Chapter XI: Part II: , chap. 31; Tylor’s Prim. Cult., II., 278 ff.; Dorman’s (2)

The whole burnt-offering, of the Mosaic ritual, symbolised the entire surrender to God, of the individual or of the congregation, in covenant faithfulness; the giving of one’s self in unreserved trust to Him with whom the offerer desired to be in loving oneness. It was an indication of a readiness to enter fully into that inter-union, which the blood-covenant brought about between two who had been separated, but who were henceforth to be as one. This offering also must be made with blood; for it is blood--which is the life--that gives the possibility of inter-union. All the outpoured blood of this offering, however, went directly to the altar upon which the offering itself was laid;[527] not toward the Most Holy Place, of the Lord’s symbolic presence. This offering was not, indeed, understood as in itself compassing inter-union; it indicated rather a desire and a readiness for inter-union--anew or renewed: so, both the substitute-body and the substitute-blood were offered at the altar of typical surrender and consecration. When other sacrifices were brought, the burnt-offering followed the sin-offering, but preceded the peace-offering;[528] again, it might be offered by itself. He who was of the blood-covenant stock of Abraham, thereby sought restoration to the full privileges of that covenant, to which he had not been wholly true; and even he who was not of that stock might in this way show his desire to share in its privileges; “for the burnt offering was the only sacrifice which non-Israelites were permitted to bring”[529] to the altar of Jehovah.

Following the communion-seeking, or the union-seeking, sin-offering (with its connected, or related, trespass-offering, or guilt-offering), and the self-surrendering burnt-offering, there came the joyous communion-symbolizing peace-offering, with its type of completed union,[530] in the sharing, by the sinner and his God, of the flesh of the sacrificial victim at a common feast. And this banquet-sacrifice[531] corresponds with the feast of inter-communion which commonly follows the primitive rite of blood-covenanting, and which marks the completion of the inter-union thereby sought after.

All the other sacrifices of the Mosaic ritual follow in the line of these three classes. Even those which are in themselves offered without blood, presuppose the individual’s share in the blood-covenant, by the rite of circumcision, and through the high priest’s sin-offering for the entire congregation. “The Rabbis attach ten comparative degrees of sanctity to sacrifices; and it is interesting to mark, that of these the first belonged to the blood of the sin-offering; the second to the burnt-offering; the third to the sin-offering itself; and the fourth to the trespass-offering.”[532] The blood which is to secure the covenant-union--anew or renewed--is of preeminent importance. Then comes the symbol of self-surrendering devotedness. First, the possibility of inter-union; next, the expression of readiness and desire for it. After this, the other sacrifices range themselves according to their signification, until the culmination of the series is reached in the joyous inter-communion feast of the peace-offering.

But, with all the suggestions of the rite of blood-covenanting, in the sacrifices of the Mosaic ritual, there were limitations in the correspondences of that rite in those sacrifices, which mark the incompleteness of their symbolism, and which point to better things to come. In the primitive blood-covenant rite itself, both parties receive, and partake of, the blood which becomes common to the two. In all the outside religions of the world, where men reach out after a divine-human inter-union through substitute-blood, the offerer drinks of the sacrificial blood, or of something which stands for it; and so he is supposed to share the nature of the God with whom he thus covenants and inter-unites. In the Mosaic ritual, however, all drink-offerings of blood were forbidden to him who would enter into covenant with God; he might not taste of the blood. He might, it is true, look forward, by faith, to an ultimate sharing of the divine nature; and in anticipation of that inter-union, he could enjoy a symbolic inter-communion with God, by partaking of the peace-offerings at the table of his Lord; but as yet the sacrificial offering which could supply to his death-smitten nature the vivifying blood of an everlasting covenant, was not disclosed to him.[533]

Even the substitute blood which he presented at the altar, as he came with his outreaching after a blood-covenant union with the Lord, did not secure to him direct personal access to the symbolic earthly dwelling-place of the Lord. That blood could be poured out at the base of the altar of consecration, or it could be sprinkled upon its horns. That blood could, on occasions be sprinkled before the veil of the Most Holy Place; or could touch the horns of the altar of sweet incense. But that blood could never pass that veil which guarded the place of the Lord’s symbolic presence, save once in a year when the high-priest, all by himself, and that not without a show of his own unfitness for the mission, went in thither, to sprinkle the substitute blood before the mercy-seat; “the Holy Ghost this signifying, that the way into the Holy Place hath not yet been manifest[534]”; that the substitute “blood of bulls and of goats”[535] cannot be a means of man’s inter-union with God.

Lest, indeed, the Israelite should believe that a blood-covenant union was really secured with God, rather than typified, through these prescribed symbolic sacrifices and their sharing, he was repeatedly warned against that fatal error, and was taught that his true covenanting must be by a faith-filled recognition of the symbolism of these substitute agencies; and by the implicit surrender of himself, in loving trust, to Him who had ordained them as symbols. Thus in the Psalms:

“Hear, O my people, and I will speak;
O Israel, and I will testify unto thee:
I am God, even thy God.
I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices;
And thy burnt-offerings are continually before me....
Will I eat the flesh of bulls,
Or drink the blood of goats?
Offer unto God the sacrifice of thanksgiving;
And pay thy vows unto the Most High:
And call upon me in the day of trouble;
I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.

