Then said I, Lo, I come ( in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God.
The speaker is Christ speaking with His Father in heaven before He took humanity, volunteering by deliberate design to come into the world to do God's will. His coming was foretold in the writings of Scripture and fulfilled what was written of Him through patriarchs and prophets and through ceremonies and symbols. To come meant veiling His divinity in humanity and laying aside His glory to share the condition of fallen humanity, living as a poor, suffering man rather than as a temporal conqueror. To do God's will meant keeping the broken law in perfect obedience and offering His body once for all as the wholly perfect sacrifice for the sin of the world. At His death type met antitype and the sacrificial ceremonies ceased, while the moral law remains unchanged and pardon opens the way for people to obey it.
Voice, Place, and Time
The speaker is Christ Himself, whose voice is heard from the throne of God in heaven, from the throne of the Infinite, speaking in counsel with His Father. He is One surpassing all that supposition or imagination can present, far above the angels. His words are of strange and mysterious import because they come from heaven.
They were spoken before the incarnation, when the plan of redemption was devised before the foundation of the world was laid, before the world was made. They were uttered nearly two thousand years ago, before He came to earth as the Light to a guilty world. At that time the sentence of condemnation was suspended over a rebellious world, and wrath was gathering because God's law was broken.
His coming was willing and volunteered, by deliberate design in counsel with His Father and not by chance. He volunteered to bear the penalty of transgression and willingly and gladly accepted the work of atonement by suffering and dying to redeem and purify the guilty race. In keeping with what was written of Him, He laid aside His crown, royal robe and heavenly glory to give Himself as the perfect offering.
Coming in Human Flesh
The words I come announce His coming into the world to become human and redeem humanity from the results of the fall, as foretold in the book, to do God's will through the offering of His body. That will is carried out through the offering once for all, replacing repeated offerings that cannot take away sins and making sanctification possible. His coming in a prepared human body in keeping with what was written of Him expresses this mission through every stage of human growth as a poor, ordinary child, for God was manifest in human flesh.
A body prepared for Him means His divinity was veiled and clothed in humanity and His heavenly glory hidden, so people could behold Him without being destroyed and He could draw near to sorrowful, tempted people. To all outward appearance He veiled divine glory and majesty in humanity as a frail, helpless babe when the time was fulfilled to bless and save those He came to. Heaven understood the time of His advent and angels left glory to witness His reception and herald His birth with joy in the heavenly courts, while the great men of earth, the Pharisees and scribes, and even the separated Jewish people showed no especial interest, made no preparation in the temple, and watched with no eager waiting for the Saviour of the world.
Taking humanity meant by deliberate design and not by chance laying aside His crown, royal robe, and heavenly glory and standing at the head of the human family, sharing the condition of humanity fallen through Adam's disobedience with His humanity mingled with theirs. Coming to do God's will meant clothing His divinity with humanity to work with fallen, degraded, corrupted humanity, to take the sins of the fallen race upon Himself and become sin so they could be made God's righteousness, and to approach men with His glory hidden.
He came in humiliation as a poor, ordinary child through every stage of human growth, born of poor parentage, living a life of privation and sorrow as a man of sorrows acquainted with grief, laboring with His hands for the support of His mother and brothers and sisters, educated by poverty as by a stern practical teacher, commencing and ending life in the lowly walks of life and bringing Bible religion into the home life and the workshop. He placed Himself where His family required His service without shirking responsibility, carrying cheerfulness and tact into labor, restoring every department of human industry as part of His commission, becoming subject to command though Commander of heaven with heartiness and devotion, living as a perfect pattern in every place with wisdom on His lips and patience and spirituality under the stretching and straining of man's nature while keeping the eye single to the glory of God. He came exactly as prophecy had written of Him to live a life of sorrow and die the death foreshadowed for hundreds of years by the sacrifices of which He is the antitype, foretold to come in humility and poverty to be rejected, despised, and slain, rather than coming as a victorious conqueror to break the Roman yoke and reign as a temporal prince on the throne of David. This forever removed the disgrace attached to poverty as destitute of worldly advantages, so that no one can justly look with contempt upon the poor.
He came when Satan was taking the world captive by deception and nearly all mankind was under his power, charmed and made greedy by gold, silver, riches, power and honor, willing to do injustice and violence, while the fear of the Lord was fast departing and condemnation was suspended over a rebellious world with wrath gathering because the law was broken. As Substitute and Surety He volunteered in heaven and the Son of the Highest chose to come to do God's will to save the human race, His coming bringing salvation, bridging the gulf that sin had made and rejoining this sin-cursed earth to heaven, ransoming the world with the guiltless suffering for the guilty in the sinner's place. He brought with Him the gift of eternal life, and without His sacrifice only death in sins remained, yet through His sacrifice pardon is offered to all who return to allegiance to God's law. At His first advent as written of Him in the prophecies He came to limit Satan's power and set free the captives Satan had bound, furnishing sufficient evidence to unprejudiced minds, and as a living, personal Saviour to make of no effect Satan's deceptive twistings and turnings, to carry out the plans written before Him in a book, and to reveal God's moral and religious character to men who had much religious knowledge but no depth of piety or practical knowledge gained by obeying the Scriptures.
