Who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God. Philippians 2:6.
The divine Son of God was the only sacrifice of sufficient value to fully satisfy the claims of God's perfect law. The angels were sinless but of less value than the law of God. They were amenable to law.... They were created beings and probationers. Upon Christ no requirements were laid. He had power to lay down His life and to take it again. No obligation was laid upon Him to undertake the work of atonement. It was a voluntary sacrifice that He made. His life was of sufficient value to rescue sinners from their fallen condition....
The sacrificial offerings and the priesthood of the Jewish system were instituted to represent the death and mediatorial work of Christ. All those ceremonies had no meaning and no virtue, only as they related to Christ, who was Himself the foundation of, and who brought into existence, the entire system. The Lord had made known to Adam, Abel, Seth, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, and the ancient worthies, especially Moses, that the ceremonial system of sacrifices and the priesthood, of themselves, were not sufficient to secure the salvation of one soul.
The system of sacrificial offerings pointed to Christ. Through these, the ancient worthies saw Christ and believed in Him. These were ordained of Heaven to keep before the people the fearful separation which sin had made between God and the human family, requiring a mediating ministry. Through Christ the communication which was cut off because of Adam's transgression was opened between God and the ruined sinner....
The Jewish system was symbolical and was to continue until the perfect Offering should take the place of the figurative.... The people of God, from Adam's day down to the time when the Jewish nation became a separate and distinct people from the world, had been instructed in regard to the Redeemer to come, which their sacrificial offerings represented. This Savior was to be a mediator, to stand between the Most High and His people. Through this provision, a way was opened whereby the guilty sinner might find access to God through the mediation of another.... Christ alone could open the way by making an offering equal to the demands of the divine law. He was perfect and undefiled by sin. He was without spot or blemish.—The Review and Herald, December 17, 1872.
From From the Heart - Page 226
From the Heart