His enemies that He was not only of the Davidic house, but that " he stood near to the kingdom."
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II. " Without a sacrifice and without an image" " Without a sacrifice to God," as Kimchi well para- phrases it, " and without an image to false gods."
There is a striking fact which we may notice, by the way, in connection with this pair of contrasts, and that is, that the prophet Hosea, in search for one word by which to characterise the true religion of Israel in contrast to idolatry, lays his finger on the word "zebbach" (" sacrifice"). There are men at the present day, both Jews and Christians, and some who are even occupying the position of teachers, who represent that the Old Testament Scriptures, instead of being a coherent, harmonious, though progressive, 1 and (apart from the
1 The following is from an excellent booklet, " Bible Study," by Rev. David M. Mclntyre, Glasgow : " An immense amount of research has been expended during recent years in deter- mining the personal element which is apparent in all the Sacred Writings. One thought which has been persistently worked out is the progress of doctrine. That progress is not a development from barbarism, for the first Word of Scripture is an utterance of God, the first promise has in it the anticipation of completed redemption, the first act of worship looks steadfastly to Calvary. We acknowledge that there is in the earlier Scriptures imma- turity, but it is such as is seen in the sprouting seed, the up- springing blade, the unripe ear immaturity which contains ' the promise and potency' of perfected life. We frankly confess that the doctrine moves forward into fuller light and more measured statement, but it moves along the high level of inspira- tion from the first. The progress of doctrine of which we speak is a progress that is sensible neither of conflict nor of reconcilia- tion. The promise of the end is in the opening chapters ; the resonance of the first word vibrates in the last. It is a progress presided over by one mind and that the mind of Christ. The two elements in this progress are, a fuller content of truth, and a closer relation to the Person of the Redeemer. We may realise its character by placing together the first utterance addressed to faith, and the last ' In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.' ' He which testifieth these things saith, Surely, I come quickly.' "
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New Testament) relatively incomplete, revelation from God, consist of a patchwork of " codes," not one of them of so early a date as was believed for millenniums by both Jews and Christians, until these very modern gentlemen, possessed of a powerful intuitive faculty for discernment, were raised up to detect the fraud. Thus they have asserted that while, in the writings attributed to Moses (which according to them consist for the most part of clumsily forged documents in the Exilic and post-Exilic periods), stress is laid on sacrifice as a divinely appointed institution, the prophets utterly repudiate the idea of a Divine appointment, or a Divine regulation of sacrifice. The reasoning upon which this theory has been based I will not stop here to examine, but this I will solemnly state, that those who would put Moses against the prophets, and the prophets against Moses, are equally ignorant of the spirit of both. There are grand underlying harmonies in the Scrip- tures where " the natural man " professes to see only contradictions.
Here is a prophet, and a pre-Exilic prophet too, who characterises the true religion of Israel by the one word " sacrifice " ; and truly there is no other word that could so well summarise the Divine system as unfolded in Moses and the prophets as the word "zebbach," which here and elsewhere (see Isa. i. 11) stands for slain sacrifices in general, and not for the "peace- offering," in which sense it is sometimes used. 1
There are Jews and Christians at the present day
1 " rQ1[ (zebbach), a sacrifice (whether the act of sacrificing, &c.), an offering, a victim ; opposed both to nn?p (mincha), a bloodless offering when so contrasted (i Sam. ii. 29 ; Psa. xl. 7) ; and to n^iJ? (ohloh) a burnt-offering, holocaust ; so that POT (zebbach) denotes sacrifices of which but part were consumed, such as expiatory or eucharistic offerings " (Gesenius).
22 THE INTERREGNUM AND "AFTERWARD"
who boast that they no longer believe in the necessity of sacrifice and that which sacrifices prefigured ; but such Jews have as little in common with the teaching of the Old Testament as this kind of Christians have with the doctrines of the New Testament. Let any honest-minded man turn over the pages of the Old Testament, and I can confidently declare that from Genesis to Malachi he will meet in every part one prominently outstanding object, and that object is an altar, with which of course is bound up both priest and sacrifice. On that altar there is an inscription which explains the meaning of the whole sacrificial system of the Old Testament, and it reads thus : " The life of the flesh is in the blood : and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls : for it is the blood whic'i by reason of the life maketh atone- ment " (Levit. xvii. 1 1, Hebrew) that is, life covereth life; the life of the innocent offering in the blood poured out on this altar " covereth " J the life forfeited by the guilty offerer. And turning from the Old to the New Testament there still meets us on almost every page one prominent outstanding object ; and the most prominent object on the pages of the New Testament is a cross. And what is the cross ? It is an altar, on which the most stupendous of all sacrifices was offered the one sacrifice to which all the sacrifices of the Mosaic economy pointed even Christ, "who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot unto God," so that in Him we might find "redemption by His blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His grace." And on the New Testament altar, too, there is an inscription. I do not refer to the actual inscription placed upon the cross by Pilate, perhaps in mockery, which nevertheless describes the 1 The primary idea of the Hebrew " khapare."
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royal character of the victim, but to His own, and to the Apostle's statements which explain the terrible necessity and true significance of Calvary ; and this is how it reads : " The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many." " He who knew no sin was made sin on our behalf that we might be made the righteous- ness of God in Him." "And without shedding of blood there is no remission" (Matt. xx. 28 ; 2 Cor. v. 21 ; Heb. ix. 22). On this, as on every other essential doctrine, there is perfect accord between the teaching of the Old and the New Testament.
And Israel now is " without a sacrifice." Ever since the destruction of the second Temple, soon after the coming of Christ, they have not been permitted to offer any kind of bloody sacrifice. There is no morning or evening lamb of burnt-offering; they still observe the " Day of Atonement," but where is the blood of atone- ment, and where the priest who on that day was to make an atonement for them to cleanse them, that they may be clean from their sins before the Lord? (Lev. xvi. 30). The Jews still keep the feast of Unleavened Bread, but where is the " Zebbach Pesach " (Exod. xii. 27), " the sacrifice of the Passover," the blood of which sprinkled on the doorposts sheltered Israel's firstborn in Egypt ? On the Passover evening when gathered around the " Saider " the solemn family ritual in commemoration of the deliverance of the nation from Egyptian bondage a piece of half-burnt shankbone is all that lies on the table to remind them of the lamb appointed by God, which they once used to offer and feed on. There is perhaps no more striking com- mentary on this item of Hosea's prophecy, and no more pathetic picture of Israel's present condition, than is presented by their liturgies. In that lying before
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me, which is in daily use among millions of Jews in Russia, Galicia, and throughout Eastern Europe, after prescribing certain portions dealing with the sacrificial regulations in Leviticus, and in the Mishna to be recited, there follows this prayer, which I translate : " Lord of the universe, Thou hast commanded us to offer a continual sacrifice in its appointed season, and that the priests should stand in their service, and the Levites in their ministry, and Israel in their ap- pointed place. But now, through our iniquity, the Temple is destroyed, and the continual sacrifice has ceased, and we have neither priest in his service or Levite in his ministry. … Therefore let it please Thee, O Lord our God, and the God of our fathers, that the words of our lips (by which is meant the repetition of the portions of Scripture where sacrifices are commanded), may be esteemed and received and acceptable before Thee, as if we had offered the con- tinual sacrifice, and as if we stood in our appointed