comes into substitution for, Just what any and all love will, according to its degree.” *
Thus, the only heen between the sclatinn sus- tained by the sacrifice of Christ to our salvation, and that sustained by the sympathies and sufferings of our mothers and pastors, 1s one not at all of kind, but solely of degree. The sufferings of Christ on the cross sustain precisely the same relation to our sins as do the prayers and tears of our mothers as they intercede for our salvation. Angels, the Father himself, and the Holy Ghost, all are wounded for our transgressions, and suffer, the just for the unjust, and give their lives ransoms for many, in the same sense that Christ did, and to the same effect—only as they
CHAPTER Xx.
severally differ in degree. Now it stands to reason, that ,