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The writing and correspondence of Hastings Rashdall:

The early years - to 1905

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Sermon preached in the University Chapel, Aberdeen, January 16th, 1892 on The Idea of Sacrifice

Extracts:

There is no book of the New Testament which is so full of sacrificial language as the Epistle to the Hebrews. Its author has contributed more perhaps than even St. Paul or St. Peter to fix and stereotype the idea of sacrifice in connexion with the death of Christ.
And yet it would, I think, be easy to show that many of the theories that have grown out of his teaching are the very opposite to what he intended. To understand him, we must think ourselves back into the mental atmosphere of a world in which the idea of religion was inseparable from the idea of sacrifice. He was labouring to persuade Jewish Christians that for them the sacrificial system of the old world ought to be regarded as a thing of the past To effect his purpose he had to put himself at their point of view, to assume (with them) that sacrifice was somehow essential to the wiping away of sin. And therefore he tries by every subtlety of interpretation known to Alexandrian Judaism to show that the old sacrifices had been types of a true sacrifice yet to come, the one all-sufficient sacrifice which had been offered by Jesus the Messiah in His death upon the cross. It is not necessary to suppose that he analysed very precisely in what sense sacrifice was necessary to take away sin. He was content to acquiescence in the ordinary Jewish point of view.

The whole sermon may be downloaded here - in .pdf format

“Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not . . . . in burnt offerings and sacrifice of sin thou hast no pleasure” (so the writer quotes one of the most anti-ritualistic utterances in the Old Testament), “Then said I, Lo, I come, in the volume of the book it is written of me, that I should do Thy Will, O my God.” Obedience to the Will of God is the only true sacrifice! Half of the crudeness of the old Atonement doctrines would be gone if that had been always remembered. Although he does speak in the symbolic language which his hearers would appreciate of the new covenant between God and the spiritual Israel as ratified by the blood of His Son, he is always trying to lead their minds up from the merely physical to the moral aspect of sacrifice. The essence of the new covenant was not a physical participation in blood but a union of wills. “This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them on their hearts; and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people.”

Back to "Explore the writings of Rashdall - The Early Years to 1905"

The Theology of Substitution is happily melting away before that representation of the Atonement as a revelation of the love of God which, though it has never been without a witness in Christian Theology, is associated especially with the teaching of Abelard and in modern times with that of Frederick Denison Maurice.

The writing and correspondence of Hastings Rashdall: The early years - to 1905			HastingsRashdall.org.uk
Sermon preached in the University Chapel, Aberdeen, January 16th, 1892 on The Idea of Sacrifice
Extracts:
There is no book of the New Testament which is so full of sacrificial language as the Epistle to the Hebrews. Its author has contributed more perhaps than even St. Paul or St. Peter to fix and stereotype the idea of sacrifice in connexion with the death of Christ. And yet it would, I think, be easy to show that many of the theories that have grown out of his teaching are the very opposite to what he intended. To understand him, we must think ourselves back into the mental atmosphere of a world in which the idea of religion was inseparable from the idea of sacrifice. He was labouring to persuade Jewish Christians that for them the sacrificial system of the old world ought to be regarded as a thing of the past To effect his purpose he had to put himself at their point of view, to assume (with them) that sacrifice was somehow essential to the wiping away of sin. And therefore he tries by every subtlety of interpretation known to Alexandrian Judaism to show that the old sacrifices had been types of a true sacrifice yet to come, the one all-sufficient sacrifice which had been offered by Jesus the Messiah in His death upon the cross. It is not necessary to suppose that he analysed very precisely in what sense sacrifice was necessary to take away sin. He was content to acquiescence in the ordinary Jewish point of view.			The whole sermon may be downloaded here - in .pdf format
	“Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not . . . . in burnt offerings and sacrifice of sin thou hast no pleasure” (so the writer quotes one of the most anti-ritualistic utterances in the Old Testament), “Then said I, Lo, I come, in the volume of the book it is written of me, that I should do Thy Will, O my God.” Obedience to the Will of God is the only true sacrifice! Half of the crudeness of the old Atonement doctrines would be gone if that had been always remembered. Although he does speak in the symbolic language which his hearers would appreciate of the new covenant between God and the spiritual Israel as ratified by the blood of His Son, he is always trying to lead their minds up from the merely physical to the moral aspect of sacrifice. The essence of the new covenant was not a physical participation in blood but a union of wills. “This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them on their hearts; and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people.”
Back to "Explore the writings of Rashdall - The Early Years to 1905"		The Theology of Substitution is happily melting away before that representation of the Atonement as a revelation of the love of God which, though it has never been without a witness in Christian Theology, is associated especially with the teaching of Abelard and in modern times with that of Frederick Denison Maurice.