In contrasting the offerings made under the law with the offering of Christ, the apostle

makes much of the fact that the law offered sacrifices continually, but that Christ offered

but one sacrifice, and one only. Otherwise, said the apostle, it would be necessary that

Christ should suffer often since the foundation of the world. We know from Heb. 9: 15

that the sacrifice of Christ was retrospective, and was "for the redemption of the

transgressions that were under the first covenant", and also from Rom. 3: 25 we learn

that the offering of Christ declared God's righteousness in remitting the sins of the past.

The reference to the foundation of the world is easy to understand. The apostle, however,

makes another statement in Heb. 9: 26, "But now once in the end of the world hath He

appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself" (epi sunteleia ton aionon), "upon an

ending together of the ages". The LXX uses the word sunteleia in Exod. 23: 14-16 in

a way which may help us. "Three times shalt thou keep a feast unto Me in the year":--

Once again may we be permitted to say that those to whom the apostle wrote knew the

law and much of its significance? The instructed Hebrew saw in the feasts of Israel, as

set out in Lev. 23:, the plan of the ages. He saw that Christ was the true Passover and

the true Firstfruits. The feast of the seventh month, the sunteleia, would vividly bring to

mind the sunteleia of the ages. It has been objected that "the consummation of the ages"

has not arrived, and therefore this passage as it stands in the A.V. is not true. The same

objection can be lodged against Heb. 1: 1, for the period called "these last days" was

over 1900 years ago.

When Christ was born Gal. 4: 4 declares that it was fullness of time. We must avoid

the error of introducing truth that belongs to another dispensation to confuse the teaching

of earlier revelations. Paul's prison ministry is, so far as time is concerned, a parenthesis.

During the Acts period the coming of the Lord was expected to take place during the

lifetime of the believer then living. Peter had no "difficulties" when he joined together

the "blood and fire and pillars of smoke" that have not yet come with the Pentecostal gifts

that are long past. Moreover the objection to the application of the sunteleia of the ages

to the time of the offering of Christ robs the passage of another vital connection, viz.,

the Day of Atonement.

The Day of Atonement, like the feast of the sunteleia, took place in the seventh

month, after the interval that provides a typical anticipation of the parenthesis that has

actually come. Yet at the time of writing the apostle finds no difficulty in speaking of

Christ's sacrifice in the terms of the Day of Atonement. The condition of things during

the Acts is likened to the time when the high priest had entered into the holiest of all,

during which time the people waited for His second appearing, when they were assured

of forgiveness and acceptance. The fact that this second appearing did not take place,

that Israel's forgiveness and acceptance is deferred, that it was all anticipated in the plan