What did the Law mean when it referred to a lasting ordinance?

p107 [G Biava] [To the same.] [From the Italian.] The word "everlasting" signifies that this order was not provisional and temporary, but established by God for all time, until there should no longer be a priest: <span style="font-family: 'H ebraica'">ml/[</span> Olam is thus used. If there were no longer a priest upon earth, the order would no longer have its application.

Let us again choose some examples from every day life. When a person says to his friend, "I give you this book, it is yours for ever," he thereby simply expresses his intention not to ask for the book back again so long as it exists. But would the friend be in any doubt as to the meaning of the expression for ever? We believe not. Or, when Paul writing to Philemon relative to the runaway slave Onesimus says, "For perhaps he therefore departed from thee for a season that thou shouldest receive him for ever" (Philemon 15), will therefore the meaning of the word "for ever," applied to a relationship which at any rate ended with this earthly life, present any difficulty to the unprejudiced reader? Certainly not: and when in Exodus and Leviticus the above mentioned "memorials, statutes, and ordinances" are spoken of as "everlasting" in order to give expression to this unchangeable character and continuous validity whilst the Jewish dispensation lasted, is it therefore conceivable that on this account there is any want of clearness as to the expression "for ever?" Now if, in the above-mentioned passages, the meaning of "for ever" denotes the unchangeableness and continuity of a condition during the existence of another state of things bound with it, where is then that other state of things relative to the everlasting condemnation of the wicked which is of limited duration and in connection with the eternity of condemnation?

I gather that this term "for ever" means as long as time will last. The main thought in the term is that it will never be altered or passed on to another as the priesthood of Aaron was.

"But," object our opponents, "it is proved that the word 'eternal' used in scripture does not always denote an endless continuance, but often a temporal limited state." Accordingly the Lord in Exodus 12:14, 17, and Leviticus 3:17; Leviticus 6:18, 28, relative to the passover and certain offerings, says to Israel, "This shall be a memorial, ye shall keep it a feast for ever, an everlasting statute, an ordinance for ever." It is indisputable that here the word "everlasting" cannot signify a never ending condition, because the whole Jewish economy under the law, with all its memorials, statutes and ordinances, has found its end in Christ. We grant this fully, but at the same time we dispute the right to draw conclusions from these passages, which could cause any erroneous apprehensions as to the question of condemnation.

Now in this passage of the 24th of Leviticus, what have you got? You have one of the most expressive and beautiful figures that can possibly engage the spiritual mind; you have in those twelve loaves ranged upon the golden table before the Lord, the distinct figure of the indissoluble unity and yet the perfect distinctness of Israel's twelve tribes. Now there is a grand truth — the perfect distinctness and yet the indissoluble unity of Israel's twelve tribes, and you may have noticed — I do not think you could have avoided noticing — the frequent occurrence in this chapter of the words "continual, perpetual, everlasting." Again and again these words occur in reading this passage. What do they mean, beloved brethren? They mean this, that the unity of God's people Israel was not a thing of today or tomorrow; it was a grand verity, an eternal truth of God foreshadowed in those twelve loaves on the golden table, before the Lord.

"Separation from evil" is here what is enjoined upon all who draw near to God, or occupy themselves with His things; and this is an "everlasting statute" which abides for all times and dispensations.

The perpetuity of the light is what the numerical place seems to insist on here. The eternal light brings every thing to the test of eternal righteousness; and thus alone is the sovereignty of God maintained over the soul. How solemnly is it insisted on as to be "a statute forever"!

One feature that comes out in this law of the burnt offering is that a permanent character was given to it. There was to be a continual token of activity at the altar with regard to burnt sacrifice.

These two ordinances, then, of the daily and the Sabbath-offering, fall into one section. Together, they give us the perpetual offering, — typically, the abiding preciousness of Christ for time and for eternity, eternity confirming and emphasizing only what every day of time has witnessed to before.

"An everlasting statute." This would warn us against modern innovations in the things of God. This feast has opened out in type the grand answer to all that Christ has done, and all made effective in the Christian company to-day. The truth of this all came out at the beginning of the dispensation and we are wise if we persevere in it to the end. It is not only "in all your dwellings" but also "throughout your generations." There might have been in subsequent generations those who thought the feast was out-of-date. Who knows but it might have been this very evil which ultimately reduced them to "feasts of the Jews." An everlasting statute would guard the faithful from any thought of this kind. Rather, in these days of modernism in the things of God, let us "earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered to the saints." Jude 3. We will then be able to answer to all the responsibilities and enjoy all the privileges which are ours as the new meat-offering and, keeping these things inviolate in affection in our souls, produce that which will be in truth, a feast to our God.