Chapter II: The Church and the Temple

Under the Patriarchal and Jewish dispensation there were numerous animal sacrifices by divine appointment. Not only so, but the people generally, who knew not the true God, have, all down the ages, poured sacrificial blood upon altars innumerable. This must have come about by the perversion of divinely-appointed sacrificial institutions, or from the felt need of fallen man for some way of mediation and of approach to God. That the need was felt by true worshipers is not open to doubt, for if sacrifice were devised by man, it would only have arisen from a sense of that need; and, on the other hand, if ordained of God, it could only have been acceptably offered under a consciousness thereof.

Sacrifices, altars and priests have generally stood together; and so long as they have been upon divine lines have been highly beneficial. But it has been alleged that priests have been a curse rather than a blessing to the nations, and I am not prepared to dispute the allegation. But neither God nor the Bible is responsible, because the priesthood as instituted by the Jews was a good and not an evil to that people; while, on the other hand, the priestly system has no place in Christianity. The priests of heathendom and of Christendom are not of God. Then how widely different, how completely opposite, is the unpriestly worship of the Church of Christ from the sacerdotal ceremonies of the Jewish economy. There we find the costly temple, in the construction of which were gold, silver, precious stones and costly fabrics in unrestricted abundance; sacred places over which the people may not pass, and which the feet of priests and Levites only may tread; ceremonials which bring death to those who touch them with other than priestly hands; altars and fires, blood and incense, and priests, all of divine ordering, so that we read:

Then the king and all the people offered sacrifice before Jehovah. And
King Solomon offered a sacrifice of twenty and two thousand oxen, and
a hundred and twenty thousand sheep. So the king and all the people
dedicated the house of God. And the priests stood, according to their
offices; the Levites also with instruments of music of Jehovah, which
David the King had made to give thanks unto Jehovah (for his loving
kindness endureth forever), when David raised by their ministry; and
the priests sounded trumpets before them; and all Israel stood.
Moreover Solomon hallowed the middle of the court that was before the
house of Jehovah; for there he offered and burnt offerings, and the
fat of the peace offerings, because the brazen altar which Solomon had
made was not able to receive the burnt offering, and the meat
offering, and the fat.

So Solomon held the feast at that time seven days, and all Israel with
him, a very great assembly, from the entrance of Hamath unto the brook
of Egypt. And on the eighth day they held a solemn assembly: for they
kept the dedication of the altar seven days, and the feast seven days.
And on the three and twentieth day of the seventh month, he sent the
people away unto their tents, joyful and glad of heart for the
goodness that Jehovah had showed unto David, and to Solomon, and to
Israel his people. (II Chron. 7:4-10.)

The significance, and richness, and glory of that economy surpassed anything that the world had ever seen; but in the fullness of time it was superseded by a higher and more glorious dispensation, concerning which the Apostle Paul wrote:

And such confidence have we through Christ to God-ward: not that we
are sufficient of ourselves, to account anything as from ourselves;
but our sufficiency is from God; who also made us sufficient as
ministers of a new covenant; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for
the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life. But if the
ministration of death, written, and engraven on stones, came with
glory, so that the children of Israel could not look steadfastly upon
the face of Moses for the glory of his face which glory was passing
away: how shall not rather the ministration of the spirit be with
glory? For if the ministration of condemnation hath glory, much rather
doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory. For verily
that which hath been made glorious hath not been made glorious in this
respect, by reason of the glory that surpasseth. For if that which
passeth away was with glory, much more that which remains is in glory.
(II Cor. 3:4-11.)

