-eternal Spirit of Christ in the offering of himself, of the holy exer- cise of all grace in the human nature that was offered, of the nattire, dignity, and efficacy of this sacrifice, faith finds life, food, and re- freshment. Herein doth it contemplate the wisdom, the righteous- ness, the holiness, and grace of God; herein doth it view the won- derful condescension and love of Christ; and from the whole is strengthened and encouraged.
4. It is added that he thus offered himself, “ without spot.” This adjunct is descriptive not of the priest, but of the sacrifice ; it is not a qualification of his person, but of the offering.
Schlichtingius would have it, that this word denotes not what Christ was in himself, but what he was freed from. For now in heaven, where he offered himself, he is freed from all infirmities, and from every spot of mortality; which the high priest was not when he entered into the holy place. Such irrational fancies do false opinions force men to take up withal. But,—
(1.) There was no spot in the mortality of Christ, that he should be said to be freed from it when he was made immortal. A spot signifies not so much a defect as a fault; and there was no fault in Christ from which he was freed.
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(2.) The allusion and respect herein unto the legal institutions is evident and manifest. The lamb that was to be slain and offered was antecedently thereunto to be “without blemish;” it was to be neither lame, nor blind, nor have any other defect. With express respect hereunto, the apostle Peter affirms that we were “redeemed . pas with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot,” 1 Pet.i,18. And Christ is not only called “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world,” John 1. 29,— that is, by his being slain and offered,—but is represented in the worship of the church as “a Lamb slain,” Rev. v. 6. It is therefore to offer violence unto the Scripture and common understanding, to seek for this qualification anywhere but in the human nature of Christ, antecedently unto his death and blood-shedding,
Wherefore this expression, “without spot,” respects in the first place the purity of his nature and the holiness of his life. For although these principally belonged unto the necessary qualifications of his person, yet were they required unto him as he was to be the sacrifice. He was “the Holy One of God;”—“ holy, harmless, un- defiled, separate from sinners.” “He did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth ;’—he was “ without spot.” This is the moral sense and signification of the word. But there is a legal sense of it also. It is that which is meet and fit to be a sacrifice. Tor it re- spects all that was signified by the legal institutions concerning the ' integrity and perfection of the creatures, lambs or kids, that were to be sacrificed. Hence were all those laws fulfilled and accomplished. There was nothing in him, nothing wanting unto him, that should any way hinder his sacrifice from being accepted with God, and really expiatory of sin. And this was the church instructed to ex- pect by all those legal institutions.
It may be not unuseful to give here a brief scheme of this great sacrifice of Christ, to fix the thoughts of faith the more distinctly upon 1t:—
1. God herein, in the person of the Father, is considered as the lawgiver, the governor and judge of all; and that as on a throne of judgment, the throne of grace being not as yet erected. And two things are ascribed, or do belong unto him :—
(1.) A denunciation of the sentence of the law against mankind: 4 Dying, ye shall die;’ and, “Cursed be every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.”
(2.) A refusal of all such ways of atonement, satisfaction, and reconciliation, as might be offered from any thing that all or any creatures could perform, “Sacrifice and offering, and whole burnt- offerings for sin, he would not have,” Heb. x. 5, 6. He rejookgs them as insufficient to make atonement for sin,
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2. Satan appeared before this throne with his prisoners, He had the power of death, Heb. ii. 14; and entered into judgment as unto his right and title, and therein was judged, John xvi. 11. And he put forth all his power and policy in opposition unto the deliverance of his prisoners, and to the way or means of it. That was his hour, wherein he put forth the power of darkness, Luke xxii. 53.
8. The Lord Christ, the Son of God, out of his infinite love and compassion, appears in our nature before the throne of God, and takes it on himself to answer for the sins of all the elect, to make atonement for them, by doing and suffering whatever the holiness, righteousness, and wisdom of God required thereunto: “ Then said I, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. Above when he said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt-offerings for sin thou wouldest not, neither _hadst pleasure therein, which are offered by the law; then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second,” Heb. x. 7-9.