THE
ATONEMENT
CHAPTER III.
The Seed of the Woman. (Gen. iii. 15.)
SIN had no sooner come into the world than God announced
atonement for it. If God took up man, become now a sinner, in the way of
blessing, He must needs, in care for His own glory, as well as mercy even to
man himself, declare the terms upon which alone He could bless. And although He
did not and could not yet speak with the plainness or fullness of
gospel-speech, yet He did speak in such a way as that, (in spite of six
thousand years of wanderings further from the light,) the broken syllables echo
yet in the traditions of Adams descendants, in witness to divine
goodness, alas, against themselves!
It is in the judgment denounced
upon the serpent that we find the promise of the womans seed; a promise
indeed, as men have ever and rightly held it, though couched in such a form. To
Adam as the head of fallen humanity it could not be directly given, for reasons
which we have already seen; for in fact the first Adam and the old creation
were not to be restored, but replaced by another. The woman also, with the man,
was to share only in the fruits of anothers victory, whom grace alone has
brought down to the lowly place of the womans seed. The announcement is
therefore designedly given in the shape of judgment upon the serpent judgment
which is to be the victory of good over evil, the issue of a conflict now in
full reality begun. In righteous retribution, through the womans seed the
destroyer of man should be destroyed; but this is connected with enmity
divinely "put" between the tempter and the tempted, in all which Gods
intervention in goodness for the recovery of the fallen is plainly to be seen.
The victory of the womans seed is a victory of divine goodness in behalf
of man.
This victory is not gained without suffering. The heel that
bruises the serpents head will be itself bruised. The Conqueror must be
the Sufferer.
Moreover, the Conqueror is the womans seed. We are
apt to miss the force of this, just by our familiarity with it. Not yet had the
mystery of human birth been accomplished upon earth. The lowliness of origin,
the helpless weakness and ignorance of infancy, so long protracted beyond that
of kindred bestial life around - this, by which God would stain the pride of
man, was that through which Adam and his wife had never passed. The seed of the
woman implied all this. With what astonishment we may well conceive Satan to
have contemplated the childhood of the firstborn of the human race; and to have
thought of the word, whose certainty he could not doubt (for Satan, the father
of lies, is no unbeliever), that the heel of one so born and nurtured was to be
one day upon his own proud angelic head!
Not strength was to conquer
here then, but weakness - known and realized weakness. Of that the promise
spoke. And God, who needed not the help of creature-strength, had chosen to
link Himself with weakness and with suffering to accomplish His purposes of
righteousness and goodness. How and in what way to link Himself remained for
future disclosures to make known.
But that bruised heel, bruised in
the act of victory on behalf of others, is not left without further revelation
of its nature on the spot. For when Adams faith, bowing to the divine
word, names the woman - her through whom death had entered - Havvah
(Eve) or "life" then we read, "Unto Adam also, and to his wife, did the
Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them." Thus the shame and the fact of
their nakedness were together put away. It would now have been unbelief for
Adam to say, as with his fig-leaf apron he had still to say, that he was naked.
Gods own hand had clothed him. No need for him to hide himself from His
presence as before. The clothing His hand had given was not unfit to appear in
before Him.
But what gave it that fitness? Clearly something apart from
suitability in the way of protection of being naturally defenceless, and now
exposed to the vicissitudes of a world disarranged by sin. The nakedness which
Adam realized in the presence of God was moral rather than physical, the
consciousness of the working of lusts at war in the members. The covering too,
then, for God must have some moral significance, must speak at least of that
which would cover, not merely from a human, but from a divine standpoint;
therefore put away sin really, for how else could it be covered from His
sight?
Now, in Scripture, "covering" is atonement - i.e., expiation,
putting away of sin. To atone is caphar, to "cover;" only in an
intensive form, which is of striking significance and beauty. Atonement is
covering of the completest kind.
We have not the word yet in this first
page of the history of the fallen creature, but we have surely what connects
with it in a very intelligible way. For death had now come in through sin, and
as judgment upon it. Death would remove the sinner from the place of blessing
he had defile, and thus far maintain and vindicate the holiness of God; but in
judgment merely, not in blessing. Atone for his sin in any wise such death
could not. Yet here is declared the fact that the death of another, innocent of
that which brought it in, could furnish covering for the sinner according to
Gods mind. Only the typal shadow yet was this: it was four thousand years
too early for the true atonement to be made. Yet shadow it was: would not faith
connect it, however dimly, with the bruised heel of the womans seed?
In this clothing Gods hand wrought, and not mans. God
wrought and God applied. Mans first lesson, which it were well if after
forty centuries he had really learnt, was, that he could do nothing but submit
to the grace which had undertaken for him. The fig-leaf apron had summed up and
exhausted his resources, and demonstrated only his helplessness. He had now to
find that helplessness made only the occasion of learning the tender mercy of
God. God wrought and applied to these first sinners the covering for their
nakedness. And it has been ever since, and so will be, to the last sinner saved
by grace.
But the gospel at the gate of Eden is not finished yet. We
must take in, plainly, what the next chapter gives, before we can realize how
much already in Adams days God had, though necessarily as it were in
parables, declared.