Written in the Book
The volume of the book is the writings of Scripture, which testified beforehand to the manner of His coming and to His work, and His coming fulfills what was written concerning Him. He came into the world to do God's will as foretold in the book, and that will is carried out through the offering of His body once for all. Unlike the repeated animal sacrifices that cannot take away sins, His single offering sanctifies believers and makes sanctification possible. His coming to earth was willing obedience as the purpose of His incarnation, with God's law within His heart. His life culminated in the solemn offering of Himself on the cross, to which the types pointed forward and toward which His whole life led, and by perfectly obeying God's commandments and living out the law in human life He provided a pattern for all people and redeemed Adam's failure and fall.
The Old Testament reveals Him through the patriarchs and prophets and through the sacrificial service, whose offerings pointed to His sacrifice and whose types were fulfilled in Him. Its ceremonies and symbols, including the Passover and the lifted-up serpent, also pointed to Him, and His mission and identity as Messiah were fulfilled in His life, teachings, suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension. The prophecies furnished sufficient evidence to unprejudiced minds that He is indeed the Son of God and the Saviour of the world. The light of the cross clarifies the Jewish sacrificial system, for His death fulfilled the typical sacrifices and revealed their true significance. At His first advent He came to do the will of God as written of Him in the prophecies, to limit Satan's power and set free the captives Satan had bound.
The sacrificial animals symbolized Jesus, and their blood pointed to His blood soon to be shed for the sins of the world, with the sacrifices meant to direct people to Him. Rejecting Him made those religious services valueless, yet the unbelieving Jews rejected Him as an impostor, would not be taught by Him, and continued their useless sacrifices and offerings while looking forward to a Messiah who had already come. The priests and elders valued His sacrifice no more than the animals' blood. He was foretold to come in humility and poverty, to be rejected, despised, and slain. Not one word that has proceeded from the mouth of God will become null and void until prophecy becomes history, as in the case of the sacrificial offerings which prefigured Christ, where type met antitype in the death of the Son of God.
Obedience to God's Will
Doing God's will was the willing purpose of His incarnation, taking human nature and living in the world He had made to fulfill the plan of redemption devised before the foundation of the world was laid. He spoke these words in heaven from the throne of the Infinite, nearly two thousand years ago before He came to earth as the Light to a guilty world, a voice of strange and mysterious import because it comes from heaven. Sacrifice and offering were not wanted, but a body was prepared for Him, and as written of Him in the volume of the book He comes to do God's will, delighting to do it with God's law within His heart. His coming was no chance event but by deliberate design in counsel with His Father, accepting the laying aside of His heavenly glory to stand at the head of the fallen human family, appointed by the heavenly universe to visit the world.
Doing God's will meant fulfilling every requirement of the broken law in perfect and entire obedience, keeping His Father's commandments as a man in pure, virtuous, holy character. He magnified the law and made it honorable, revealing its spiritual nature and far-reaching principles to heavenly beings, unfallen worlds, and a disobedient world, and vindicating rather than abolishing it. His life proves by actual fact that humanity allied by living faith to divinity can keep all God's commandments and live a life of long obedience, redeeming Adam's failure and fall and providing a pattern for all people. He did not bring righteousness to an end or lessen human obligation to obey perfectly, but filled up in His humanity the full measure of the law's requirements and made plain its immutable character that disobedience can never be rewarded with eternal life.
Though sinless with no sins of His own to confess and no repentance of His own to make, He submitted to the ordinance of baptism to honor it and to fulfill all righteousness. In that act He identified Himself with His people as their representative, head, Substitute and Surety, with guilt imputed to Him as the sinner's substitute, taking their sins upon Him and numbered with transgressors. He took the steps the sinner is required to take and did the work the sinner must do, fulfilling all the requirements of God in repentance, faith, and baptism as the steps of genuine conversion and giving the example of perfect conformity required from Adam to the last man. His suffering and patient endurance afterward gave converted sinners an example of what they should patiently bear because of their sins.
