Its Relation to the Atonement
By J. O. CORLISS
The Final Adjustment of Human Awards—No. 6
Its Relation to the Atonement
THERE is the closest connection between the judgment awards of the last day, and the atonement work of Christ for sinners. So necessary indeed is one to the work of the other, that without the atonement there could be no final awards, because the atonement work finds its accomplishment in the decisions of the judgment alone. That these statements may appear comprehensive and satisfactory, it is perhaps well to inquire at this time about the meaning of the word “atonement.” It is not, as some have taught, the mere act of Christ’s dying upon the cross. His death could not free any one from sin who does not accept the offering of life made in his behalf. Therefore, whoever receives the benefit of Christ’s atonement, must yield to the demands of heaven, and depart from the ways of sin. This being true, it follows that an individual atonement is the result of the one receiving it co-operating with Christ in its promotion. These considerations bring us to study the necessity for such an arrangement. In the beginning man was created in God’s image. Being thus made in every way like God, man was in harmony with his Maker, and so was reconciled to him and his requirements. But when man transgressed the law of Jehovah, he became a sinner, hence at enmity with God. 1 John 3:4; Rom. 8:7. Hence, to be saved, and to dwell with God, man must again become reconciled to heaven’s laws, and so once more become one with God. 2 Cor. 5:18. This at-one-ment Christ seeks to promote through his own death. Rom. 5:10. The gift of his own life-blood is the purchase price of man’s deliverance from sins (Acts 20:28),—that which reconciles, and brings him nigh to God (Eph. 2:13), by washing, and cleansing him from all sin in the blood of Calvary. Rev. 1:5; 1 John 1:7. Such a work could not have been done without the death of Christ. This may seem a hard problem to many when considering the needs of those who lived before the blood of Christ was actually spilled on Calvary. But we are infallibly assured that “without the shedding of blood is no remission.” Heb. 9:22. It is therefore safe to affirm that no sinner, ancient or modern, can possibly be freed from the blight of sin, except through the application by faith of the required blood. This was so well understood from the earliest time that when Abel offered the firstling of his flock, God recognized his offering to be “a more excellent sacrifice” than the first-fruits of the ground offered by Cain, his brother. Heb. 11:4. Abel saw by faith in the blood of his offering, the blood of Christ yet to be shed on Calvary for the remission of sins. To the faith of Abel, the blood of his offered lamb was the seal of his at-one-ment with God. Not that it actually took away his sins, for this, we are assured, it could not do (Heb. 10:4); but it was Abel’s token of faith in Christ, who was a “Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” Rev. 13:8. This significance was attached to every blood-offering of the days before the actual suffering of Calvary’s divine Victim. In the ninth chapter of Hebrews we have a statement of how the priests of the earthly sanctuary performed their official duties. Their “service of God,” we are told, included the offering of blood for themselves, and “for the errors of the people.” The sanctuary where these ministrations were performed, consisted of two apartments. The first contained three special pieces of furniture,—the golden candlestick with seven branches, the table for the show-bread, and the altar of incense. In the second apartment was the “ark of the covenant,” a chest, overlaid with gold, holding the two tables of stone on which were engraved the ten commandments, the standard of righteousness. In this first apartment, and before its entrance, the common priests ministered daily in behalf of those who came to confess their sins by the offering of blood. Their work was to receive the sinner, and acknowledge his offering by appropriate ceremonies. But the offerings made for sin at the entrance of the sanctuary, by no means closed the work in behalf of the sinner, although the ceremonies for its cleansing were confined to the work of the common priests, and to the first apartment of the sanctuary, for the entire year. At the end of each ceremonial year, however, the work done in behalf of the sinner by the priests was taken up by the high priest. On the tenth day of the seventh month, he took upon him all the sins brought to the sanctuary during the year, and with appropriate ceremony carried them into the second apartment, before the ark of ten commandments. From above this, on the mercy-seat, the symbol of God’s presence was met, and the final work of atonement was so far completed as to permit the high priest to carry out the sins to the door of the sanctuary, and there confess them upon the head of the scapegoat prepared for the occasion, after which this creature bore them out of the assembly into an uninhabited wilderness. Compare Heb. 9:1-7; Lev. 4:27-35; 16:29, 30, 15-22. This was the typical cleansing of that sanctuary from the sins confessed within its precincts. That tabernacle having been appointed God’s earthly dwelling among his people, when sin was brought into it, though only by confession, the place must necessarily be cleansed, and so brought into at-one-ment with the purity of him whose dwelling it was; hence the day of atonement. The sins removed from the sanctuary on that eventful day, were those transferred there from sinners. When cleansed from the sanctuary and removed from the camp, those who had committed them were also freed from their effect, and so were brought into at-one-ment with him who can not tolerate sin. But only those who really confessed their sins before the sanctuary, received the benefit of that year-end cleansing. Others who did not have their sins removed through confession still retained them, and inasmuch as the goat was removed from the camp because of having received on him the confessed sins of the people, it follows that those who still bore their own sins, must also be separated from those who had been freed from sin. This was really a work of judgment, as the services of that typical atonement day clearly show. True, this was but a shadowy service which did not really take away sin, but it was one of faith, in which was pointed out through the figure employed the real work of atonement to be accomplished by Christ, the real High Priest of God. The comparison of the typical with the real atonement service must, however, be reserved for another paper.