Observer, Feb. 1, '76. confirmation of the covenant with many for one week, and His termination of the sacrifice and oblation in the middle of the week, all point to a period exactly met by taking that Pentecost as the beginning of the New Dispensation, of the Era of the New Covenant, and of the Church. THE PASSOVER was so called, because Jehovah passed over, or spared the children of Israel (upon whose houses was the blood of the lamb), when His destroying angel smote down the firstborn of Egypt. The word is used to denote-1. The Paschal Lamb. 2. The Paschal Supper. 3. The Festival of Seven Days; from the beginning of the 15th to the close of the 21st of the month of Nisan. The head of the family took from the flock a lamb or kid, to be kept apart from the 10th till the 14th day, when it was killed, between the two evenings, usually about three in the afternoon. On the same day, between the two evenings, the feast began, and continued into the next day. The Feast of Unleavened Bread ordinarily lasted seven days, beginning on the 15th. THE FEAST OF PENTECOST, was called the Feast of Weeks, because celebrated seven weeks after the Paschal Sabbath-the Feast of Harvest, and also the Day of First Fruits, as then the first fruits of the harvest were offered to the Lord. On The word Pentecost, signifying fifty, is applied to this festival on account of its observance on the fiftieth day from the Passover; counting from the first day of unleavened bread. this day also was commemorated the giving of the Law from Mount Sinai. The Jewish Pentecost, then, stood associated with the organization of the Children of Israel into a nation, when Jehovah made with them the covenant, now called old; which covenant they violated by making a golden calf, even while Moses was yet with God on the Mount: on which account the sword was turned upon them, and there fell in one day "about three thousand men." (Exod. xxxii. 28.) "CHRIST, OUR PASSOVER, IS SACRIFICED FOR US." 1. The Lamb sacrificed at the Passover was without blemish. Christ is called "The Lamb of God" (John i. 29); without blemish and without spot. (1 Peter i. 19.) 2. The Paschal Lamb was taken from the flock. THE WORD was made flesh, and dwelt among us (John i. 14); made like unto his brethren. (Heb. ii. 17.) 3. The annual sacrifice of the Passover was a public national act. Jesus was slain by the rulers and representatives of the nation. (Luke Xxx. 13.) 4. The blood of the Passover was sprinkled for protection. By the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus our conscience is purged and protection and salvation obtained. (Heb. ix. 14, xii. 24; 1 Peter i. 2.) 5. The Paschal Lamb was killed between the two evenings, about three in the afternoon. 'Christ, our Passover," died for us about the same time. (Mat. xxvii. ; Mark xv.) 66 We are thus brought to the last Passover kept by the nation prior to the abandonment by Jehovah of their temple sacrifices and service, when the time for making the promised New Covenant with the House of Israel and with the House of Judah was distant but fifty days. Only a few hours before, Jesus had taken the cup and given it to His Apostles, saying, "Drink ye all of it, for this is my blood of the New Covenant, shed for many for the remission of sins." (Matt. xxvi.) When Jehovah made with the nation the Old Covenant, Moses took blood and sprinkled both the book and all the people, saying, "This is the blood of the Covenant which God hath enjoined upon you." In like manner, Jesus, who is both Mediator and sacrifice, when about to mediate the New Covenant with the House of Israel and with the House of Judah, shed His own blood, that the better things of the New Economy might be purified with better blood than that of the Old Dispensation. That night He was betrayed, and, after extorted condemnation, slain at the time of the Passover sacrifice. What followed? Three of the fifty days He remained in the tomb. Then He showed Himself alive to His Apostles by many infallible proofs, "being seen of them FORTY DAYS, and speaking of the things pertaining to the Kingdom of God." At His last interview He informed them that not many days would elapse ere the promise of John the Baptist, that He would baptize them in the Holy Spirit, would be fulfilled; and while they beheld, He was taken up into heaven. Forty-three days had passed since the slaying of the last and ever effectual Passover, and only seven of the fifty intervening between His death and the Day of Pentecost remained. Those seven days were days of coronation splendour. He whom the Father in heaven has made both Lord and Christ was then crowned with glory and honour. He who had laid His glory aside, and taken the form of a servant, and submitted to the death of the cross, was then re-glorified with the glory which He had with the Father before the world was. "Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of Glory shall come in! Who is this King of Glory The Lord, Mighty in Battle. Lift up your heads, O ye gates; even lift them up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of Glory shall come in! Who is this King of Glory? The Lord of Hosts. He is the King of Glory!" (Ps. xxiv.) He whom Earth had rejected received the adoration of Heaven, and the welcome of Jehovah. "Sit Thou at My right hand until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool. The Lord shall send the rod of Thy strength out of Zion; rule (or reign) Thou in the midst of Thine enemies." (Ps. cx.) Behold, then, the Lamb of God; the Lion of the Tribe of Judah; the Lord of Lords, and King of Kings, having all authority in heaven and in earth; far above all principalities and powers, and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in that which is to come; Head over all