2. This, then, is what is meant in the text, when it contrasts the atoning power of the blood of Christ with that of the blood of bulls and goats. The blood of the sacrificed animal had a certain value, because it was so intimately connected with the life or sensitive soul of the animal ; as the writer puts it, it did, and by Divine appointment, sanctify to the purifying of the flesh. By the " flesh " is here meant the natural, outward, and earthly life of man; especially all that bore in the way of outward conduct and condition upon his membership of the commonwealth of Israel. The sacrifices on the Day of Atonement, and especially the sprinkling of the blood of the red heifer towards the tabernacle, signified the substitution of life for life, and were at any rate accepted as establishing the outward religious position of those for whom they were offered. That they could do more was impossible ; the nature of things was opposed to it : " it was not possible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins." The blood of these animals could not operate in the proper sphere of spiritual natures. But then it foreshadowed nothing less than the blood of Christ. It was His blood, who through His Eternal Spiritual Being (it is not the Holy Ghost who is here meant, but
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the Divine Nature of the Incarnate Christ) offered Himself without spot to God. The eternal spiritual nature of Christ, vivifying the blood of Christ, is contrasted in the writer's thought with the perishable life of the sacrificed animal resident in the blood of the animal ; and so the value of the sacrifices, the power of the blood to cleanse or save, varies with the dignity of the life which it represents — in one case, that of the creature, not even endowed with reason or immortality ; in the other, that of the Infinite and Eternal Being who for us men, and for our salvation, has come down from heaven. " How much more shall the blood of Christ ! " At length we see what it is that the sacred writer really means. He says in effect to his readers, " You liave no doubt that, under the old Jewish dispensation, the sacrifices on the Day of Atone- ment, the blood of the slaughtered goat and red heifer, could restore the Israelite who had done wrong to his place and his privileges in the sacred nation. It sanctified to the purifying of the flesh. But here is the blood — not of a sacrificial animal, not of a mere man, not even of the best of men, but of One who was God 'manifest in the flesh.' Who shall calculate the effects of His self-sacrifice ? Who shall limit the power of His voluntary death ? Who shall say what His outpoured blood may or may not achieve on earth or elsewhere ? " Plainly we are here in the presence of an agency which altogether distances and rebukes the speculations of reason ; we can but listen for some voice that shall speak with authority, and from beyond the veil : we can but be sure of this, that the blood of the Eternal Christ must infinitely transcend in its efficacy that of the victims slain on the Temple altars ; it must be much more than equal to redress the woes, to efiace the transgressions, of a guilty world.
I.
The Conscience and its Works.
1. The Conscience.— It may seem a strange assertion that the conscience of man needs purifying from defilement, for, regard it in what light we may, it is the most sacred and Divine thing in humanity, and the source of all that is sacred and noble in man's nature. On it are founded the sanctities of home, the fellowships of
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brotherhood, and the emotions of religion. We speak of it as an eye of the spirit, which looks upwards to a law which varies not with our falls and failures, but is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever ; as a voice that, in our moments of strong temptation, raises its cry amidst the storms of passion, and denounces the fascinating appearance of evil as a hollow lie ; as a power that we feel we ought to obey even when we disobey it — a power which makes us feel that we are bound to do right even when peril and suffering and death are the inevitable results of right action. And can that sacred and holy thing, the warning light by which we see the defilement of the will, itself need cleansing? This seems stranger still when we regard the conscience as it is re- garded in this chapter. For after speaking of its purification, the author says in the 23rd verse, that, while the patterns of things in the heavens, that is, the symbols in the Temple, needed the cleansing of the Jewish sacrifices, the heavenly things themselves were purified with better sacrifices than these ; therefore the con- science is among the heavenly things which needed purifying by the sacrifice of Christ. Hence he means by it not only the sense of right and wrong, but the whole inner nature which connects man with the heavenly. The sense of the Infinite which awakens in him a feeling of awe and wonder before the grandeur of God in earth and sky ; the emotions of reverence that pour themselves forth in Temple worship before the felt presence of the Father ; the belief in the invisible world which makes us feel that there are regions near us whose beauty and glory " eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor heart conceived " : all in man from which his religion and worship rise are included in conscience, and im- plies that the spiritual, heavenly, aspiring nature needs purify- ing before we can serve the living God. It is very important that we should understand this necessity. We must realize the fact that the heavenly nature does need purifying ; we must feel that our conscience, sacred though it be, does need cleansing, or we shall not feel the power and beauty of the doctrine that only the purified conscience can rise to spiritual worship of the Father.