LivePrayerSermon 1567. The Blood of the Covenant
(No. 1567)
DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, NOVEMBER 14, 1880,
BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.
"This is the blood of the Testament which God has enjoined unto you." Hebrews 9:20.
[The original title of this sermon was The Blood of the Testament..
THE Apostle declares that whenever God has entered into covenant with man it has not been without the shedding of blood. Toa covenant a sacrifice and to a testament a death was evidently necessary. It was so when the arrangements of Israelite worshipwere first published and established in the wilderness. Paul says, "Neither the first testament was dedicated without blood."He probably had in his mind's eye the 24th chapter of the book of Exodus where we read that after the tribes had entered intocovenant with God and promised to keep His Law, Moses, "sent young men of the children of Israel, which offered burnt offeringsand sacrificed peace offerings of oxen unto the Lord. And Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins and half of theblood he sprinkled on the altar. And He took the Book of the Covenant and read in the audience of the people: and they said,All that the Lord has said will we do and be obedient. And Moses took the blood and sprinkled it on the people and said, Beholdthe blood of the Covenant which the Lord has made with you concerning all these words."
As it was in the old dispensation so is it in the new-there could be no Divine Covenant, even though it was of Grace, withoutthe shedding of blood. Inasmuch as the new Covenant was not the type, but the substance, a more precious sacrifice was neededand nobler blood than any which is found in the veins of bulls or of goats. Jesus, the Son of God must die, or the Covenantwould be unsealed, the testament without force. No Covenant blessing comes to us apart from the death of our great Sacrifice,for "without shedding of blood is no remission," and remission is one of the earliest of the gifts of Divine Grace. If wecannot even begin the heavenly life by receiving forgiveness of sins without coming into connection with the blood, we maybe sure that no further blessing can come to us apart from it.
It seems to be absolutely necessary that when God comes into communication with guilty man it must be through an atonementand that atonement must be made by blood, or by the sacrifice of a life. I shall not dwell upon the blood-shedding of theold Covenant, for they are only intended to be types of the one great blood-shedding in the death of our Lord Jesus Christ.The death of a chosen victim was the emblem of the death of Christ. The sprinkling of the people with blood was the type ofthe application of the blood of Christ to the conscience of Believers and every single item of the ceremony, if looked into,would furnish points for edification. But of these we cannot, now, speak particularly, as the Apostle said on a like occasion.
It suffices us to meditate, at this time, upon the blood of our Lord Jesus, once and for all shed on Calvary, trying to understandits relationship to us according to the tenor of the text-"This is the blood of the Testament which God has enjoined untoyou." The words which Moses used in the wilderness concerning the typical sacrifice are far more emphatic as we point youto the bleeding Savior on the Cross and say, "Behold, the blood of the covenant which the Lord has made with you." The wisdomof God had many ends to serve in connecting His covenants with blood-shedding and this will be very evident if we think ofits effect upon our own hearts. We all feel somewhat of awe in connection with the thought of blood. It is no light thingto see an animal slaughtered-at least it is not so to me-I cannot endure the sight! As to our fellow men, we can scarcelysee the tiniest crimson stream issuing from a wound in their flesh without being distressed.
Tender and sensitive natures, such as all should possess, regard the life of men with great care and the blood, as its token,with great reverence. We view a corpse with awe and if we were called to look upon one who had been slain, we would view thebody with horror. If any one of us should pass a spot stained with a man's blood, we should tread lightly and hurriedly, feeling,"how dreadful is this place." The Lord God intended that there should be much of awe about every covenant
that He made with man, for it is a matter of great solemnity. The Covenant of Works might well be surrounded with dread, forby reason of our sin it was soon turned into a curse. The quaking mountain, the thick darkness and the trumpet voice werefit accompaniments of the Law which brings condemnation and so, also, were the basins filled with blood.