“But unto the wicked, God saith:
What hast thou to do to declare my statutes,
And that thou hast taken my covenant in thy mouth?
Seeing thou hatest instruction,
And castest my words behind thee.”[536]

Again, in the prophecy of Isaiah:

“To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me?
Saith the Lord:
I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts;
And I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of
he-goats.
When ye come to appear before me,
Who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts?
Bring no more vain oblations;
Incense is an abomination unto me....
Wash you, make you clean;
Put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes;
Cease to do evil:
Learn to do well;
Seek judgment, relieve the oppressed;
Judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.”[537]

And with this very warning against a false reliance on the symbols themselves, the same prophet gives assurance of better things in store for all those who are in true blood-covenant with God; even though they be not of the peculiar people of Abraham’s natural descent. Foretelling the future, when the types of the sacrifice shall be realized, he says:

“And in this mountain shall the Lord of Hosts make unto all peoples
A feast of fat things,
A feast of wine on the lees;
Of fat things full of marrow,
Of wines on the lees well refined.”[538]

The feast of inter-communion shall be sure, when the blood-covenant of inter-union is complete.

Again, by Jeremiah:

“Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel:
Add your burnt-offerings unto your sacrifices, and eat ye flesh.

[But remember that that is not the completion of a covenant with me].

For I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them,
In the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt,
Concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices.

[As if burnt offerings and sacrifices were the all important thing];

But this thing I commanded them, saying,
Hearken unto my voice,
And I will be your God,
And ye shall be my people;
And walk ye in all the way that I command you,
That it may be well with you.”[539]

Once more, by Hosea:

“O Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee?
O Judah, what shall I do unto thee?
For your goodness is as a morning cloud,
And as the dew that goeth early away....
For I desire mercy and not sacrifice;
And the knowledge of God more than burnt-offerings.
But they like Adam have transgressed the covenant:

[or, as the Revisers’ “margin” would render it,

“But they are as men that have transgressed a covenant”:]
There have they dealt treacherously against me”[540]

[Therein have they proved unfaithful to the requirements of the blood-covenant on which they assumed to be resting, in their sacrifices].

And so, all the way along through the prophets, in repeated emphasis of the incompleteness of the blood-covenanting symbols in the ritual sacrifices.

Concerning the very rite of circumcision, which was the token of Abraham’s covenant of blood-friendship with the Lord, the Israelites were taught that its spiritual value was not in the formal surrender of a bit of flesh, and a few drops of blood, in ceremonial devotedness to God, but in its symbolism of the implicit surrender of the whole life and being, in hearty covenant with God. “Behold, unto the Lord thy God belongeth the heaven, and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that therein is. Only the Lord had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and he chose their seed after them, even you above all peoples as at this day. Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiff-necked.”[541] “And it shall come to pass, when all these things are come upon thee, the blessings and the curse which I have set before thee, and thou shalt call them to mind among all the nations, whither the Lord thy God hath driven thee, and shalt return unto the Lord thy God, and shalt obey his voice according to all that I command thee this day, thou and thy children, with all thine heart, and with all thy soul; that then the Lord thy God will turn thy captivity, and have compassion upon thee, and will return and gather thee from all the peoples, whither the Lord thy God hath scattered thee.... And the Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live.”[542] And when this has come to pass, the true seed of Abraham,[543] circumcised in heart,[544] shall be in the covenant of blood-friendship with God.

So, also, with the phylacteries, as the record of the blood-covenant of the passover, they had a value only as they represented a heart-remembrance of that covenant, by their wearers. Says Solomon, in the guise of Wisdom.

“My son, forget not my law;
But let thine heart keep my commandments....
Let not mercy and truth forsake thee:
Bind them about thy neck;
Write them upon the table of thy heart;
So shalt thou find favor and good understanding
In the sight of God and man.”[545]

“Keep my commandments and live;
And my law as the apple of thine eye.
Bind them upon thy fingers;
Write them upon the table of thine heart.”[546]

And the prophet Jeremiah foretells the recognition of this truth in the coming day of better things:

“Behold the days come, saith the Lord,
That I will make a new covenant
With the house of Israel and with the house of Judah:
Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers
In the day that I took them by the hand,
To bring them out of the land of Egypt;

[That covenant was the blood-covenant of the passover; of which the phylacteries were a token.]

Which my covenant they brake,
Although I was an husband unto them [a lord over them] saith
the Lord;
But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house
of Israel,
After those days, saith the Lord;
I will put my law in their inward parts,
And in their heart will I write it:

[Instead of its being written as now, outside of them, on their hand and on their forehead.]

