Sect. 5. — The Covenant of Grace, under the Mosaic Dispensation.
Ant. But, sir, was this in every way the same covenant that was made with Abraham?
Evan. Surely I believe that reverend Bullinger spoke very truly when he said that God gave these people no other religion in nature, substance, and matter itself, differing from the laws of their fathers; though in some respects, he added to it many ceremonies and certain ordinances.
He did this to keep their minds in expectation of the coming of Christ whom he had promised to them; and to confirm them in looking for him, lest they grow faint. And just as the Lord by these ceremonies, as it were, led them by the hand to Christ, so he made them a promise of the land of Canaan, and outward prosperity in it, as a type of heaven and eternal happiness. So that the Lord dealt with them as with children in their infancy and under-age, leading them to heavenly and spiritual things by the help of earthly things, because they were but young and tender,1 and did not have that measure and abundance of the Spirit which he has bestowed on his people now under the gospel.
Ant. And, sir, do you think that these Israelites at this time saw Christ and salvation by him in these types and shadows?
Evan. Yes; there is no doubt that Moses and the rest of the believers among the Jews saw Christ in them, “For,” says Tyndale, “though all the sacrifices and ceremonies had a star-light of Christ, some of them had the light of broad day, a little before the sun-rising;” and they expressed him, along with the circumstances and virtue of his death, as plainly as if his passion had been acted on a scaffold — “so much so,” he says, “that I am fully persuaded, and cannot help but believe, that God had shown Moses the secrets of Christ, and the very manner of his death, beforehand.” And therefore, I do not doubt that they offered their sacrifices by faith in the Messiah, as the apostle testifies of Abel in Heb. 11.4. I say, there is no question that every spiritual believing Jew, when he brought his sacrifice to be offered, and according to the Lord’s command, laid his hands on it while it was still alive (Lev. 1.4), and acknowledged from his heart that he himself had deserved to die — but by the mercy of God he was saved,2 and his desert3 was laid upon the beast.4 And just as that beast was to die and be offered in sacrifice for him, so he believed that the Messiah would come and die for him, on whom he put his hands — that is, on whom he laid all his iniquities by the hand of faith.5
So that as Beza says on Job 1, “The sacrifices were holy mysteries to them, in which, as if in a mirror, they saw themselves to their own condemnation before God,6 and also beheld the mercy of God in the promised Messiah, who was to be exhibited in time.” “And therefore,” says Calvin in his Institutes, p. 239, “the sacrifices and satisfactory offerings were called Ashemoth, which properly signifies sin itself, to show that Jesus Christ was to come and perform a perfect expiation by giving his own soul to be an asham, that is, a satisfactory oblation.’’7
Therefore, you may assure yourself that just as Christ was always set before the fathers in the Old Testament, to whom they might direct their faith; and just as God never put them in hope of any grace or mercy, nor ever showed himself good to them without Christ;8 even so, the godly in the Old Testament knew Christ by whom they enjoyed these promises of God, and they were joined to him.9 Indeed, the promise of salvation never stood firm till it came to Christ.10 And there was their comfort in all their troubles and distresses, as it is said of Moses in Heb. 11.26, 27, “He endured as seeing him who is invisible,11 esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt; for he looked to the recompense of reward.”
And so, as Ignatius says, the prophets were Christ’s servants who, foreseeing him in spirit, both waited for him as their master, and looked for him as their Lord and Saviour, saying, “He shall come and save us.”
And so says Calvin, Institut. p. 207, “As often as the prophets speak of the blessedness of the faithful, the perfect image that they painted of it was such that it might force men’s minds out of the earth, and of necessity raise them up to consider the felicity of the life to come.” So we may assuredly conclude with Luther, that all the fathers, prophets, and holy kings were righteous, and saved by faith in Christ to come. So indeed, as Calvin says in his Institutes, p. 198, they “were all partakers of one salvation with us.”
The church was in her minority under the law, Gal. 4.1-3.
From the death he had deserved by his sin.
That is, the penalty for his sin under the Law.
Typically.
“The mystical signification of the sacrifices, and especially this rite, some think the apostle means by the doctrine of ‘laying on of hands,’ Heb. 6.2, which typified evangelical faith.” Henry on Lev. 1.4. It is evident that the offerer, by laying his hand on the head of the sacrifice, legally united with it; he laid his sin, or transferred his guilt upon it, in a typical or ceremonial way, Lev. 16.21; the substance and truth of which ceremonial action plainly appears to be faith, or believing on Jesus Christ, which for its own part, is the soul’s assenting to, and acquiescing in, the glorious device of “the Lord’s laying on him the iniquities of us all,” Isa. 53.6.
That is, they saw themselves as condemned in themselves by the holy law.
2Cor 5:21: He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
That is, as an absolute God apart from Christ, but always as a God in Christ.
To Christ, by faith.
It stood, at first, on man’s own obedience: which ground quickly failed: then it came to Christ, where it stood firm, Gen. 3.15. It (namely, ‘‘the seed of the woman”) “shall bruise your head,” namely, the serpent’s head.
“Faith presenting to his view at all times the great angel of the covenant, God the Son, the Redeemer of him and Israel.” Suppl. Poole’s Annot. on the Text.