His example is a life of service and teaching, revealing truths hidden from the world's beginning, living God's life, and keeping God's law which expresses His character. He came not only to be a sacrifice for sin but to be an example to man in all things, a Teacher who speaks with authority yet invites confidence, meek and lowly in heart, bringing hope and healing, helping the oppressed, and calling sinners to believe in Him to take away sin and ransom the world. By His words He educated men to obey God, and by His own practice He showed how obedience can be done, leaving a plain pattern to copy and revealing the character God requires and what human nature may become through receiving Him as Saviour. His coming revealed God's moral and religious character to men who had much religious knowledge but no depth of piety or practical knowledge of God gained by obeying the Scriptures, and made of no effect Satan's deceptive twistings to carry out the plans written before Him in a book. Doing God's will also meant commencing and ending life in the lowly walks of life, placing Himself where His family required His service without shirking responsibility, carrying cheerfulness and tact into labor, restoring every department of human industry as part of His commission, becoming subject to command though Commander of heaven, living as a perfect pattern in every place, and bringing Bible religion into home life and the workshop with patience and spirituality while keeping the eye single to the glory of God.
His temple reform was part of the work He had to carry out to do God's will. He knew it would not reform the corrupt priesthood, yet it served as evidence of His divine mission to an unbelieving people.
One Sacrifice Ending Shadows
God's will is carried out through the offering of Christ's body once for all, for He willingly and gladly came to do that will by giving Himself as the greater, wholly perfect, sinless sacrifice for the sin of the world. Unlike the repeated animal offerings that cannot take away sins, His one complete offering sanctifies believers and makes sanctification possible. The Jewish sacrifices and priesthood had no saving power in themselves but were symbols pointing to His death and mediatorial work, teaching that sin separates people from God and that a mediator was needed, and through Him the way to God was opened because His perfect offering alone met the demands of the divine law, the symbolic system to continue until He took its place. His death was the reality foreshadowed by the offerings: He bore the world's sin and the law's curse, and by suffering the separation from His Father that transgression brings He vindicated God's justice and showed the law changeless, suffering and dying to redeem and purify the guilty race.
The ceremonial sacrifices, bleeding victims, and sanctuary service were given by Christ Himself, who originated and founded them to foreshadow His offering as the spotless Lamb. After Adam's fall a system requiring the sacrificing of beasts was established to keep before fallen man that disobedience brings death, which the serpent had led Eve to disbelieve, and to teach humility in view of the fallen condition and lead to repentance and trust in God alone through the promised Redeemer for pardon for past transgression, making a way of escape from the penalty possible while the honor of the law is preserved; if the law had not been transgressed there never would have been death and no need for additional precepts to suit man's fallen condition. All the offerings and bleeding victims were symbols and types of Christ whose blood was shed for the salvation of the world, planned by God Himself to rivet in heart and mind in solemn, sacred ceremony explained definitely by the priests the great truth that forgiveness is through the blood of Christ alone, that His blood alone cleanses from all sin, and that without shedding of blood there is no remission. The whole solemn service typified grand truths of His redemptive work to be revealed through successive generations, the bleeding victim on the altar testifying of His coming as Redeemer, the cloud of incense with the prayers representing His righteousness that alone makes prayer acceptable, and the visible token in the holiest manifesting the divine presence, so that faith was kept alive through darkness and apostasy until the advent of the promised Messiah. The sacrificial work given to the appointed priests was sacredly set apart for that purpose and is to be held with holy regard and sacred reverence, and to treat it presumptuously or lightly leads to a low estimate of the ceremonies and ordinances that foreshadow His offering; God gave them also to prove and test the faith and obedience of His people, yet as symbols they could not take His place.
At His death, in A.D. 31 on the cross as the great sacrifice, type met antitype and the reality those shadows pointed to had come. His willing obedience fulfilled the purpose of the sacrificial system, for His offering of His own life accomplished what the former animal offerings had foreshadowed, and His one great offering ended their value. The divinely appointed ceremonies and sacrifices were therefore abolished, rendered valueless, and ceased, with no further moral efficacy and no need for further animal sacrifices or an earthly high priest. Through His blood the way into the holiest was opened, and He began serving as priest and advocate in heaven. The laws regulating Jewish sacrifices and offerings ceased at His death, but the Ten Commandments did not.
Only the laws regulating sacrifices and offerings and the ceremonial observances He directed ceased. The original moral law engraved on stone, the Ten Commandments, the lessons of practical obedience given from the Mount of Blessing, and the Decalogue remain unchanged, binding, and immutable in every age, the ceremonial observances being distinguished from the Decalogue and to pass away at that offering. Jesus did not supplant the law, detract from its dignity, or lessen its claims, but worked in strict accordance with both the moral and the ceremonial law, observing as a Jew the law binding upon Jews to the hour of His death, and then, when type met antitype, gave His own life as the one great offering foreshadowed by all former offerings of the blood of beasts. God's law by nature cannot be changed or abolished, and if it could have been abolished man could have been saved without the death of Jesus; His death instead magnified and honored His Father's law and enforced obedience to all its holy precepts, while Satan is willing for professed believers to hold that the sacrificial laws ceased if he can push them further to believe the ten commandments also died with Christ, and many yield to this device.
