of God, that of Redemption. In the passover we have the first
manifestation of what Redemption is; and here the more frequent use of
the word holy begins. In the feast of unleavened bread we have the
symbol of the putting off of the old and the putting on of the new, to
which redemption through blood is to lead. Of the seven days we read:
'In the first day there shall be an _holy_ convocation, and in the
seventh day there shall be an _holy_ convocation;' the meeting of the
redeemed people to commemorate its deliverance is a holy gathering; they
meet under the covering of their Redeemer, the Holy One. As soon as the
people had been redeemed from Egypt, God's very first word to them was,
'Sanctify--make holy unto me all the first-born: it is mine.' (See Ex.
xiii. 2.) The word reveals how proprietorship is one of the central
thoughts both in redemption and in sanctification, the link that binds
them together. And though the word is here only used of the first-born,
they are regarded as the type of the whole people. We know how all
growth and organization commence from a centre, around which in
ever-widening circles the life of the organism spreads. If holiness in
the human race is to be true and real, free as that of God, it must be
the result of a self-appropriating development. And so the first-born
are sanctified, and afterwards the priests in their place, as the type
of what the whole people is to be as God's first-born among the nations,
His peculiar treasure, 'an holy nation.' This idea of proprietorship as
related to redemption and sanctification comes out with especial
clearness when God speaks of the exchange of the priests for the
first-born (Num. iii. 12, 13, viii. 16, 17): 'The Levites are _wholly
given unto me_; instead of the first-born have I _taken them unto me_;
for all the first-born _are mine_; in the day that I smote every
first-born in the land of Egypt _I sanctified them for myself_.'

Let us try and realize the relation existing between redemption and
holiness. In Paradise we saw what God's sanctifying the seventh day was:
He took possession of it, He blessed it, He rested in it and refreshed
Himself. Where God enters and rests, there is holiness: the more
perfectly the object is fitted for Him to enter and dwell, the more
perfect the holiness. The seventh day was sanctified as the period for
man's sanctification. At the very first step God took to lead him to His
Holiness--the command not to eat of