by Rev. Angus Mackay, Tarbert, Harris
“And Aaron shall bear the names of the children of Israel in the breastplate of judgement upon his heart, when he goeth in unto the holy place, for a memorial before the Lord continually.”
— Exodus 28:29.
In the Epistle to the Hebrews we read many and wonderful things concerning the high priest and the priesthood. There we have many precious statements about Aaron, his holy office and his garments which were all ordained and instituted by God. The breastplate, with its precious stones on Aaron’s heart was there according to the Divine commandment. Aaron in his office as high priest with his beautiful garments and breastplate was a type of Christ, the great High Priest of
our profession who is altogether lovely and who can have compassion on the ignorant and on them that are out of the way.
In considering briefly the words of our text let us notice:
- (1) Some things regarding Aaron as high priest.
- (2) The breastplate on his heart.
- (3) Aaron, with the breastplate of judgement upon his heart, as a memorial before the Lord continually.
(1) In Aaron we have a vivid type of Christ, the great High Priest who alone is suitable for us, “Who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners and made higher than the heavens.” Aaron was taken from among men, appointed for divine service and for the good of men to the glory of God, as we read in Hebrews, chapter 5, verse 1: “For every high priest taken from among men is ordained for men in things pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins.”
No man, except he who was called by God could take this honour to himself as the inspired writer informs us in Hebrews 5:4, “And no man taketh this honour unto himself, but he that is called of God, as was Aaron.” Thus Aaron was called, anointed and consecrated for the holy office of the priesthood. This is also true of the Lord Jesus Christ; He was taken from among men, called by God the Father, but before that could be, of necessity He had to become man. The Eternal Son of God veiled His Divine glory when He became incarnate. In the glorious person of Christ we have (in the words of our Shorter Catechism): “God and man in two distinct natures and One Person forever.” The inspired Word, in 1st Tim. 3:16, tells us that “great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh.” This is indeed a glorious source of indescribable wonder and adoration — that God, in the Person of the Eternal Son, dwelt in the world among men.
As Aaron was ordained for men in things pertaining to God, so was the Lord Jesus as declared by Paul in writing to Timothy, First Epistle 1:5: “This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.” The Eternal Son was also called to be an High Priest. Ah! Finite reason, especially when fallen, cannot fathom the infinite depths of this glorious mystery but the regenerate soul believes it — that “Christ glorified not Himself to be made an High Priest; but he that said unto Him, Thou art my Son, today have I begotten thee. As He saith also in another place, Thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchisedec.” (Heb. 5:5, 6).
The High Priest in Israel had to offer up both gifts and sacrifices for sins and on behalf of sinners to the glory of God. Therein the priest was
a type of Christ who was and is the great High Priest in the service of God for unworthy sinners. Of necessity the High Priest, suitable for sinners must be a divine person. An high priest other than this could not accomplish or execute the grand work of Redemption. Mere man, or indeed an angel from Heaven, could never be chosen and called for such work. The High Priest, indispensably necessary for sinners had to be both divine and human. Jesus, therefore, was and is God incarnate, as the angel Gabriel declared to the Virgin Mary: “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee; therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.” This we believe with all our heart, and with the apostle, the regenerate soul can say: “For I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.”
