Instructions for the people on the fat and on the blood.
The prohibition of fat was to secure the rights of Jehovah from invasion. The fat was a gift sanctified to God. The prohibition of the blood was to keep up the idea of atonement, the blood being regarded as the soul of the animal which God had appointed as the medium of atonement for the soul of man. Here is—
I. THE SUPREMACY OF THE DIVINE CLAIMS.
1. The recognition by the conscience in doctrine, in the place religion holds in the life.
2. The social state should be regulated on this principle. Man must not invade God's rights if he would retain God's blessing. Observance of the sabbath. The law of nations rests on the Law of God.
3. The individual believer will take care that he robs God of nothing. His service demands the fat, the choicest faculties, the deepest feelings, the largest gifts.
II. THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD MADE THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF MAN. Life for life. The blood sanctified, the blood saved. On the foundation of a perfect reconciliation alone can a true humanity be preserved and developed. Mistake of the ancient Greeks in worshipping humanity unredeemed, leading to animalism, and eventually to the substitution of mere art for morality, therefore the degradation of humanity. The elevation of the soul is the elevation of the whole man; "Im ganzen, guten, schoenen resolut zu leben," is a motto only to be adopted in the Christian sense. "He that sayeth his life shall lose it;" he that offers it up to God shall redeem it.—R.