That there can be no further offering of any kind whatever, follows at once from the perfection of our Lord’s atonement. If the whole curse of sin has been blotted out for ever, what place is there for any further propitiation? What can cleanse that which is already white as snow? What sin can be laid on the victim, when we are made the righteousness of God in Christ? What can satisfy a law which has been long since satisfied in Christ? What can make expiation for a curse, when the curse itself has been already blotted out through his blood? Nor is this the inference of merely human reason. If it were, we might well distrust it, for what is the human intellect to dive into the unfathomable depths of eternal wisdom? But it is the conclusion drawn by St. Paul, under the direct inspiration of the Spirit. In the ninth and tenth chapters of the Epistle to the Hebrews, he is led to the discussion of this very subject. If you study the passage from chap. ix. 25 to chap. x. 18, you will observe that the whole argument turns upon this principle, that an offering, if imperfect, requires repetition,—if perfect, is final. “The law,” he says, “having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices, which they offered year by year continually, make the comers thereunto perfect; for then would they not have ceased to be offered? Because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins.” In other words, these sacrifices being merely shadows, and being ineffective to the perfecting of the conscience, were repeated year by year; but had they been perfect, they would at once have ceased for ever. Repetition, therefore, is the result of imperfection, and where there is full remission, there can be no more sacrifice for sins. It is impossible, therefore, to admit the idea of any further propitiation whatever, of any kind, or by any person, without throwing reflection on that wrought out for us by the Lord. If his work is perfect, there can be no repetition needed; and if any fresh oblation is still required for the putting away of sin, it can only be because there was some defect or failure in the great work wrought out by our Lord upon the cross. If, as he said, it was finished then, it is quite impossible it should be repeated now.