As for the Covenant of Grace, it is also rightly surrounded with awe, even with such awe as that which bows down at Calvaryamid the mid-day midnight, the rending of rocks, the opening graves and the groans of the expiring Son of God. The God ofLove is, nevertheless, a God of Holiness and the God who passes by transgression, iniquity and sin, is also a God who firstvindicates the honor of His broken Law. The Lord intended that pardon and all other Covenant blessings should come to us insuch a way that we should never think sin a trifle, nor conclude, from the freeness of Grace that men were free to transgress.The death of Jesus manifests the solemnity of God's dealings with sin and is fitted to bow the soul in the lowest humilitybefore God.
The flowing of the blood and water from the wounded side, the wrapping of the dead body in the grave clothes, the burial inthe sepulcher-these are those sad attendants of the Covenant of Grace which make us tender of heart while we rejoice in theDivine favor. With holy trembling we think of every promise, for the shadow of the Cross is over all. Something of aversionand shrinking crosses most minds at the thought of blood. One feels sickened and saddened. The sight of murdered Abel musthave been terrible, indeed, to Adam and Eve, unused as they were to gaze on blood. If it would be so to them after the Fall,what would the sight have been to them had they remained pure and perfect beings? In proportion to purity will be the shockto the mind in the presence of death and blood.
Cruel men might gloat over a battlefield, but to the most of us, the sight of a single violent death would be horrible tothe last degree. Manhood, till it is brutalized, has the greatest possible aversion to the sight of blood and it is as thoughGod had selected as the token of Atonement that which would show us His hatred of sin. He would move us to flee from evilafter a sight of its painful and deadly consequences! He as good as tells us that while a thing is stained with evil, He wouldsooner destroy it than have it in His sight! Man, the masterpiece of the Divine creation, shall sooner be slain and his lifeflow out upon the ground than be allowed to wallow in iniquity! It was intended that even while we are being pardoned we shouldfeel horror at having been defiled with sin.
But this aversion must not be used sinfully, as so we have used it. I have heard of persons saying, when we preach of theblood of Christ, "I could not bear to hear so much about blood! It quite disgusted me." I want you to feel shocked becauseyour sin requires such an awful cleansing-but you must not be shocked at the great Sacrifice, itself! That would be grievous,indeed, to me and fatal to you! Can you bear, then, to reject that which, alone, can save you? Are you so delicate that youturn away from the only cleansing that can purge you from soul-destroying stains? Dare you count the blood of the Covenantto be a common, or even a disgusting, thing? I pray you be not so profane! Let a holy tremor seize you as you see the Crucifiedand watch the pouring forth of His heart's life-stream! Smite on your breast as you look on Him whom you have pierced!
Grieve that your sin should require such a dread Atonement. Lament that you should be guilty of such a horrible thing thateven God's own brightest One must bleed before transgression, with all its scarlet dye, could be washed out. Always love andreverence the blood of Jesus Christ, as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot. The types of the old Law were meant toexcite horror of sin and awe in the presence of its atonement. It must have been almost a shocking thing to enter into thetabernacle at the time of the great sacrifices and, indeed, at any time, for year after year there never passed a day withoutblood being sprinkled on the holy curtains. All around, wherever the worshipper came, he saw tokens of the slaughter of bullocksand goats and calves and rams. Everywhere he saw that God could not be approached without atonement-atonement by sacrificialdeath.
The priests threw the blood of victims in bowls at the foot of the altar and "almost all things were, by the Law, purged withblood"-and all to make man see that God saw something horrible in sin which only death could hide-and that sin was so intolerableto Him that, unless a propitiation had been made, it had not been possible for His pure and holy mind to speak with man atall, or hold amicable conversation with Him. If the aversion which seems natural to us at the sight of blood should lead usto shudder at the cause of its shedding, it will be well.
I beg you, now, to come with me to Calvary and see that great sight, even Jesus Christ, Himself, offered up as a Sacrificefor guilty men! Herein is a marvelous thing! We have heard so often of it that we do not note the miracle of it as we oughtto do. But it is the most marvelous thing that ever happened, that ever can happen, or that ever can be imagined to happen-
that He who always lives, even God, Himself, should deign to take into union with Himself a body like our own and that, beingfound in fashion as a man, He should become obedient to death, even the death of the Cross! All former ages are struck dumbwith astonishment at this novelty of love-the bleeding Son of God! And all the ages that are yet to come shall look back toCalvary as the center of all the wonders that even the wonder-working God, Himself, has ever worked!