And I will be their God,
And they shall be my people....
For I will forgive their iniquity,
And their sin will I remember no more.”[547]

The blood-covenant symbols of the Mosaic law, all pointed to the possibility of a union of man’s spiritual nature with God; but they did not in themselves either assure or indicate that union as already accomplished; nor did they point the way to it, as yet made clear. They were only “a shadow of the things to come.”[548]

Another gleam of the primitive truth, that blood is life and not death, and that the transference of blood is the transference of life, is found in the various Mosaic references to the _goel_ (גֹּאֵל), the person who is authorized to obtain blood for blood as an act of justice, in the East. And another proof of the prevailing error in the Western mind, through confounding blood with death, and justice with punishment, is the common rendering of the term _goel_, as “avenger,”[549] or “revenger,”[550] in our English Bible, wherever that term applies to the balancing of a blood account; although the same Hebrew word is in other connections commonly translated “redeemer,”[551] or “ransomer.”[552]

Lexicographers are confused over the original import of the word _goel_;[553] all the more, because of this confusion in their minds over the import of blood, in its relation to death and to justice. But it is agreed on all hands, that, as a term, the word was, in the East, applied to that kinsman whose duty it was to secure justice to the injured, and to restore, as it were, a normal balance to the disturbed family relations. Oehler well defines the goel, as “that particular relative whose special duty it was to restore the violated family integrity, who had to redeem not only landed property that had been alienated from the family (Lev. 25 : 25 ff.), or a member of the family that [who] had fallen into slavery (Lev. 25 : 47 ff.), but also the blood that had been taken away from the family by murder.”[554] Hence, in the event of a depletion of the family by the loss of blood--the loss of a life--the goel had a responsibility of securing to the family an equivalent of that loss, by other blood, or by an agreed payment for its value. His mission was not vengeance, but equity. He was not an avenger, but a redeemer, a restorer, a balancer. And in that light, and in that light alone, are all the Oriental customs in connection with blood-cancelling seen to be consistent.

All through the East, there are regularly fixed tariffs for blood-cancelling; as if in recognition of the relative loss to a family, of one or another of its supporting members.[555] This idea, of the differences in ransoming-value between different members of the family, is recognized, in the Mosaic standards of ritual-ransom;[556] although the accepting of a ransom for the blood of a blood-spiller was specifically forbidden in the Mosaic law.[557] This prohibition, in itself, however, seems to be a limitation of the privileges of the goel, as before understood in the East. The Qurân, on the other hand, formally authorizes the settlement of manslaughter damages by proper payments.[558]

Throughout Arabia, and Syria, and in various parts of Africa,[559] the first question to be considered in any case of unlawful blood-shedding is, whether the loss life shall be restored--or balanced--by blood, or by some equivalent of blood. Von Wrede, says of the custom of the Arabs, in concluding a peace, after tribal hostilities: “If one party has more slain than the other, the shaykh on whose side the advantage lies, says [to the other shaykh]: ‘Choose between blood and milk’ [between life, and the means of sustaining life]; which is as much as to say, that he may [either] avenge the fallen [take life for life]; or accept blood-money.”[560] Mrs. Finn says, similarly, of the close of a combat in Palestine: “A computation is generally made of the losses on either side by death, wounds, etc., and the balance is paid to the victors.”[561] Burton describes similarly the custom in Arabia.[562]

It is the same in individual cases, as in tribal conflicts. An accepted payment for blood fully restores the balance between the aggrieved parties and the slayer. As Pierotti says: “This charm will teach the Arab to grasp readily the hands of the slayer of his father or his son, saying, ‘Such an one has killed my father, but he has paid me the price of his blood.’”[563] This in itself shows, that it is not revenge, but restitution, that is sought after by the goel; that he is not the blood-avenger, but the blood-balancer.

It is true that, still, in some instances, all money payment for blood is refused; but the avowed motive in such a case is the holding of life as above price--the very idea which the Mosaic law emphasized. Thus Burton tells of the excited Bed´ween mother who dashes the proffered blood-money to the ground, swearing “by Allah, that she will not eat her son’s blood.”[564] And even where the blood of the slayer is insisted on, there are often found indications that the purpose of this choice rests on the primitive belief that the lost life is made good to the depleted family by the newly received blood.[565] Thus, in the region of Abyssinia, the blood of the slayer is drunk by the relatives of the one first slain;[566] and, in Palestine, when the goel has shed the blood of an unlawful slayer, those who were the losers of blood by that slayer dip their handkerchiefs in his blood, and so obtain their portion of his life.[567]

In short, apart from the specific guards thrown around the mission of the goel, in the interests of justice, by the requirements of the Mosaic law, it is evident, that the primal idea of the goel’s mission was to restore life for life, or to secure the adjusted equivalent of a lost life; not to wreak vengeance, nor yet to mete out punishment. The calling of the goel, in our English Bible, a “revenger” of blood, is a result of the wide-spread and deep-rooted error concerning the primitive and Oriental idea of blood and its value; and that unfortunate translation tends to the perpetuation of this error.

