The Altar in Israel

THE altar of burnt offering, and lessons from it, have engaged us on various occasions, and before leaving the fruit-fill theme, we will touch upon the truths relative to the blood of the sacrifice in its connection with the altar, and also with the throne of Jehovah.
The constant shedding of sacrificial blood spoke day by day to the whole camp of Israel in the wilderness. All blood had to be shed at the door of the tabernacle—that is, in close association with God Himself. The blood had to be sprinkled upon the altar of Jehovah in solemn witness before Him, and He Himself said of that blood in connection with Israel: "I have given it to you upon your altar to make an atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul." Israel, therefore, could not by any possibility fail in the understanding of the meaning of the blood-sprinkled altar. A first principle was in object teaching every day, and many times during the day, before the eyes of all, and thus atonement by blood upon the altar, was fixed in the minds of every dweller in the camp. Whether there was faith to humbly receive the teaching was an individual question for each Israelite personally.
In no less clear and emphatic teaching does the New Testament declare the same truth, but no longer in symbolic form; on the contrary, in all its full reality. Christ's blood has been shed upon the cross; there He made atonement for our souls, and it is written of His work: "Having made peace through the blood of His cross." Arid now God sets Him forth a propitiation, through faith in His blood to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past (i.e., those sins committed before Christ's death), and also to, declare His righteousness at this time (i.e., the period since Christ's cross), that He might be just and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus. Atonement by Christ's blood is the great foundation truth of the Gospel. It is before every reader of the Scriptures, and none less clearly than it was before Israel in the camp of the wilderness. But whether there be faith humbly and gratefully to submit to the truth and to embrace it by faith is an individual question for us all.
The blood of the sin offering was connected in a very emphatic way with the throne of Jehovah, in His dwelling-place, between the cherubim. Jehovah planned not only that Israel should know the favors accruing to them through the sacrificial blood, but also that they should know how that His throne was exalted by it, and His righteous requirements were set at rest by it.
We have already noticed, how sadly deficient the current religious teaching of our times is in reference to the all-important principle of God's requirements in relation to satisfaction for sin. The spirit of the day, in this matter, is painfully human, and man's conscience, or realization, are set up as standards rather than God's righteousness, and throne of justice. And so long as man does what is right, according to his conscience, it is said, that is all sufficient. But man's conscience will not be enthroned on the Day of Judgment; man must then how to God, and man's conscience will be but a witness against himself. Israel had lessons before them, respecting the satisfaction to be rendered to God for sin, which we do well to heed.
When the whole of the people had sinned, the priest dipped his finger in the blood of the sin offering, and, entering the tabernacle, he sprinkled it seven times before the veil, behind which stood the divine throne. The action was emphatically Godwards. The blood was sprinkled before the veil—not before the people, and before the veil where the people could not come, or, indeed, see what transpired. God in His majesty had been slighted, or set at naught, by the sin committed. His laws had been broken, or disregarded, and, therefore, the priest took the atoning blood, and by it perfectly (seven times) answered for the sin before the throne of God.
After that (see also the case of the sin of the high priest) some of the blood was placed upon the horns of the golden altar which stood within the tabernacle, and upon which the sweet incense was burned. In this action, again, the intimate service of Jehovah, and not the consciences or the feelings of offending Israel, was in contemplation. Upon that altar was burned, the sweet incense which was solely for Jehovah's service, and which none might dare imitate. The golden altar and its incense figure the priestly action of Christ, unseen by man, but in the heavens before God. This figurative intercession was conducted in the power of perfect atonement. The horns (the emblem of power) of this altar of gold, were thus anointed with the blood of the sin offering, which had already been presented before the throne of Jehovah, and had been accepted by Him.
