-It has been remarked, however, and not without reason, that this book "constitutes a part of the sacred canon, less read, and usually accounted less interesting and important, than almost any other." Many regard it as the mere record of an obsolete economy, inapplicable to our times, and containing little or nothing of practical value to us. How few have ever heard a chapter read, or a text taken, from this part of Scripture! How generally is it passed by, even by Christians, as of no account! From such an estimate and treatment of it, I feel constrained to enter my dissent. So far from being a mere collection of curiosities for the antiquarian, it is a book of impressive, sublime, evangelical instruction. Here, as much as in any portion of Scripture, hath wisdom prepared her feast, and crieth: "Come, eat of my bread, and drink of the wine which I have mingled." What were all these ancient institutes but living pictures of the truth as it is in Jesus? Paul says of the Tabernacle and its services, that it "was a
παραβολη-
a parable, illustration, outline, figure-for the time then present." In another place, he speaks of "the Law" as "having a
σχιαν-
adumbration, shadow-of good things to come." And elsewhere, referring to God's doings in connection with the administrations of Moses, he says: "These things were our
τύπς,-
types, patterns, examples." Nathaniel says, that "Moses in the law did write of Jesus of Nazareth." Christ himself says: "Had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me, for he wrote of me." And the whole epistle to the Hebrews is one grand argument for Christianity, extracted from the rites and services of the Levitical economy. It must, therefore, be taken, as the teaching of the New Testament, that its outlines and characteristics are contained in these ancient institutes. The matter may be somewhat veiled in type and symbol, but there is as much Gospel in Leviticus as in Daniel, Ezekiel, or Isaiah. This very obsolete law of the priests and offerings, as I hope to make evident in the course of these discourses, contains an evangelism as pure and divine as that which dropped from apostolic lips, or stands written in apostolic records. Christ himself and all his mediatorial doings, from first to last, are nothing more than the fulfilment and complement of the laws herein written. "Think not," said he, "that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil." It is indeed astonishing, when we come to consider it, and a strong proof of the divine source of the Bible, how completely Christ is woven into its entire texture. Open the book anywhere, and we are sure to find something of Jesus. He is its Alpha and Omega; its beginning and its ending; its first and its last.
-Gospel in Leviticus, Praise The God of Hebrews and all other beings!!!!!