things to the Church, which is His Body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all. "And when the Day of Pentecost was fully come they were all, with one accord, in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a mighty rushing wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues, like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance." That Pentecost was marked by extraordinary power and glory. The Church was that day laid upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets; Jesus Christ, Himself, the chief corner stone, in whom all the building groweth into a holy temple in the Lord, an habitation for God through the Spirit. It was, therefore, appropriate for the Spirit to be poured out in surpassing fulness and demonstration, to take possession of the temple of living stones, which would thus become the habitation of God. When should the Church commence but on the day of the Spirit's outpouring? When should the Spirit be poured out but on that day of Church-planting? About to ascend to heaven the Saviour commanded His Apostles not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, made through John the Baptizer (that Jesus would baptize with the Holy Spirit), He assured them that not many days hence it would be fulfilled. The Pentecostal outpouring of, and immersion in, the Spirit were the accomplish ment. The Prophets had foretold this day; consequently Peter, standing up with the other Apostles, lifted up his voice and said, “Ye men of Judea, and all ye that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto you, and hearken unto my words, for these are not drunken as ye suppose, seeing it is but the third hour of the day. But Observer, Feb. 1, '76. this is that which was spoken by the Prophet Joel And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out My Spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams; and on My servants and on My hand-maidens I will pour out, in those days, of My Spirit; and they shall prophesy * * * * And it shall come to pass that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved." How appropriate, too, that this was realized on the very day which commenced the New Economy and gave birth to the Church. But it was not merely the fulfilment of the prophecy of Joel that Peter announced, but its fulfilment consequent upon the exaltation of the Saviour. "This Jesus hath God raised up whereof we are all witnesses. Therefore, being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear; for David is not ascended into the heavens; but he says, himself, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit Thou on My right hand till I make Thy foes Thy footstool. Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God hath made that same Jesus, whom you have crucified both Lord and Christ." Thus commenced His rule over His Church. 0, wondrous day of glory and of grace! When, on that far-back Pentecost, Moses gave the law, "About three thousand men were slain. It was indeed the ministration of death written and engraven on stones. When this new and final Pentecost came in, on that same day "About three thousand souls" were saved and presented to the Lord as the first fruits of His great harvest unto life eternal. Here we must rest, and in our next dwell awhile with the Apostles, and upon events which transpired when the Saviour was still with them. THE NEW JERUSALEM.—No. III. Ancient Jerusalem a Type of the New Jerusalem. The Holy of Holies. The way into the holiest of all was by the veil, which separated the holy place from the most holy, and through which the high priest only passed once every year. Of the great Archetype it is said, "while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight." Again, "We have a great high priest, who is passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God." These heavens were the veil through which our High Priest passed into the heaven of heavens, the Father's house, the New Jerusalem, just as the Levitical Observer, Feb. 1, '76. high priest passed through the veil into the most holy place. The holy of holies resembled a perfect cube, the length, breadth, and height being, in the Tabernacle, ten cubits each way, and afterwards in the Temple twenty cubits.-Smith, Bib. Dic. Thus the impress of perfection is stamped on the holiest of all by its cubic form, for among the ancients the square figure was the figure of perfection; and there can be no doubt that the idea of a perfect dwelling place for redeemed man is presented to us in the cubic form of the New Jerusalem. "The city lieth four-square, and the length is as large as the breadth and he measured the city with a reed, twelve thousand furlongs. The length, and the breadth, and the height of it are equal." Of the temple's beauty we read that it surpassed in splendour all the other buildings in the holy city, perhaps in magnificence unequalled in the world. Its appearance from the Mount of Olives was overpowering. It was built of white marble, and decorated with plates of gold. Josephus says, that in the rising of the sun it reflected so strong and dazzling an effulgence that the eye of the spectator was obliged to turn away. To strangers at a distance it appeared like a mountain covered with snow, for where it was not decorated with plates of gold it was extremely white and glistening.-Barnes. The beauty of the most holy place is detailed in Ex. xxvi. 31-33, and 2 Chron. iii., and may be considered a type of the celestial city, which was "pure gold, like unto clear glass." Jerusalem the Golden, I languish for one gleam My thoughts, like palms in exile, For a glimpse of that dear Country (Sunday Magazine.) Covering the ark were two Cherubims and these look in adoration on the mystery at their feet ("which things the angels desire to look into." 1 Pet. i. 12).