with Him (Ro Q'"-). But he had also his own cross upon which, as upon an altar, the oblation of his own life was olt'ere<l ; he also was a 'iiriest unto God,' and it was essential that he should have somewhat to otter. Hence the ottering of his body (Ro 12'), his prayers and his thanksgivings (He 13"), his good deeds (13'"), his gifts of charity (Ph 4'"), his entire .service for others (Ph 2"), were spoken of as sacrifices after the manner of Christ's ottering of Himself. Such sacrifices were acceptable to God and were a means of blessing for men. St. Paul is bold enough to say that his sullerings on behalf of others were means whereby he coulif ' fill up what is lacking of the afHictions of Christ in my llesh on behalf of his body, which is the church ' (Col 1-''). This saying probablv rcllects in the Christian atmosphere the later Jewish idea of the value of ' the sutldrings of the saints.' Its applica- tions in subsequent Christian thought are too subtle and historically too far-reaching lor reference here. These and the association of the Eucharist with sacrificial values lie far beyond the limits of apos- tolic thought both exegetically and historically (cf. T. M. Lindsay, The Church and the Ministry in the Early Centuries, London, iy(J2, p. 307 ; J. B. Lightfoot, 'The Christian Ministry,' in Philip- pians^, London, 1881, pp. 261, '264 f.
(b) Fulfilment in the death of Christ. — The dominant and, with the slight exception of the secondary applications referred to, the sole concern of the apostolic mind was to relate the sacrificial ideas of the past to tlie supreme fulfilment of their meaning in the death of Christ. There can l)e no doubt that the death of Christ was very early regarded in this light ; it corresponded to these ideas as antitype to type. Not onlj' was the whole sacrificial worship thought of as in a "eneral sense typical of Chri.st's perfect ottering of Himself, but the correspondence between His death and the ditt'erent elements of the Levitical system is indi- cated ; e.fj. covenant sacrifice (He 9") ; Passover sacrifice (1 Co 5'); peace ottering (Eph 5-); sin offering (Ro 8^ He 13", 1 P 3'*) ; sacrifices of the Day of Atonement (He 9'"'''-). The ritual acts of the Jewish system are also regartled as having been repeated "in the history of Christ's dying ; e.g. the slaying of the s)iotless lamli (Rev 5" 13"), the sprinkling of blood in the sin ottering (He 9"'' ), and in the covenant sacrifice (1 P 1-) ; the destruc- tion of the victim without the gate (He 13'-'). Moreover, spiritual results are attributed so definitelj' to the fulfilment in Christ's death of all the suggestions conveyed historically and typically by the inett'ective ottering continually of animal sacrifices that this event must inevitably issue in —
(c) The abrogation of sacrifice. — In their pre- Christian days the apostolic writers had believed in the efficiency of the Jewish sacrificial system : now they regarded its oblations as of value chietty be- cause of the witness of these to their own inade- quacy. The reality of the inward experience that they had 'redemption in his blood,' access in wor- ship into 'the holiest of all' through the blood of Jesus, reduced their need of the older sacrifices to a vanishing point. Whilst it may be an open ques- tion whether the sacrificial systems of either the Jewish or the Gra'co-Ruman religion could have maintained their place as permanent institutions in presence of the growing refinement of taste and the more elevated ideas of (Jod, made familiar in the Platonic or Stoic systems of thought current in the Apostolic Age, yet the sure joys of forgive- ness of sin, the newness of life and the privileges of direct connuunion w ith God in Christ ultimately made it axiomatic for ajiostolic teaithing thai all other sacrifices, Jewish or pagaii, were abolished in Christ. His sacrifice was ellective hecan.se it be- longed to a ditterent world — the world of heavenly
438
SACRILEGE
SADDUCEES
and eternal realities — from that of the temnorary, carnal, and inellectual ottering of material fjifts. This transition to etliical and iiiuil vahii\s in saori- lice was accompanied in apostolic thun^'ht by a —
((/) Return to prophetic ideas of sacrifice. — Tliese made the real value of sacrifice to depend upon personal relations between God and man, and upon its voluntary quality. 'IMiis return was, as we have seen, mediated chiefly by means of the in- fluence of the jjreat pro]ihetic (i^ure of tlie Sullering Servant of Is 53 (cf. Ac 8=^ S'^- -« 4="- *, He !J-», 1 P 2^''"). It cannot be without significance for the modern mind that sacrificial categories derived from the Levitical order were unable to express fully for the apostolic mind the signifi- cance of the sacrificial death of Christ. These were obsolescent and needed the com[)lement and inter- pretation of the proplietic ideas whose value was permanent. In the recognition of sacrifice as essentially ethical and spiritual the apostolic writers so far anticipated tlie findings of modern criticism that propliecy, not ceremonial legalism, represented tlie high-water mark of the religious ideas of Israel. Without implying its priority in time tliey assumed its priority in value ; it was the decline of prophetism and the ascendancy of ritualism which had brought on tliat niglit of legalism in later Jewish religion in which the formalism of priest, Pharisee, and scribe, to which apostolic teaching was antithetical, had developed. The exposition of the apostolic meaning of sacrifice has suffered many things, even at the hands of Christian teachers, because the animal victims and not the human servant, law and not prophecy, have given it significance ; the OT system of ritual sacrifice has been .so fiilly discussed tliat the figures of Jeremiah, the sutt'ering Remnant, and the Servant of the Lord, the Iniman forerunners of Christ in sacrificial obedience, have failed in emphasis (cf. G. A. Smith, Modern Criticism and the Preaching of the OT, London, 1901, p. 17011'.).