Israel trusted the sacrifices and ordinances themselves rather than Christ, reducing the service to lifeless forms and leaving the conscience troubled. They made the outward forms all important and lost the spirit of true worship, corrupting the services with heathen traditions and failing to look beyond the shadow to Christ, offering without understanding their meaning while spiritual worship was fast disappearing, the ceremonies enjoined without proper instruction as to their import and the offerings perverted and misunderstood. The priests and elders valued His sacrifice no more than the animals' blood, though the sacrificial animals symbolized Jesus and their blood pointed to His blood soon to be shed to direct people to Him. When He came as the one those sacrifices had been prefiguring, the nation, blinded and deceived by Satan, would not receive Him or be taught by Him but led Him as a lamb to the slaughter and sought to put Him to death, rejecting Him as an impostor while continuing useless sacrifices and looking forward to a Messiah who had already come, though the prophecies furnished sufficient evidence to unprejudiced minds that He is the Son of God and Saviour of the world come to limit Satan's power and set free his captives. So God brought the captivity and suspended the temple service and destroyed the Temple to keep outward ceremony from becoming the sum-total of religion, to purge principles and practices from heathenism, to cause ritual service to cease so heart service might be revived, and to remove outward glory so the spiritual might be revealed, making worship vain where it was only form.
Christ is the center, substance, foundation, Author and Finisher toward which the whole Jewish economy pointed. He Himself gave the ceremonial law and its sanctuary service to do the will of God in the salvation of man, gave the directions in regard to the offerings and understands their symbolic value, and originated and founded the system whose sacrifices symbolized Him. His atoning sacrifice makes peace and pardon possible for those who have broken God's law, and His death fulfilled what its sacrifices symbolized and fulfilled prophecy. His whole life led to His death as the reality foreshadowed by the Jewish system, the foundation toward which it pointed, and even after the ceremonies were no longer to be observed their true place in the plan of redemption and relation to His work remain glorious and worthy of their divine Originator; His coming to do the will of God established an altogether different worship.
Law Upheld and Followed
He did not come to abolish the law spoken from Sinai, supplant it, detract from its dignity, lessen its claims, bring righteousness to an end, or make the law of none effect. He worked in strict accordance with both the moral and the ceremonial law, observing as a Jew the law binding upon Jews to the hour of His death on the cross. His coming fulfilled what God Himself predicted in the Old Testament Scriptures without destroying their validity, and He came to vindicate the law, enforce and uphold it in its original dignity and purity. His sacrifice declared that God's law is unchanging and by nature cannot be changed or abolished, settling the controversy over its character and making plain its immutable character that disobedience can never be rewarded with eternal life.
If the law could have been abolished man could have been saved without His death, and His death instead magnified and honored His Father's law and enforced obedience to all its holy precepts. He fulfilled the law in perfect and entire obedience, fulfilling all its requirements in His humanity as head, Substitute and Surety, giving the example of perfect conformity required from Adam to the last man. His coming magnified the law and made it honorable, revealed its spiritual nature and far-reaching principles to heavenly beings, unfallen worlds, and a disobedient world, and proved that humanity allied by living faith to divinity can keep all God's commandments. He did not lessen the duty of perfect obedience, invalidate the Old Testament Scriptures, or free people from the law. Satan is willing for professed believers to hold that the sacrificial laws ceased at Christ's death if he can push them further to believe the ten commandments also died with Him, and many yield to this device.
Through His sacrifice pardon is offered to all who return to allegiance to God's law, and His atoning sacrifice makes peace and pardon possible for those who have broken God's law. The Jewish sacrifices and priesthood had no saving power in themselves but were symbols pointing to His death and mediatorial work, teaching that sin separates people from God and that a mediator was needed. Through Him the way to God was opened for guilty sinners, because His perfect, sinless offering alone met the demands of the divine law, and He brought with Him the gift of eternal life where without His sacrifice only death in sins remained. He did not free people from the law but opened the way for people to obey it and teach others to do so.
His followers echo His response in readiness to do God's will, receiving His Word and doing His will rather than relying on former rites and ceremonies which no longer have force because He fulfilled the types they represented. He came not only to be a sacrifice for sin but to be an example to man in all things, educating by word how obedience can be done and by His own practice showing how it can be done, leaving a plain pattern to copy. His life proves by actual fact that man can keep the commandments of God and live a life of long obedience, giving chosen representative men to exemplify His life to the world. His suffering and patient endurance afterward gave converted sinners an example of what they should patiently bear because of their sins, bringing every case to Him because He fully understands and replacing passionate words with mild words.
