15 And many signs, and wonders, and types and shadows showed he unto them, concerning his coming; and also holy prophets spake unto them concerning his coming; and yet they hardened their hearts, and understood not that the law of Moses availeth nothing except it were through the atonement of his blood.
(Mosiah 3:15)
Edwards
We observed before that the light that the church enjoyed from the fall of man till Christ came was like the light which we enjoy in the night, not the light of the sun directly but as reflected from the moon and stars, which light did foreshadow Christ to come, the sun of righteousness hereafter to arise.
This light of the sun of righteousness to come they had chiefly two ways. One was by predictions of Christ to come whereby his coming was3 foretold and promised, and another was by types and shadows of Christ whereby his coming and redemption were prefigured.
The first thing that was done to prepare the way for Christ in the former of these ways was in that promise that was just taken notice [of] in the foregoing particular, and the first thing of the latter sort, viz. of types to foreshow Christ's coming, was that institution of sacrifice that we are now upon.
As that promise [in the] Genesis 3 was the first dawn of gospel light after the fall in prophecy, so the institution of sacrifice was the first hint of it in types. The giving of that promise was the first thing that was done after the fall in this work in Christ's prophetical office.
The institution of sacrifice was the first thing that we read of after the fall by which [Christ] especially exhibited himself in his visible church in his priestly office.
This institution of sacrifice was a great thing done towards preparing the way for Christ's coming and working out redemption. For the sacrifice of the Old Testament was the main of all the Old Testament types of Christ and his redemption, and it tended to establish in the minds of God's visible church the necessity of a propitiatory sacrifice in order to the deity's being atoned for sin.
And so prepared the way for4 the reception of the glorious gospel that reveals the great sacrifice in the visible church, and not only so but throughout the world of mankind, for from this institution of sacrifice that was after the fall all nations derived the custom of sacrificing.
For this custom of offering up sacrifices to the gods to atone for sin was common to all nations.
No nation, however barbarous, was found without it anywhere, which is a great evidence of the truth of the Christian religion. For no nation, but only the Jews, could tell how they came by this custom or to what purpose it was to offer sacrifices up to their deities. The light of nature did not teach 'em any such thing; that did not teach 'em that the gods were hungry and fed upon the flesh which they burned in sacrifice.
And yet they all had this custom of which no other account can be given but that they derived it from Noah who had it from his ancestors to whom God had enjoined it as a type of the great sacrifice of Christ. However by that means the nations of the world had their minds possessed with this notion that an atonement or sacrifice for sin was necessary.
And so [the] way [was prepared] for men's minds, for their more5 readily receiving the great doctrine of the gospel of Christ which teaches us the atonement and sacrifice of Christ.
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