The rest of the blood of the sacrifice was poured out at the base of the altar of burnt offering. We may place together the teaching respecting the anointing of the horns of the brazen and the golden altars as offering instruction on the points before us. The blood of the sin offering for ordinary cases of sin—as those of the ruler and one of the common people—was placed upon the horns of the brazen altar. There the sinner could see the blood, and by the symbol of the altar's horns being covered by it, he could see that the power of the altar spoke of atonement for his sin. This comforting assurance is made ours, as it is written, "His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree," and "the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin." "How much more shall the blood of Christ... purge your conscience?" The power of Christ's blood is almighty in its atoning and cleansing efficacy. And in that which the altar declares, we can and do confidently rest. Israel could not see the sprinkling of the golden altar by the priest, but Israel knew of what the priest did in God's presence. So we read of what our Lord has done in heaven: "By His own blood He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption." His entrance there was in the power of the blood He once for all shed here. He appears in the presence of God for us, to intercede on our account in the virtue of the blood which He shed for us when He was the sin offering for us on the cross.
Space will not permit of our referring to the wonderful type of the great day of atonement, which we hope to do a few pages later on.

The Entrance of Christianity Into Britain
THE work instituted in Iona by Columba lived long after him, and Christianity made head, and supplanted much Saxan paganism in the kingdom of Northumbria. We are obliged to express ourselves in this unpleasing manner, and to speak of Christianity rather than The Faith of Christ, for in the early days under consideration, whole tribes would become "Christian" because their chief; or king, had changed his religion, and they would become once more pagan when their chief, or king, changed from Christian to pagan. This wholesale conversion to the Christian religion was one of the causes which led to the utter demoralization of the idea of the Christian faith as it is presented in the Scriptures. Aidan and Colman are names of earnest missionaries amongst the Angles and instructors of these heathen in the Christian religion. As successively Bishops of Lindisfarne, their time of labor extended from A.D. 635 to A.D. 664. Their sphere of work amongst the Angles was "the north country from the Forth to the Humber.”
We have, therefore, the fact before us, that the Christian religion, which had been driven to the west and south of Britain, was gradually entering the north, and other parts also of the territory in the hand of the Saxons. That some movement in the Saxons, upon the east coast of the island, or, at any rate, in their leaders, was also in progress, is evidenced by the Saxons sending to the Gauls to come and help them, which fact had come to the ears of Gregory the Great The hatred of the Saxons to Christianity at the end of the sixth century was not of its old fierce character; far from it, for Ethelbert, the Saxon King of Kent and the conqueror of other Saxon kings, married Bertha, a Christian, the daughter of a king of Paris, and permitted her to have as her chaplain Luidhard, a Gaulish bishop. In the British church then standing in Canterbury it is more than probable that Christian services were held.
Our chapter relates to the coming of Augustine, the monk, to the English, and as he was sent by the Pope of Rome, it is necessary, for the purpose before us, that we should now note how the original Bishop of Rome developed into the Pope, how the first humble overseer of the flock of God in the imperial city, became the imperial ruler of men's souls and bodies. We have no need at the present to inquire whether the apostle Peter was ever in Rome, but from the Scriptures we know, that the office and work of an apostle were very different from those of the bishop. Who were the first bishops of Rome is a question which can hardly be settled, for the lists are not alike, and are given thus Peter, Linus, Anacletus, Clemens—Peter, Clemens, Linus, Anacletus—Peter, Linus, Clemens, Anacletus. Some think there may have been two or more bishops together.
The overseer of the flock of God in apostolic days was without doubt a successor of the apostles, in the sense that he was a pious man, of high Christian character, and possibly of ability to teach, and certainly of moral weight. Further he would be a pattern in his household of Christian virtue with his wife and children.
We have not space here to trace the intensely fascinating story of the transformation or deformation of the holy man, the bishop of apostolic appointment, into his Holiness the Pope of ecclesiastical evolution. It must suffice to state, that the name "pope," as applied to the Bishop of Rome, appears first in the time of Marcellinus, Bishop of Rome, 296-304, and that it was first formally adopted by Siricius, Bishop of Rome from 384 to 398, and officially used by Leo I. 440-461.
The pretensions of Papal power grew up gradually. The original bishop of the city became spiritual ruler of a province, then of various provinces, and at length the actual ruler of kings and of kingdoms. The pagan emperors of Rome were styled Pontifex Maximus—their title of religious supremacy; and the popes of Rome captured the title and the supremacy, and, to this day, brand their churches and erections, their names and tombs, with the pagan distinction.
