IV. Significance of the Leviticul Sacrifices. — In ex- amining the doctrine of sacrifice, it is necessarj' to re- member that, in its development, the order of idea is not necessarily the same as the order of time. By the order of sacrifice in its perfect form (as in Lev. viii) it is clear that the sin-offering occupies the most impor- tant place, the burnt-offering comes next, and the meat- offering, or peace-offering, last of all. The second could only be offered after the first had been accepted ; the third was only a subsidiary part of the second. Yet, in actual order of time, it has been seen that the patri- archal sacrifices partook much more of the nature of the peace-offering and burnt-offering; and that, under the law, by which was "the knowledge of sin" (Rom, iii, 20), the sin-offering was for the first tiine explicitly set forth. This is but natural, that the deepest ideas should be the last in order of development.
It is also obvious that those who believe in the unity of the Old and New Tests., and the typical nature of the Mosaic covenant, must view the type in constant reference to the antitype, and be prepared, therefore, to find in the former vague and recondite meanings which are fixed and manifested by the latter. The sacrifices must be considered, not merely as they stand in the law, or even as they might have appeared to a pious Isra- elite, but as they were illustrated by the prophets, and perfectly interpreted in the N. T. (e. g. in the Epistle to the Hebrews). It follows from this that, as belonging to a system which was to embrace all mankind in its influence, they should be also compared and contrasted with the sacrifices and worship of God in other natioiis, and the ideas which in them were dimly and confused- 1}' expressed.
1. Contrast with Heathenism, — It is needless to dwell on the universality of heathen sacrifices (see Magee, Dis. on Sacrifice, vol. i, dis. v, and Ernst von Lasaulx, Treatise on Greek and Roman Sacrifice, quoted in notes 23, 26 to Thomson's Bampton Lectures, 1853), and it is difficult to reduce to any single theorj' the various ideas involved therein. It is clear that the sacrifice was often looked upon as a gift or tribute to the gods; an idea which, for example, runs through all Greek literature, from the simple conception in Homer to the caricatures of Aristophanes or Lucian, against the perversion of which Paul protested at Athens, when he declared that God needed nothing at human hands (Acts xvii, 25). It is also clear that sacrifices were used as prayers to obtain benefits or to avert wrath, and that this idea was corrupted into the superstition, denounced by hea- then satirists as well as by Hebrew prophets, that by
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them the gods' favor could be purchased for the wick- ed, or their "envy" be averted from the prosperous. On the other hand, that they were regarded as thank- oflferings, and the feasting on their flesh as a partaking of the "table of the gods" (corap. 1 Cor. x, 20, 21), is equally certain. Nor was the higher idea of sacrilice as a representation of the self-devotion of the offerer, body and soul, to the god, wholly lost, although gener- ally obscured by the grosser and more obvious concep- tions of the rite. But, besides all these, there seems always to have been latent the idea of propitiation ; that is, the belief in a communion with the gods, natu- ral to man, broken off in some way, and by sacrifice to be restored. The emphatic "shedding of the blood" as the essential part of the sacrifice, while the flesh was often eaten by the priests or the sacrificer, is not capa- ble of a full explanation by any of the ideas above referred to. Whether it represented the death of the sacrificer, or (as in cases of national offering of human victims, and of those self-devoted for their country) an atoning death for him ; still, in either case, it contained the idea that "without shedding of blood is no remis- sion," and so had a vague and distorted glimpse of the great central truth of revelation. Such an idea may be, as has been argued, " unnatural," in that it could not be explained by natural reason ; but it certainly was not unnatural if frequency of existence and ac- cordance with a deep natural instinct be allowed to preclude that epithet.
Now. the essential difference between these heathen views of sacrifice and the scriptural doctrine of the O. T. is not to be found in its denial of any of these ideas. The very names used in it for sacrifice, as is seen above, involve the conception of the rite as a gift, a form of worship, a thank-offering, a self-devotion, and an atone- ment. In fact, it firings out, clearly and distinctly, the ideas which, in heathenism, were uncertain, vague, and perverted. But the essential points of distinction are two:
(1.) Whereas the heathen conceived of their gods as alienated in jealousy or anger, to be sought after, and to be appeased by the unaided action of man. Scripture represents God himself as approaching man, as point- ing out and sanctioning the way bj- which the broken covenant should be restored. This was impressed on the Israelites at every step by the minute directions of the law as to time, place, victim, and ceremonial, and by its utterly discountenancing the "will-worship" which in heathenism found full scope, and rioted in the inven- tion of costly or monstrous sacrifices. It is especially to be noted that this particularity is increased as we ap- proach nearer to the deep propitiatory idea ; for where- as the patriarchal sacrifices generally seem to have been undefined by God, and, even under the law, the nature of the peace-offerings, and, to some extent, the burnt-offerings, was determined by the sacrificer only, yet the solemn sacrifice of Abraham in the inauguration of his covenant was prescribed to him, and the sin-offer- ings under the law were most accurately and minutelj' determined (see, for example, the whole ceremonial of Lev. xvi). It is needless to remark how this essential difference purifies all the ideas above noticed from the corruptions which made them odious or contemptible, and sets on its true basis the relation between God and fallen man.