The blood of Christ is the ruby gem of the ring of love. Infinite goodness finds its crown in the gift of Jesus for sinners.All God's mercies shine like stars, but the coming of His own Son to bleed and die for rebel men is as the sun in the heavensof Divine Grace outshining and illuminating all! It surpasses thought-how, then, shall I hope worthily to set it forth inwords?
I. Of that death and of that blood we shall speak in a fourfold way and first, we shall take the verse as it would most accuratelybe translated-the blood of Jesus Christ is THE BLOOD OF THE EVERLASTING COVENANT. There cannot be much doubt that the wordrendered, "testament," should be translated, "covenant." It is the word used for covenant in other passages and though ourtranslators have used the word, "testament," many critics go the length of questioning whether the word can bear that meaningat all. I think they are too rigid in their criticism and that it does bear that meaning in this very chapter but, still,all must admit that the first and most usual meaning of the word is, "covenant."
Therefore, we will begin with that reading and consider the blood of Jesus as the blood of the Covenant. First, looking fromthe Cross to the Covenant, the blood proves the intense earnestness of God in entering into covenant with man in a way ofGrace. The Covenant of Grace is on this wise-the well-beloved Son of God stood as our Representative, as the second Adam,heading up in Himself all those whom the Father gave Him. He covenanted with God on our behalf that He would vindicate thebroken Law and that He would also keep it in every jot and tittle on our behalf. As for the Father, He covenanted that becauseof the Sacrifice which the Son would offer and the obedience which He would render, He would put away the sin of His peopleand they should be accepted in love.
This is the Covenant of Grace and faithfulness and to show that the august Covenanters were not playing at covenant-makingthey sealed the compact with blood. How dreadfully in earnest was God the Father when He gave His Son! How deeply in earnestwas the Son when He gave His life! You may play with these things if you dare, but God never will. You may sprinkle this bloodupon the threshold where it should never fall and trample on it with careless feet, but God only sees it in the place of honor-onthe lintel and the side posts-and looks upon it as something precious beyond all price! Sinner, you, perhaps, think that Godwill not really forgive you and that His promises may only charm your ears to cheat your heart-but it cannot be so!
God is in real earnest! If He did not mean mercy, He would not have given up His beloved Son. The best possession of all Hisunsearchable riches was His Only-Begotten and He took Him from His bosom, where He had dwelt serenely always and bade Himcome below that He might live and die that we might be saved! God is in death-earnest for the salvation of sinners! Let usspeak of the great Atonement which He has provided with earnest hearts, for it is no light thing. I wish that we never thoughtabout these things without the deepest possible solemnity. I wish that never did a preacher speak of them without heart-breakingemotions and that never did we sing a hymn upon the great Sacrifice without prostrating our spirits in the dust before theMost High. Whenever we think of the Atonement, the place whereon we stand is holy ground. The blood of the Everlasting Covenantproved the earnestness of the great Covenant-Maker-let us be in earnest, too.
Next, it displayed the supreme love of God to man. Seeing that He entered into a compact of Grace with man, He would let mansee how His very heart went forth with every word of promise and, therefore, He gave up that which was the center of His heart,namely, Jesus Christ. When Jesus wept over the grave of Lazarus, they said, "Behold how He loved him!" But when God gave HisOnly-Begotten to bleed over the grave of our race, we may more heartily say, "Behold how He loved us!" Brothers and Sisters,we have but a faint idea of how much the Lord our God loves us! "God commends His love toward us in that, while we were yetsinners, Christ died for us."