When we come to the time of Pope Gregory called Gregory the Great, whose pontifical reign dates from 590 to 604, we have a man of mighty strength, whose ambition for supremacy in the Church, and for the rule of all bishops of all countries, were even more vigorous than those of his predecessors. He called himself; as Pope, the Servant of the Servants of God, and evidenced the humility of his service, by assuming it to be indisputable that every bishop accused should be subject to the see of Rome! He was the first of the popes who was practically a temporal sovereign. It may be said he did not court this position, but he used it, and did so in and around Rome with true patriotic force. Yet, supreme as he was, both by his own character and position, he declared: "No one in the Church has yet sacrilegiously dared to usurp the title of universal bishop; whoever calls himself universal bishop is Antichrist." For, as we have already pointed out, Papal power is the outcome of religious evolution, and is still in the process of reaching its final stage.
It was Gregory who, while yet a monk, saw the English or Angle slaves in Rome, and, severe as he was in monasticism, his heart was touched as he gazed upon the fair-faced, flaxen-haired captives. He inquired whence the lads had come, and was told Britain. "Are they Christians?" he asked, and was answered, "They are pagans." “Alas, that the prince of darkness should possess such forms of loveliness! that such beauty of countenance should want the better beauty of the soul!" Gregory rejoined; and then he inquired of what nation they were. "Angles "was the reply, and he wittily answered," They are angels. From what province?" he further questioned. "Deira," he was answered. "Then they must be rescued from de ira" (or "the ire of God"), he said, continuing his play upon words. And, learning at last, that the name of their Saxon king was Ælla, he declared "Alleluia" must be sung in that kingdom. And to the shores of England he determined to go—and, indeed, started thither—but the reverence in which he was held in Rome was such that he was brought back.
Shortly after the monk became Gregory the Great. When Pope—notwithstanding the devastations of the fierce Lombards to which Italy was subject, notwithstanding the pestilence and distresses by which the city of Rome was afflicted, notwithstanding the struggle between, the sees of Constantinople and Rome for the upper place in the rule of the Church—Gregory did not forget the fair-haired pagan slaves! He did not set his face against slavery, which was a common trade in his days, but he set face towards Britain and the conversion of the English; nor, let us forget, and towards the subjugation of the British Church to his supremacy. To effect this double purpose Augustine, the monk, was sent with his company of singing monks to the land of the Angles.
What sort of Christianity was it that he brought to England? It is impossible in our small space to do more than state a few ascertained facts on the question. “The creeds of the Church formed but a small portion of Christian belief… God the Father had receded, as it were, from the sight of man into a vague and unapproachable sanctity . . . .The Savior Himself might seem to withdraw from the actual—at least, the exclusive—devotion of the human heart, which was busied with intermediate objects of worship…The worship of these lower objects (shrines, and relics of martyrs), begins to intercept the higher.... legends of saints are supplanting, or rivaling, at least, in their general respect and attention, the narratives of the Bible." Relics, according to Gregory the Great, had in them intrinsic power, causing such as touched them to fall down dead. Cloths which had covered these relics would actually shed blood. This zealous Pope wrote that the chain of St. Paul would at times refuse to submit to the action of the file, and that, therefore, he could only transmit a few particles of their dust to the Empress—yet he consoled her by declaring that these particles of iron possessed inherent miraculous power. Such gifts Gregory doled out with pious parsimony. Amongst the idle tales of the time was that of the golden nail belonging to the chains of St. Peter, which a profane man desiring to cut off with a knife, the knife in its religious awe sprang up and cut the throat of the sinner. This wonderful nail Gregory himself sent as a priceless gift to a distinguished person.
The worship of the Virgin had not assumed in Gregory's days the rank to which it is now exalted by Rome, but "the unbounded admiration of virginity, which had full possession of his (Gregory's) monastic mind," to a great extent led to her worship.
