The Sacrifice of Form and the Sacrifice of Service
It is for the glory of God and for the good of mankind that the will of God should be the supreme rule of human conduct. The will of God is perfect (Rom. 12:2), and to do his will is to reveal a perfect character. The will of God, so far as it relates to the conduct of men, finds expression in the law of God, and to do his will is the same thing as to keep his commandments. A failure to do the will of God is the same as the transgression of his law, which is sin. As it is the work of Jesus to save his people from their sins, it is plainly his work to make it possible for them to do the Father’s will. Conformity to the will of God is a condition of entrance into the kingdom. “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father who is in heaven.” There is such an intimate connection between the doing of the will of God and the establishment of God’s kingdom in the earth, that the two are joined together in this petition: “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth.” As the purpose of the gospel is to establish the kingdom of God in the earth, it must equally be its purpose to enable man to do the will of God. Provision for this was made in the gift of Jesus who did the will of God upon earth, and by the union of divinity and humanity in his own person made it possible that the will of God should be done in all flesh. There is a natural tendency to substitute the outward forms of worship for genuine service. Even the divinely ordained ritual, the designated method of worship, may be perverted into an outward ceremony upon the performance of which may be based the hope of salvation. This is simply one manifestation of righteousness by works, salvation by doing. There was no efficacy in the sacrifices and offerings of the ritual service of the Jews, but they foreshadowed the true sacrifice, and were the means of expressing faith in him who bore the sins of many and through faith in whom righteousness could be wrought. All these offerings of the Levitical law were useless in themselves, having no power to take away sin or to impart grace for right living. Something more was required in order that men might be enabled to do the will of God. All this is expressed in these words: “It is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins. Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest [or willedst] not, but a body didst thou prepare for me; in whole burnt-offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hadst no pleasure: then said I, Lo, I am come (in the roll of the book it is written of me) to do thy will, O God. Saying above, Sacrifice and offering and whole burnt-offerings and sacrifices for sin thou wouldest [willedst] not, neither hadst pleasure therein (the which are offered according to the law), then hath he said, Lo, I am come to do thy will. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second. By which will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” The offering of sacrifices was not any part of the eternal will of God, and had no place in the permanent plan of the divine government. It served a temporary purpose in setting forth in type and shadow that provision of the gospel which furnished atonement for sin and the power for doing the perfect will of God. By his life of obedience in the flesh Jesus established the doing of the will of God in the flesh, and by the sacrifice of himself on the cross he brought to an end that system of sacrifices which, although originally established by divine command as a means of revealing the gospel of the grace of God, had been perverted into barren formalism, and had thus become a means of hiding the true way of salvation. Thus Jesus took away the sacrifice of form that he might establish the sacrifice of service. By declaring that the offering of sacrifice can not be accepted as the doing of the will of God, and by giving himself to do the will of God and thus making it possible for all believers in him to do that will, “he taketh away the first, that he may establish the second.” Form and formalism give place to substance and service. The doing of the will of the flesh is superceded by the doing of the will of God. In the working of the mystery of iniquity we find the counterfeit of the gospel. In the great apostasy which has put man in the place of God, we have the working out of an intelligent design to present the gospel of salvation by works. While professedly exalting Christ, this system of self-exaltation makes of no effect the work of Christ, and has substituted ceremonies of its own devising for the simplicity of the gospel. While the papal ritual is not the same as the Jewish ritual, it is in essence what the Jewish ritual had become in the days of Christ—a mere formalism which is a hindrance to true service, a system of self-righteousness. By its elaborate system of worship and its oppressive form of church government, the papacy has in effect reversed the work of Christ. What he took away, it has restored; what he established, it has taken away. In its economy the sacrifice of form has supplanted the sacrifice of service. That preaching of “the everlasting4gospel” which constitutes it a message against the beast and his image, must counterwork this devising of the papacy, and must be the means of restoring that which the papacy has taken away. Its message must therefore be a message of righteousness by faith, the righteousness which is revealed in doing the will of God—keeping the commandments of God.