There was nothing lovable in us-we were enemies to God, polluted and polluting! There was everything in us that was obnoxiousto the holy mind of God and yet, because of the riches of His Grace and the supremacy of His mercy, He would love us and Hedid love us without limit! Passing by fallen angels, the Sovereign Lord looked on the humbler creature, man, and so lovedhim that He gave up Jesus, Himself, to die on his behalf! Oh that we were touched with some kind of tenderness towards Godwhen we think of this! Man, has God shown such love to man and do you show such coldness to your God? Jesus dies in unutterableagonies that the guilty may be pardoned and do the guilty turn aside as if it were noth-
ing to them that Jesus should die? Can men treat the Cross as if it were either a fiction or a trifle? God has manifestedHis love in the death of Christ in a way which must have astonished every inhabitant of Heaven-and it ought to ravish everynative of this lower globe! May the Holy Spirit enable us, as we think of this blood of the Covenant, to behold the earnestnessof God and to admire the intensity of His love.
The blood of the Covenant, next, speaks to us and confirms the Divine faithfulness. The main object of thus sealing the Covenantwith blood is to cause it to be "ordered in all things and sure." Men, in old times, when they made compacts that were intendedto be solemnly observed, slaughtered certain beasts as a sacrifice and, when blood was thus spilt, there was no drawing backfrom the engagements. It was a covenant made by cutting or dividing-they split the animals in two and then those who madethe covenant passed in between the divided pieces. No revocation was permitted where agreements were thus ratified. It wasa sort of registered contract that never could be changed when once there had been a sacrifice to confirm it.
Now it is also so with the Covenant of Grace. It is impossible for God to ever draw back from the Covenant of Grace, or tochange it in any of its particulars. He needed not to be held in this manner, for He cannot lie-but that we might have strongconsolation who have fled for refuge to Christ Jesus, He has been pleased to give His Covenant this seal. Well do we sing-
"The Gospel bears my spirit up!
A faithful and unchanging God
Lays the foundation for my hope,
In oath and covenant and blood." It would be blasphemy to suppose that God would be false to a treaty sealed with the bloodof His own Son! A doubt about the love of God and about the faithfulness of God is treason against Him, for it impugns Hisfaithfulness and treats Him as a liar, or a covenant-breaker, which He can never be. We may think lightly of the dark mistrustsand suspicions of our hearts, but they are no light things, after all, for they virtually impugn the sealing power of theblood and question the faithfulness of God to the Covenant which has most solemnly been confirmed.
Oh you that seek after peace through Jesus Christ, it is not possible that God should refuse to accept you if you come toHim through the blood of Jesus, for that were to break His Covenant! Oh you who are resting in Jesus, it is not possible thatyour Father should ever forsake you, or suffer you to perish, for that were to make the blood-shedding of Christ to be voidand His Sacrifice to be of no effect! Oh, blessed Covenant, how sure you are, now that the blood of Jesus is shed! But theblood of the Everlasting Covenant is more than this-it is a guarantee to us of its infinite provision. There can be nothinglacking for a soul redeemed by Christ between here and Heaven, for He that spared not His own Son, how shall He not, withHim, also freely give us all things? All that the Christian needs on the road to Glory will be quite inconsiderable comparedwith what He has already received in the gift of Jesus Christ!
Do you believe that God will deny you any necessary thing, O Heart, when He has already made His Son bleed for you? If Hehad held back anything, it would have been that costly alabaster box of His Son's body which contained the most precious ointmentthat ever perfumed earth or Heaven! But since He broke that precious casket and poured out the priceless contents, He willdeny you nothing! No good thing will He withhold from you! He would break up Heaven, itself, if you should require it andpour out the whole creation at your feet if there were need. Already He has given you His angels to be your servitors andHis courts to be your dwelling place! Yes, and His Throne to be your shelter-what else do you need? But, if you ask for more,there is more provided, for He gives you Himself to be your portion. Is not this enough? Is not this all? When He gave youHis Son, He gave you all, for His Son is One with Him! Oh, the breadth and length, the height and depth of Covenant provisions!That roll of love which has for its seal this precious thing, the blood of Jesus, must contain treasures beyond all estimate.God will supply all our needs according to His riches in Glory by Christ Jesus and the blood of Jesus secures this fact!