Shall we, then, look for still greater material splendor and wealth in temples, vestments, altars and instruments of music? If not, why not? And still, if not, why did the like exist under the former and inferior economy? We should look for nothing of the sort, nor suffer its intrusion upon the Church of Christ, and that for one reason, sufficient without others equally good--the former economy, in all its ceremonials, was typical of spiritual blessings then to come. There was a perfect typical system most expressive and opposite, but rendered useless when its antitypes appeared. The cross took the place of the altar; the High Priest of our confession came in the room of the Aaronic priesthood, "the sacrifice of praise," "that is the fruit of our lips," set aside the praise by trumpets, psaltery and cymbal. These were good and expressive in their day and place. "A shadow of things to come; but the body is Christ" (Col. 2:17). "For the law having a shadow of good things to come, not the very image of the things, can never with the same sacrifices year by year, which they offer continually, make perfect them that draw nigh. Else would they not have ceased to be offered?" (Heb. 10:1). So we see that the Holy Spirit very aptly informs us that "the body" or substance, is Christ's, and when he came and filled to the full the types and shadows of the law, they passed away in their entirety, giving place to higher institutions, by means of which the worshipers could be made perfect. "And not only so," as a ripe Bible student very forcefully says, "but just in proportion as these abandoned shadows are intruded into the church and worship of God they become injurious and more or less substitutes for the realities of which, in their day and place, they were the proper types and symbols. Consequently, in setting in order, by the apostles, of the Church of Christ, the temple and its worship were in no degree taken as models, and this is highly reasonable, inasmuch as the existence together of the type and the antitype would be completely inadmissible. Nothing could have been easier than for the apostles to have adopted priestly, or modified priestly vestments. There could have been no manner of difficulty in burning incense as an act of praise of worship. It can not be supposed but that, long before the close of the apostolic ministry, they could have used and enjoined the use of instrumental music. But no! Nothing of the kind; no trace even of a leaning, or of a desire, in that direction. The things of the shadows were done with, and those of the substance took their place."

That the church is not modeled after the temple, but after the synagogue, is established beyond doubt by the testimony of the learned men in the denominational world. If objection be made to the inconsistency of denominational scholars putting forth such views, I answer that it is a well-known fact that men do confess truths that they fail to carry into effect; but the truth is not weakened thereby, but rather derives additional weight from the fact that it forces confession, even against the interests and associations of those who utter it. But however that may be, they write the truth abundantly clear.

The first witness I introduce is "Richard Watson," who the McClintock and Strong Cyclopedia says "gave the first systematic treatment of Wesleyan theology. His Institutes, though not the legal, have been the moral and scientific standard of Methodist doctrine." All aspirants to the Methodist pulpit are required to study "Watson's Theological Institutes." He says:

The course of the synagogue worship became indeed the model of that of
the Christian Church. It consisted in prayer, reading and explaining
the Scriptures, and singing psalms; and thus one of the most important
means of instructing nations, and of spreading and maintaining the
influence of morals and religion among people, passed from the Jews
into all Christian countries.... The mode of public worship in the
primitive church was taken from the synagogue service; and so, also,
was its arrangements of offices.... Such was the model which the
apostles followed in providing for the future regulation of the
churches they had raised up. They took it, not from the temple and its
priesthood, for that was typical, and was then passing away. But they
found in the institution of the synagogues a plan admirably adapted to
the simplicity and purity of Christianity, ... and which was capable
of being applied to the new dispensation without danger of Judaizing.
(Theological Institutes, pages 640, 683, 684.)

Lyman Coleman, Presbyterian, who was "eminent in solid abilities, in accurate scholarship, in stores of accumulated learning, and in extended usefulness," says:

He (Jesus) was a constant attendant upon the religious worship of the
synagogue, and, after his ascension, his disciples conformed their
acts of worship to those of the synagogue. They consisted in prayer,
in singing and in the reading and exposition of the Scriptures, as
appears from the writers of the New Testament, from the earliest
Christian fathers, and from profane writers of the first two
centuries. (Ancient Christianity Exemplified, page 94.)

The eminent scholar of the Church of England, G. A. Jacob, in his "Ecclesiastical Polity of the New Testament," which is used as a text-book in some of the Episcopal theological seminaries in this country, says:

