Spreads o'er the expanse of heaven;
In waves of light it thrills along The angelic signal given.
Glory to God! from yonder central fire Flows out the echoing beyond the starry choir.
Like circles widening round Upon a clear blue river, Orb after orb the wondrous sound
Is echoed on forever:
Glory to God on high! on earth be peace, And love toward men of love, salvation and release!
THE TREND OF REDEMPTION
We proceed now to show that the whole trend of redemption aims at personal holiness. All redemptive institutions face in that direction, and all their rays of light and streams of blessing converge to that point. The complex type system of bleeding beasts, smoking altars, and bloody baptisms, together with the multiform emblems which, to the Jews, served as object lessons, had that truth as their reigning idea. From the beginning all Divine dispensations successively unfold like the rose, and brighten like the rising sun toward this zenith.
The Jewish ceremonial, the ancient covenants, the prophetic visions, the code of precepts, and the golden chain of promises of both Testaments, center in holiness. Their ultimate intention was the sublime achievement of salvation from all sin.
We do not deny that Redemption had a wide scope and diverse purposes. It began feebly, marched slowly, and occupied ages to ripen its fruit. Even now it lends its stimulus to education, art, and government; but in all its ramifications, redeeming mercies never deviate from their primal design, to "destroy the works of the devil." Like the needle to the pole, redeeming grace points ever to the
"blood that cleanses from all sin."
The Church, the Bible, the priesthood, the prophetic order, and the entire Mosaic ritual, were but means to an end. The same may be affirmed of the Christian dispensation. The gift of Jesus, the Gospel revelations, the bestowment of the Holy Ghost, and the Christian ministry and the sacraments, are but instrumental forces designed to effect an ulterior object, and that object is the reproduction of the Divine image in men. In this glorious altitude the plan culminates. There is not a drop of virtue in redeeming grace which does not, by the pre-appointment of God, finally expend its force on the heart, life, and character of men for the elimination of sin. This will appear more and
more evident as we proceed to trace the thread of this sublime doctrine through the pages of sacred Scripture.
PERSONAL HOLINESS -- THE ORIGINAL PURPOSE OF GOD
All the possible exigencies of human nature lay within the scope of the divine knowledge before the human race was created. Consequently God saw that man would reach an emergency, in which he would need, not only forgiveness, but also cleansing. With our prospective sinfulness, therefore, before him as a distinct conception, far back in eternity, God, being moved by his nature of infinite love, devised the ways, and provided in idea, the means of purity.
In harmony with this view, it is written: "Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ." *1 Here is the ideal of human redemption, as it existed in the thought of God from the beginning.
Personal sanctification of men was the objective point, while the efficacious agencies, which He proposed to employ, were the Spirit and the blood of Jesus Christ. The practical outgrowth and end of this preordained sanctification, by these virtuous causes, was to be obedience. Thus internal purity and external rectitude, as a result, were distinctly foreseen, and provided for by the intended blood, which now cleanses from all sin through the Holy Ghost, who quietly and efficiently fills His preappointed office of sanctifier. These were integral parts of our Father's original plan and purpose.
Both the means and the end were the choice of his love. His love originated, His wisdom contrived, His power executed a miracle and mystery of grace, which was designed from eternity to evolve holiness. To recreate fallen man in righteousness and true holiness was the first-born conception in the heart of Divinity far back in the dateless past. Pursuant to this primal idea, the scheme has been unfolding through the ages. In each successive stage, it has resolved itself into a deeper spirituality and higher life.
It was too subtle and divine to be at once comprehended by the gross capacities of the degenerate.
Hence four thousand years were occupied in educating the faith of the world up to the point of receiving a personal Redeemer, who should found a purely spiritual kingdom -- a kingdom that cometh not by observation, but is located within -- a kingdom, not consisting in meat and drink, but in righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost -- a kingdom whose fundamental principle should be perfect love to God and men. All the institutions of biblical antiquity were adapted to teach this lesson.
The significance of the whole Levitical code was the need and possibility of human purification, and the sacrificial preparations for it. This was the chief meaning of the multiplied animal sacrifices and sacred offerings among the ancient Jews. This, too, was the import of their ceremonial ablutions, their multifarious sprinkling of blood, as also their priestly uses of holy places, vessels, and garments. All these sacred rites declared God's ancient purpose to open "a fountain" "to the house of David, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanness." *2 As Paul says: "Almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without the shedding of blood is no remission." *3
Upon this fact, and the virtue of the symbolized blood of Jesus, the apostle founds his conclusive argument, "For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh; how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?"
The same may be said of the spiritual purport of the theophanies or sensible manifestations of God to men; such as the burning bush; *5 the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night; *6 the Tabernacle and Temple lights, and the cloven tongues of fire on the day of Pentecost. *7 All these confirm the primitive purpose of God to crystallize his religion into a simple and profound spirituality, whose receptacle, seat, and subject should be the heart.
