Page:The House of the Lord.djvu/94

78 history other than sacred, the traditions of tribes and nations, the rites of bloody sacrifice, and even the sacrificial abominations of pagan idolatry, involve the essential conception of vicarious propitiation and of service rendered by proxy. The scape-goat and the altar victim in the Mosaic dispensation, when offered by constituted authority and with due accompaniment of acknowledgment and repentance, were accepted by the Lord as sacrifices in mitigation of the sins of His people.

The most significant sacrifice of all, the greatest work ever wrought amongst mankind, the pivotal event in human history, the supreme achievement which was at once the most glorious consummation and the most blessed beginning, is the Atonement of Christ; and this was pre-eminently a vicarious offering. No one who believes that Jesus died for man can doubt the validity and efficacy of vicarious ministration. He gave His life as a fore-ordained sacrifice, voluntarily offered and duly accepted as a propitiation for broken law, and the means by which salvation was made possible unto man. That His death was literally an accepted offering in behalf of human kind is thus set forth in the words of the resurrected Christ, given through modern revelation:

"For behold, I, God, have suffered these things for all, that they might not suffer if they would repent, but if they would not repent, they must suffer even as I, which suffering caused myself, even God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit: and would that I might not drink the bitter cup and shrink—nevertheless, glory be to the Father,