"The book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world." Rev. 13:8.
"God will provide Himself a Lamb for a burnt-offering." Gen. 22:8.
Human Expression of Hopes
IN the earliest surviving records of vanished ages we discern the attempt of men by rune, hieroglyph, or Babylonian symbolism, to express the mystic meaning of the world, human life, and history. Never have thoughtful souls been able to persuade themselves that time is filled with a mere succession of fortuitous events. Any interpretation of the cosmos that finds therein no purpose deeper than a passing show, no wisdom more profound than words, is not the creed to satisfy the human heart. What with the mind of man slave to the flesh, yet conscious of nobler ends than appetites, mere animal propensities; with conscience judging by the law of love, somehow discerned within, and prophetic of ill for its transgression; with a capacity for happiness which the sad old world is powerless to give; with a sense of justice demanding that sometime, somewhere, wrongs here left unreproved shall be avenged; with motives which, waiving here the vindication of their rectitude, must needs adjourn to an ideal court their justification; what with an instinct for life that ever stares in the face of death, and with a restlessness to probe the mystery of both; with man but a helpless atom amidst the mighty stream of the ever-changing world, powerless to halt the ceaseless flow which bears him steadily on to sure oblivion;—can we wonder that he should hope, and express its dim foreshadowings in rite and symbol?
Why a Lamb?
But why the first of these should be a lamb, no human record gives us answer. But, when from Abel's bleeding sacrifice to the closing chapter of a perished world, we see this sign of all that life and hope and faith implied to the infant race growing mightier in significance until the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world is exalted to the throne of the Supreme, we can not doubt that God has found Himself a Lamb; and that in Him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. This, surely, is the type enfolding the meaning of this mighty maze—the true riddle of the universe. If here we have no key, there is none. Let us, then, apply ourselves to its interpretation.
Why came the consuming fire from heaven upon Abel's altar, while his brother's offering was quite ignored?—"By faith," we read in answer, "Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts." Heb. 11:4.
Faith, sacrifice, righteousness; these are not the words of some fair apothegm in which philosophy has sought to sum all laws in one. There is here no logical connection with natural law—"not with enticing words of man's wisdom." 1 Cor. 2:4. Is beauty, the god of classic Greece, the import of a smoking altar and a crucifixion scene? Reeking gore and suffering please not the eye. "When we shall see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him." Isa. 53:2. Deeper yet the problem proves. How fully Abel understood the significance of his act, no scripture records. How much of "the mystery, . . . which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men" (Eph. 3:3-5), to Abel was not revealed, we may not know. But this we know, he wrought in faith, and "faith is the substance of things hoped for." Heb. 11:1.
What Hoped He?
Just yonder in his sight stood Eden, that blest abode from which he was excluded. There stood the angel with a flaming sword to guard its entrance. Within was the tree of life; without was the reign of death. There was Paradise, with all the name implies; here was the curse, weariness, and thorns. How sad the contrast! Was man no more to have access to that glorious place? Was his beauteous home forever lost to him? Brief was the promise, but it was enough: The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head. Gen. 3:15. As by man the first dominion (Gen. 1:26; Micah 4:8) had been lost, so by man it should be restored. This was the hope; but such was not all that Abel's lamb implied. What has a creature slain and burnt upon an altar to do with restoration to a lost estate? Again the Sacred Record leaves us not in doubt. Cain brought no lamb; his offering was of fruit. God did not accept it, but reasoned with him thus: "If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door." Gen. 4:7. Not to bring a lamb was to choose sin; to bring one was an act of faith; and thus, and thus only, could man "obtain witness that he was righteous."
God's Appointed Way
So the divine symbol grows in meaning, a meaning which points to human conduct. The Lamb of God is God's appointed way of restoration. No other way will do. And this being God's chosen means, only obedience by faith, as manifested by Abel, and not the disobedience and self-will of Cain, can find acceptance with God. Hence we see that with the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world was bound up faith, obedience to God, righteousness, salvation. Human duty has been plain from the beginning.