The exaltation over men of demons and angels—really the pagan idea—which was then current belief, evidences the degradation into which Christianity had fallen. "In Gregory's Dialogs,' a woman eats a lettuce without making the sign of the cross; she is possessed by a devil, who had been swallowed in the un-exorcised lettuce" Yet "Gregory, not from his station alone, but by the acknowledgment of the admiring world, was intellectually and as also spiritually the great model of the age." The intelligent reader of the Bible will fail to find spirituality in such a believer of God. And if passages from this celebrated Pope's exposition of the Book of Job could be added, the devout reader of the Scriptures of today, would only the more thank God, that the Christianity in England in this nineteenth century is in no manner whatever of the Augustine type.
Accompanied by some forty other monks, mostly Italians, the rest of Gaul, Augustine reached the shores of Kent. He brought the best kind of Christianity he had, no doubt; and he sought to appear before the King. He was armed with a commission from the Pope, for it had grown to be a custom for missioners to pagans, to present themselves before kings and chieftains rather than to pursue the apostolic mode. However, Ethelbert, though willing to confer with Augustine, feared some magical spell, and would only meet the visitors in the open air. It seems probable that the extraordinary beliefs of "Christians" in demons and angels, to which reference has been made, had in some way penetrated into the mind of Ethelbert. But, repudiating magic, Bede says of them: "They came carrying for their banner a silver cross and the image of the Lord our Savior painted upon a board, and, singing litanies; they made humble prayer for their own, and for the eternal salvation of those to whom they were come.”
Ethelbert was a most tolerant king; he gave the monks liberty to exercise their religion, and to proclaim it in his dominions, placed no hindrance in their way of converting his subjects, and appointed his metropolis, Canterbury, as their residence. In due time he was himself baptized, and then his people were baptized also by the thousand. "Sacred vessels, ornaments for altars and churches" (we quote from a Roman Catholic writer), "vestments.... relics of the apostles and martyrs, with a large collection of books," were sent to Augustine to further his work. The temples of the Saxons were, by Pope Gregory's orders, "converted into Christian churches by sprinkling them with holy water, by erecting there altars and placing relics," and "the riotous festivals" of the heathen "were supplanted by the celebration of wakes on the anniversary feasts of the dedication of their churches; and on the solemnities of the martyrs." Gregory also allowed the custom of sacrificing oxen, which had hitherto taken place in the temples, to be continued in the churches. These sacrifices were to be celebrated on the saints' days.
It has already been mentioned that in the Emperor Constantine's era Christianity had incorporated much paganism. The conversion of pagan gods, customs, and temples into Christian saints, customs, and churches proceeded apace, and Rome has continued her work on these lines ever since the days of Constantine. "What communion hath light with darkness? What agreement hath the temple of God with idols? What concord hath Christ with Belial?" —are words with which this practice of the Church can never be made to agree.
We cannot give that which we have not, and most interesting it is to compare the Gospel of God as announced in the Holy Scriptures with the Christianity which Augustine brought to England; and most important it is for every lover of the Bible to note how both Anglicans and Romanists have been celebrating Augustine's work, and for what cause they have made their high praises of his mission. So far as the former are concerned, we have not observed in their laudations what Augustine really did bring in the way of Divine Truth to the pagan part of England. The latter, the Romanists, very justly celebrate the entrance, through Gregory's missioner to the English, of the Papal claim of supremacy in the island. Both celebrations, like Augustine's Christianity, judged by the samples of it we have presented for inspection, have very little of Christ and His glory in them.
The conversion of the Saxons by Augustine was of the sort that rejoiced the heart of Gregory the Great, and by it, according to his ideas, the pagan Angles were made angels. A few years after these wholesale conversions, the converts in thousands adopted paganism once more, in order to follow their then pagan king.
The work of converting the English was of a painfully unspiritual and human character. But if we are perplexed to know what part of the work was of God, We can be more definite as to that part of Augustine's mission which related to the subjection of the British Church to Gregory the Great. We are not to forget that part of the scheme of the conversion of the English was to make them obedient to the Pope, and that practically the whole of Augustine's mission to the British was to bring them into similar holy obedience. This part of his work will occupy our next and last chapter.