8. THE PRIMITIVE RITE ILLUSTRATED.

Because the primitive rite of blood-covenanting was well known in the Lands of the Bible, at the time of the writing of the Bible, for that very reason, we are not to look to the Bible for a specific explanation of the rite itself, even where there are incidental references in the Bible to the rite and its observances; but, on the other hand, we are to find an explanation of the biblical illustrations of the primitive rite, in the understanding of that rite which we gain from outside sources. In this way, we are enabled to see in the Bible much that otherwise would be lost sight of.

The word for “covenant,” in the Hebrew, _bereeth_ (בְּרִית), is commonly so employed, in the sacred text, as to have the apparent meaning of a thing “cut,” as apart from, or as in addition to, its primary meaning of a thing “eaten.”[568] This fact has been a source of confusion to lexicographers.[569] But, when we consider that the primitive rite of blood-covenanting was by cutting into the flesh in order to the tasting of the blood, and that a feast was always an accompaniment of the rite, if, indeed, it were not an integral portion of it, the two-fold meaning of “cutting” and “eating” attaches obviously to the term “covenant”; as the terms “carving,” and “giving to eat,” are often used interchangeably, with reference to dining; or as we speak of a “cut of beef” as the portion for a table.

The earliest Bible reference to a specific covenant between individuals, is in the mention, at Genesis 14 : 13, of Mamre, Eshcol, and Aner, the Amorites, who were in covenant with--literally, were “masters of the covenant of”--“Abram the Hebrew.” After this, comes the record of a covenant between Abraham and Abimelech, at the wells of Beer-sheba. Abimelech sought that covenant; he sought it because of his faith in Abraham’s God. “God is with thee in all that thou doest,” he said: “Now, therefore, swear unto me here by God, that thou wilt not deal falsely with me, nor with my son, nor with my son’s son: but according to the kindness that I have done unto thee, thou shalt do unto me, and to the land wherein thou hast sojourned. And Abraham said, I will swear.”[570] Then came the giving of gifts by Abraham, according to the practice which seems universal in connection with this rite, in our own day.[571] “And Abraham took sheep and oxen, and gave them unto Abimelech.” And they two “made a covenant,”--or, as the Hebrew is, “they two cut a covenant.” This covenant, thus cut between Abraham and Abimelech--patriarchs and sovereigns as they were--was for themselves and for their posterity. As to the manner of its making, we have a right to infer, from all that we know of the manner of such covenant-making among the people of their part of the world, in the earliest days of recorded history.

Herodotus, who goes back more than two-thirds of the way to Abraham, says, that when the Arabians would covenant together, a third man, standing between the two, cuts, with a sharp stone, the inside of the hands of both, and lets the blood therefrom drop on seven stones which are between the two parties.[572] Phicol, the captain of Abimelech’s host, was present, as a third man, when the covenant was cut between Abimelech and Abraham; at Beer-sheba--the Well of the Seven, or the Well of the Oath.[573] Instead of seven stones as a “heap of witness”[574] between the two in this covenanting, “seven ewe lambs” were set apart by Abraham, that they might “be a witness”[575]--a symbolic witness to this transaction.

In the primitive rite of blood-covenanting, as it is practised in some parts of the East, to the present time, in addition to other symbolic witnesses of the rite, a _tree_ is planted by the covenanting parties, “which remains and grows as a witness of their contract.”[576] So it was, in the days of Abraham. “And Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beer-sheba, and called there on the name of the Everlasting God. And Abraham sojourned [was a sojourner] in the land of the Philistines many days”[577]--while that tree, doubtless, remained and grew as a witness of his blood-covenant compact with Abimelech the ruler of the Philistines.[578] Abimelech was, as it were, the first-fruits of the “nations”[579] who were to have a blessing through the covenanted friend of God.

It is a noteworthy fact, that when Herodotus describes the Scythians’ mode of drinking each other’s mingled blood, in their covenanting, he tells of their “cutting covenant” by “striking the body” of the covenanting party. In this case, he employs the words _tamnomenon_ (ταμνομένων) “cutting,” and _tupsantes_ (τύψαντες) “striking,” which are the correspondents, on the one hand of the Hebrew _karath_ (כָּרַת) “to cut,” and on the other hand of the Latin _ferire_, “to strike;” as applied to covenant making.[580] And this would seem to make a tri-lingual “Rosetta Stone” of this statement by Herodotus, as showing that the Hebrew “cutting” of the covenant, and the Latin “striking” of the covenant, is the Greek, the Arabian, the Scythian, and the universal primitive, method of covenanting, by cutting into, or by striking, the flesh of a person covenanting; in order that another may become a possessor of his blood, and a partaker of his life.

Yet later, at the same Well of the Seven, another Abimelech came down from Gerar, with “Ahuzzath his friend, and Phicol the captain of his host,” and, prompted by faith, sought a renewal of the covenant with the house of Abraham.[581] It is not specifically declared that Abimelech and Isaac _cut_ a covenant together; but it is said that “they did eat and drink” in token of their covenant relations, and that they “sware one to another.”[582] Apparently they either cut a new covenant, or they confirmed one which their fathers had cut.