The speaker is Christ speaking with His Father in heaven before He took humanity, volunteering by deliberate design to come into the world to do God's will. His coming was foretold in the writings of Scripture and fulfilled what was written of Him through patriarchs and prophets and through ceremonies and symbols. To come meant veiling His divinity in humanity and laying aside His glory to share the condition of fallen humanity, living as a poor, suffering man rather than as a temporal conqueror. To do God's will meant keeping the broken law in perfect obedience and offering His body once for all as the wholly perfect sacrifice for the sin of the world. At His death type met antitype and the sacrificial ceremonies ceased, while the moral law remains unchanged and pardon opens the way for people to obey it.
Voice, Place, and Time
The speaker is Christ Himself, whose voice is heard from the throne of God in heaven, from the throne of the Infinite, speaking in counsel with His Father. He is One surpassing all that supposition or imagination can present, far above the angels. His words are of strange and mysterious import because they come from heaven.
They were spoken before the incarnation, when the plan of redemption was devised before the foundation of the world was laid, before the world was made. They were uttered nearly two thousand years ago, before He came to earth as the Light to a guilty world. At that time the sentence of condemnation was suspended over a rebellious world, and wrath was gathering because God's law was broken.
His coming was willing and volunteered, by deliberate design in counsel with His Father and not by chance. He volunteered to bear the penalty of transgression and willingly and gladly accepted the work of atonement by suffering and dying to redeem and purify the guilty race. In keeping with what was written of Him, He laid aside His crown, royal robe and heavenly glory to give Himself as the perfect offering.
Coming in Human Flesh
The words I come announce His coming into the world to become human and redeem humanity from the results of the fall, as foretold in the book, to do God's will through the offering of His body. That will is carried out through the offering once for all, replacing repeated offerings that cannot take away sins and making sanctification possible. His coming in a prepared human body in keeping with what was written of Him expresses this mission through every stage of human growth as a poor, ordinary child, for God was manifest in human flesh.
A body prepared for Him means His divinity was veiled and clothed in humanity and His heavenly glory hidden, so people could behold Him without being destroyed and He could draw near to sorrowful, tempted people. To all outward appearance He veiled divine glory and majesty in humanity as a frail, helpless babe when the time was fulfilled to bless and save those He came to. Heaven understood the time of His advent and angels left glory to witness His reception and herald His birth with joy in the heavenly courts, while the great men of earth, the Pharisees and scribes, and even the separated Jewish people showed no especial interest, made no preparation in the temple, and watched with no eager waiting for the Saviour of the world.
Taking humanity meant by deliberate design and not by chance laying aside His crown, royal robe, and heavenly glory and standing at the head of the human family, sharing the condition of humanity fallen through Adam's disobedience with His humanity mingled with theirs. Coming to do God's will meant clothing His divinity with humanity to work with fallen, degraded, corrupted humanity, to take the sins of the fallen race upon Himself and become sin so they could be made God's righteousness, and to approach men with His glory hidden.
He came in humiliation as a poor, ordinary child through every stage of human growth, born of poor parentage, living a life of privation and sorrow as a man of sorrows acquainted with grief, laboring with His hands for the support of His mother and brothers and sisters, educated by poverty as by a stern practical teacher, commencing and ending life in the lowly walks of life and bringing Bible religion into the home life and the workshop. He placed Himself where His family required His service without shirking responsibility, carrying cheerfulness and tact into labor, restoring every department of human industry as part of His commission, becoming subject to command though Commander of heaven with heartiness and devotion, living as a perfect pattern in every place with wisdom on His lips and patience and spirituality under the stretching and straining of man's nature while keeping the eye single to the glory of God. He came exactly as prophecy had written of Him to live a life of sorrow and die the death foreshadowed for hundreds of years by the sacrifices of which He is the antitype, foretold to come in humility and poverty to be rejected, despised, and slain, rather than coming as a victorious conqueror to break the Roman yoke and reign as a temporal prince on the throne of David. This forever removed the disgrace attached to poverty as destitute of worldly advantages, so that no one can justly look with contempt upon the poor.
He came when Satan was taking the world captive by deception and nearly all mankind was under his power, charmed and made greedy by gold, silver, riches, power and honor, willing to do injustice and violence, while the fear of the Lord was fast departing and condemnation was suspended over a rebellious world with wrath gathering because the law was broken. As Substitute and Surety He volunteered in heaven and the Son of the Highest chose to come to do God's will to save the human race, His coming bringing salvation, bridging the gulf that sin had made and rejoining this sin-cursed earth to heaven, ransoming the world with the guiltless suffering for the guilty in the sinner's place. He brought with Him the gift of eternal life, and without His sacrifice only death in sins remained, yet through His sacrifice pardon is offered to all who return to allegiance to God's law. At His first advent as written of Him in the prophecies He came to limit Satan's power and set free the captives Satan had bound, furnishing sufficient evidence to unprejudiced minds, and as a living, personal Saviour to make of no effect Satan's deceptive twistings and turnings, to carry out the plans written before Him in a book, and to reveal God's moral and religious character to men who had much religious knowledge but no depth of piety or practical knowledge gained by obeying the Scriptures.
