FROM

THE

MILLENNIAL HARBINGER.

NEW SERIES.

VOLUME IV.-----NUMBER VII.

B E T H A N Y, VA. JULY, 1840.

      IN my first essay on sin-offerings I stated that the Christian world were divided on the design, end, or purpose of them. The overwhelming majority of Christians have placed their whole effect on God, on his law and justice, and on his government;--on God, to reconcile and propitiate him to sinners--on his law and justice, to satisfy their penal demands against them, in the person of their substitute on his government, to make it honored and respected in the universe.

      Others, while they acknowledge these to be the designs of sin-offerings, yet do not confine their effects on God, his law, and government, but also acknowledge that they are designed to produce a moral effect on man, as to reconcile him to God, to purge and cleanse him from sin.

      In my first number I said that I could not believe that sin-offerings were ever designed to produce such effects on God, his law, justice, or government, because it was not so declared in the Bible, and I cannot believe any thing as unerring divine truth but what I find there: if sin-offerings are designed to produce these effects, and this doctrine is taught in the Bible, why do not the advocates of it plainly refer us to the book, chapter and verse where it is taught. Let them not substitute vain philosophy, far-fetched inferences and the wisdom of words for the doctrine of God.

      I do not, wish to be understood as denying that such effects are produced on God, his law, and government by sin-offerings, but that I cannot believe them for want of divine evidence; and I might add, because this doctrine seems, to me plainly to contradict many things taught in the Bible, and to be condemned by matters of fact. But of these hereafter. [289]

      I will now endeavor to state my own views of sin-offerings, their end, and design. I agree with all Christians that the great design of sin-offerings is to make an atonement. Though the sin-offering itself may be called the atonement, yet it is so called because it is the means of effecting an atonement or reconciliation. More than thirty-seven years ago I defined atonement to be at-one-ment, or reconciliation. The authorities, then adduced, it is believed, have never been seriously impugned, nor denied. Not long since I have seen the same definition given by high authority, as Calmet's Dictionary, enlarged and edited by Robinson, Theological Professor at Andover. On the word they say--

      "We have evidently lost the true import of this word, by our present manner of pronouncing it. When it was customary to pronounce the word one as own (as in the time of our translators) then the word atonement was resolvable into its parts, at-one-ment, or the means of being at-one, i. e. reconciled, united, combined in fellowship. This seems to be precisely its idea, Rom, v. 11--Being (to God) reconciled, or at-one-ed, we shall be saved by his (Christ's) life, by whom we have received the at-one-ment,or means of reconciliation. Here it appears the word atonement does not mean a ransom, price, or purchase paid to the receiver, but a restoration of accord, which is, perhaps, the most correct idea we can affix to the term expiation, or atonement, under the Mosaic law." See also J. Brown's Dic. Bib. on the word.

      In order that we may see clearly the application of this definition of atonement, I will introduce a few 'propositions from the "Address" long since published.

      1st. There did exist, and does exist, and will forever exist a close and intimate union between God and all holy beings.

      2d. There did exist a close political union under the law between God and Israel, while Israel continued politically holy and ceremonially clean.

      3d. Nothing but sin and uncleanness ever broke this moral or political union between God and his creatures. "Your iniquities have separated between you and your God." Isai. lix. 2.

      4th. Whatever removes the separation between God and his creatures, restores the union between them.

      5th. The blood of beasts, slain in sacrifice under the law, removed the political or ceremonial separation between God and Israel, and restored the union between them.

      6th. The blood of Christ under the New Testament removes the moral separation between God and believers, and restores the union between them. [290]

      7th. God's holy nature cannot be in union with man's unholy nature. 2 Cor. vi. 14, 16. But when man is cleansed and washed from sin by the blood of Christ, then, and not till then, are God and man united, reconciled, or at-one-ed.

      8. The at-one-ment, reconciliation, or union between God and his creatures, either under the law or under the gospel, never took place before the person or thing defiled was cleansed or purged by the blood of a sin-offering.

      9. There is an awful separation between God and the fallen world. Man's sin and wickedness is the cause. God is holy, just, and good--man is unholy, unjust, and wicked;--God is light--mankind is darkness. How can natures so discordant be united? Either God must change into the temper and spirit of man, or man must change into the temper and spirit of God. The first is impossible; therefore man must be changed or lost from God forever. To effect this very end was the Son of God sent by the Father of mercy, who lived, died, and rose again for our justification. His very ministry was that of reconciliation, (or at-one-ment;) "for God was in, or by, Christ reconciling (at-one-ing) the world unto himself"--"God hath reconciled (at-one-ed) all things unto himself by Jesus Christ"--"We are reconciled (at-one-ed) unto God by the death of his Son."

