# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1928_S24
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

24 Proceedings of the thirty-first convention

drew near, he forgave their sins. How strange, says our reason, that those
sacrifices atoned for sin and that now, in the New Testament, a sacrifice
must still take place by which the sins of the whole world are taken away! How
strange that then high priests served and reconciled the people, and that now,
in the New Covenant, this splendid series ceases and instead of the many there
now stands one as High Priest! If Holy Scripture did not explain this matter to
us, we should stand here before great riddles.

God's Word tells us that the sacrifices which the high priests of the Old
Covenant offered possessed in themselves no power. The Epistle to the Hebrews
has several clear statements to this effect. Let us hear chapter 10:4: "It is
not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins."
Chapter 10:11: "And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering
oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins." In accord with
this it says in chapter 9:9: "Which [the tabernacle] was a figure for the time
then present, in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices, that could not
make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience." Here
it is said that it was by no means the blood of the sacrificial animals that
made God gracious when these sacrifices took place. Sacrifices of this kind
cannot take away sin, cannot atone for it. In and of themselves the sacrifices
of the Old Covenant were therefore worthless. They could not offer to divine
righteousness a sufficient performance. That is the one thing that must be kept
in view if one is to understand the sacrificial service of Israel.

Second, however, we see that the sacrifices were by no means without meaning.
Worthless in and of themselves, they had, according to God's appointment, a
high value after all. They formed a prophecy of the one great sacrifice that
was to be offered to God in the time of the New Testament. This too is attested
with great clarity in Scripture. In Heb. 10:1 we read: "For the law having a
shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things." What the
Law offered in its ceremonies was thus a shadow. A shadow is entirely
insubstantial, something negative; but it has at least the value that it shows
that something is there that casts the shadow. So the sacrifices of the Old
Covenant point to something else. What was that? It was the good things to
come, the goods of the New Covenant which Jesus was to establish, and among
these goods the chief one is the reconciliation with God. From the context in
Heb. 10 it is also clear that precisely the sacrifice of reconciliation of
Jesus is meant as that to which the old sacrifices pointed. For the Old
Testament sacrifices and the sacrifice of Jesus are set over against each
other, and it is shown that what the sacrifices repeated yearly by the priests
could not do was accomplished by the one sacrifice of Jesus. Likewise the
tabernacle with all its gifts and sacrifices is called a type, chapter 9:9. So
we have a full right to regard the high priests and the sacrifices of Israel as
fingers that pointed into the future, to the great work of the Savior.
Prophecies they were, and they have been aptly called real prophecies
[Realweissagungen] because they consisted in actions. Insofar as they pointed
to Christ they were real means of grace and offered the forgiveness of sins to
the Israelites. One may not unsuitably compare the sacrifices of the Old
Testament with our paper money. Our paper money has in and of itself no value.
It is mere paper.