The high priest in Israel had to offer up the sacrifice strictly according to the command of God and the sacrifice must be according to the Divine Mind revealed. Christ’s sacrifice also must be according to the Mind of God, so that sin might be forever expunged, as the apostle tells us in Hebrews, chapter 8: “For very high priest is ordained to offer gifts and sacrifices; wherefore it is of necessity that this man have somewhat also to offer.” And just as the High Priest had to be a Divine Person, so also the Sacrifice; therefore the Lord Jesus Himself was to be the sacrifice. No other sacrifice was adequate to purge our sins and reconcile us to God. The inspired Word tells us, in Hebrews, chapter 7, that this High Priest “needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people’s; for this He did once, when He offered up Himself.” The dignity of this High Priest’ Person stamps infinite merit upon the Sacrifice. Here we have the essence of the everlasting Gospel — Jesus Christ, the High Priest, offering up Himself a Sacrifice of sweet smelling savour to God. He offered up Himself in the obedience and sufferings of His life and death. When vile men scoffed and reviled Him saying: “If He be the king of Israel, let him now come down from the Cross and we will believe;” then in the awful sufferings and agonies of death, He was as the High Priest actively and lovingly engaged in offering up the Sacrifice in the holy service of God — the Sacrifice that completely and perfectly satisfied all the attributes of the Eternal God. Oh! That the Holy Spirit would breathe upon us that we might see with an enlightened understanding the glory of God wonderfully displayed in the death of Christ. No salvation for us poor sinners apart from a saving view by faith of
Christ and Him crucified. In Jesus as High Priest and Sacrifice, God the Father saw and sees this His beloved Son in whom He is well pleased.
As conclusive proof that He was fully satisfied with the Sacrifice in Christ’s obedience unto death, the God of peace brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus through the Blood of the Everlasting Covenant. Oh! What eternal honour this was for our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the Flock! This is the High Priest we need that we might be pardoned and reconciled to God whom we have offended by our sins. It is through faith in Him that we must find peace with God. He is the alone Priest to whom confession must be made and from whom pardon and absolution can be received.
(2) The breastplate was also fashioned according to the Divine order, tied on to the ephod of the high priest as God commanded. Aaron bore the breastplate upon his heart. In it there were twelve precious stones, set in gold in their inclosings, in four rows, three stones in each row.
These stones which typified God’s people were chosen and taken from the earth — chosen because they were precious. The people of God were chosen by God. Although they were dead in trespasses and sins, the children of wrath even as others, and possessing no good thing in themselves to make them precious, yet in the sight of God they were precious as chosen in Christ from all eternity, as Paul inspired by the Holy Spirit writing to the Ephesians infallibly declares: “According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love.”
As the stones were cleaned, chiselled, polished and shaped before they could be placed in the breastplate, so it is with the Lord’s people on the heart of Christ. In the new birth they are cleansed by the Blood of Atonement and renewed by the Holy Spirit. This is clearly stated in Titus 3:5, 6: “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour.” Where the image of Satan and sin once reigned, now by Divine and Sovereign Grace the Image of God is wonderfully and mysteriously restored in their souls. In some respects the stones in Aaron’s breastplate were different, and each one had a distinct identity. The diamond was different from the topaz; the topaz from the amethyst; the amethyst from the sardius; the sardius from the onyx and so on; but they had one thing in common: it was necessary that they should have all the same shape before they were situated in the breastplate. Thus the Lord’s people are different in various respects; their
natural dispositions are invariably different. Many of them are different by nationality and race — the Scottish different from the Chinese, the English from the Africans and so on; yet they have the same shape spiritually. They are all by grace conformed to the image of Christ. Ah! Yes! Christ is formed within them the hope of glory and we read that in the eternal world there shall be one fold and one Shepherd.
As the precious stones in the high priest’s breastplate were all bedded together in pure gold so with the people of God. Although invariably different in temperament, natural disposition, culture and race, the Lord’s people are united spiritually on and in the heart of Christ. In the breastplate of Aaron we have a most beautiful and attractive display of plurality in unity; and so it is with regenerate believers. They all have received the Spirit of God’s Son into their hearts whereby they cry Abba Father.” As they are exhorted to strive to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, they are also encouraged by divine information that all men shall know that they are Christ’s disciples if they love one another.