When Jacob and Laban covenanted together, in “the mountain [the hill-country] of Gilead,” before their final separation, they had their stone-heap of witness between them; such as Herodotus says the Arabs were accustomed to anoint with their own blood, in their covenanting by blood, in his day;[583] for Jacob, perhaps, had more tolerance than Abraham, for perverted religious symbols.[584] “And now let us cut a covenant, I and thou,” said Laban; “and let it be for a witness between me and thee. And Jacob took a stone, and set it up for a pillar [a pillar instead of a tree]. And Jacob said unto his brethren, Gather stones; and they took stones, and made an heap: and they did eat there on the heap [the Revisers have translated this, _by_ the heap].[585] And Laban called it Jegar-sahadutha: but Jacob called it Gilead. And Laban said, This heap is witness between me and thee this day.... God is witness betwixt me and thee.... The God of Abraham and the God of Nahor, the God of their father, judge betwixt us. And Jacob sware by the Fear of his father Isaac. And Jacob offered a sacrifice in the mountain, and called his brethren to eat bread: and they did eat bread.”[586] Here again, the cutting of the covenant, and the sharing of a feast in connection with the rite,--the “cutting” and the “eating”--are in accordance with all that we know of the primitive rite, of blood-covenanting in the East, in earlier and in later times.

Yet more explicit is the description of the blood-covenanting which brought into loving unity, David and Jonathan. It was when the faith-filled heroism of the stripling shepherd-boy was thrilling all Israel with grateful admiration, that David was brought into the royal presence of Saul, and of Saul’s more than royal hero-son, Jonathan, to receive the thanks of the king for the rescue of the tarnished honor of the Israelitish host. Modestly, David gave answer to the question of the king. “And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking unto Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.” “Then Jonathan and David cut a covenant, because he [Jonathan] loved him [David] as his own soul [as his own life, his own blood].”[587] Then followed that gift of raiment and of arms which was a frequent accompaniment of blood-covenanting.[588] “And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was upon him, and gave it to David, and his apparel, even to his sword, and to his bow, and to his girdle.”[589] From that hour the hearts of David and Jonathan were as one. Jonathan could turn away from father and mother, and could repress all personal ambition, and all purely selfish longings, in proof of his loving fidelity to him who was dear to him as his own blood.[590] His love for David was “wonderful, passing the love of women.”[591]

Nor was this loving compact between Jonathan and David for themselves alone. It was for their posterity as well.[592] “The Lord be with thee, as he hath been with my father,” said Jonathan. “And thou shalt not only while yet I live shew me the kindness of the Lord, that I die not: but also thou shalt not cut off thy kindness from my house for ever: no, not [even] when the Lord hath cut off the enemies of David every one from the face of the earth. So Jonathan cut a covenant with the house of David, saying [as in the imprecations of a blood-covenant], And the Lord shall require it [fidelity to this covenant] at the hand of David’s enemies. And Jonathan caused David to swear again, for the love he had to him: for he loved him as he loved his own soul [his own life, his own blood].”[593] And years afterward, when the Lord had given David rest from all his enemies around about him, the memory of that blood-covenant pledge came back to him; “and David said, Is there yet any that is left of the house of Saul, that I may shew him kindness for Jonathan’s sake?”[594] The seating of lame Mephibosheth at David’s royal table,[595] was an illustration of the unfailing obligation of the primitive covenant of blood; which had bound together David and Jonathan, for themselves and for theirs forever.

9. THE BLOOD COVENANT IN THE GOSPELS.

And now from David, to David’s greater Son; from type to anti-type; from symbol and prophecy, to reality and fruition.

Death had passed upon all men. Yet in the hearts of the death-smitten there was still a longing for life. Sin-leprous souls yearned for that in-flow of new being, which could come only through inter-union with the divine nature, in oneness of life with the Author and Source of all life. Revelation and prophecy had assured the possibility and the hope of such inter-union. Rite and ceremony and symbol, the wide-world over, signified man’s desire, and man’s expectation, of covenanted access to God, through personal surrender, and through life-giving, life-representing blood.

But, where men yielded up unauthorized offerings, even of their own blood, or of the very lives of their first-born, they confessed themselves unsatisfied with their attitude God-ward; and, where men followed a divinely prescribed ritual, they were taught by that very ritual itself, that the outpoured blood and the partaken flesh of the sacrifices were, at the best, but mere shadows of good things to come.[596] The whole creation was groaning and travailing in pain together, until the birth of the world’s promised redemption.[597]

The symbolic covenant of blood-friendship was between God and Abraham’s seed; and in that seed were all the nations of the earth to have a blessing. God had called on Abraham to surrender to him his only son, in proof of his unfailing love; and, when Abraham had stood that test of his faith, God had spared to him the proffered offering. It now remained for God to transcend Abraham’s proof of friendship, and to spare not his own and only Son,[598] but to make him a sacrificial offering, by means of which the covenant of blood-friendship, between God and the true seed of Abraham, might become a reality instead of a symbol. Abraham had given to God of his own blood, by the rite of circumcision, in token of his desire for inter-union with God. God was now to give of his blood, in the blood of his Son, for the re-vivifying of the sons of Abraham in “the blood of the eternal covenant.”[599]