That the lamb was, of all offerings possible, the one selected by God, must have been clear from the days of Adam. The account speaks of the practise of offering sacrifices in the days of Cain and Abel, not as something newly established, but as well-known and customary each Sabbath day ("at the end of days," margin). There can be no reasonable doubt that, with the institution of the service, Jehovah had given also some explanation of its meaning. From that time until the coming of the great Antitype, Jesus, there was no change in the central figure in all types and ceremonies. The great key that unlocks them all is Jesus. The altar and its victim expressed the hope of the soul from Abel to Calvary. Every form of sacrificial offering among heathen nations is doubtless a perversion of a practise first established by God Himself. Man fell from his high estate, from purity, holiness, and dominion. He was driven from his Eden home, shut out from the tree of life. But God who had in love created him, God who could not be satisfied (to speak as men) without man—an object on which to bestow His affection—God left His creatures not to despair. With the fall came the promise, and the promise was kept alive by the ceremony.
The case of Cain and Abel shows the custom of the antediluvian church. After the Flood, the first act of the pious Noah was to build an altar, and offer sacrifices. Gen. 8:20. Whether it was that his great gratitude prompted the fulness of his offering, which consisted of victims from every clean beast and fowl; whether he foresaw by the rite prefigured "that the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption" (Rom. 8:21, R. V.), or whether the plenitude of his sacrifice was but the generous expression of his spiritual affections through a positive ordinance with no explicit limits, we may not tell from the narrative: but this we know, that it was the appointed way; that God accepted and was pleased; and the implication seems to be that Noah's offering was typical of the completeness, both to man and nature, of the redemption to come; for "the Lord said in His heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; . . . neither will I again smite any more everything living." Gen. 8:21.
The Faith of Abraham and Job
The direst judgments seem to be powerless to curb the wicked hearts of men. Soon after the Deluge the world was again groveling in idolatry. God chose Abram to keep alive the true faith and worship. Where Abram sojourned his altar rose. Gen. 12:7, 8; 13:4. To him it was given, not only to appropriate the righteousness which is of faith, but to learn by the fearful experience of offering Isaac something of the profound significance to the4heart of Love in the Lamb whose antitype is an "only" Son. Gen. 22:1-19.
To the patriarchal period belongs also the perfect Job. In the pages of that mighty spiritual tragedy which bears his name, tho the great problem of human suffering was still obscure, as it is to most of the world to-day, yet we find the fact of sin, its bearing upon one's relation to God, and the means of acceptance, were clearly recognized, and formed the chief concern of sincere souls. Of the patriarch's solicitude for the moral rectitude of his sons we read that he "rose up early in the morning, and offered burnt-offerings according to the number of them all; for Job said, that may be that my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts. Thus did Job continually." Job 1:5. The slain lamb was still the chosen way, and the completeness of such an offering seems indicated in the seven bullocks and seven rams (ancient symbols of perfection) which God commanded Job's friends to sacrifice for themselves. Job 42:8.
The Levitical Period
Thus for twenty-five hundred years were faith and hope and reconciliation expressed. Then came Moses and the Exodus from Egypt and the church-nation and a fuller symbolism. Types, rites, ceremonies, were greatly multiplied, but still the only approach to the Presence, whose dwelling-place was the holy of holies, the second apartment of the sanctuary, was by the altar of burnt-offering and its victim's blood. Leviticus 1 to 8. A cure for sin, a healing of conscience, peace with God—this was the purpose of all. Amidst the terror of Egypt's darkest night, while the destroying angel wrought in silence its appalling slaughter of the first-born, Israel learned the one great lesson, including all that followed, namely, that in the blood of the passover Lamb alone was safety.
Vaguely, through succeeding years, the seers caught glimpses of the grander time when type should meet Antitype. David hinted it; Isaiah almost described it; Daniel affirmed it, and told its times; the minor prophets had twilight visions of the brighter day—a dead monotony of four hundred voiceless years to make the nation feel its need, years cheered only by the sad traditions of a glory gone and a hope of dawn engendered by the deepening night of political subjugation.
Then Broke the Morning
with an angel song, "Unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord." Thirty years, and the Seed of the woman, who should bruise the serpent's head, wrestles in the wilderness with the ruler of this world, and conquers him. "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world," exclaims the prophet John. "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased," says a voice from heaven. Three and a half tremendous years, and on the rocky crest of yonder Calvary rises a cross bearing the bleeding form of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. The sun is smitten. The people look upon that form and beat their breasts, and a terror-stricken cry goes up from the gathered throng, "Truly this was the Son of God."
Then follows the mightiest miracle the world has seen—a Man self-raised from the dead. "I have power to lay it [My life] down, and I have power to take it again." John 10:18. He shatters the shackles of death and avows Himself the Prince of Life. And now "Him did God exalt with His right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and remission of sins." Acts 5:31.
Shall it avail for you and me? We alone must answer.
