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MEDIATOR
MEDIATOR
Father through the Son, — clone outside us before it was done in us.
(ii.) The death of Christ removes the wrath of God. — Sinners are exposed to God's wrath (Ko 118.3:-' 23 510 n2S)_ xhis wrath is not vindictiveness, but the attitude of a loving Father towards that Avhich destroys the very life of His children. The wrath of God is removed when, ' through faith,' the sinner accepts J esus as a ' means of propitia- tion ' (Ro 3-°). God justifies, acquits as righteous, those who avail themselves of that force wliicli wipes away their sins. In providing this means of propitiation, God did something to counterbalance all His previous forbearance towards sin. He manifested His righteousness, His disposition to treat men according to a perfect moral law. When sin is passed over, righteousness is not manifested. But it was demonstrated \c\\Qn God showed that He could not forgive except at the tremendous cost of sending His Son to be a means of propitiation by His blood. The death of the Son was an oblation and a sacrifice to the Father (Eph 5'-), Avholly accept- able to the Father on account of the sinlessness and love of the Sufferer ; and it is wholly adequate to the needs of the human soul, because it simul- taneously removes the sinner's sin and his fear of tlie judgment of God.
(iii. ) Christ is not regarded by St. Paid as liter- all y punished for the sins of all mankind. — These sins are not transferred to Jesus, for men who do not accept Him as their Saviour have still to answer for their sins. They are still under the wrath of God (Ro 1^^). Nor were the sins of those who God foresaw would repent literally transferred to Jesus. In the Hebrew conception of the sin-ofiering, the offering was 'most holy,' which would have been impossible if sin had been transferred to it in any literal manner. At the same time, Christ is said to have been made ' sin ' (2 Co 5-^) and to have been made ' curse ' for us (Gal 3^).
The first passage may mean that Christ was made a sin- offering ; the second may mean that Christ in some way ful- filled the type of the scape-goat (Lv 162i), which symbolized the disappearance of the iniquities of the children of Israel. Both these interpretations are somewhat uncertain. What is certain is that in 2 Co 521, Gal 3i3 St. Paul means that Christ was treated as a sinner in order that sinners might become right- eous ; that He chose to die by crucifixion, a death which in Jewish eyes was symbolical of God's curse ; and that in dying He realized God's curse or condemnation on the sins of the race of which He had chosen to be a member. There is no question of a literal personal punishment of Christ. It was a voluntary entrance on His part into a state in which, by a profound sym- pathy. He felt our calamity as though it were His.
Our Lord Himself had shown the connexion between His death and the forgiveness of our sins. The primitive Church had believed and experi- enced the reality of tliis connexion. And St. Paul, in preaching what he calls ' the word of the cross ' so fully and vividly, Avas ' faithful ' to ' the much ' which was committed to Him by the risen Christ. He preached, as no other man has done, the Name which means that Christ saves His people from their sins.
4. The Epistle to the Hebrews.— (rO The subject of the Epistle to the Hebrews is ' the world to come ' (2^). This world to come already exists and has existed from the Creation. But it is regarded as still to come, because it has not yet been fully realized in time. It is a heavenly spiritual counterpart of this temporal material world in which we live. The material world, and the Jewish system of worship which belongs to this world, are not, in the strictest sense of the word, real. Christianity is the perfect religion, and is superior to Judaism, because its origin, worship, and priesthood belong to the heavenly world of which Judaism is only a shadow. The Revealer of Christianity belongs to the heavenly world. It is on His mediation that the existence both of
the material and of the spiritual world depends. He is the ' effulgence ' or ' radiance ' of God's glory, i.e. of God's nature as shown to things created, and the impress of His essence ; ' upholding all things by the word of his power' (P). The Son, through whom the Father made the worlds, was appointed heir of all things prior to creation. By His almighty word (cf. 'God said' in Gn 1) — a word which is itself an act — He carries the world to its goal. This Son, as essentially Divine, is above the angels, and is the object of their wor- ship (1"). He is above Moses, as the son of a house is superior to a servant, and as the founder of a house is superior to one who is only a part of the edifice itself (3-- ^).
(b) But Jesus is especially our .sympathetic High Priest ' who hath passed through the heavens ' (41''). Great stress is laid upon the fact that He endured all that we endure, .sin apart. Having taken flesh and blood, and become in all things like His ' brethren,' He passed through tempta- tions, shed tears, sufi'ered death. His human prayer to God, offered during His agony, was heard on account of His 'godly fear.' He was strengthened to bear His burden, and was made perfect for His saving work by the discipline of His sufferings. He manifests the highest degree both of sympathy and of probation, and is therefore the Representative of man to God. He is able to enter with full sympathy into the lot of ignorant and erring man. He also possesses the other essential qualification of a High Priest, for He was Divinely appointed. He who proclaimed Him to.be His Son, declared Him to be a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek (5'' ^). In the reality of His human experience and sympathy, and in the fact of His Divine calling. He resembled the Levitical j^riests. But He differed from them profoundly. They were sinful : He was sinless. They must offer sacrifices for themselves : His offering was solely for others. They served a tem- porary sanctuary : He ministers perpetually in heaven. He further differs from them because He is a priest after the order of Melchizedek. The priesthood of Melchizedek had these two great characteristics : it was especially royal, and it was independent of any genealogy ; whereas the priest- hood of the Levitical priests was not more royal than that of all the Israelites, and their title to it rested on their descent from Levi. Christ is King as well as Priest ; and as His Being had no begin- ning, the silence of Scripture about the ancestry of Melchizedek assimilates him to Christ. And since Abrahana the father of Levi paid tithes to Mel- chizedek, he acknowledged his inferiority, and compromised the Levitical priests by so doing. Their priesthood is lower than tiiat of Mel- chizedek, which was an archetype of that of the Son of God (7^-1").