The Church
1899; SAGE Publishing; Volume: 11; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1177/001452469901100112
ISSN1745-5308
Autores Tópico(s)Religion, Society, and Development
ResumoON the great day of Atonement, the High Priest, with the golden censer, and the blood of sprinkling, vanished from the sight of the vast multitude of worshippers, through the blue embroidered veil, into the Holiest Place.In that shrine was the symbol of God's immediate Presence, where the adoring Cherubim bent over the mercy-seat, looking down into the Ark, which contained the broken table of God's Moral Law.During the High Priest's awful functions in that inmost shrine the people saw him not, but in an agony of expect- ance they waited till the propitiation was completed, and he came forth to them resplendent in his golden and jewelled robes.The attitude of Christ's Church is the attitude of that expectant multitude.St. Paul expresses it by the word å7rOKapaðoK{a-an eager desire, a painful waiting, a strained expectation, which, looking away from the the things of the world, is absorbed in the thought of Christ's Return.With His own blood our great High Priest has passed through the blue curtain of heaven into the Holiest Place ; and while, year by year, we joyously celebrate His Advent to save the world, we wait His promised Advent to judge and to restore, when old things shall vanish away for ever, and behold, He shall make all things new!But even while we wait-we hope.It is night ; our lamps burn low ; more or less, in human frailty, we all slumber and sleep; but we are not un- blessed.Infinitely more blessed is our lot than that of those in the Old Dispensation.They saw not God ; but our eyes have seen, our ears have heard the glory of the Only Begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.Moses was their minister; the Lord from heaven is ours.They had angels and prophets; we have the Son of God.The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews draws out the contrast for us.' Ye are not come,' he says, ' to a mount that might be touched, a palpable and kindled fire, and unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words ; which voice they that heard en- treated that no word more should be spoken unto them: for they could not endure that which was, 'The Church, which is His body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all.'-Eph.i. 23.
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