Then, in the fullness of time, there came down into this world He who from the beginning was one with God, and who now became one with man. Becoming a sharer of the nature of those who were subject to death, and who longed for life, Jesus Christ was here among men as the fulfillment of type and prophecy; to meet and to satisfy the holiest and the uttermost yearnings of the human soul after eternal life, in communion and union with God. “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, ... full of grace and truth.” “In him was life [life that death could not destroy; life that could destroy death], and the life [which was in him] was the light [the guide and the hope] of men.” “He came unto his own, and they that were [called] his own received him not. But as many as received him [whether, before, they had been called his own, or not] to them gave he the right to become children of God [by becoming partakers of his life], even to them that believe on his name: which were [through faith] begotten, not of bloods [not by ordinary generation], nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”[600] Having in his own blood, the life of God and the life of man, Jesus Christ could make men sharers of the divine nature, by making them sharers of his own nature; and this was the truth of truths which he declared to those whom he instructed.

In the primitive rite of blood-covenanting, men drank of each other’s blood, in order that they might have a common life; and they ate together of a mutually prepared feast, in order that they might evidence and nourish that common life. In the outreaching of men Godward, for the privileges of a divine-human inter-union, they poured out the substitute blood of a chosen victim in sacrifice, and they partook of the flesh of that sacrificial victim, in symbolism of sharing the life and the nourishment of Deity. This symbolism was made a reality in Jesus Christ. He was the Seed of Abraham; the fulfillment of the promise, “In Isaac shall thy Seed be called.”[601] He was the true Paschal Lamb; the “Lamb without blemish and without spot”;[602] “the Lamb that hath been slain from the foundation of the world.”[603] The blood which he yielded, was Life itself. The body which he laid on the altar was the Peace Offering of Completion.[604]

“Wherefore, when he cometh into the world, he saith:

Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not,
But a body didst thou prepare for me;
In whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hadst no
pleasure:
Then said I, Lo, I am come
(In the roll of the book it is written of me)
To do thy will, O God.

Saying above, [He here says,] Sacrifices and offerings and whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein [as if in themselves sufficient] (the which are offered according to the Law); then [also] hath he said, Lo I am come to do thy will. He taketh away the first [the symbolic], that he may establish the second [the real].”[605]

He was here, in the body of his blood and flesh, for the yielding of his blood and the sharing of his flesh, in order to make partakers of his nature, whosoever would seek a divine-human inter-union and a divine-human inter-communion, through the sacrifice made by him, “once for all.”

“Jesus therefore said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, ye have not life in yourselves. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed [is true meat], and my blood [my life] is drink indeed [is true drink]. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood abideth in me, and I in him [Herein is communion through union]. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father; so he that eateth me, he also shall live because of me. This is the bread which came down out of heaven: not as the fathers did eat, and died: he that eateth this bread shall live forever.”[606]

“These things said he in the synagogue, as he taught in Capernaum”--toward the close of the second year of his public ministry. The fact that he did speak thus, so long before he had instituted the Memorial Supper, has been a puzzle to many commentators who were unfamiliar with the primitive rite of blood-covenanting, and with the world-wide series of substitute sacrifices and substitute forms of communion, which had grown out of the suggestions, and out of the perversions, of the root symbolisms of that rite. But, in the light of all these customs, the words of Jesus have a clearer meaning. It was as though he had said: “Men everywhere long for life. They seek a share in the life of God. They give of their own blood, or of substitute blood, and they taste of substitute blood, or they receive its touch, in evidence of their desire for oneness of nature with God. They crave communion with God, and they eat of the flesh of their sacrifices accordingly. All that they thus reach out after, I supply. In me is life. If they will become partakers of my life, of my nature, they shall be sharers of the life of God.” Then, he added, in assurance of the fact, that it was a profound spiritual truth which he was enunciating: “It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I have spoken unto you are spirit, and are life.”[607] The divine-human inter-union and the divine-human inter-communion are spiritual, and they are spiritually wrought; or they are nothing.

The words of Jesus on this subject, were not understood by those who heard him. “The Jews therefore strove one with another, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”[608] But this was not because the Jews had never heard of eating the flesh of a sacrificial victim, and of drinking blood in a sacred covenant: it was, rather, because they did not realize that Jesus was to be the crowning sacrifice for the human race; nor did they comprehend his right and power to make those who were one with him through faith, thereby one with God in spiritual nature. “Many,” even “of his disciples, when they heard” these words of his, “said, This is a hard saying; who can hear it?”[609] Nor are questioners at this point, lacking among his disciples to-day.

