The Pulpit Commentary — Haggai — Section 29

mllde thie perfectly apparent no less than the elaborate rites of the cultivated a.nd dvilized nntione of nntiquity, What the savage n:ieane by putting a Rpirit int" the various forms of nature by which he is surrounded, or by makin" an iclol of wood or stone, and setting it up before him as an obJect of adoration; what the untutored child of nature thereby means, viz. to express his belief in a power above himself and above nature, and his desire to bring that invisible power or divinity forth into visibility or nearness; that the old religions of Chaldea, Egypt, and Phcenicia did when they deified the hosts of heaven and the forces of nature, or looked npon these as instruments and embodiments of supernatural powers. In their case it was one more effort of the human mind to fetch God out of the far distance and make him a distinct object of contempli:ltion and worship. Then the later religions that prevailed in Persia, India, Greece, and Rome, with their '' incarnations," or beliefs in gods who assumed the like- ness of men, evinced the same longing of the human l,eart for a God at hand rather than afar off, a God visible rather than a god who remained always unseen, a God who might be approached in thought, at least, H not in space, rather than a god who so tran- scended bis worshippers as to be practically inaccessible. And this longing Christianity -whether it be true or no may meantime be left undetermined-meets, as no other religion has done or is likely to do, by placing before man as an object of religious contemplation and worship One who claimed to be the Image of the invisible God, saying, "I and my Father are One," and "He that hath seen me bath seen the Father." II; ALL NATIONS HAVE DESIRED AN ATONEMENT FOR SIN; AND SUCH ATO~MENT HAS BEEN PROVIDED AS NOWHERE ELSE BY CHRIST AND CHRISTIANITY, It is not meant that everywhere and always men have possessed the same clear, definite, exalted, and correct idea.~ on the subject of sin, sacrifice, propitiation, atonement, as are presented in the Hebrew or the Christian Scriptures. The most affirmed is that while everywhere men have possessed a deep instinctive longing after God, alon~ with this they have always been more or less conscious of unworthiness and unfitness to enter iii.to fellowship with him, have had a secret conviction that the Deity whom they wished to serve was displeased with them, and that they could not enjoy his favour without the .intervention· of some atonement or propitiation. Hence, wherever man _has been found to have a god, there also he has owned an altar. The practice begun 'at the gate of Eden, of worshipping the 'Deity by means of sacrifices, and carried forward in the 1'ltar-building of Abraham and the patriarchs, and finally developed in the Mosaic ritual of priest and victim, has been discovered, ou investigation, not to have bel!h confined to these, hut to have been followed, with more or less closenes • of adherence to the primitive pattern, by every nation under heaven that has shaped for itself a religion. In religions of the most rudimentary type, as well as in those of the highest culture, a place has been reserved for the practice of sacrificing and for the notion of expiation. "The sense of impurity and of the need of expiation," writes Pressense, "are manifested in the most barbfl!'ous modes of worship. v,; e admit that the atonement to which they have recourse is often as cruel as the wrath of the deity whom the worshippers seek to appease. There is e. phase in which sacrifice is nothing more than food offered to the l(Ods. But a higher idea soon manifests itself. Remorse comes in, the consciousness of guilt prompts the sacrifice, and the priest who at first was regarded in the light of an enchanter becomes a mediator between man and the deity'' (' The Ancient World and Christianity,' p. 12). In addition it might easily be shown that the same ideas of sin, penitence, forgiveness, propitiation, sacritice, atonement, were present in the religions of ancient Chaldea and of Egypt (ibiJ., pp. 47, 87). And the inference from all is that, irrespective of age or country, and however overlaid with superstition, the deep conviction of the human heart is that man has sinned against God and requires the assistance of a Mediator who shall in some way make peace with the offended Deity, an,l secure for the offender forgiveness of his tramgressions. Well, here again Christianity ste~s in to supply this dern,wd of the human heart, to answer this pathetic wail for a Deliverer, for One who c'1.n mako peac<l and bring forgiveness-steps in 11s no other religion known to man does, by exhibiting Jesus Christ as Son of God and Son of mnn (John i. 49, 51), and therefore us poHsessed of authority to net as Daysman or Mediator between God and me1u, laying his band u11on both (Job x. 33; 1 Tim. ii. 5), by discovering him as standing; 28 THE BOOK OF HAGGAI. [OB. u. 1-23,