By these brilliant displays, the Holy One, sitting in the "high and holy place," foreshadowed his design to establish spiritual intercommunication with the human soul, after the cleansing process had passed upon it.
This primordial thought of God, to reproduce perfect holiness in men, is distinctly stated in two other passages: "But we are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth." *8 Observe, it is not the arbitrary choice of a person to heaven, but the choice of men to a state of salvation, through a certain process, and that process is the "sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth." Again it is written: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: according as he hath chosen us in Him, before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love." *9 In this case we are not chosen, so much to any state or place, as to an order of life And that order is the grade of highest excellence among the redeemed. It is thus characterized: "That we should be holy and without blame" before him in love." *10 To this exalted life we were all comprehensively chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world.
It was the initial thought of God concerning the fallen, which ripened into great redeeming measures to re-impress his lost image upon despoiled human nature -- to revive, through Christ, the traces of righteousness and true holiness -- to retouch the faded lines of beauty -- to resuscitate wasted and dead affections -- to re-endow the heart with feeling and power, that it might pulsate with love to God and men -- to re-open the avenues of communication between the soul and its divine source, that the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost might be its everlasting benediction.
"Many, O Lord my God, are thy wonderful works which thou hast done, and thy thoughts which are to us-ward: they cannot be reckoned up in order unto thee: if I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered." *11
THE DISPENSATIONS FORESHADOW MATURITY AND PERFECTION
Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord: his going forth is prepared as the morning;
and He shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter and former rain unto the earth. Hosea vi, 3.
The gracious dispensations of God to men, like the unfoldings of redemption, are progressive and ever brightening. Beginning with the twilight of vague, obscure revelation, it steadily advances like the morning light until it broadens into the splendors and perfections of Gospel day. Each successive revelation grows less typical, and more didactic and intellectual -- less national, and more personal -- less ceremonial and outward, and more interior and directly saving -- less prophetic and remote, and more promissory and immediate -- less earthly, material, and sensuous, and more divine, spiritual, and life-giving.
This gradual development of the divine preparations, looking directly to the simplicities of the Gospel, and the holiness which it provides for and requires, finds its correspondences in nature everywhere. It is like the dawn of day coming out of the womb of midnight, and proceeding to high noon; it is like the germ in seeds that begins to swell, and then sends forth plants and trees that cover the earth with verdure and beauty; it is like the recondite process of human existence which begins with the mysterious quickening of the embryonic germ, then develops into the conscious state, then into manhood and maturity, stopping not until it dominates the world and fills the earth with the brilliancy of its genius. So with the specific dispensations. They begin with the bud of incipient preparations, founded upon the prior plans and purposes of mercy and grace in the Eternal Mind, but go on unfolding leaf and flower, until the earth is made gay with the blush of their full bloom.
Generically considered, there are but two dispensations -- a dispensation of law, and a dispensation of grace. But under these general heads there are several subdivisions, called covenants, promises, revelations, visions, and prophecies. These have been periodically bestowed to amplify and spiritualize religion.
The beginning of the first legal dispensation was the requirement delivered to our first parents that they should not eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. *12 This was adapted to responsible beings in a state of rectitude. In that case nothing but obedience was necessary to secure the continuance of the divine favor, and obedience then came easily within the possibilities of natural ability. It therefore involved no promise of grace.
The next and most prominent dispensation of law was the Ten Commandments, or Decalogue.
This was given after the disability consequent upon the fall had smitten the race, but in itself contained no provision for help, nor promise of its bestowment. Yet the compliance required must have necessitated a certain pre-appropriation of the merits of the promised Saviour. In this way the law began early to be a schoolmaster to lead us to Christ, in whom help and healing would be abundant. The spirit and principles of the Decalogue were afterward expanded into the Levitical code and diffused through the preceptive parts of the prophecies, and finally transferred, with increasing stringency and exactitude, to the Gospel. The Gospel, therefore, is no less a code of laws than a covenant of mercy. It requires holiness no less than it provides for it, and the provision being most ample the requirement is absolute. That teaching is most faulty which represents the attainment of holiness as optional, or as a state simply to be aimed at -- a mere privilege which it is well to embrace. It is more. It is a duty, it is heaven's absolute requirement.
It has all the binding force and penal sanction of law. "Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord." *13 And this legal aspect of the divine dispensation has steadily pointed to personal purity. Down through the ages the exactions have multiplied and become
more explicit, rigorous, and comprehensive. It is now the indispensable condition of full acceptance, the necessary enduement to give to service the highest efficiency, and the quality and image without which no man can ever enjoy the beatific vision of God. All who enter heaven must first wash their robes and make "them white in the blood of the Lamb." *14 This gracious dispensation of God received its first enunciation in the obscure promise, "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel."