The breastplate was tied on Aaron’s heart with two wreathen chains of gold tied to two golden rings in the two upper corners of the breastplate and the other ends of the chains fastened to the shoulder pieces of the ephod. By a lace of blue fastened to two golden rings in the two lower corners of the breastplate and to two golden rings in the ephod, the breastplate was so fixed that “it be not loosed from the ephod.” Thus it was kept in its designed place on the heart of the high priest. We venture to say that the wreathen chains of gold signified the power of God and the lace of blue, faith in the regenerate — that faith that worketh by love and purifieth the heart. The Word of God tells us that believers (born-again) are “kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation.” In this way they are kept in indissoluble union to their Lord and Saviour. They are on and in his heart continually — in times of desertion as in times of sweet communion. Ah, Yes! And He will bear them on His heart when they will be sweetly conscious of perfect holiness and joy unspeakable to all eternity. Oh! What great and wondrous love is here manifested! We hear the Church in the Song ecstatically exclaiming: “My beloved is fair and ruddy, the chiefest among ten thousand” and again, “My Beloved is mine and I am His.” His language of infinite love and superlative excellency to her is, “Behold thou art fair my love, behold thou art fair; there is no spot in thee; thou hast doves eyes within thy locks.” This is mutual, reciprocal love of a heavenly nature to which a graceless world is altogether alien. Then we see:
(3) We see Aaron with the breastplate upon his heart as a memorial before the Lord continually. Inside the Holy Place Aaron typified the Lord Jesus in His glorious work of continual intercession. He was bearing the breastplate as a memorial before the Lord continually and so the Lord Jesus, as our High Priest, is incessantly presenting the merits of His Own Sacrifice in the presence of the Father. Christ in His mediatorial glory at the right hand of God the Father is the efficacious essence of the Intercession. Oh! the happiness and everlasting safety of those in the intercession of Christ! How wonderful that we can now exclaim with the Apostle in Hebrews 4:15, 16: “For we have not an High Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.” And again in Hebrews 6:19, 20: “Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which entereth into that within the veil; whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made an high priest forever after the order of Melchisedec.” As well as being there in Heaven, in their very nature and for them, He is with His people in this world by His Spirit and Word, as He assures them in Matthew 28:20: “And, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.”
In prayerful meditation on all that He did and suffered for them, Christ is precious to His own people and He is also exceedingly precious to them in His glorious Intercession. Whether their thoughts are full of the world or whether their minds are exercised by grace, Jesus in the presence of the Father is interceding on their behalf — yes, even when they are in a state of backsliding the same Intercession is continued for them. This solemn fact should cause us to endeavour sincerely and wholeheartedly to live a life of obedience to the Will of God. Were it not for Christ’s Intercession we would never be recovered and restored from our backslidings. When Peter was denying Him with oaths, even then he was in the Intercession and woe unto him if he were not. The blessed Lord had warned him: “Simon, Simon, behold Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: but I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren.” All His disciples were guilty of deserting Him; they all forsook Him and fled. We read: “I pray for them, I pray not for the world,” and also “Father, I will that they also, whom Thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory which Thou hast given me: for Thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.”
Were it not for the Lord’s intercession, Peter would never have repented; he would have perished eternally under the guilt of his aggravated and heinous sin. This also applies to all the people of God. Were it not for the intercession of Jesus, they should all die under the guilt of sin and should never find repentance. “Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.” How wonderful that the Lord Jesus is making continual intercession for His people! They must have repentance for their sins since the day of regeneration as well as for their sins prior to the new birth; yes, even till they depart this life.
Oh; How we should love the Lord Jesus Christ as our adorable Intercessor! If an advocate in a civil court were successful in pleading our cause (albeit his pleas were not inspired by any real love for us, but solely by motives of self-honour or at best, the desire for safeguarding the law) we should esteem him for succouring us. But in the Lord Jesus, His people have an Advocate who intercedes for them (guilty and wretched as they are in themselves) in eternal love. He pleads for them in the presence of God the Father in Heaven and we are told for our comfort in the Inspired Truth: “Thou hast given Him His heart’s desire, and hast not withheld the request of His lips. Selah;” and again “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.”
They have an infinitely able Intercessor — One in whom “dwelleth the fullness of the Godhead bodily” — “able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them.” When we know of any Christian friend that he or she, even occasionally, prays for us we cannot but love such. Ah! But here we have the God-man, our Lord, perpetually interceding for us. Oh! that we could love Him with our whole heart and mind! He is worthy of all praise and honour and glory.