In the temple was the priest consecrated according to a precise
regulation, and a sarcedotal succession laid down by God himself, with
the altar and its sacrifices at which he officiated, the incense which
he burned, the holy places into which none might enter but those to
whom it was especially assigned. In the synagogue was the reader of
the Scriptures, the preacher or expounder of religious and moral
truth, the leader of the common devotions of the people, unconsecrated
by any special rites, and unrestricted by any rule of succession; with
a reading desk or pulpit at which he stood, but with no altar,
sacrifice or incense, and no part of the building more holy than the
rest. And without attempting now to dwell upon all the remarkable
contrasts thus displayed, it may suffice to say that the temple
exhibited in a grand combination of typical places, persons and
actions. God dwelling with man, reconciling the world unto himself in
the person and work of Christ; and pardoning, justifying and
graciously receiving those who come to him through the appointed
Saviour; while the synagogue exhibited a congregation of men, already
reconciled to God, assembled as devout worshipers for prayer and
praise, for instruction in divine knowledge, and edification in
righteous living. And the two systems--the one gorgeous and typical,
the other simple and real; in one, God drawing near to man, in the
other, man drawing near to God--never clashed or interfered with each
other; were never intermingled or confounded together. In the temple
there was no pulpit, in the synagogue there was no altar.... They
(apostles) retained and adapted to Christian use some Jewish forms and
regulations; but they were taken altogether not from the temple, but
from the synagogue. The offices which they appointed in the church,
and the duties and authority which they attached to them, together
with the regulations which they made for Christian worship, bore no
resemblance in name or in nature to the services of the priesthood in
the temple. The apostles had been divinely taught that those priests
and services were typical forms and shadows, which were centered, and
fulfilled, and done away in Christ; and to reinstate them in the
Church would have been in their judgment to go back to the bondage of
"weak and beggarly elements" from the liberty, strength and rich
completeness of the Gospel dispensation. They saw that as the
ordinances of the temple represented the work of God wrought out for
man, not man's work for God, to continue them after that work was
finished in the life and death of Jesus, would be in effect so far to
deny the efficacy of the Saviour's mission, and to thrust in the
miserable performances of men to fill up an imagined imperfection in
the Son of God. (Ecclesiastical Polity, pages 96-98.)

The apostles, therefore, by the directions of the Holy Spirit adopted official arrangements similar to those of the synagogue, and discarded those of the temple, in the institution of church offices, and plainly showed by this circumstance that no priestly powers or duties were attached to their ministrations. Another argument which leads to the same conclusion is deduced from the condition of the members of the Church as it appears in the New Testament, and the equality of standing in Christ, which Christians possessed. The way of access to God being open to all without distinction through the priesthood of Christ, there was nothing for a priest to do--no sacerdotal work or office for him to undertake.

On this phase of the subject, Mr. Jacob has said some very pointed things, and I will call on him to give testimony. He says:

A distinct proof that the office bearers in the Church of the Apostles
were not, and could not be priests, or perform any sacerdotal duties,
is seen in a condensed form in the epistle to the Hebrews, and is
found at large in the whole of the Old and the New Testaments, of
which that epistle, as far as the subject reaches, is so valuable an
epitome. We there learn that from the very nature of the priestly
office, it is necessary for those who hold it to be specially called
and appointed by God, either personally by name, or according to a
divinely instituted order of succession; and that, since the
patriarchal dispensation, only two orders of priesthood have ever had
this necessary divine sanction granted to them. The two orders are the
order of Aaron and the order of Melchisedek. The priests of the former
order belonged to the Jewish dispensation only, and have indisputably
passed away. The only priest after the order of Melchisedek, even
mentioned in the Bible, is our Lord Jesus Christ--the "priest upon his
throne," without a successor, as he had none before him, in the
everlasting priesthood of his mediatorial reign. This argument appears
to me to be conclusive. It appears to me that the epistle to the
Hebrews shuts out the possibility of there being any other priest in
the Church besides Christ himself. But this does not so appear to a
large number of our clergy. Bishops as far back as the third century
claimed to be successors or vicegerents of Christ on earth; and our
presbyters do not hesitate to declare that they are priests after the
order of Melchisedek. To my mind and feeling this is an impious claim;
but countenanced as they are by numberless past and present examples,
good men are not conscious of impiety in making it. But, then it is
necessary to ask the "priests" for their credentials. Where is the
record of their divine appointment to the sacerdotal office? In what
part of the New Testament, and in what form of words, is the
institution of such priests, and the manner of their succession, to be
found? And to such inquiries no satisfactory answer has been or can be
given. (Ibid, pages 102-104.)