*15 Here the conflict between holiness and sin was first waged. It was a declaration of war on the part of God and in the name of Jesus. It was also a prediction and assurance that the Seed of the woman should triumph. Thus, six thousand years of the antagonism of sin and holiness was begun.
From that day to this the artillery of truth and righteousness has gleamed and pealed along the whole line of the ages against sin. Nor is this a war of mere subjugation -- it is a war of extermination. And there can be no perfect peace until this enemy is swept from the soul by the Divine besom of destruction. As the Lord commanded the barbarous tribes of Canaan to be entirely destroyed, that there might be peace and uncorrupted worship in the land among His chosen people, so God originally decreed, not the abatement, but the destruction of the works of Satan. This purpose he indicated by aiming the blow at the serpent's head, or at the seat of sinful life.
Again, the dispensation of grace was announced more distinctly and full to Abraham: "And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed." *16 This covenant of mercy was enlarged, defined, and diversified in the repeated promises of a Saviour in the Jewish ceremonial, and in the more spiritual and definite promises of the prophets.
Finally, it opened up like a rose bursting into full bloom in the glory of the Gospel dispensation.
And as the successive installments of truth were made known, the spiritual element became more and more prominent and pervasive, and the design of focalizing all the fires and forces of religion on the heart, and making it the chief subject of purification and culture, became manifest. But when the great orb of Christianity rose, a transformation took place, which caused nearly all the material and outward in worship to be eliminated. Types and symbols, ceremonials and circumcision, animal sacrifices and bloody baptisms, feasts and offerings, priests and prophets, tinsel and show, all disappear. It was a sublimation that excluded all the grossness and crudity of former dispensations.
The whole of religion was resolved into pure truth, simple faith, perfect love, and spiritual worship.
Accordingly Christ predicted,
"But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth." *17
HOLINESS THE NATURE OF GOD AND PROTOTYPE OF HUMAN EXCELLENCE The Bible abounds with ascriptions of holiness to God. in contradistinction to the bloody and voluptuous deities of Paganism, and all false religions, the Divinity of the Bible is constantly represented as immaculate.
"Who is like unto thee, O Lord, among the gods? who is like Thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders." *18 "For the Lord our God is holy." *19
His name, also, which symbolizes His aggregate attributes, is pronounced holy: "Let them praise Thy great and terrible name; for it is holy." *20 "Holy and reverend is His name." *21
In his relation and offices to His chosen people it is declared to be holy. On this is founded his peculiar grandeur and supremacy. Unlike the multitudinous gods which reek with historic impurity, he is the Holy One -- the concentration of righteousness. "Unto Thee will I sing with the harp, O thou Holy One of Israel." *22 "The Holy One of Israel is our King." *23 "Great is the Holy One of Israel in the midst of thee." *24
The place where he more especially resides, and has fixed the seat of his government, is holy. "For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place." *25
Angels recognize and celebrate this property in the Divine nature. "And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts." *26 So awful was the vision of this holiness, that these angels veiled their faces, and covered their feet in the presence of it.
Zion, God's earthly home, is represented as a holy mountain. "I am the Lord your God dwelling in Zion, my holy mountain." *27 Purity in God is so absolute that it creates in Him an uncompromising repugnance to all evil and sin: "Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity." *28
Such is the essential character of God. His nature and relations are all holy. The chief seats which he has chosen as the centers of His most glorious manifestations are holy. All His judgments and tastes and laws and administrations are holy. His material surroundings, His angelic retinue, His systems of truth, and all His required and accepted service and worship are holy. The acts of His intelligent and responsible creatures, which he graciously acknowledges as praiseworthy and rewardable, are holy acts.
Now what is this quality of holiness in God? Holiness in angels and men is conformity to law. It is to measure up to some moral standard -- to attain to a certain degree of excellence. But God is a law unto Himself. There is no faultless standard of rectitude or rule of goodness exterior to Himself.
Therefore His purity cannot be relative and conditional, but elemental and positive. Nor can His be an acquired rectitude, for all such excellence implies prior defectiveness, and subsequent meritorious conduct. Hence we must think of the high and lofty One as possessed of unoriginated holiness. It is a part of His inmost spiritual being. It is what the scientists would call the protos or protoplasm of the Divine existence. That is the first -- the vital -- the essential substance of the Godhead.
Immaculate sanctity is so involved in the Christian idea of God, that if the attribute of purity could be separated from His character, the conception of supreme Deity would be banished from the mind.
It is difficult to define this quality, as it appertains to God. Not because it is a figment or an ideal ascription; but because it is so far removed in its eternity and absoluteness from the penetration of the human understanding. It is also difficult of explication and statement, because it is a property so intrinsically excellent, and so vast and manifold in its manifestations, that it baffles the most vigorous comprehension. The attempt to compass it tires thought and wearies the wings of