one of the two things is true; either the Saviour, instead of ful filling, has destroyed the greater part of the law, the daily service of the Holy which occupied the whole year except one day, the tenth of the seventh month; or else He fulfilled the whole law except one three hundred and sixtieth part of it before the Gospel Dispensation began, and before He was anointed as the Messiah to fulfil the law and the prophets.
One of these two conclusions is inevitable on the hypotheses that the Gospel Dispensation and the atonement made in it, is the antitype of the legal tenth day, and the atonement made in it.
Upon which of these horns will they hang?
If on the former, the declaration, "I came not to destroy the law", pierces them; but if they choose the latter, it then becomes them to prove that the law, which had a shadow of good things to come, was fulfilled within itself, that the shadow and substance filled the same place and time; also they will need to prove that the entire atonement for the forgiveness of sins was made before the Lamb was slain with whose blood the atonement was to be made.
Now it must be clear to every one, that if the antitype of the yearly service (Hebrews 9:7), began at the first Advent, the antitype of the daily (Hebrews 9:6), had been previously fulfilled; and, as the atonement for forgiveness was a part of that daily service, they are involved in the conclusion that there has been no forgiveness of sins under the Gospel Dispensation.
Such a theory is wholly at war with the entire genius of the Gospel Dispensation, and stands rebuked, not only by Moses and Paul, but by the teaching and works of our Saviour and His commission to His apostles, by their subsequent teaching and the history of the Christian church. But again, they say the atonement was made and finished on Calvary, when the Lamb of God expired.
So men have taught us, and so the churches and world 19 believe; but it is none the more true or sacred on that account, if unsupported by Divine authority.
Perhaps few or none who hold that opinion have ever tested the foundation on which it rests.