The Pulpit Commentary — Numbers — Section 396

minC'd their character &nd mutual relation, can hardly be doubted by any one who belie.,.es the system to have been of Divine origination; and this, ngain, can hardly be doubted by any one who recognises the profound congruity between the sacrificial 11ystem of Moses and the sacrificial aspect of Christianity. It is this congruity which gi,·es a living interest, because an abiding truth, to the sacrifices of the law. They were not merely shadows to amuse the childhood of the world; they were shadows of coming realities, the most tremendous and of the profoundest moment. It is true that the inspired writers of the New Testament dwell rather on the contrast than ori tlie correspondence between the sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifices of the law; but they do so just because they took the correspondence for granted, not because they ignored it. The correspondence, in fact, was so obvious and so strong that it was necessary to emphasise the pointB of contrast, lest they should be overlooked. He that magnifies the substance above the shadow does not thereby deny that the shadow <>Wes both its existence and its fonn to the substance. If we follow up the Pauline image of body and shadow ( Col. ii. 17, where the reference is to this very round of festivals), we shall get at the truth of the matter. The relation of the shadow to the body is not one of simple resemblance, even of outline (except in one particular position), but it is one of certain correspondence. GiYen the position of the light, and the form of the surface on which the shadow falls, the shadow itself can be pre• cisely determined from the outline of the body, and vice versa. Now the light in our case is the twilight of the Divine revelation as it veiled its brightness to shine in part upon a darkened world ; the surface on which it shone was formed by the crude religious ideas and half-barbarous morals of the chosen race-a race whose hearts were hard, and whose eyes were dim, and whose rugged nature of necessity distorted any spiritual truth which came to them. Such was the light shining upon -such a surface; the body was "of Christ," i. e. was the solid and enduring fulness of his salvation; and the shadow which it threw before was the sacrifical system of the .Jews. We should therefore expect from analogy to find (1) a general and unmis- takable resemblance; (2) a failure of resemblance in parts and proportions, a likeness mingled with distortion, as in the shadows cast upon a rugged slope by the rising sun. This is exactly what we do find, comparing the substance of the gospel with the shadows of the law. No human art could have constructed the Christian scheme from the fore-shadows which it threw, because no human skill could have allowed for the peculiarities of the Jewish dispensation. But, on the other hand, we can trace along the entire outline of the substance a correspondence to the shadow which cannot be due to chance. It is of course possible to admit the fact of this analogy, &nd to explain it by the assumption that Christianity itself was the creation of minds saturated with Jewish ideas, and habituated to the Jewish system of sacrifices. But if this had been the case, the correspondence had surely been more direct, and much less oblique than it is, much less subtle in parts and less unequal as a whole. It would seem as much beyond the practical powers of man to translate the types of the law into the substantial and consistent beauty of the gospel, as to reduce the irregularity and distortion of a shadow to the regular symmetry of the unseen human form. We have, therefore, in accordance with apostolic teaching, to regard tl1e daily offerings, the sabbathe, the new moons, the sacred months and annual festivals of the Jews, as so many shadows which are of interest only as they in part resemble, and therefore in part illustrate, the body, the reality, which belongs to Christ, and so to us. Consider, therefore, with respect to tliis system as a wlwle- I. THAT IT WAS DESIGNED TO CONSECRATE WITH BURNT OFFERINGS AND OBLATIONS THE WHOLE ROUND Oil' THE JEWISH CAJ,ENDAR, It formed a complete system, com- bining variety with regularity, under which every day by itself, every week in its seventh day, every month in its first day, every year in its seventh month and in its ,great festivals, was consecrated by the shedding of blood, by the acknowledgment that their lives were forfeit, by vicarious death, and by vicarious dedication of self to God. Even such is the pervading meaning and purpose of Christianity; that our whole life from end to end should be consecrated to God by the blood of Christ, -0ffered for us on the one hand, and on the other dedicated to God by a voluntary and perf~t self-surrender. As the Jewish year was hallowed by an endless. round of -sacnfice, so the Christian life is sanctified by a never-exhausted self-sacnfic_..the CHS. xxvm., XXIX.] THE BOOK OF NUMBERS. 383