Hobbes - Leviathan.pdf

To the office of a redeemer, that is, of one that payeth the
ransom of sin, which ransom is death, it appertaineth that he was
sacrificed, and thereby bore upon his own head and carried away from
us our iniquities, in such sort as God had required. Not that the
death of one man, though without sin, can satisfy for the offences
of all men, in the rigour of justice, but in the mercy of God, that
ordained such sacrifices for sin as He was pleased in His mercy to
accept. In the old law (as we may read, Leviticus, 16) the Lord
required that there should, every year once, be made an atonement
for the sins of all Israel, both priests and others; for the doing
whereof Aaron alone was to sacrifice for himself and the priests a
young bullock, and for the rest of the people he was to receive from
them two young goats, of which he was to sacrifice one; but as for the
other, which was the scapegoat, he was to lay his hands on the head
thereof, and by a confession of the iniquities of the people, to lay
them all on that head, and then by some opportune man to cause the
goat to be led into the wilderness, and there to escape and carry away
with him the iniquities of the people. As the sacrifice of the one
goat was a sufficient, because an acceptable, price for the ransom
of all Israel; so the death of the Messiah is a sufficient price for
the sins of all mankind, because there was no more required. Our
Saviour Christ's sufferings seem to be here figured as clearly as in
the oblation of Isaac, or in any other type of him in the Old
Testament. He was both the sacrificed goat and the scapegoat: "He
was oppressed, and he was afflicted; he opened not his mouth; he is
brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep is dumb before
the shearer, so opened he not his mouth":* here is the sacrificed
goat. "He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows";*(2) and
again, "the Lord hath laid upon him the iniquities of us all":*(3) and
so he is the scapegoat. "He was cut off from the land of the living
for the transgression of my people":*(4) there again he is the
sacrificed goat. And again, "he shall bear their sins":*(5) he is
the scapegoat. Thus is the Lamb of God equivalent to both those goats;
sacrificed, in that he died; and escaping, in his resurrection;
being raised opportunely by his Father, and removed from the
habitation of men in his ascension.
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* Isaiah, 53. 7
*(2) Ibid., 53. 4
*(3) Ibid., 53. 6
*(4) Ibid., 53. 8
*(5) Ibid., 53. 11
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For as much therefore as he that redeemeth hath no title to the
thing redeemed, before the redemption and ransom paid, and this ransom
was the death of the redeemer, it is manifest that our Saviour, as
man, was not king of those that he redeemed, before he suffered death;
that is, during that time he conversed bodily on the earth. I say he
was not then king in present, by virtue of the pact which the faithful
make with him in baptism: nevertheless, by the renewing of their
pact with God in baptism, they were obliged to obey him for king,
under his Father, whensoever he should be pleased to take the
kingdom upon him. According whereunto, our Saviour himself expressly
saith, "My kingdom is not of this world."* Now seeing the Scripture
maketh mention but of two worlds; this that is now, and shall remain
to the day of judgement, which is therefore also called the last
day; and that which shall be after the day of judgement, when there