Design and use of the ceremonial law

I.        It served to cherish the religious sentiment.

The Israelite was reminded by it in all his relations, even the most significant and external, of God; the thought of God was introduced into the very midst of the popular life.

II.      It required the recognition of sin,

and thus called forth the first thing essential for the reception of redemption, a sense of the need of redemption. The law was, and was intended to be, a heavy yoke, and therefore would awaken a longing after the Redeemer.

III.   It served to separate Israel from the heathen;

it erected between the two a wall of separation, by which communication was prevented.

IV.    Many things in the Ceremonial Law served to awaken reverence for holy things among a sensual people.

V.       One principal object of the Ceremonial Law lay in its symbolic meaning.

The people, enthralled in visible objects, were not yet capable of vitally appropriating supersensual truth in words, the form most suited to their nature. It was needful for the truth to condescend, to come down to their power of apprehension, to prepare itself a body from visible things, in order to free the people from the bondage of the visible. Would we rather not speak at all to the dumb than make use of signs? The Ceremonial Law was not the opposite to the worship of God in spirit and in truth, but only an imperfect form of the same, a necessary preparation for it. The accommodation was only formal, one which did not alter the essence, but only presented it in large capital letters to children who could not yet read a small running-hand.