      From the remarks it will be seen that the primary design of the blood of sin-offerings, both under the Old and the New Testament, is, to purge or cleanse from sin and defilement, whether moral, political, or ceremonial; and the proximate effect is at-one-ment.

      The Apostle Paul says, "Almost all things are by the law purged with blood." Heb. ix. 22. Let us inquire what those things were which were purged with blood, how they were purged, and what was the effect of this purging.

      1. The altar was one of the things purged with blood. Ezek. xliii. 18-26. "And he said unto me, These are the ordinances of the altar--thou shalt take of the blood thereof (a young bullock) and put it on the four horns thereof (the altar) and on the four corners of the settle, and upon the borders round about. Thus shalt thou cleanse and purge it; and on the second day thou shalt offer a kid of the goats, without blemish, for a sin-offering; and they shall cleanse the altar as they did cleanse it with the bullock. When thou hast made an end of cleansing it, seven days shalt thou purge the altar, and purify it." Moses describes the same thing in nearly the same language, Lev. xvi. 18-20. "And he shall go out unto the altar, and make an atonement for it, and shall take of the blood of the bullock, and of the goat, and put it on the horns of the altar round about, and cleanse it, and hallow it from the [291] uncleanness of the children of Israel. And when he hath made an end of reconciling the altar," &c.

      Dr. J. Taylor, in his Hebrew Concordance, says, "The word atonement is always in the Old Testament, rendered from some tense, or noun derived from the root kaphar; nor is there any Hebrew word we translate atonement, but what comes from that root."

      Now with respect to the case of purging the altar, we have remarked that Moses and Ezekiel were describing the same thing in nearly the same words. The altar was defiled by the uncleanness of the children of Israel. It must be cleansed or purged. How? Ezekiel says, "Thus (by the blood of a bullock) shalt thou cleanse and purge (kaphar) it." Moses says, "He shall make an atonement (kaphar) for it." Again Ezekiel says, "Seven days shall they purge (kaphar) the altar." Moses says, "Seven days shalt thou make an atonement (kaphar) for the altar." Exodus xxix. 37. Again, Ezekiel says, "When thou hast made an end of cleansing it (the altar)." Moses says, "When thou hast made an end of reconciling (kaphar) the altar." The effect, then, of this blood was to cleanse, to hallow, to sanctify, and to make the altar most holy; or in the language of Paul, it was to purge the altar. As this effect is described by kaphar, frequently translated to make atonement, and to reconcile, we conclude that to make atonement, to reconcile, and to purge, are synonymous, all expressed by, or translated from, the same word kaphar.

      The word kaphar, it is believed, is as frequently translated to purge, or cleanse, as to make atonement. Let the attentive reader turn to the following texts, and where he finds cleanse or purge in those texts, they are so translated from the Hebrew kaphar. Num. xxv. 33; 1 Sam. iii. 16; Psalm lxv. 3, and lxxxix, 9; Prov. xvi. 6; Isai. vi. 7, and xxii. 14, and xxvii. 9, and the texts quoted above.

      Would it not be better always to translate the verb kaphar, when connected with sin, as the New Testament writers have done, by the Greek word airo, with its compounds, which is rendered to purge, to cleanse, to take away sin; than by translating it to make atonement, or to reconcile?

      2. Another thing cleansed with blood is a leprous house. Lev. xiv. 52, 53. "And he shall cleanse the house with the blood of the bird; but he shall let go the living bird, and make an atonement (kaphar) for the house; and it shall be clean." How much more intelligibly would it read, 'And purge the house, and it shall be clean?' as the Psalmist, li. 7, "Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean."

      3. The tabernacle of the congregation, the holy place, as well as the altar, were cleansed in the same manner. Lev. xvi. 16, 19, 20. [292] "And he shall make an atonement (kaphar) for the holy place; so shall he do for the tabernacle of the congregation."--"And when he hath made an end of reconciling (kaphar) the holy place, the tabernacle of the congregation, and the altar."--"Thou shalt take a young bullock without blemish, and cleanse the sanctuary. And the priest shall take of the sin-offering, and put it upon the posts of the house: so shall ye reconcile (kaphar) the house." How preferable would be the translation of these texts, to substitute the word purge, instead of to make an atonement, or to reconcile. This is Paul's rendering.