Abels offering is that by which, as the
apostle says, he, being dead, yet speaketh. "By faith Abel offered unto God a
more excellent sacrifice than Cain; by which he obtained witness that he was
righteous, God testifying of his gifts; and by it he being dead yet speaketh."
In him we are given to see, just at the threshold of the worlds history,
the pronounced acceptance of a faith which brought, not its own performances,
as Cain the labour of his own hands which sin had necessitated and stained, but
the substitute of a stainless offering. The character of it shows clearly that
sacrifice was an institution of God: "by faith Abel offered;" not therefore in
will-worship. Nor could human wit have imagined as acceptable to God what,
except for its inner meaning, could have had no possible suitability nor
acceptance at His hands. The coats of skin, confessedly of His own design, give
here indubitable evidence that the whole thought and counsel was of Him. Here
again death covers the sinner; but now in proportion to the clearness with
which the sacrificial character of the covering comes out, so do we find
Gods voice plainly giving its testimony to the righteousness of the
offerer: "God testifying of his gifts." As with one of His ministers, in a day
yet far distant, - but only with regard to bodily healing - the shadow of
Christ, as here in sacrifice, is of power to heal the soul.
Thus in the
order of these two cases the manner and nature of appropriation are plainly
seen. First, God appropriates the value of Christs work to the soul; for
faith must have Gods act or deed to justify it as faith; and then it sets
to its seal that God is true. It is not faiths appropriation that makes
it true, as some would deem. It is the receptive nature that holds fast merely
what God has put already in its possession. To those who take shelter still
under the atoning death of the great Victim, God attests its value on their
behalf. It is for them to believe their blessedness on the word of One who
cannot lie, nor repent.
Let us notice here, as ever henceforth, the
victim is of the flock or herd, or what at least is not the object of pursuit
or capture; which plainly would not harmonize with the fact of mans lost
condition, or with the voluntary offering of Him who freely came to do the will
of God. The blood of no wild creature could flow in atonement for the soul of
man. The precise commandment as to this comes indeed much later, but to it from
the first both Abels and every other accepted sacrifice conform. Of blood
no mention is made either here; of the fat there is: "And Abel, he also brought
of the firstlings of his flock, and of the fat thereof" - the fat being that in
which the good condition of the animal made itself apparent. Fat is always in
Scripture the symbol of a prosperous condition, although, it may be, of such
temporal prosperity as might result in an opposite state of soul. "Jeshurun
waxed fat and kicked," says the lawgiver in his last prophetic "song;" "thou
art waxen fat, thou art grown thick, thou art covered with fatness: then he
forsook God that made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation."
Connected with this is the Psalmists description of the wicked: "They are
inclosed in their own fat; with their mouth they speak proudly." Then by an
easy gradation of thought: "Their heart is as fat as grease." Where offered to
God, fat is the symbol of that spiritual well-being which expresses itself, not
in the energy of self-will, but of devotedness. Even in the sin-offering
afterward, where burnt upon the ground, the fat is always therefore reserved
for the altar; but of this elsewhere.
The "firstling of the flock"
again represents Him who is the "first-born among many brethren" by Him
sanctified. "For both He that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all
of one; for which cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren." The
consecration of the first-born sanctifies the whole.
What mind of man
could have anticipated thus the thought and purpose of God as does Abels
offering? In it the lesson of the coats of skin is developed into a doctrine of
atonement henceforth to be the theme of prophecy and promise for four thousand
years, till He should come in whom it should find its fulfillment, and all vail
be removed. Until then, prophets themselves knew but little of what they
prophesied. "The Spirit of Christ which was in them" spake deeper things than
they could even follow, as the apostle testifies; though we must not imagine
all was dark.
That sacrifice, on the other hand, was of Gods
appointment, not of human device, His words to Cain are full proof - "If thou
doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? If thou doest not well, a sin-offering
coucheth at the door." So, I am persuaded, this ought to be read. "Sin" and
"sin offering" are the same word whether in Greek or Hebrew; but what would be
the force of "if thou doest not well, sin coucheth at the door"? That the last
expression refers to an animal seems plain: some interpreters take it
figuratively, as if sin as a wild beast were in the act to spring. Too late,
surely, when one has already sinned! Rather would it not be the provision of
mercy for one in need of it - an offering not far to seek, but at the very
door! In what follows, the assurance of his retaining still the
first-borns place with regard to Abel - "Unto thee shall be his desire,
and thou shalt rule over him"?
God thus, then, declares His appointment
of sacrifice. And in this way the mystery of the suffering of the womans
Seed finds its explanation in the necessity of atonement. The bruised heel of
the Victor in mans behalf enlarges and deepens into the death of a
victim, slain for atonement. It is not really the serpents victory even
thus far, though it may seem so: the serpent may bruise the heel, but only as
the unwitting instrument of divine goodness in accomplishing mans
deliverance. The bruised heel is his own head bruised: the suffering is the
victory of the Sufferer.
But who is this, to whom death - and such a
death - is but the heel, the lowest part, bruised? What a thought of the
majesty of His person is here! Already there is a gleam of the glory of Him
whom after-prophecy, supplementing this, shall speak of as the virgins
Son, Immanuel. But the question is only raised as yet, to which Isaiah gives
this answer. We can see it is the fitting and necessary one.
Go To Chapter Four
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