Inside the holy place Aaron’s garments were ornamented with bells and pomegranates alternately — “A golden bell and a pomegranate, a golden bell and a pomegranate, upon the hem of the robe round about.” The sweet sound of the bells from within the holy place announced to the people without that the high priest as their representative was alive and engaged in his holy ministrations. The sound of the bells signified the melodious, precious sound of the everlasting Gospel. The Lord’s people alone are able to recognise and appreciate this sound, as the Psalmist declares, “Blessed is the people that know the joyful sound: they shall walk, O Lord, in the light of thy countenance.” Oh! How sweet the Truth — the reading but especially the preaching of the Word — to the soul when enjoying the liberty of the Spirit and communion with God.
The pomegranate is a fruit and it symbolises the fruit that follows the preaching and reading of God’s Word, that is, the awakening and the convincing of sinners and the edification, correction and sanctification of believers, “He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied: by His knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities.” Jesus will see souls saved — yes, in this dark day in which we have our lot. All that the Father gave Him in the Covenant of Grace will come to Him — all of free and sovereign grace. Boasting is excluded. If any man glory, let him glory in the Lord. Ah! Friends — Christ having loved His Own who were in the world, He loved them unto the end.
Dear fellow sinner, do you know the Lord? With all your head knowledge of doctrines about the Person and Work of Christ, is it true that you have no saving knowledge of the Beloved as your own personal Saviour? If such is your deplorable dangerous condition and state, we implore you to seek that the Holy Spirit will reveal Christ to your soul, for there is no salvation in any other and there is none other name given under heaven whereby we must be saved. It were better for you that you had never been born than to be found at last guilty of having spurned Christ in the free offer of the Gospel and consequently to go to a lost eternity. Christ invites sinners — yes, the chief of sinners — yes the vilest of the vile to Himself: “Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.”
Christ is All
by Dean Henry Law
10. THE CHILD-BIRTH
“This is the law for her, that hath borne a male or female.” Lev. xii. 7.
This chapter brings us to new fields of thought. The curtains of domestic life fall back. A mother and her new-born babe appear. Where is the mind, which can turn heedlessly away? Where is the heart, which will not pause and melt? In this event being begins, which never can have end. — Such is the fact, and it speaks solemnly.
The cradled infant is but a tiny rill. It scarcely seems to trickle. But it must onward flow, until its waters form an ocean without bottom — without shore. A tender blade just sprouts, but roots must deepen, and
boughs spread, through the expanse of an interminable age. Each birth is deathless increase to the world of spirits. A new eternity gains life.
Reader, these magnitudes are yoked to every mother’s babe. What scales can weigh the value of each child? What can be brought to counterpoise its price? Pile suns on suns — bring all the treasures, which all nature holds — ransack all mines of choicest ore, their wealth — though large — is finite. But here is a new infinity. Offspring, which once breathes, runs far beyond all time, and outlives all the glory of all worlds.
Thus solemn is the scene. Next God’s voice sounds beside the Jewish cradle. Solemnity becomes more solemn. What are its accents? Is its call to gratitude and joy alone? Is its design to kindle and praise for peril past, and dear addition to the family delights? Not so. It writes pollution on child-bearing.
It sentences the mother as unclean. It bars her from intercourse of social life and pious rites. It bows her head in shame. It dooms her, as though some leprous spot was seen, to solitude’s retreat. Lev. xii. 2, 3, 4, 5.
Reader, reflect. What is the moral of this rule? Is it our wisdom to enquire. True, ceremonial stains have long since ceased. True, legal offerings no more can cleanse. The Gospel-rays scatter all twilight mists. But principles have undying root. The cause, which then existed, still survives. Mothers in every age are virtually addressed.
But why is shame the twin of every offspring born?
