Perpetual ceremonies

The Torah indicates that the ceremonies of the law were to be done perpetually. But this cannot, Edwards says (Misc. 1027 in The Miscellanies, 833-1152 ) be taken in the strictest sense. Among other things, the prophets predict that the entire earth and all nations will worship the true God and follow His commandments, and it is simply impossible that all nations follow the specific dictates of Torah: “these prophecies are in effect plain declarations that the ceremonial law should cease, because these laws were not made for the whole earth, anymore than a garment fitted only to the body of one man is made to be a covering for a city. ‘Tis a law of such a nature that it is not only difficult but utterly impossible to be observed by the world of mankind in general” (p. 363).

Edwards enumerates some of the reasons: “‘Tis impossible for all the males to go up three times in a year to Jerusalem and the temple: it would be impossible for half of them to get there once a year, and if they could, it would be impossible either for the temple or Jerusalem to hold them, or for the sons of Aaron or the posterity of Levi to officiate for them; an altar must be as large as the whole mountain of the house to contain their sacrifices. The feast of the first fruits of barley harvest could not be observed by the whole earth at the time of the Jewish Passover, nor the first fruits of wheat harvest at Pentecost, nor the feast of ingathering at the feast of tabernacles in the seventh month. For these fruits are not ripe at the same time in all countries; in some countries ‘tis still autumn when it is spring in Judea, and midwinter when there it is midsummer, and in others spring when midsummer there. Neither do all countries afford those fruits or those kinds of animals there required to be offered; nor can manslayers all over the world flee to their cities of refuge” (359-60).

At the same time, there is a sense in which the ceremonies of the law are perpetual. Edwards reasons from the fact that the tabernacle was replaced by the temple:

“It is implied in many of the precepts of the law that the tabernacle should continue forever, through their generations, . . . yet the tabernacle did not continue always, but by God’s own appointment; after some ages it ceased, and the temple, an exceeding different kind of habitation, succeeded in the room of it. So that by God’s own appointment, it thenceforward became impossible to perform these things in the tabernacle of the congregation. So that the tabernacle was continued no otherwise than as it gave place to something greater and more excellent, that succeeded in the room of it, and served instead of it.”

On this basis, Edwards reasons, in an Augustinian vein, that the church’s institutions continue the institutions of the temple insofar as they are greater and more excellent than the temple ceremonies: “in this sense all things belonging to the ceremonial law are continued to this day: they have given place to something greater and more excellent, of a different nature, that succeed in the room of them, and serve instead of them, and are the substance of which they were the shadows.”