Note 24 — Chapter IX · THE TRANSITION FROM THE MATERIAL SYSTEM, BY WHICH RELIGIOUS IDEAS WERE CONVEYED THROUGH THE SENSES, TO THE SPIRITUAL SYSTEM, IN WHICH ABSTRACT IDEAS WERE CONVEYED BY WORDS AND PARABLES.

It was necessary that the old system should be destroyed at this time in order to throw the Jews upon Christ as the sacrifice for their sins. Under the old dispensation the sacrifices for sin were allowed to continue to the end. From this sacrifice they were taught to hope for pardon. An idea had been, by the process which God himself instituted, originated in their mind, that death must ensue for sin; but by transferring their sins to the head of the sacrifice, it died as a vicarious expiation, and they lived. It had become a part almost of the Jewish mind, that they could not hope for pardon, unless the sacrifice was offered. They felt that their life was forfeited by sin, and they were unpardoned until the sacrifice was made, and it could be made nowhere else but at Jerusalem. Now God destroyed Jerusalem, and caused the offering for sin to cease, and entirely annihilated the possibility of their ever again expiating their sins by the bloody sacrifices; they were therefore shut up to the doctrine of Christ’s sacrifice for sin. By the destruction of Jerusalem the alternative was presented to the Jews—Accept of Christ’s sacrifice, or you have no propitiation for your sins. Back