      Let the reader examine the following texts, and all doubt will be removed. When he reads in these texts, to make atonement, to reconcile, the Hebrew word is kaphar. Lev. vi. 30, and xvi. 27, and viii. 15; Ezek. xl. 15, 17, 20; Dan. ix. 24; Lev. xii. 7, 8, and xv. 15, 30, and xvi. 30; Num. viii. 21; Lev. ix. 7; Lev. xiv. 19, 20, 21, 29, 31.

      4. In these texts it will be seen that the people were also cleansed from their sins and uncleanness by their offerings for sin. Forgiveness always accompanies atonement, or purging, if it be not the same thing. Lev. iv. 20. "And the priest shall make an atonement (kaphar) for them, and it shall be forgiven them." See also Lev. iv. 26, 31, 35, and v. 10, 13, 16, 18, and xix. 22; Num. xv. 25, 28. So intimately connected are purging and remission, that they are often expressed by the same word kaphar. 2 Chron. xxx. 18, 19. "The good Lord pardon (kaphar) every one of them--though he be not cleansed according to the purification of the sanctuary." See also Psalm lxxviii. 38; Jer. xviii. 23; Deut. xxi. 8. "Be merciful (kaphar,) O Lord, unto thy people--And the blood shall be forgiven (kaphar) them." Deut. xxxii. 43. "He will be merciful (kaphar) unto his land and people." To be merciful unto, means to forgive. Heb. viii. 12, and x. 18.

      Thus have I shown the design of the sin-offering under the law, to be, purging or cleansing from sin and uncleanness. When the person or thing is thus purged by the Lord through the means of sacrifice, then is God, his law, and government pleased, or reconciled with the person or thing thus cleansed, without any change in himself, his law, or government, because they were always pleased and satisfied with purity. The whole change has taken place in the person defiled. Now the at-one-ment, or reconciliation, is effected between God and man.

      In my next number I will write an essay upon the sin-offering of Christ, our great High Priest.

B. W. STONE. [293]      

BROTHER STONE:

      My dear Sir--YOUR second epistle, dated April 10th, one week after the first, treats of the design of sacrifices. Sacrifice could, as a matter of course, reach no farther than the sins for which it was offered. If offered only for one class of sins, it could only in its design reach that class. Much, then, depends on forming a correct estimate of the sins for which it was offered. I showed, as I conceive, in my last, that sins of ignorance and legal uncleanness were not the only sins expiated or purified by the Jewish sacrifices; that all the sins of the whole nation of Israel--all their iniquities and transgressions, were annually taken away by sacrifice.

      In your first letter you stated that the design of the legal sacrifices was "not to deliver from death, but to purify and cleanse the offerer." Do you think that there was legal sanctification without legal salvation in the ancient sacrifices? 'A man's sins might be forgiven through sacrifice, provided they deserved not death; but if they merited death there was no sacrifice for them!' Have you not thought, my dear sir, that this looks somewhat like the Romanist classification of sins into venal and mortal. The venal only were pardoned through sacrifice! The mortal were beyond the saving power of the law. Sins of ignorance, therefore, must be considered in the light of venal offences--not as moral guilt. Lev. v. 17. declares that "if a soul sin and commit any of those things which are forbidden to be done by the commandment of the Lord, though he knew it not, yet is he guilty, and shall bear his iniquity." Follows it not, then, that if any of the things forbidden in the commandments of the Lord incurred death, though done ignorantly, the appointed sacrifice obtained forgiveness or release from that penalty? Even in the case of Job's friends, before the law was given, sacrifice saved from the wrath of God. The Lord said to Eliphaz, "My wrath is kindled against thee and thy two friends: therefore, take unto you now seven bullocks and seven rams, and go to my servant Job, and offer up for yourselves a burnt-offering, and my servant Job will pray for you: for him will I accept, lest I deal with you after your folly." They did as commanded, and escaped.

