p. 4 | MAN'S SIN AND SAVIOUR by Uriah Smith

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Nov 7, 1892

MAN'S SIN AND SAVIOUR.

By Uriah Smith

BY ELDER URIAH SMITH.

No. 1. The Subject Stated.

SIN AND ITS EXTENT.—When we speak of sin we touch a subject in which all are interested, or at least in which all are concerned; for "all have sinned." Rom. 3:23.

SIN DEFINED.—By an apostle who wrote as late as A.D. 90, sin is clearly defined: "Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law; for sin is the transgression of the law." 1 John 3:4.

RESULT OF SIN.—The result of sin in all affected by it, if they never become freed from it, is clearly stated in both the Old Testament and the New: "The soul that sinneth it shall die." Eze. 18:20. "The wages of sin is death." Rom. 6:23.

THE REMEDY.—The remedy for sin is Christ; for thus it was stated in the announcement of his birth: "He shall save his people from their sins." Matt. 1:21. "He was manifested to take away our sins; and in him is no sin." 1 John 3:5. "He hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." 2 Cor. 5:21. "The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." Rom. 6:23.

Such are a few of the representative texts on the subject of sin, its nature and effects, and the means provided for our release from it and its results, through Jesus Christ. Theologically, this canceling of our sins through the death of Christ, is known as "the atonement;" and while, strange to say, the word "atonement" occurs but once in the New Testament (Rom. 5:11), and is there wrongly translated, the original word meaning, not "atonement," but "reconciliation," both the word and the doctrine have a prominent place, and justly so, in the creed of every evangelical body of Christians in the land. We say justly so; for the doctrine is elsewhere abundantly taught in the Scriptures, as we purpose to show.

Without entering into a discussion of the philosophy and justice of the arrangement by which one person's actions can be substituted for those of another, and the innocent suffer for the guilty, there is yet left a very interesting field of study in the ordinances and services instituted as a means by which this unique transaction could be manifested before men.

Simultaneously with the introduction of the plan of salvation, appeared the system of sacrifices. Heb. 11:4. Speaking of the putting away of sin, the apostle declares that "without the shedding of blood there is no remission." Heb. 9:22. The law demands the life of the transgressor. "The soul that sinneth it shall die." Eze. 18:20. "The life of the flesh is in the blood" (Lev. 17:11), and the presentation of blood is evidence that life has been taken, and that the claims of the law have been honored and satisfied.

The gospel to us lost sinners is that some other blood than our own, even the blood of Jesus, has been provided, which can be presented to the law, and the law thus be honored and satisfied, and we go free. Previous to Christ's death on the cross, even from the time of Abel's offering, all the shedding of blood foreshadowed the divine offering of the Son of God on Calvary for the sins of the world. Since that time we come directly to the Father through him, pleading the merits of his blood, that offering by which he has entered into the holy places, and in which there is provision for our "eternal redemption," and for the redemption of all who will accept it at his hand. Heb. 9:12.

With blood is the atonement made. Thus the Lord says: "For 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 that maketh an atonement for the soul." Lev. 17:11. While, as already noticed, the word "atonement" does not properly occur in the New Testament, it is very fully set forth in the Old. But the work called the "atonement" is connected with the work assigned to an established order of priesthood; and these priests performed their offices at, and in, a place specially provided for their work, called the sanctuary. And in that place, and at a certain point in their ministry, the atonement was made. And this subject has a special interest for us in the fact that all the work of the priests of the former dispensation, including this work of making the atonement, was all a figure and shadow of the work of Christ in this, the so-called gospel dispensation, in which our interests are so fully involved.

This statement is not a deduction of logic, which might, perchance, be unsound; and it is no mere picture of the imagination, which might have no foundation; but it is a plain and direct statement of the Scriptures. Thus, the apostle, speaking of the priests who had been appointed to offer gifts under the former dispensation, says: "Who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things." Heb. 8:3-5. The substance of which their work was a shadow can be nothing less than the priestly work of Christ; for the body of all those things which under the former dispensation constituted a shadow, the apostle elsewhere expressly says pertains to Christ. Col. 2:17: "Which are a shadow of things to come, but the body is of Christ."

One way, then, and one of the most effectual ways, for us to learn of Christ is to study the shadow of his work, which is given us in the ministry of the Levitical priesthood. It is one of the unfortunate features of modern theological teaching that the present is considered as having no connection with the past; that the New Testament has no connection with the Old; that the Old Testament may be cast aside, and relegated to neglect and oblivion, and all our attention be confined to the New. Whereas the whole round of service connected with the Mosaic system was a grand picture of higher and greater things to come, in the work of redemption, a most impressive object lesson from which we are to learn more and more of our Lord Jesus Christ, and his work as our sacrifice and our Saviour.

We therefore invite the attention of the reader to the shadow projected from the cross and the gospel back through all the centuries of the Mosaic economy, with a view to learn therefrom more of the present position and work of Christ, as the divine Mediator in our behalf, in the courts above.