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The Story of Redemption
would have been no necessity for the ordinance of circumcision.
And if the descendants of Abraham had kept the covenant, of which
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circumcision was a token or pledge, they would never have gone into
idolatry or been suffered to go down into Egypt, and there would
have been no necessity of God’s proclaiming His law from Sinai
and engraving it upon tables of stone and guarding it by definite
directions in the judgments and statutes of Moses.
The Judgments and Statutes
Moses wrote these judgments and statutes from the mouth of
God while he was with Him in the mount. If the people of God had
obeyed the principles of the Ten Commandments, there would have
been no need of the specific directions given to Moses, which he
wrote in a book, relative to their duty to God and to one another.
The definite directions which the Lord gave to Moses in regard
to the duty of His people to one another, and to the stranger, are
the principles of the Ten Commandments simplified and given in a
definite manner, that they need not err.
The Lord instructed Moses definitely in regard to the ceremonial
sacrifices which were to cease at the death of Christ. The system
of sacrifices foreshadowed the offering of Christ as a Lamb without
blemish.
The Lord first established the system of sacrificial offerings
with Adam after his fall, which he taught to his descendants. This
system was corrupted before the Flood, and by those who separated
themselves from the faithful followers of God and engaged in the
building of the tower of Babel. They sacrificed to gods of their
own make instead of the God of heaven. They offered sacrifices
not because they had faith in the Redeemer to come but because
they thought they should please their gods by offering a great many
beasts upon polluted idol altars. Their superstition led them to great
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extravagances. They taught the people that the more valuable the
sacrifice the greater pleasure would it give their idol gods, and the
greater would be the prosperity and riches of their nation. Hence,
human beings were often sacrificed to these senseless idols. Those
nations had laws and regulations to control the actions of the people,
which were cruel in the extreme. Their laws were made by those