This ceremony
typified that Christ, the true Priest, should once die for us, to
obtain for us the true atonement. But the former sacrifice, having to
be repeated every year, was but a temporary and imperfect atonement;
it did not eternally suffice, as does the atonement of Christ. For
though we fall and sin repeatedly, we have confidence that the blood
of Christ does not fall, or sin; it remains steadfast before God, and
the expiation is perpetual and eternal. Under its sway grace is
perpetually renewed, without work or merit on our part, provided we do
not stand aloof in unbelief.

"For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the ashes of a heifer," etc.

10. Concerning the water of separation and the ashes of the red
heifer, read Numbers 19; and concerning the blood of bulls and goats,
Leviticus 16, 14-15. According to Paul, these were formal and temporal
purifications, as I stated above. But Christ, in God's sight, purifies
the conscience of dead works; that is, of sins meriting death, and of
works performed in sin and therefore dead. Christ purifies from these,
that we may serve the living God by living works.

"And for this cause he is the mediator of a new covenant [testament],"
etc.

11. Under the old law, which provided only for formal, or ritualistic,
pardon, and restored to human fellowship, sin and transgressions
remained, burdening the conscience. It--the old law--did not benefit
the soul at all, inasmuch as God did not institute it to purify and
safeguard the conscience, nor to bestow the Spirit. It existed merely
for the purpose of outward discipline, restraint and correction. So
Paul teaches that under the Old Testament dispensation man's
transgressions remained, but now Christ is our Mediator through his
blood; by it our conscience is freed from sin in the sight of God,
inasmuch as God promises the Spirit through the blood of Christ. All,
however, do not receive him. Only those called to be heirs eternal,
the elect, receive the Spirit.

12. We find, then, in this excellent lesson, the comforting doctrine
taught that Christ is he whom we should know as the Priest and Bishop
of our souls; that no sin is forgiven, nor the Holy Spirit given, by
reason of works or merit on our part, but alone through the blood of
Christ, and that to those for whom God has ordained it. This matter
has been sufficiently set forth in the various postils.

_Palm Sunday_

Text: Philippians 2, 5-11.

5 Have this mind