I will not dwell longer upon this blood of the Covenant except to say that this blood manifests the depth of the need whichthe Covenant was meant to meet. Many preachers, nowadays, seem determined to bring everything in God's Word down to theirown little scale. They carry a ruler in their pockets with which to measure up eternal things. They have found out that everlastingdoes not mean unending-they will one day find out, I dare say-that infinite does not mean unlimited! Sin with them is an inconsiderableoffense which it is not worth while to make a fuss about. Man, according to their account, is a poor creature who is strugglingto be right and his offenses are the excusable blunders of a well-meaning
child-the errors of a poor creature who cannot help making mistakes. Of course the punishment of sin, with them, is fritteredaway and they claim to do this in the name of benevolence, as if it were benevolence to flatter and a good deed to make sinappear less hazardous and to take away the moral sanctions which God has set as barriers against evil.
It follows, in the nature of things, that the Atonement becomes, with them, a very shadowy affair-something or other whichin some way or other reconciles us to God, or has some bearing upon our standing with the Divine Being. Nobody knows quitewhat it is-a misty, hazy, smoky nothing, which they cannot quite deny-but which they forget as much as possible. Brothersand Sisters, I believe in a great Revelation and, to my mind, it is clear that if God, Himself, must become Incarnate andif when He is Incarnate nothing else will do but that He must be nailed to a Cross and die like a felon-there must have beensome awful mischief to remove! The race of man must have fallen, indeed, to need such an expedient as this in order to restoreit to holiness and God! If I measure the disease by the Remedy, I conclude that the disease must have been deadly! And if,when Christ stood in man's place, being perfectly innocent-if nothing else would do as the substitutionary pain but that Heshould cry, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?"-then the desert of sin must have been dire, indeed!
In the presence of Calvary and its Christ I am persuaded that sin must be an evil so great that it is not possible to exaggerateits horrors! Oh sons of men, your transgressions are black, indeed, since they can only be expiated by such a sacrifice! Ohsinful creatures, you required a dying God to save you! You cannot be safe for eternity, you cannot be happy with God in thislife unless the precious blood of Jesus Christ washes you! Deceive not yourselves with the notion that perhaps your moralitiesand your outward religiousness may suffice, or that your good intentions may be liberally interpreted! You must, if you wouldbe acceptable with God, feel the sprinkling of the blood of the Son of God, for without shedding of blood there is no remissionof sins! This much comes to us as the teaching of the blood of the Everlasting Covenant-if we are in covenant with God weshall know the power of the Atonement of Christ.
II. But now, secondly, you will bear with me while I take our translator's own words-"This is THE BLOOD OF THE TESTAMENT."Upon the whole, our translation is as nearly perfect as we can look for a human work to be. I do not know what the new translationwill turn out to be, but the good men will have to have risen up very early and sat up very late if they have produced a versionwhich will surpass that which has so long been used among us. I do not know. I cannot tell because I have not seen it. Butthis translation very well satisfies me at present and I notice that whenever the translators use a word which is disputedby scholars, they have excellent reasons for it and the more the matter is looked into, the more is their judgment valued.
They thought a good deal before they settled on their expressions and as a rule they came to a sound conclusion. In this casethere are reasons and very good reasons, why the word, "testament," should be used. Our translators were not inspired, butthey were marvelously guided and directed when they made this version and we may be content to take the text as it standsbefore us. Jesus Christ has made a will and He has left to His people large legacies by that will. Now, wills do not needto be sprinkled with blood, but wills do need that the testator should be dead, otherwise they are not of force. As it wasnot possible that Christ should die other than a violent death, seeing He must die as a Sacrifice, the expression, "blood,"becomes, in His case, tantamount to, "death."
