Extract from a paper compiled by the Wilston Ecclesia in their discussions with the Brisbane (Petrie Terrace) Ecclesia over the latter's acceptance of Clean Flesh in fellowship - 1971

“Robert Roberts on Christ’s Benefit From His Sacrifice”

The quotations are from “The Law of Moses” written in the year of his death - 1898.

Concerning Sacrifical Blood and it’s relation to Christ’s own redemption -

“But the sacrificial blood was applied to everything as well—Aaron and his sons included (see Lev. 8:14–15; 23–24). An atonement had to be made by the shedding and the sprinkling of blood for and upon them all (Lev. 16:33). As Paul remarks, “almost all things by the law are purged with blood” (Heb. 9:22). Now all these things were declared to be “patterns of things in the heavens”, which it is admitted on all hands converge upon and have their substance in Christ. There must, therefore, be a sense in which Christ (the antitypical Aaron, the antitypical altar, the antitypical mercy-seat, the antitypical everything), must not only have been sanctified by the action of the antitypical oil of the Holy Spirit, but purged by the antitypical blood of his own sacrifice.

This conclusion is supposed to be weakened by the statement of Lev. 16:16, that the atonement for the holy place, altar, etc., was to be made “because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel and because of their transgressions in all their sins”, That is, it is argued from this, that the holy things would have had no uncleanness in themselves apart from the uncleanness of the children of Israel. This must be granted, but it must also be recognized that because the children of Israel were sinful and polluted, the holy things were reckoned as having contracted defilement in having been fabricated by them and through remaining in their midst. This cannot be denied on a full survey of the testimony. They were ceremonially unclean, because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel, and had to be cleansed by the holy oil and the sacrificial blood before they were acceptable in the Mosaic service.

Now, this is part of the Mosaic figure. There must be an antitype to it. What was it? The holy things, we know, in brief, are Christ. He must, therefore, have been the subject of a personal cleansing in the process by which he opened the way of sanctification for his people. If the typical holy things contracted defilement from connection with a sinful congregation, were not the antitypical (Christ) holy things in a similar state, through derivation on his mother’s side from a sinful race? If not, how came they to need purging with his own “better sacrifice”? (Heb. 9:23).” Pg. 170-1

Pages 90-91 -

“The type is before us; the antitype is in Christ. He is the altar, the book of the law, and the other things that come after. The sprinkling of the typical blood on both by Moses prefigured the operation of divine love and wisdom in Christ’s own sacrifice. It was a sacrifice operative on himself first of all: for he is the beginning of the new creation, the firstfruits of the new harvest, the foundation of the new temple. He was the nucleus of a new and healthy life developed among men, for the healing of all who should become incorporate with it. As such, it was needful that he should himself be the subject of the process and the reaper of the results. Hence the testimony that “the God of peace brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant” (Heb. 13:20), and that by his own blood, entering into the holy place, he obtained (middle, or self-subjective, state of the verb) eternal redemption (” for us” is interpolated) (9:12). The Father saved him from death for his obedience unto death (Heb. 5:7–9; Phil. 2:8–9; Rom. 5:19)

The common view which disconnects Christ from the operation of his own sacrifice would have required that Moses should have left the altar and the book of the law unsprinkled. These were parts of what Paul terms “the patterns of things in the heavens”, concerning which he remarks that it was necessary they should be purified with the sacrifices ordained. The application of this to Christ as the antitype he makes instantly; “but (it was necessary that) the heavenly things themselves (should be purified) with better sacrifices than these” (Heb. 9:23). The phrase “the heavenly things” is an expression covering all the high, holy and exalted things of which the Mosaic pattern was but a foreshadowing. They are all comprehended in Christ, who is the nucleus from which all will be developed, the foundation on which all will be built. The statement is therefore a declaration that it was necessary that Christ should first of all be purified with better sacrifices than the Mosaic: “Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place”; “not into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us” (Heb. 9:12, 23–24).”

Page 244 -

“… —he was the Lord’s “Holy One”—separated and dedicated from the very beginning for this very work of taking it away—without iniquity himself, as prefigured by the spotlessness of the sacrificial animals, yet bearing in himself the hereditary effects of sin, that he might remove them by death and resurrection for all who should take his name and be approved by him.”

These quotations reveal what Robert Roberts’ mind was on clause 8, 10 and 12 of the B.A.S.F.