A pamphlet has been sent me entitled "Abolished Rites, "with a request that a word be given in help and food as to the proper application of Heb. 9:10. In the tractate referred to, the passage is made to mean that baptism and the Lord's Supper were instituted in the early church, by the Lord arid His apostles, to last "until He come, "which is taken to refer to His providential coming at Jerusalem's destruction. These precious emblematic observances are said to be included in the "divers washings (or baptisms) and carnal ordinances, imposed [on them] until the time of reformation." This latter expression is made to be co-incident with the destruction of the city and temple by the Romans. Much stress is laid on the spiritual character of this dispensation, and ordinances of any kind are declared to be out of all harmony with it.
How any thoughtful reader of Heb. 9 can fail to see that the "abolished rites " of that chapter are the ritualistic services of the legal dispensation, is beyond my comprehension. The writer's difficulty evidently arose from a faulty understanding of the last part of verse 8-"While as the first tabernacle was yet standing." He jumps to the conclusion that all forms or ceremonies celebrated prior to the actual leveling of the temple, are to be considered as abolished afterwards. A little study would have made known to him that the true meaning of the clause is "While the first tabernacle had a standing." J.N.D. renders it "While as yet the first tabernacle has [its] standing." No matter how long the temple as a building existed, it had no standing before God after the rending of the veil. At that moment all typical ceremonies and ordinances were abolished.
But Christian baptism and the Lord's Supper were both communicated to us after the rending of the veil. It was in resurrection the Lord Jesus gave commandment to His disciples concerning baptism (Matt. 28:19); and it was as glorified He expressed His desire to Paul the apostle in regard to the breaking of bread (i Cor. 11:23-25). Nor have these directions ever been countermanded or these hallowed ordinances been abolished.
It is true that we live in a spiritual dispensation. But we are not merely spirits. We have our bodies still. And baptism and the Lord's Supper are, in a very real and precious sense, the links between the outward and the inward. He who talks of spiritual communion, while ignoring the "bread which we break," and "the cup of blessing which we bless,"-the " communion of the body," and of " the blood of Christ"-makes it manifest that he considers his own thoughts to be above the written (and material) Scriptures. Even as he who glories in the Spirit's baptism, while decrying baptism in water as taught by the Spirit, shows himself un-subject to Him whose Lordship he is supposed to own.
A godly member of the Society of Friends was once convinced of this by a visit to various mission stations in India. In Calcutta educated natives said to him," Your Christianity is just what we like; it has no baptism to separate us from our people, and no Lord's Supper where we eat with all Christians and break our caste; it is all spiritual, and we can hold it spiritually while remaining where we are!" He owned frankly that he saw in this the wisdom of God in giving these ordinances to the Church. Both speak of the Cross, and are precious reminders of the death of Christ, never to be abolished "till He come." H. A. I.