-Kurtz. The law was under the mercy seat, but its voice was hushed by the blood of the atonement.-Rodgers. The symbolical figure called cherubim was a composite creature-form, which finds a parallel in the religious insignia of Assyria and Egypt (e.g.), the sphinx, the winged bulls, and lions of Nineveh. In such forms every imaginative people has sought to embody its notions, either of the attributes of the Divine essence or of the vast powers of nature, which transcend that of man.-Smith, Bib. Dic. The vision of Ezekiel is pre-eminently the vision of the cherubim. There we learn that in their general aspect they were human, the human face, however, being combined with three others, namely, those of the lion, the ox, and the eagle; recalling to mind the Jewish proverb, "Four are the highest in the creationthe lion among the beasts, the ox among cattle, the eagle among birds, and man above them all; but God is supreme over all." Compare Rev. iv. 6, 7. The cherubic faces are found to combine the highest types of creature life, thus presenting a sort of personified creaturehood, and leaving no doubt in the mind that their representative character is world-wide, and that the true interpretation of their symbolism is to be found in those words of the Apostle, "The creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God." (Rom. viii.) The association of the cherubim with the Shekinah seems to teach us that only in the new heavens and new earth can the cherubic symbol be fully realised: "As truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord."-William Maude. We next notice the Shekinah, that miraculous visible glory which was a symbol of the Divine presence. There was no candlestick in the Holy of Holies in the Tabernacle, nor within the veil in the Temple; yet it was full of light, and the light was very much brighter than the light of the sun, for the glory that dwelt between the cherubim on the mercy-seat filled the room with light too dazzling to behold. God himself was the light of that holy place. (Ex. xl. 34; 2 Chron. v. 13, 14; vii. 1, 2,) In this also the four-square room was a figure of the true heaven. John says, "And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it; for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof." As God's glory was always on the mercy-seat filling the room with light, we may safely say there was one spot on earth where there was no night. And of the New Jerusalem it is said, "there shall be no night there."-Rodgers, "The Tabernacle." Bathed in unfallen Sun-light In every sense the Lamb is the light and glory of the New Jerusalem. No one will doubt that He is figuratively, but is He literally the light of the heavenly city? We are told there will be no need of sun or moon, "for the glory of God did lighten it and the Lamb is the light thereof." What faintly shone on earth before Now beams and shines for ever more. We learn that the earth was lightened with the unveiled glory of an angel. (Rev. xviii. 1.) When a little of the glory of the Lord was permitted to shine on the plains of Bethlehem, the shepherds were sore afraid. When our Saviour was transfigured, there was seen a little of the glory, with which He is now arrayed, and it is said, "His face did shine as the sun, and His raiment was white as the light." According to Peter (2 Ep. i. 16), it is evident that in the transfiguration, the Apostles had a representation of what the power and coming of the Lord Jesus will be. If while in His mortal state on the Mount, He was so clothed with glory, that His face shone as the sun, how must that face be clothed with glory now, and how will it shine in the heavenly Jerusalem.-American paper. Bright home of saints Jerusalem! Thy glory is the Lamb of God His bosom is thy rest. Observer, Feb. 1, '76. means the one can only be a very imperfect image of the other.-Moses Stewart. The New Jerusalem is named, with an evident reference to the Tabernacle of the Old Covenant, "the Tabernacle of God with men." (Rev. xxi. 3.) That which was merely a moveable and portable tent during Israel's wanderings in the wilderness, and afterwards became a temple of Cedar, now appears, in the vision granted to the seer of the New Testament, as a strong city, which the imagination of interpreters has in vain attempted to describe. That symbol, and this vision express the same conception, as it appears in different stages of its development. The dwelling of God with his people still bears an imperfect character in the tabernacle, and the temple; for not only is the dwelling place of God, still separated from the dwelling places of His people, but that separation is moreover maintained by the necessity which exists that human mediators should intervene. Christianity has already effaced the distinction between the priest and the people, so that the court of the temple may now be said to constipriests, and may always approach the mercytute a part of the Sanctuary-all have become seat. Still, the distinction established between the Sanctuary, and the Holiest of all, continues to exist, as we are yet walking by faith, not by sight. But this distinction also will be abolished in the consummated state of the Kingdom of God." The Tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them." But the august vision of the seer admits also of a further, and a retrospective application; the heavenly Jerusalem realizes not only the conception involved in the Tabernacle, but also fulfils and completes the one set forth in Paradise, for "in the midst of the street of it is the tree of life." (Rev. xxii. 2; Gen. ii. 9; iii. 22.) And thus it harmoniously combines in itself the beginning, the middle, and the end of the Kingdom of God.