Before Jesus Christ was formally made an offering in sacrifice, as a means of man’s inter-union and inter-communion with God, there were two illustrations of his mission, in the giving of his blood for the bringing of man into right relations with God. These were, his circumcision, and his agony in Gethsemane.

By his circumcision, Jesus brought his humanity into the blood-covenant which was between God and the seed of God’s friend, Abraham, of whose nature, according to the flesh, Jesus had become a partaker;[610] Jesus thereby pledged his own blood in fidelity to that covenant; so that all who should thereafter become his by their faith, might, through him, be heirs of faithful Abraham.[611] The sweet singer of the Christian Year,[612] seems to find this thought, in this incident in the life of the Holy Child:

“Like sacrificial wine
Poured on a victim’s head,
Are those few precious drops of thine,
Now first to offering led.

“They are the pledge and seal
Of Christ’s unswerving faith,
Given to his Sire, our souls to heal,
Although it cost his death.

“They, to his Church of old,
To each true Jewish heart,
In gospel graces manifold,
Communion blest impart.”

In Gethsemane, the sins and the needs of humanity so pressed upon the burdened soul of Jesus, that his very life was forced out, as it were, from his aching, breaking heart, in his boundless sympathy with his loved ones, and in his infinite longings for their union with God, through their union with himself, in the covenant of blood he was consummating in their behalf.[613] “And being in an agony, he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat became as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.”[614]

Because of his God-ward purpose of bringing men into a loving covenant with God, Jesus gave of his blood in the covenant-rite of circumcision. Because of his man-ward sympathy with the needs and the trials of those whom he had come to save, and because of the crushing burden of their death-bringing sins, Jesus gave of his blood in an agony of intercessory suffering. Therefore it is, that the Litany cry of the ages goes up to him in fulness of meaning: “By the mystery of thy holy incarnation; by thy holy nativity and circumcision; ... by thine agony and bloody sweat, ... Good Lord, deliver us.”

In process of time, the hour drew nigh that the true covenant of blood between God and man should be consummated finally, in its perfectness. The period chosen was the passover-feast--the feast observed by the Jews in commemoration of that blood-covenanting occasion in Egypt, when God evidenced anew his fidelity to his promises to the seed of Abraham, his blood-covenanted friend. “Now before the feast of the passover, Jesus knowing that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end.”[615] “And when the hour was come, he sat down, and the apostles with him. And he said unto them, With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer.”[616] Whether he actually partook of the passover meal at that time, or not is a point still in dispute;[617] but as to that which follows, there is no question.

“As they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and brake it; and he gave to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body.”[618] “This do in remembrance of me. And the cup in like manner after supper;”[619] “and when he had given thanks, he gave [it] to them,”[620] “saying, Drink ye all of it; for this is my blood of the covenant,”[621] or, as another Evangelist records, “this cup is the new covenant in my blood,”[622] “which is shed for many unto remission of sins”[623] [unto the putting away of sins]. “This do, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me.”[624] “And they all drank of it.”[625]

Here was the covenant of blood; here was the communion feast, in partaking of the flesh of the fitting and accepted sacrifice;--toward which all rite and symbol, and all heart yearning and inspired prophecy, had pointed, in all the ages. Here was the realization of promise and hope and longing, in man’s possibility of inter-union with God through a common life--which is oneness of blood; and in man’s inter-communion with God, through participation in the blessings of a common table. He who could speak for God, here proffered of his own blood, to make those whom he loved, of the same nature with himself, and so of the same nature with his God; to bring them into blood-friendship with their God; and he proffered of his own body, to supply them with soul nourishment, in that Bread which came down from God.

Then it was, while they were there together in that upper room, for the consummating of that blood-covenant of friendship, that Jesus said to his disciples: “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Ye are my friends, if ye do the things which I command you. No longer do I call you servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends [friends in the covenant of blood-friendship now]; for all things that I heard from my Father, I have made known unto you.”[626] A common life, through oneness of blood, secures an absolute unreserve of intimacy; so that neither friend has aught to conceal from his other self. “Abide in me, and I in you; ... for apart from me ye can do nothing,” was the injunction of Jesus to his blood-covenant friends, at this hour of his covenant pledging. “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatsoever ye will, and it shall be done unto you.”[627]

Then it was, also, that the prayer of Jesus for his new blood-covenant friends went up: “Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that the Son may glorify thee: even as thou gavest him authority over all flesh, that whatsoever [whomsoever] thou hast given him, to them he should give eternal life [in an eternal covenant of blood]. And this is life eternal, that they should know thee the only true God, and him whom thou didst send [as the means of life], even Jesus Christ.... Holy Father, keep them in thy name which thou hast given me, that they may be one, even as we are.... Neither for these [here present] only do I pray, but for them also that believe on me through their word; that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us: that the world may believe that thou didst send me. And the glory which thou hast given me I have given unto them; that they may be one, even as we are one; I in them, and thou in me, that they may be perfected into one; that the world may know that thou didst send me, and lovedst them, even as thou lovedst me.”[628] Here was declared the scope of this blood-covenant, and here was unfolded its doctrine.