And so, first of all, the blood of Jesus Christ on Calvary is the blood of the Testament, because it is a proof that He isdead and, therefore, the testament is in force. If there is a question about whether a man is alive or not, you cannot administerto his estate, but when you have certain evidence that the testator has died, then the will stands. So is it with the blessedGospel-if Jesus did not die, then the Gospel is null and void! Not without the sprinkled blood does the promise of salvationbecome yes and amen! Inasmuch as the soldier with a spear pierced His side and forthwith came blood and water, there was theclearest evidence in that blood that Jesus was really dead and that His testament is valid and operative. Therein do we rejoice,for though we sorrow that He died, yet we are glad that His legacy of love is all our own! He has died and lives again, nomore to die!
Out of the thick cloud of blackest grief which veils our dying Lord, there falls a silver shower of peace more refreshingthan all the brooks of earth can yield-the certainty of our eternal life is proven by the certainty of Jesus' death! His bloodis the blood of the Testament because it proves the testator's death. It is the blood of the Testament, again, because itis the seal of His being seized and possessed of those goods which He has bequeathed to us, for, apart from His Sacrifice,our Lord had no spiritual blessings to present to us-His death has filled the treasury of His Grace. He has pardon to bestowand
justifying righteousness to give because He died! If He had not shed His blood, He would not have completed His part of theCovenant, nor have fulfilled the will of God. But when He died, with, "It is finished!" upon His lips, then His blood becamethe seal that Covenant mercies were His own and that they were His to leave to us. Oh treasure up the death of Jesus in yourhearts, Believers, for, inasmuch as He has enriched you and given you all things necessary for this life of godliness, Hehas done this out of His own proper stores which were given Him as the reward of His passion!
The blood of the Testament, again, is a direction as to His legatees. We see who are benefited under His will. To whom didJesus Christ leave, by will, the blessings of Grace? He must have left them to the guilty because He has left a will thatis signed and sealed in blood and blood is for the remission of sin. Jesus has made His testament in the character of a sin-atoningSacrifice and we can only share in it by regarding Him under that character. If I am not a sinner, I have no interest in thelegacy of a bleeding Redeemer! The blood-mark proves that the testament was made for those who need atonement by blood andthat its legacies are bequeathed to sinners. This is one of the most humbling and yet most blessed of all the Truths of God.It casts down and yet lifts up!
If I have any Grace or any Covenant blessing, it did not come to me because I was heir to it by nature, or because I had purchasedit, or because of any intrinsic right in myself-but because Jesus, when He died, had a right to make His will as He pleasedand He did so make it that He would give Himself and all that He had to such a poor, needy, empty, lost and guilty sinneras I am! Not because of any good in us do these blessings come to us, but all of our Lord's good will, who made the Testamentof Love and sealed it with His heart's blood! Brethren, the legatees in Christ's will are those who come and accept His Atonement.There is nothing in Christ's will for any person who will not trust His blood. I know of no mercy under Heaven for any manwho, knowing of the atoning Sacrifice, willfully refuses it!
Certain teachers talk about a "larger hope." I read nothing of this fancy in the Scriptures and I dare not go beyond the Wordof the Lord and I am content to say with Moses, "The secret things belong unto the Lord our God; but those things which arerevealed belong unto us and to our children forever." "Other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is JesusChrist." Other hopes, large or small, I know not of from Revelation, except this one-"He that believes in Him is not condemned.""The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us from all sin." "He that believes in Him has everlasting life, but he thatbelieves not is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the Only-Begotten Son
of God."
Thus, the blood of the Testament is a direction as to the legatees. And, as I said before, what an index it is of the valueof the legacies, since even the seal upon the will is no less in value than the heart's blood of the heir of all things! Whattreasures must be ours under such a Covenant! What riches are yours and mine, my Brothers and Sisters, if we are really trustingin Jesus!
III. But now, in the third place, I must speak for a minute or two upon that blood from another point of view. IT WAS THEBLOOD OF CLEANSING. "This is the blood of the Testament which God has enjoined unto you." Moses sprinkled with blood boththe tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry-the object of the sprinkled blood was to purify so that the Book and thepeople and all things upon whom the blood fell might be allowed to stand in the Presence of the thrice holy God, being regardedby Him as cleansed. Think of this for a short time. This blood of the Covenant or of the Testament is a blood of purificationto us. Wherever it is accepted by faith, it takes away all past guilt. Wonder of wonders! Years of sin vanish in a moment-encrustationsof guilt disappear in a single instant and man, up to now guilty and con-demned-is rendered perfectly clean in God's sightand accepted in the Beloved because he believes in Christ Jesus!