-Kurtz, Sacred History, P. 434. We will turn aside for a moment to notice the number Four. Every attentive reader must have observed how frequently this number occurs in connection with the Tabernacle. Now four whenever symbolically used in Scripture, is the number of the world. Four is stamped everywhere. There are four elements-fire, air, earth, and water. The points of the compass are four. There are four seasons, and four grand divisions of the earth. In the Scriptures we have four living creatures, emblems of all creaturely life, and each of them with four faces, and four wings; four beasts coming up out of the sea, represent the four great world empires; the four metals composing the image, Observer, Feb. 1, '76. sets forth the same phases of empire; the enumeration, wherever this is wished to be exhaustive, of the inhabitants of the world, is by four, namely, kindred, tongues, peoples, and nations. Dr. Seiss. We ask, then, what can be the meaning of the constant recurrence of this number in things pertaining to God's Sanctuary? Does it not point to the world as the Lord's, and to the time when the kingdoms of this world will become the Kingdom of the Messiah? The position of the Tabernacle was itself significant; it stood in the very centre of the camp. The priests were its body-guard; and around it, three on each side, were arranged the Twelve Tribes. Was not this typical of the time when God's Kingdom should be visible on earth, and when He shall dwell in that blessed centre the New Jerusalem, with the nations gathered around Him? (Rev. xxi. 1, 2; Lev. xxvi. 11, 12; Ez. xxxvii. 27, 28.) Jesus shall reign where'er the sun His Kingdom stretch from shore to shore, Baptism is an ordinance of God, enjoined upon every disciple of Jesus, emblematical and symbolical, in which the great truths of the Gospel and their reception by the believer are proclaimed, but not accomplished. THAT Baptism is an ordinance of God-that Christian Baptism is the immersion of the body in water, in the name, by the authority, of Jesus, into the name, into subjection to the authority, openly confessed and professed, of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit-all interested in this discussion will, I think, acknowledge. Further, that it is enjoined upon and incumbent upon every disciple of Christ, upon every one who has accepted Jesus of Nazareth, the only begotten Son of God, as Saviour, through faith in Him, we are all agreed. But in proceeding to consider the other terms of the proposition heading this letter, I ask the reader's attention whilst we notice the meaning of the terms emblematical and symbolical. Both of these words are derived from the Greek emblem from emblemma, the act of gazing upon, something seen; and symbol, from symbola, a sign. The ideas conveyed by these words, although closely allied, are not exactly the same. The two ordinances of the Christian Dispensation, Baptism and the Lord's Supper, are said to be emblematical, inasmuch as by things which are seen they picture to the mind things which cannot be seen. As in the Supper the bread broken and the wine poured out are emblems (something seen) representing in symbol the body broken and the blood shed on Calvary more than 1800 years since, so with the ordinance of Baptism the water is the emblem, the visible element which, by the nature of its action on the body immersed in it, represents in symbol the purification of the soul from the pollution of sin. Further, we find in Scripture the action of immersion, the lowering of the body into the water, its submersion and subsequent emmersion --represented as a beautifully significant symbol of burial and resurrection, which the believer is thereby taught in faith to anticipate, and, realizing, to walk in holiness of life as if they were accomplished facts. It is, further, an act of confession and profession on the part of the baptized confession of sin and need of a Saviour, profession of faith in and submission to Jesus as Saviour, and acknowledgment of the great mystery of Godliness, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, into whose name the believer is immersed. All these truths, and other collateral ones, are set forth in various passages of Scripture. Thus we have Baptism into not only the actual element, but into emblematically, symbolically, and as an act of profession illustrated variously, in the fourteen cases in which the term is used in the New Testament as follows: -Baptism into (1) Repentance; (2) into Remission of Sins; (3) into the Jordan; (4) into the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit ; (5) into the Name of the Lord Jesus; (6) into John's Baptism; (7) into Jesus Christ; (8) into His Death; (9) into Death; (10) into the name of Paul; (11) into mine own name (Paul's); (12) into Moses; (13) into One Body; (14) into Christ. Christ. In all these cases, however differently it may be rendered in our English version, the phrase in the original is the same-Baptize or Baptism into (eis). Literally and actually it can only take place by the immersion of a body into a liquid; but figuratively-symbolically, or as an expression of discipleship-it is said to take place into the object or subject named. Not one of the great truths of the Gospel is in one way or other proclaimed or set forth in this ordinance; yet neither Repentance, Remission of Sins, Union with Christ, Death, nor Resurrection are accomplished or bestowed upon the believer in its administration. This leads me at once to review the position taken up in my first letter, and to join issue with the statement that Baptism "includes the remission of sins, change of state, and consequent change of relationship to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit." It is a relief |