Written in the Book
The volume of the book is the writings of Scripture, which testified beforehand to the manner of His coming and to His work, and His coming fulfills what was written concerning Him. He came into the world to do God's will as foretold in the book, and that will is carried out through the offering of His body once for all. Unlike the repeated animal sacrifices that cannot take away sins, His single offering sanctifies believers and makes sanctification possible. His coming to earth was willing obedience as the purpose of His incarnation, with God's law within His heart. His life culminated in the solemn offering of Himself on the cross, to which the types pointed forward and toward which His whole life led, and by perfectly obeying God's commandments and living out the law in human life He provided a pattern for all people and redeemed Adam's failure and fall.
The Old Testament reveals Him through the patriarchs and prophets and through the sacrificial service, whose offerings pointed to His sacrifice and whose types were fulfilled in Him. Its ceremonies and symbols, including the Passover and the lifted-up serpent, also pointed to Him, and His mission and identity as Messiah were fulfilled in His life, teachings, suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension. The prophecies furnished sufficient evidence to unprejudiced minds that He is indeed the Son of God and the Saviour of the world. The light of the cross clarifies the Jewish sacrificial system, for His death fulfilled the typical sacrifices and revealed their true significance. At His first advent He came to do the will of God as written of Him in the prophecies, to limit Satan's power and set free the captives Satan had bound.
The sacrificial animals symbolized Jesus, and their blood pointed to His blood soon to be shed for the sins of the world, with the sacrifices meant to direct people to Him. Rejecting Him made those religious services valueless, yet the unbelieving Jews rejected Him as an impostor, would not be taught by Him, and continued their useless sacrifices and offerings while looking forward to a Messiah who had already come. The priests and elders valued His sacrifice no more than the animals' blood. He was foretold to come in humility and poverty, to be rejected, despised, and slain. Not one word that has proceeded from the mouth of God will become null and void until prophecy becomes history, as in the case of the sacrificial offerings which prefigured Christ, where type met antitype in the death of the Son of God.
Obedience to God's Will
Doing God's will was the willing purpose of His incarnation, taking human nature and living in the world He had made to fulfill the plan of redemption devised before the foundation of the world was laid. He spoke these words in heaven from the throne of the Infinite, nearly two thousand years ago before He came to earth as the Light to a guilty world, a voice of strange and mysterious import because it comes from heaven. Sacrifice and offering were not wanted, but a body was prepared for Him, and as written of Him in the volume of the book He comes to do God's will, delighting to do it with God's law within His heart. His coming was no chance event but by deliberate design in counsel with His Father, accepting the laying aside of His heavenly glory to stand at the head of the fallen human family, appointed by the heavenly universe to visit the world.
Doing God's will meant fulfilling every requirement of the broken law in perfect and entire obedience, keeping His Father's commandments as a man in pure, virtuous, holy character. He magnified the law and made it honorable, revealing its spiritual nature and far-reaching principles to heavenly beings, unfallen worlds, and a disobedient world, and vindicating rather than abolishing it. His life proves by actual fact that humanity allied by living faith to divinity can keep all God's commandments and live a life of long obedience, redeeming Adam's failure and fall and providing a pattern for all people. He did not bring righteousness to an end or lessen human obligation to obey perfectly, but filled up in His humanity the full measure of the law's requirements and made plain its immutable character that disobedience can never be rewarded with eternal life.
Though sinless with no sins of His own to confess and no repentance of His own to make, He submitted to the ordinance of baptism to honor it and to fulfill all righteousness. In that act He identified Himself with His people as their representative, head, Substitute and Surety, with guilt imputed to Him as the sinner's substitute, taking their sins upon Him and numbered with transgressors. He took the steps the sinner is required to take and did the work the sinner must do, fulfilling all the requirements of God in repentance, faith, and baptism as the steps of genuine conversion and giving the example of perfect conformity required from Adam to the last man. His suffering and patient endurance afterward gave converted sinners an example of what they should patiently bear because of their sins.