So priceless a Sacrifice as that of the Son of God is of boundless efficacy for the eternal removal of all evil once and forall. And this is but the beginning of our purification, for that same blood applied by faith takes away from the pardonedsinner the impurity which had been generated in his nature by habit. He ceases to love the sin which once he delighted in-he begins to loathe that which was formerly his choice joy. A love of purity is born within his nature-he sighs to be perfectand he groans to think there should be about him tendencies towards evil. Temptations which once were welcomed are now resisted.Habits which were once most fascinating are an annoyance to his spirit. The precious blood, when it touches the conscience,removes all sense of guilt and when it touches the heart it kills the ruling power of sin!
The more fully the power of the blood is felt, the more does it kill the power of sin within the soul. I hope you are feelingit to be so. We ought to be ashamed, Brothers and Sisters, if we allow those sins to conquer us, now, which overcame us yearsago! We ought to possess a growing strength against iniquity, a growing abhorrence of everything that is evil and a
growing likeness to Christ-and it will be so if this precious blood is really operating upon our nature and imparting to ita fullness of life-
"The Cross once seen is death to e very vice Else He that died there suffered all His pain, Bled, groaned, agonized and diedin vain." If you are in any measure failing as to holiness, fly to the blood for help! Perhaps you have not thought enough,of late, of the dying love of your Lord. His death has a living power about it to breed and nourish holiness within you. Rememberthere is no slaying sin but by nailing it to the Cross. Only the lance which pierced the heart of Jesus can kill the loveof sin. You must overcome through the blood of the Lamb-there is no other way for victory!
You will never avoid sin merely by believing it to be your duty to do so-the Law points the way, but cannot bear us alongit. A sense of the great love of Christ to you in bearing your sin in His body on the Cross and so removing it from you willgive you power to rise superior to temptation. It is charged against some of us, as preachers, that we do not urge men enoughto their duties. We deny the charge and yet we claim that we do better, for we touch secret springs that nerve to duty andwe point to the strength by which virtuous deeds are done! The acceptance of the Atonement is the great source of virtue.The Grace of God is seen in the Atonement of Jesus, by which sin is put away and thus the heart is won to God and led by gratitudeto obey Him. The blood of Jesus is the strongest restraint from transgression.
We say to the pardoned-Will you so dishonor the blood which cleanses you as to go and live in sin? Will you go back to thatfrom which you have been redeemed by the death of your Savior? Will you roll, again, in that foul mire out of which Christhas lifted you and so do despite to the blood which cleanses you and make it to be to you as an unholy thing? It must notbe! Let but the heart feel the power of the blood of Jesus and it will growingly aspire after holiness and increasingly seekit! The precious blood is our great security from backsliding, for by it we obtain daily access to God! It keeps the Christianfrom grievous relapses and preserves him unto the coming of his Lord. Wherever the blood of Jesus Christ is really applied,perfection must be its ultimate result. There will be battling and striving, but there must be victory before long! The holiera man becomes, the more he mourns over his unholiness.
The operations of Grace in his soul make him detect the more readily the motions of sin in his members. There is not the sinwithin him that there was, but he sees that which is there more clearly and, therefore, he is more than ever grieved aboutit. No one calls himself so much a wretched man because sin is within him as he does who is also a thankful man, because Godgives him the victory. You must not judge that you are not growing in sanctification because you are not increasing in yoursense of it. Your sense of your own holiness is a poor test, a very doubtful index of your state. Brothers and Sisters, ifyou have really fixed your trust in the atoning blood and known its power, you are destined to perfection and all the devilsin Hell cannot keep you from it! As sure as you believe, you shall one day stand white-robed among the host that know no discordin their song, no wandering in their walk!