Behold the infant, and receive reply. What is its nature, character and taste? Let not fond feeling shrink from weighing it in scales of truth. Is it a little innocent — conceived in purity — and shaped in holy mould? Are its materials clean?
It is indeed a wondrous fabric. But what is the quarry, which supplies its parts? The tender frame contains the germ of countless passions — multitudinous desires and thoughts — as many as the ocean’s sands. Are these the germs of godly life? Do they give promise of ripe fruit for God? If so, the birth is holy: and bearing mothers should not bear the brand of shame.
But facts show not this smiling face. The babe is sinful produce of a sinful race. Corruption’s seal is fixed upon its brow.
Reader, trace back the cause. Return in thought to Eden’s terrible offence. When our first parents fell into sin’s mire, what a tremendous change changed their entire being! Innocence for ever died in man. Iniquity, as a conqueror, claimed the captive land. The fountain-head
received deep poison. No drop could henceforth issue, free from taint. The root of human life is rotten to the core. All sprouts have evil taste. Nature was spoiled of God’s fair image. What nature no more has, it can no more bestow. Its properties are guilt: and guilt alone can be imparted by it. From Adam’s fatal passage into Satan’s realms, each child is Satan’s bondslave. Each birth now propagates corruption. Hence she, who bare, is warned to bend, as bullrush in the vale. She must sit solitary as unclean.
There is strong need to show the case, without deception’s mask. Nature is prone to partial love. She sees her own with an admiring eye. She pictures infants, as fair purity’s abode. But it is never gain — it rather is great loss — to trample upon truth. No flowers of profit can be plucked from error’s barren branch. The wise man finds his happy seat at Scripture’s feet. His only guidance is: “Thus saith the Lord.”
Let then, no mother, while she clasps her babe, deck it in robes of visionary innocence. Her love makes it no lovely object in God’s sight. Affection’s estimate is not the estimate of heaven. A soul, indeed, is born to immortality. But let its birth state be distinctly seen. It brings no soul-life with it. Nature gives various senses — but no sense of God. The heart has neither eye to see, nor ear to hear, nor foot to seek, the upward path of life. Each feeling has a bias to transgression’s ways. Leave but the child to the inbred desire, and evil — only evil — will be sought. When choice can choose, it will take Satan’ yoke. When hands can handle, they will grasp his tools. When lips can speak, his language will be learned. When feet can run, they will rush headlong towards hell. So wisdom teaches. So experience finds.
Will then the mother say, alas! that such a life has birth from me? Faith speaks not thus. It knows, that there is remedy for all this ill. It looks to Christ, and fears recede before hope’s dawn. Apart from Christ, the babe must enter on a voyage of woe, and pass through troublous billows to the whirlpool of despair. Apart from Christ, its course must be one flow of misery: its end one gulf of ruin. But if Christ looks on it with love: if He receive it to His arms of grace; then neither thought can think, nor words proclaim, how blessed is a birth on earth!
Think what Christ grants. There is a merit in His precious blood, which wipes out all sin’s stains. There is a refuge in His wounded side, which screens from wrath and curse. There is a beauty in His glorious righteousness, which is fit mantle for the courts of heaven. He can send forth the Spirit’s power, to breathe new life into the dead-born soul. He can remove the blindness from the eye:— the deafness from the ear:—
the torpor from the heart. He can convert the stone into the tender soil, in which all fruits of godliness shall spring. He can burst Satan’s iron yoke. He can keep pure from all temptation’s snares. He can make earth an upward flight to heaven. He can present the spirit blameless before God. Through His transforming might, that child of wrath may brightly shine a jewel in redemption’s crown. Through His all-saving work, it may sing sweetly in the realms of light.
There is such hope in Christ. He is the treasury of full, rich, blessed, glorious grace. The second Adam more than repairs the damage of the first. He snatches from the lowest depths. He raises to the highest heights. He can exalt to all that heaven contains.