His example is a life of service and teaching, revealing truths hidden from the world's beginning, living God's life, and keeping God's law which expresses His character. He came not only to be a sacrifice for sin but to be an example to man in all things, a Teacher who speaks with authority yet invites confidence, meek and lowly in heart, bringing hope and healing, helping the oppressed, and calling sinners to believe in Him to take away sin and ransom the world. By His words He educated men to obey God, and by His own practice He showed how obedience can be done, leaving a plain pattern to copy and revealing the character God requires and what human nature may become through receiving Him as Saviour. His coming revealed God's moral and religious character to men who had much religious knowledge but no depth of piety or practical knowledge of God gained by obeying the Scriptures, and made of no effect Satan's deceptive twistings to carry out the plans written before Him in a book. Doing God's will also meant commencing and ending life in the lowly walks of life, placing Himself where His family required His service without shirking responsibility, carrying cheerfulness and tact into labor, restoring every department of human industry as part of His commission, becoming subject to command though Commander of heaven, living as a perfect pattern in every place, and bringing Bible religion into home life and the workshop with patience and spirituality while keeping the eye single to the glory of God.
His temple reform was part of the work He had to carry out to do God's will. He knew it would not reform the corrupt priesthood, yet it served as evidence of His divine mission to an unbelieving people.
One Sacrifice Ending Shadows
God's will is carried out through the offering of Christ's body once for all, for He willingly and gladly came to do that will by giving Himself as the greater, wholly perfect, sinless sacrifice for the sin of the world. Unlike the repeated animal offerings that cannot take away sins, His one complete offering sanctifies believers and makes sanctification possible. The Jewish sacrifices and priesthood had no saving power in themselves but were symbols pointing to His death and mediatorial work, teaching that sin separates people from God and that a mediator was needed, and through Him the way to God was opened because His perfect offering alone met the demands of the divine law, the symbolic system to continue until He took its place. His death was the reality foreshadowed by the offerings: He bore the world's sin and the law's curse, and by suffering the separation from His Father that transgression brings He vindicated God's justice and showed the law changeless, suffering and dying to redeem and purify the guilty race.
The ceremonial sacrifices, bleeding victims, and sanctuary service were given by Christ Himself, who originated and founded them to foreshadow His offering as the spotless Lamb. After Adam's fall a system requiring the sacrificing of beasts was established to keep before fallen man that disobedience brings death, which the serpent had led Eve to disbelieve, and to teach humility in view of the fallen condition and lead to repentance and trust in God alone through the promised Redeemer for pardon for past transgression, making a way of escape from the penalty possible while the honor of the law is preserved; if the law had not been transgressed there never would have been death and no need for additional precepts to suit man's fallen condition. All the offerings and bleeding victims were symbols and types of Christ whose blood was shed for the salvation of the world, planned by God Himself to rivet in heart and mind in solemn, sacred ceremony explained definitely by the priests the great truth that forgiveness is through the blood of Christ alone, that His blood alone cleanses from all sin, and that without shedding of blood there is no remission. The whole solemn service typified grand truths of His redemptive work to be revealed through successive generations, the bleeding victim on the altar testifying of His coming as Redeemer, the cloud of incense with the prayers representing His righteousness that alone makes prayer acceptable, and the visible token in the holiest manifesting the divine presence, so that faith was kept alive through darkness and apostasy until the advent of the promised Messiah. The sacrificial work given to the appointed priests was sacredly set apart for that purpose and is to be held with holy regard and sacred reverence, and to treat it presumptuously or lightly leads to a low estimate of the ceremonies and ordinances that foreshadow His offering; God gave them also to prove and test the faith and obedience of His people, yet as symbols they could not take His place.
At His death, in A.D. 31 on the cross as the great sacrifice, type met antitype and the reality those shadows pointed to had come. His willing obedience fulfilled the purpose of the sacrificial system, for His offering of His own life accomplished what the former animal offerings had foreshadowed, and His one great offering ended their value. The divinely appointed ceremonies and sacrifices were therefore abolished, rendered valueless, and ceased, with no further moral efficacy and no need for further animal sacrifices or an earthly high priest. Through His blood the way into the holiest was opened, and He began serving as priest and advocate in heaven. The laws regulating Jewish sacrifices and offerings ceased at His death, but the Ten Commandments did not.
Only the laws regulating sacrifices and offerings and the ceremonial observances He directed ceased. The original moral law engraved on stone, the Ten Commandments, the lessons of practical obedience given from the Mount of Blessing, and the Decalogue remain unchanged, binding, and immutable in every age, the ceremonial observances being distinguished from the Decalogue and to pass away at that offering. Jesus did not supplant the law, detract from its dignity, or lessen its claims, but worked in strict accordance with both the moral and the ceremonial law, observing as a Jew the law binding upon Jews to the hour of His death, and then, when type met antitype, gave His own life as the one great offering foreshadowed by all former offerings of the blood of beasts. God's law by nature cannot be changed or abolished, and if it could have been abolished man could have been saved without the death of Jesus; His death instead magnified and honored His Father's law and enforced obedience to all its holy precepts, while Satan is willing for professed believers to hold that the sacrificial laws ceased if he can push them further to believe the ten commandments also died with Christ, and many yield to this device.
