Self-oblation the true idea of Obedience.
I. St. Paul here tells us that Christ "offered up Himself," from which we may learn (1) that the act of offering was His own act, and (2) that the oblation was Himself. He was both Priest and Sacrifice; or, in a word, the atoning oblation was His perfect obedience, both in life and in death, to the will of His Father. His whole life was a part of the one sacrifice which, through the eternal Spirit, He offered to His Father; namely, the reasonable and spiritual sacrifice of a crucified will. We learn from this (1) into what relation towards God the Church has been brought by the atonement of Christ. The whole mystical body is offered up to the Father as a kind of firstfruits of His creatures. The Church is gathered out of the world and offered up to God; it is made partaker of the atonement of Christ, of the self-oblation of the Word made flesh. (2) The nature of the sacraments. Under one aspect they are gifts of spiritual grace from God to us; under another they are acts of self-oblation on our part to God. He of His sovereign will bestows on us gifts which we, trusting in His promises, offer ourselves passively to receive.
II. We may learn from this view of the great act of atonement what is the nature of the faith by which we become partakers of it, or, in other words, by which we are justified. Plainly it is not a faith which indolently terminates in a belief that Christ died for us; or which intrusively assumes to itself the office of applying to its own needs the justifying grace of the atonement. Justifying grace is the trust of a willing heart, offered up in obedience to God; it is His will working in us, knitting us to Himself. Our faith, if we would endure unto the end, must be stern, unyielding, and severe. It must bear the impress of His passion, and make us seek the signs of our justification in the sharper tokens of His cross.
III. We learn what is the true point of sight from which to look at all the trials of life. We are not our own, but His; all that we call ours is His; and when He takes it from us first one loved treasure and then another, till He makes us poor and naked and solitary let us not sorrow that we are stripped of all we love, but rather rejoice for that God accepts us; let us not think that we are left here, as it were, unseasonably alone; but remember that, by our bereavements, we are in part translated to the world unseen. He is calling us away and sending on our treasures. The great law of sacrifice is embracing us, and must have its perfect work. Like Him, we must be made, "perfect through suffering."
H. E. Manning, Sermons,vol. i., p. 242.
References: Hebrews 9:13; Hebrews 9:14. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxv., No. 1481; vol. xxxi., No. 1846; Homiletic Quarterly,vol. ii., p. 469; Clergyman's Magazine,vol. iv., pp. 88, 89, 224; vol. vi., pp. 147, 333.