      In the case of one only legally polluted by the contact of a dead person, presuming to come into the congregation, death was to be inflicted; but if he had the ashes of the red heifer mingled with water sprinkled upon him, he might, without danger of death, enter the congregation at the time appointed. A still stronger proof that there was [294] atonement in the law saving men from temporal death, is found in Numbers xvi. 48. "And the Lord spake to Moses, saying, Get you up from this congregation that I may consume them in a moment; and they fell upon their faces. And Moses said to Aaron, Take a censer and put fire in it from the altar, and put on incense, and go quickly and make an atonement for them; for there is wrath gone out from the Lord: the plague is begun. And they made an atonement for the people, and he stood between the dead and the living, and the plague was stayed." The sequel may show the importance I attach to establishing the fact that the atonements of the law did save men from the penalties of that law, even from death, excepting in the single case of a presumptuous violation of the covenant or renunciation of it. And under the Christian economy the sacrifice of Christ extends not as an atonement to any that despise or renounce Christ.

      But the Divine explanation of the reason why the Most High commanded blood to be used upon the altar, appears to my mind to banish all ambiguity both from the style of the Mosaic institute and from the Christian mind on the whole subject of atonement as taught both in the law and gospel. Sin is the forfeiture of life; or, what is the same thing, divinely expressed, "death is the wages of sin"--"the soul that sins must die." Now, says God, "I have given you blood upon my altar to make an atonement for your souls; because THE LIFE is in the blood"--for your life I accept blood, which is the life of the victim. I accept its life instead of yours. To quote his own words--"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 MAKES AN ATONEMENT FOR THE SOUL." Again he adds, "Blood is the life of all flesh; the blood of it is for the life of it." Levit. xvii. 11-14.

      If I understand your second letter, you and I agree that atonement is but the means of reconciliation; that atonement is the cause, and reconciliation the effect, though you are not so clear upon the subject as I could wish; but, perhaps, on a fuller explanation of the subject, we may perfectly harmonize on this great topic. I, like you, have all my life, divided the word atonement into three syllables--at-one-ment. But I do not on that account exactly understand you when you make it mean simply reconciliation. At-one-ment is the making, or that which makes at one, those who were not one; and reconciliation is made one. Figuratively we often put the effect for the cause, and the cause for the effect; but when we discuss a subject for the sake of understanding it we come to the literal and leave the figurative. Therefore the atonement and the reconciliation are just as different as [295] the two Greek words hilasmos and katallagee--the former means atonement as the cause, and the latter means reconciliation as the effect. While I readily own that either reconciliation or atonement may by a metonymy of the effect for the cause, or of the cause for the effect, be used indiscriminately, originally, literally, and properly, atonement (hilasmos) is that which makes one, and reconciliation (katallagee) is made one. The one is the cause--the other the effect. If this be doubted, we have a superabundance of evidence to offer. I shall, however, suggest only one fact at present, viz.--that things that cannot be reconciled are said to be atoned--such as the tabernacle, the altar, and their furniture. These are susceptible of atonement, but not of reconciliation, in the legal and proper sense of these words, as any one may see by examining only the book of Leviticus, particularly the 16th chapter.

      Purification or expiation is also an effect of atonement, as well as reconciliation. In this sense atonement was made for the altar, the sanctuary, and almost all things are by the law purified by blood.

      Propitiation or pacification is also an effect of atonement. So we find it applied to God, Ezek. xvi. 63. "When I am propitiated (exhilaskesthai,^{1} common version, pacified) to you for all that you have done, saith the Lord." So prayed the publican--"God be propitious to me a sinner." Hence we find the hilasmos twice in the first epistle of John applied to Christ's blood--the propitiation for our sins. Messiah, as foretold by Daniel, will make propitiation for iniquity.

      Do I misconceive my brother Stone when I interpret his views of atonement as excluding the idea of propitiating or pacifying our heavenly Father? I know that he repudiates the idea of effecting a change in God--of changing him from an enemy to a friend. So do I. But still I say God repents, is propitiated, and pacified, and even reconciled to us. But the effects of sacrifice, or atonement, so far as the propitiating of God is contemplated, is more appositely set forth in the Bible than in any other book in the world, in the memorable effect of Noah's sacrifice upon God himself. Let us, Father Stone, turn over and read it:--"And Noah builded an altar unto the Lord, and took of every clean beast and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt-offerings on the altar. And the Lord smelled a sweet savor; and the Lord said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake." "The Lord smelled a sweet savor" not before, but while he sacrificed. Such was the effect of Noah's (the temporal saviour) sacrifice on God. And, in the same style, that learned [296] Hebrew, our Apostle, has spoken of our Saviour. "Christ," says he, "has given himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savor." This is what I mean by propitiating God. This sweet smelling savor is to God. It is a sweet and pleasing odor to him, on account of which he can be propitious to us. When then, you, brother Stone, ask me what I mean by sacrifice atoning or propitiating God, I refer you to the effect produced on him by Noah's sacrifice, by Christ's sacrifice--appositely, though pleonastically, expressed by Paul, "for a sweet smelling savor." Christ's sacrifice Godward, and not manward, was then for a sweet smelling savor--pleasing, propitiating, reconciling God to man.