Israel trusted the sacrifices and ordinances themselves rather than Christ, reducing the service to lifeless forms and leaving the conscience troubled. They made the outward forms all important and lost the spirit of true worship, corrupting the services with heathen traditions and failing to look beyond the shadow to Christ, offering without understanding their meaning while spiritual worship was fast disappearing, the ceremonies enjoined without proper instruction as to their import and the offerings perverted and misunderstood. The priests and elders valued His sacrifice no more than the animals' blood, though the sacrificial animals symbolized Jesus and their blood pointed to His blood soon to be shed to direct people to Him. When He came as the one those sacrifices had been prefiguring, the nation, blinded and deceived by Satan, would not receive Him or be taught by Him but led Him as a lamb to the slaughter and sought to put Him to death, rejecting Him as an impostor while continuing useless sacrifices and looking forward to a Messiah who had already come, though the prophecies furnished sufficient evidence to unprejudiced minds that He is the Son of God and Saviour of the world come to limit Satan's power and set free his captives. So God brought the captivity and suspended the temple service and destroyed the Temple to keep outward ceremony from becoming the sum-total of religion, to purge principles and practices from heathenism, to cause ritual service to cease so heart service might be revived, and to remove outward glory so the spiritual might be revealed, making worship vain where it was only form.
Christ is the center, substance, foundation, Author and Finisher toward which the whole Jewish economy pointed. He Himself gave the ceremonial law and its sanctuary service to do the will of God in the salvation of man, gave the directions in regard to the offerings and understands their symbolic value, and originated and founded the system whose sacrifices symbolized Him. His atoning sacrifice makes peace and pardon possible for those who have broken God's law, and His death fulfilled what its sacrifices symbolized and fulfilled prophecy. His whole life led to His death as the reality foreshadowed by the Jewish system, the foundation toward which it pointed, and even after the ceremonies were no longer to be observed their true place in the plan of redemption and relation to His work remain glorious and worthy of their divine Originator; His coming to do the will of God established an altogether different worship.
Law Upheld and Followed
He did not come to abolish the law spoken from Sinai, supplant it, detract from its dignity, lessen its claims, bring righteousness to an end, or make the law of none effect. He worked in strict accordance with both the moral and the ceremonial law, observing as a Jew the law binding upon Jews to the hour of His death on the cross. His coming fulfilled what God Himself predicted in the Old Testament Scriptures without destroying their validity, and He came to vindicate the law, enforce and uphold it in its original dignity and purity. His sacrifice declared that God's law is unchanging and by nature cannot be changed or abolished, settling the controversy over its character and making plain its immutable character that disobedience can never be rewarded with eternal life.
If the law could have been abolished man could have been saved without His death, and His death instead magnified and honored His Father's law and enforced obedience to all its holy precepts. He fulfilled the law in perfect and entire obedience, fulfilling all its requirements in His humanity as head, Substitute and Surety, giving the example of perfect conformity required from Adam to the last man. His coming magnified the law and made it honorable, revealed its spiritual nature and far-reaching principles to heavenly beings, unfallen worlds, and a disobedient world, and proved that humanity allied by living faith to divinity can keep all God's commandments. He did not lessen the duty of perfect obedience, invalidate the Old Testament Scriptures, or free people from the law. Satan is willing for professed believers to hold that the sacrificial laws ceased at Christ's death if he can push them further to believe the ten commandments also died with Him, and many yield to this device.
Through His sacrifice pardon is offered to all who return to allegiance to God's law, and His atoning sacrifice makes peace and pardon possible for those who have broken God's law. The Jewish sacrifices and priesthood had no saving power in themselves but were symbols pointing to His death and mediatorial work, teaching that sin separates people from God and that a mediator was needed. Through Him the way to God was opened for guilty sinners, because His perfect, sinless offering alone met the demands of the divine law, and He brought with Him the gift of eternal life where without His sacrifice only death in sins remained. He did not free people from the law but opened the way for people to obey it and teach others to do so.
His followers echo His response in readiness to do God's will, receiving His Word and doing His will rather than relying on former rites and ceremonies which no longer have force because He fulfilled the types they represented. He came not only to be a sacrifice for sin but to be an example to man in all things, educating by word how obedience can be done and by His own practice showing how it can be done, leaving a plain pattern to copy. His life proves by actual fact that man can keep the commandments of God and live a life of long obedience, giving chosen representative men to exemplify His life to the world. His suffering and patient endurance afterward gave converted sinners an example of what they should patiently bear because of their sins, bringing every case to Him because He fully understands and replacing passionate words with mild words.