Wendelin's "Christian Theology": Doctrine of the Old Offer under the Old Covenant, Part 1

THESIS I:  Hitherto the instrumental causes and parts of the offer.  The species follow, which are two, the old and the new offer.

THESIS II:  The old offer is a blessing of God, wherein the Mediator or Messiah, at length to be born, He offered from the creation of the world to His birth, by words and signs more obscure, to His people.

THESIS III:  The old offer, delivered in words, was containing the revelation and promise of the Mediator to be exhibited, and of the blessing, partly bestowed, partly to be conferred, by Him; and also the commandment to believe and to repent:  but all more obscurely.

EXPLANATION:  I.  The Promise in the Old Testament was more obscure from the beginning, comprehended in general sentences.  The seed of the woman shall bruise the head of the serpent, Genesis 3:15.  In thy seed shall all the nations be blessed, Genesis 22:18.  The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, etc., until Shiloh come, Genesis 49:10.

II.  The commandment to believe upon the Mediator was not so express in the old offer, but implicit, or indirect.  It was Implicit, because it was shut up in the prophecies concerning the Christ:  for, when it was said, the seed of the woman shall bruise the head of the serpent, this ought to have been understood, ye ought to believe upon that seed, and place your hope in Him.  It was Indirect through the law.  For, since they understood, that by the law they were not able to be saved, because they were not able to fulfill it, they were being driven to grace through the invocation of the Mediator, and the placing of faith in Him.

THESIS IV:  The Signs, whereby the old offer was confirmed, were sacrifices and sacraments.

THESIS V:  Sacrifices were propitiatory or Eucharistic, the former of which were representing the sacrifice of the Messiah to come as truly expiatory:  the latter were testifying to the gratitude of the people under the law for benefits received, both corporal and spiritual.

EXPLANATION:  I.  Propitiatory or expiatory sacrifices were the slaughtering of animals, commanded by God, for the legal, or ceremonial, expiation of sins, whereby above all the expiatory sacrifice of the Messiah was represented:  as the Epistle to the Hebrews teaches.  Eucharistic sacrifices were all sorts of offering of animals, grain, flour, oil, etc., whereby men were testifying, that all that they might have they received from God, and were in turn ready to devote them unto His glory.  By these were also adumbrated the benefits of the death of the coming Messiah.

A precise description of the sacrifices is found in Leviticus.  Before the Mosaic Polity, they are not expressly read to have been commanded and instituted by God:  yet, since they were ever used by the Saints, it is not doubtful, that from the beginning they were instituted by God.

II.  That the anniversary sacrifice was a type of Christ, the Socinians conceded, drawn by the evidence from the Epistle to the Hebrews:  they deny this concerning the rest.  But, contrary to the same Epistle, in chapter 9 of which all carnal purification through sacrificial victims is compared with spiritual cleansing through Christ, and are called earthly ὑποδείγματα/patterns of heavenly things, verses 13, 23.  So also in Hebrews 10:11, the daily sacrifices are compared with Christ’s sacrifice.

And whence, I ask, would that distasteful rite of sacrifice (which sort was in the slaughtering of sheep and shedding of blood) have had the force of sanctification and of placating God, except by leading believers to the sacrifice of the coming Messiah?  How would God have been able to be pleased with the blood of sheep, unless He had willed the blood of His Son to be commended through it?  Whence, with the sacrifice of the Redeemer accomplished, all the sacrifices of the law were abrogated, which Daniel had predicted would be the case.

The same Socinus deceives and is deceived, when he denies, that there were sacrifices instituted for grave sins.  But Moses testifies the contrary in Leviticus 16.  The yearly sacrifice was offered for all the sins of the people of God, Leviticus 16:14-16.  In the accomplishment of this alone was it necessary to bring the blood into the holy of holies:  in the others the same was not required.

THESIS VI:  The ordinary and perpetual Sacraments of the old offer were two, Circumcision and Passover.

EXPLANATION:  Under the Old Testament there were a number of extraordinary sacraments.  Before the fall, the sacrament of immortality was the tree of life, and the sacrament of probation was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  After the fall, the flood, the crossing of the Red Sea, the abiding under the cloud, the manna given from heaven, the water flowing from the rock.  The sacramental use of these the New Testament clearly teaches, 1 Peter 3:21; 1 Corinthians 10:1-4, 9.  To this also pertain the washings, and especially the ark of the covenant, the brazen serpent:  see the mystical explanation of the ark of the covenant in Bucanus’ locis communibus, book 46, question 44.

THESIS VII:  Circumcision was a rite instituted and commanded by God, whereby all the males among the people of Israel, on the eighth day from birth, were circumcised, as a sign of covenant entered into with Abraham and his posterity, the Jews; and sealing the righteousness bestowed upon faith through the Messiah to come.

EXPLANATION:  I.  See the history of God’s institution of circumcision in Genesis 17:  the words of verses 10 and 11 are, This is my covenant between me and you, and thy seed after thee, which ye shall keep, that every male among you shall be circumcised:  therefore, ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin, so that it might be a sign of the covenant between me and you.  Where it is rightly to be observed, that circumcision is sometimes called the covenant of God, sometimes the sign of the covenant.  The former expression is sacramental and improper, whereby to the sign is attributed the name of the thing signified.  The latter is proper:  for, circumcision was not properly the very covenant of God, which God had already initiated with Abraham before circumcision, but rather a sign of the covenant entered into.  So also the bread in the institution of the Lord’s Supper is called the body of Christ,[1] because it is a sacred sign or sacrament of the body of Christ.

II.  Now, that circumcision was a sign and seal of the grace bestowed through Messiah, it is manifest out of Paul, Romans 4:11, where it is expressly called a seal of the righteousness of faith, which was bestowed upon Abraham already justified by faith.  That external and bodily circumcision was also a sign and seal of internal and spiritual circumcision, that is, of regeneration and justification, is able not obscurely able to be demonstrated even out of the Old Testament, even indeed from those passages in which circumcision is referred to the internal sanctification of the heart and mind, as in Deuteronomy 10:16, ye shall circumcise the foreskin of your heart; and in Deuteronomy 30:6, Jehovah thy God will circumcise thy heart (or thy soul), and the heart of thy seed, to love Jehovah thy God, etc.:  in Jeremiah 4:4, circumcise yourself to Jehovah, and take away the foreskins of your heart.

III.  The infant Christ also received circumcision in His body:

(1.)  So that He might demonstrate the truth of the flesh assumed.

(2.)  So that He might show that He was belonging to the holy race of Abraham.

(3.)  So that He might sanctify in His own body the circumcision of the ancient Fathers, and confirm the promises made to them.

(4.)  So that He might be a suitable minister of the circumcision, Romans 15:8.

(5.)  So that He might bind Himself to the keeping of the entire law, Galatians 5:3.

(6.)  So that, just as He had put on flesh like to our sinful flesh,[2] He might also make use of the Symbol, which was signifying the removal of the guilt of sin.

(7.)  So that He might leave an example of obedience for us.

* IV.  It is asked:  whether of old it was lawful to delay circumcision beyond the eighth day.

Response:  The affirmative appears probable.  Seeing that for certain reasons circumcision was intermitted of old in the desert even for forty years, since no space for resting was given to the people.  Whence by analogous reasoning the Jews also determined, that an infant was not to be circumcised on the eighth day, if there were manifest danger of sickness or other harm.

[1] Matthew 26:26; Mark 14:22; Luke 22:19; 1 Corinthians 10:16; 11:24.

[2] Romans 8:3.