e are but few preachers or religious books which do not go on the
supposition that this doctrine is taught in Scripture. And you may hear
sermon after sermon from some preachers, the chief object of which is to
point out correspondences between the paschal lamb, the scape-goat, and
other sacrifices under the Law, and Jesus and the sacrifice which He
offered. Some preachers and religious writers take almost all things
under the law to be types of Christ, or types of things pertaining to
Him. They make Noah, and Isaac, and Melchisedec, and Joseph, and Moses,
and Joshua, and David, and Samson, and Solomon, and the brazen serpent,
and the rod of Aaron, and the manna, types of Christ, and almost all the
sacrifices they make types of His great sacrifice of Himself.
I could see no warrant for this doctrine. I could find no proof that any
of the sacrifices under the law were intended to direct the minds of
those who offered them to the sacrifice of Jesus. There is nothing in
the law, and there is nothing in the prophets to that effect. There is
no passage of Scripture which says that any one ever _did_ look through
the old Levitical sacrifices to Christ. There is no passage which says
it was men's duty to do so; none which commends any one for doing so,
or which blames any one for not doing so. The prophets often rebuke the
Israelites for their injustice, intemperance, deceit and cruelty, but
they never rebuke them for not looking through their sacrifices to the
sacrifice of Jesus. They often exhort people to 'cease to do evil and
learn to do well;' but they never urge them to regard their sacrifices
as types or manifestations of the sacrifice of Christ. Christ nowhere
teaches the ordinary doctrine of types. He never refers to anything as a
type of His sacrifice, or of anything else connected with His work. Nor
do the Apostles say anything to countenance the prevailing notion. For
anything the Scriptures say to the contrary, the whole doctrine of
types, as set forth in such books as that of McEwen, is a human fiction.
Indeed, I see no hint in Scripture that any one had the least idea that
the Messiah would offer Himself a sacrifice for sin till after the
sacrifice had taken place. Isaiah and Daniel spake on the subject, and
'They inquired and searched diligently,' says Peter, 'what, or what
manner of time the spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when
it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glory that
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