      With all your precision and caution, brother Stone, on this subject, I find you come to my conclusions in my very words: for at the close of your second epistle you say, "Then is God, his law, and government pleased or reconciled with the person or thing thus cleansed." You then place yourself under the reprobation of your own censure when you ask me, letter first, "Do, brother Campbell, point us to the scriptures that say that sacrifices, either under the Old or New Testament, were ever designed to propitiate God, or that such an effect was ever produced or effected on him." After this you add, that you think I "have advanced a few steps farther than any other system-maker." Well, I am glad to be in such good company as that of brother Stone, who concludes with me--then, and not till then, of course--"then is God, his law, and government pleased or reconciled with the person," &c. &c.

      You were, my dear sir, driven into hypercriticism--to being righteous overmuch at the time you wrote your address, by the violence of men of that hard-mouthed age which refused bit, and bridle, and curb; you were driven, if not past Jerusalem, a little beyond the beautiful gate of the Temple. You had men of strong prejudices, and not much biblical science, to contend with; and who were determined to drive with a wooden wedge and mallet the barbarous scholastic jargon of old Nicene trinitarianism down your throat; and, therefore, I do not wonder at your conscientious fastidiousness concerning terms and phrases which they may have misapplied. I have felt a good deal of your embarrassment, and know experimentally many of your difficulties. I appreciate fully your critical display of the use of kaphar and its derivatives, and see in all that you have said little or nothing from which to dissent. But you strangely in all this seem to overlook the very point in discussion, and Which you ultimately have to concede, that sacrifice has an effect upon God. You appear to deny this in the commencement, but you cannot but admit it in the conclusion. [297]

      Now methinks the matter can be greatly simplified thus:--Sacrifice is atonement or propitiation as respects God; purification as respects sin; reconciliation as respects the human heart; justification as respects the sinner's conscience, and redemption as respects his person from all the penal consequences of sin. Atonement is, therefore, a grand cause; of which the prominent effects are, propitiation as respects God; purification as respects sin; reconciliation as respects the sinner; justification as respects his guilt; sanctification as respects his pollution, and redemption as respects his actual personal deliverance from sin in all its consequences. You seem, my dear sir, to labor on one point, as though it were with you a great difficulty. You seem desirous to make sacrifice affect only man. You have no doubt been horrified at some of the representations like that quoted from the Methodistic Discipline about Christ's reconciling God to man. The more intelligent of that community believe with you that God the Father sent his Son to be the Saviour of the world from his own benevolence, and that the atonement was in the divine nature and judgment necessary to justify God in justifying ungodly men--"that he might be just and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus." It propitiated God in no other way than as it opened a just and honorable way for his grace to be exercised, or as it gave him a justifiable reason to be propitious. No intelligent professor of the faith imagines that God was incorrigible, cruel, antagonistic, full of vengeance, and inimical to fallen man; and that his Son our Lord was more compassionate and merciful, and came to quench the fire of his wrath, to placate his ire. Such Pagan notions are neither the faith nor the opinion of any of those denominated evangelical. A few ultras of former days may have so reasoned; but such spirits are too antique for the nineteenth century.

      Your own views of sin-offerings, as detailed in your 2d epistle, are clearly expressed. You say, "The great design of sin-offering is to make atonement." But you make atonement only equivalent to reconciliation. But it means more in the Bible than the reconciliation of a sinner to God, therefore, until you more fully explain yourself, I object to your definition as defective. The design of sin-offerings is, indeed, to make reconciliation by making a propitiation for our sins, and by making it both just and merciful on the part of God to forgive us. But I wait your explanation of the various items on which I have commented. As I see you have sometimes misconceived me, it is possible I may have misunderstood you. Meanwhile I remain, as ever, yours in the kingdom of the Messiah,

A. CAMPBELL. [298]      

[The Millennial Harbinger (July 1840): 289-298.]