It was not an utterly new symbolism that Jesus was introducing into the religious thought of the world: it was rather a new meaning that he was introducing into, or that he was disclosing in, an already widely recognized symbolism. The world was familiar with the shadow of truth; Jesus now made clear to the world, the truth’s substance. Man’s longing to be a partaker of the divine nature, had manifested itself, through all the ages and everywhere. Jesus now showed how that longing of death-smitten man could be realized. “The appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ ... abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel”[629] of his blood-covenant.

But a covenant of blood, a covenant to give one’s blood, one’s life, for the saving of another, cannot be consummated without the death of the covenanter. “For where [such] a covenant is, there must of necessity be [be brought] the death of him that made it. For [such] a covenant is of force [becomes a reality] where there hath been death [or, over the dead]: for doth it [such a covenant] ever avail [can it be efficient] while he that made it liveth?”[630] Jesus had said, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”[631] Of his readiness to show this measure of love for those who were as the sheep of his fold, he had declared: “I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly.... I lay down my life for the sheep.... Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I may take it again. No one taketh it away from me, but I lay it down of myself.”[632] And again: “I am the living bread which came down out of heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: yea, and the bread which I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world.”[633] “For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.”[634] Such a covenant as this, could be of force only through the death of him who pledges it.

The promise of the covenanting-cup, at the covenanting-feast, was made good on Calvary.[635] The pierced hands and feet of the Divine Friend yielded their life-giving streams. Then, with the final cry, “It is finished,” the very heart of the self-surrendered sacrificial victim was broken,[636] and the life of the Son of God and of the Seed of Abraham, was poured out unto death,[637] in order that all who would, might become sharers in its re-vivifying and saving power. He who was without sin, had received the wages of sin; because, that, only through dying was it possible for him to supply that life which would redeem from the penalty of sin those who had earned death, as sin’s wages.[638] He who, in himself, had life, had laid down his life, so that those who were without life might become its partakers, through faith, in the bonds and blessings of an everlasting covenant. So, the long symbolized covenant of blood was made a reality. “And the witness is this, that God gave unto us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath the life; he that hath not the Son of God hath not the life.”[639]

10. THE BLOOD COVENANT APPLIED.

Under the symbolic sacrifices of the Old Covenant, it was the _blood_ which made atonement for the soul. It was not the death of the victim, nor yet its broken body, but it was the blood, the life, the soul, that was made the means of a soul’s ransom, of its rescue, of its redemption. “The life [the soul] of the flesh is in the blood,” said the Lord: “and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement [to be a cover, to be a propitiation] for your souls [for your lives]: for it is the blood that maketh atonement by reason [of its being] the life [the soul].”[640] “For as to the life [the soul] of all flesh, the blood thereof is all one with the life [the soul] thereof.”[641] And so, all through the record of the Old Covenant.

It is the same in the New Covenant, as it was in the Old. Atonement, salvation, rescue, redemption, is by the blood, the life, of Christ; not by his death as such; not by his broken body in itself; but by that blood which was given at the inevitable cost of his broken body and of his death. The figure of leprosy and its attempted cure by blood, may tend to make this truth the clearer. In the leper, the very blood itself--the life--was death smitten. The only hope of a cure was by purging out the old blood, by means of an inflowing current of new blood, which was new life.[642] To give this blood, the giver himself must die; but it was his blood, his life, not his death, which was to be the means of cure. So, also, with the sin-leprous nature. His old life must be purged out, by the incoming of a new life; of such a life as only the Son of God can supply. In order to supply that blood, its Giver must himself die, and so be a sharer of the punishment of sin, although he was himself without sin. Thus was the new life made a possibility to all, by faith.

So it is, that “we have redemption [rescue from death] through [by means of] his blood”;[643] and that “the blood of Jesus ... cleanseth us [by its purging inflow] from all sin.”[644] So it is, that he “loosed us [freed us] from our sins by his [cleansing, his re-vivifying] blood.”[645] So it is, that “if any man is in Christ [is one in nature with Christ, through sharing, by faith, the blood of Christ], he is a new creature [Of course he is]: the old things are passed away; behold they are become new.”[646] So it is, also, that it can be said of those whose old lives were purged away by the inflowing redeeming life of Christ: “Ye died, and your life is hid with Christ in God.”[647] And “this is the true God and eternal life.”[648]

“These things have I written unto you,” says the best loved of the disciples of Jesus, “that ye may know that ye have eternal life; even unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God”;[649] “that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that, believing, ye may have life in his name.”[650] For “God commendeth his own love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us [while we were separated from God by sin, God yielded his only Son, to give his blood, at the cost of his death, as a means of our inter-union with God]. Much more then, being now justified by [or, in] his blood [being brought into inter-union with God by that blood], shall we be saved from the wrath of God [against sin] through him [in whom we have life]. For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God [restored to union with God] through the [blood-giving] death of his Son, much more, being [thus] reconciled, shall we be saved by [or, in] his life.”[651]