Prayer is the Christian mother’s stronghold. It is a golden key to unlock God’s treasury. Faith’s importunities prevail. Mighty desires, which cannot sit down mute, spring from above, and will not fail. The Spirit pleads within such wrestling heart: and all His pleadings reflect the mind of God. The offspring of much prayer is loved in heaven, ere it is loved on earth. Scripture writes not in vain, how interceding parents ever gained their suit. They cry. Christ hears, and smiles and answers; — and His answers are, Satan despoiled, and saving grace bestowed. When nursing is one strong petition, the child is nestled in Salvation’s arms.
Faith next draws comfort from the baptismal font. Christ gives a special ordinance, to which new-born may come. It is a token of His early care. It is a seal of His adopting grace. Herein we read a tender Saviour’s tender heart. Is it His will, that infant offspring should be as outcasts in vile nature’s waste? Sacramental provision slays such doubt. We see His arms out-stretched — we hear His urgent call, “Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not.” This rite abounds in hope. It is no mocking form. It is ordained, as means of grace. Cast out the thought, that infancy excludes the Spirit’s breath. If wilful sin be no impervious bar: much less the fault of an inherited disease. Jeremiah’s heart began to beat with sanctified pulse. The Baptist’s second birth was scarcely younger than the first. The God, who blessed them, is always one. Mercy has trod this early path, and may tread it again.
Christian mother, proceed to educate your child for Christ. So soon as thoughts begin to flow, they must have channel. Why should that course be nature and not grace? What, though the tender mind be weak for argumental proof? The truths of Jesus are not arguments, but facts. The precious truths of life’s high tree may fall down into childhood’s lap. The tender Shepherd — seeking a lost lamb — and dying on the cross to buy it from a robber’s hand — and washing it in streams from His own side
— and feeding it in verdant pastures — and bearing it in His strong arms — and loving it with constant love — and raising it to a bright home, are thoughts, which weakest minds can grasp. These, when once grasped in saving power, can never be completely lost. Let the first lesson be the love of God — the grace of Christ — the Spirit’s present help. Let the young eye be early turned to Calvary’s dying scene. Let memory’s page take its first lines from Jesus’s life. Let thought’s soft tendrils be entwined around truth’s stem. Then, through rich mercy, there is solid hope, that the child born on earth, is born an heir of heaven. Corruption’s seed will not prevail. Satan’s chains will fall. The unclean will be cleansed. The Child-birth thus adds citizens to heaven.
The infant in the Jewish lap reminds of other truth. If it be son, the days of the maternal shame are less. If it be daughter, the unclean period is double. Lev. xii. 2, 4, 5. We may not pass this difference unmarked. The cause seems hidden from a casual glance. But thought, which dives into the ocean of God’s mind, is here soon carried back to Eden’s guilt, and the first act of sin. It was the woman, who first listened to the serpent’s wile. Her mind first went astray. Her will first lusted. Her hand first touched. Rebellion in the man was inexcusable offence: but woman’s transgression beckoned to the snare. There is no difference in the sin. The guilt of each is infinite in dye. But there is slight difference in order of event: and a recording rite keeps this in memory’s view. The stamp of lengthened degradation was fixed on each female birth. Sin’s entrance was thus marked. Hence the foul misery is more abhorred. Hence the one remedy is more loved.
When the appointed days of shame are past, the excluding barrier is solemnly removed. Especial rites are ordered. Two victims are now slain. The one, as a burnt-sacrifice, blazes on the altar. The other is an offering for sin. Lev. xxi. 6.
The Gospel here speaks loudly. Defilement cannot cease, without blood shed. A dying Saviour must atone, before sin vanishes, and the sinner is brought back to God.
Reader, you are unclean. There is no act — no word — no thought of any day, which is not dark before God’s eye. But Jesus is near, and able to make pure. Wash, and be clean. Wash, and be reconciled. Wash, and be welcomed to receiving arms. Wash, and look upward to a Father’s smile. Wash, and look onward to a Saviour’s throne.
A religion that costs nothing is worth nothing.
J. C. Ryle.