cheenc03a.pdf

SACRIFICE
on their minds, and no longer remembers their sins and
iniquities (10x68, cp 888)-a real remission which
makes all other sacrifice uselerr. Tua things are
especially noteworthy in the author's treatment of the
subject; firrr. the importance attached to the 5ubjectii.e
effect of Chriit's blood in purging the consciencr of man ;
and. second, the ultimate end, the creation of a new
way of access to God by which men may confidently
draw near to him. In ti,ese conce~tions we see a
positive ethical and religious interpretation and valuation
of the death of Christ going far beyond the mere sacrificiai
expinrion of sins or forensic justification of the
sinner. How the blood of Chrirt has there effects the
writer doer not resect, any mare than he or hi$ contemporaries
reflected on the mode of operation of the
blood of the 0T sacrifices.
The references to the death of Christ in I Pet. are
in the nature of allurions rather than of doctrinal state.
69, Pet, men' or argunrent ; their phraseology
often suggests reminiscences of earlier
NT writinqs. Chrirt died once for sins, a righteous
man for unrighteous men, thvt he might bring us to
God (3.8); he suffered for his followers, leaving them
an example (211, cp 41): persecuted Christians are
partakers of Chiiit'r sufferings ( 4 ~ cp ~ . 41, etc.) ; he
carried their sins in his body on to the cross (2z4)--the
whole passage, vu. zr-zi, is an application of 1s. 53 to
Christ ; they are redeemed (ihurpi58qre) from the foolish
way of life they learned from their fathers by costly
blood as of an unblemished unspotted lamb, Chrirt
(118 f ); one of the ends of Christians' election is
sprinkling with the l~iood of Christ (Iz). The latter
phrase ruggeatr a pairage in Heb. (12a+. cp 102.
9r3191r), in which epistle alone the expression occurs.
m 1 .sf it is not improbable that the blameless lamb
of Is. 537 (cp g) is in the mind of the writer, who
maker such large use of thnt chapter in 22x8 ; for
the rest cp Eph. I r ('redemption [daohiirpw#