From this spot where I have preached the Word I must, as a Believer, rise to a higher spot where I shall prove the power ofJesus' blood in an immortality of perfection! And from that pew where you sit, believing in the precious blood, you, also,must pass onward through your pilgrimage until you, also, reach the fullness of eternal life, for your Lord has pledged Himselfto keep all those whom the Father has given Him and you are among them if, indeed, you believe in Him! Those who are justifiedshall also be glorified! All Believers shall yet dwell at the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens where there is pleasureforevermore because there is perfection without alloy! May we all, through the Spirit, by the blood of purging be made whiterthan snow!
IV. And then, to close, it is THE BLOOD OF DEDICATION. On the day when Moses sprinkled the blood of the Covenant on the peopleand on the Book, it was meant to signify that they were a chosen people set apart unto God's service. The blood made themholiness unto the Lord. Moses stood upon an elevated place and took the scarlet wool and hyssop and sprinkled the blood onall sides. Try and realize a part of the scene, A man just beneath him is wearing a white robe and a spot of blood has fallenupon it. He sees it. There it is! Will he not prize the crimson sign? I would have preserved that robe as long as I livedand the blood spot, too!
But what would it mean? To the Israelite it meant consecration to God. He would say, "The blood of the Covenant has fallenupon me and I am, therefore, a consecrated man dedicated to God." Now, unless the blood is upon you, my Brother or Sister,you are not saved! But if you are saved, you are, by that very fact, set apart to be God's servant. "You are not
your own, you are bought with a price." "You were not redeemed with corruptible things as with silver and gold, but with theprecious blood of Christ." A saved man is a bought man-the property of Jesus! Believer, not a hair on your head belongs toyou-you belong to Jesus Christ as His servant as surely as you are redeemed by His blood! Now you are set apart! God's ownmark is put upon you!
You have believed-that believing has applied the blood to you and you are Christ's. Cannot you see the private token whichthe Lord has set on you? Do you not feel it? Oh, then, acknowledge its claims in your daily life! Being so set apart, youare, therefore, ordained with due solemnity to be a servant of God, even as Aaron and his sons were consecrated to their priesthood.I have been sometimes asked, "Were you ever ordained?" Yes, I was. Not by the laying on of the hands of any mortal man, butby that precious blood whose purchase-power I feel. When that blood fell upon me and I rejoiced in its cleansing power, Ilonged, at once, to tell of its efficacy to others. I hope I can say most honestly to my Lord-
"Ever since by faith I saw the stream
Your flowing wounds supply,
Redeeming lo ve has been my theme,
And shall be tiil I die!"
That same blood has fallen on you, Brother, Sister, and it has ordained you that you should go and bear fruit and that yourfruit should remain. Is it not written, "You were slain and have been made unto our God kings and priests"? The slaying ofChrist is the ground of our priesthood and the claim for our perpetual service. Let us praise, forever, the Lord who has workedeverlasting redemption for us! If we have not Milton's power of song, at least let us come to the same resolve at which hearrived-
"O unexampled love! Lo ve no where to be found less than Divine!
Hail, Son of God, Savior of men, Your name
Shall be the copious matter of my song
Henceforth and never shall my harp Your praise
Forget, nor from Your Father's praise disjoin." Because of all this we are to lead a separated life. It is not for us to liveas others live who walk in the vanity of their minds. We are not to seek the world's pleasures. We are not to besmear ourselveswith its folly and its selfishness. God's people, if they act as they should, are a separated people. It is written, "Thepeople shall dwell alone, they shall not be numbered among the nations." The Lord has set apart him that is godly for Himselfand as the shepherd marks his sheep, so, with the precious blood of Christ applied by faith, has God marked His own elect,that they should abide in Christ and go no more out, no more mingling with the sons of men, nor joying in their joys, norserving their lusts.
The Lord's portion is His people and His cry to them is, " Come you out from among them and be you separate." God give youto feel this blood of the Covenant, this blood of the Testament, this blood of cleansing, this blood of the setting apart,for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen.