Water and Blood

John 19: 34.

‘But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water.”

In our meditations at the Commimion we generally contemplate our blessed Lord as dying: here we look upon him as already dead. His bloodless lips were parted with the cry, “It is finished,” and then he exjDii’ed. No more im2:>uted guilt, no more sriffering; the payment has been made, the sacrifice has been laid on the altar. The cap which his Father gave him has been drunk to the dregs. Pale and cold, the lovely form hangs in the unmistakable attitudes of death. And this is recognized by the party of soldiers sent at the Jews’ request, to save their high festival from the pollution which would have resulted from the suspension of criminul corpses over nio:lit. The malefactors had borne the torture; and history shows us that victims of the cross sometimes lingered for days. It was necessary to put a cruj] end to their torment by a process having its technical name in Latin; not unlike the coup de grace or finishing stroke, of culprits broken on the wheel. ‘The tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.’ Yet, this very violence fulfilled the word of Jesus to one of the robbers, ‘This clay shalt thou be with me in Paradise.’ But the pure spirit of the Divine Oblation in the midst has not awaited such an outrage. Of the paschal lamb, the type of this our Lamb of God, it had been ordained, “A bone of him shall not be broken.” Also the Psalmist’s words have come true: “Thou keepest all my bones, not one of them is broken.” Wounded, rent, sheeted in crimson, that precious body nevertheless shall endure neither fracture nor corruption. Yet the awful, mystic murmurs of pro|)hecy echo to us from the recesses of the Old Testament, with inklings of insult and wounding to the heart of God incarnate. For God it was who said: “And they shall look upon me whom they have pierced and they shall mourn.” Hence our surprise may be lessened, when amidst the closing tortures of the thieves, a Roman soldier (the Longinus of legend) makes trial of Christ’s death; as to its reality. Real indeed it was. Had he not said “I lay down my life — no man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself.” “One of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water.” It is not said which side; the great masters of Romish art have chosen the light, in order perhaps to exhibit the event as purely miraculous; but learned conjecture has as generally settled upon the left. The ftiir, innocent, adorable body, thus lacerated, was now not sensible, but dead. If it had not been, this mortal thrust had completed the murder. Our witness is one who the day before had leaned upon that bosom, then warm with love and heaving with pity; one who, now fixed at the foot of the cross, supporting Mary the mother of Jesus, had just heard those lips say ‘Behold thy uiother’ V. 27. He marks a single circumstance, as unusual, memorable and significant; lie marks it with a tri])le asseveration, v. 35, 36: “for’*’liwitli came there out blood and watt r.’” He marks it, as spiritually important, many years afterwards, when in old age, surviving all his brother Apostles, surviving Jerusalem itself, lie writes: 1 Jo. 5: 6. “This is he who came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ, not by water only, but by water and blood.” Such redoubling of statement, such solemnity of attestation, such mystery of application, may fully justify us in giving the point our most serious study. Various have been the conjectures of science as to the source of this effusion. Infidels have denied that blood ever fiows from the corpses of those who die from severe wounds. Even if this were so, as it is not, we should only be left to believe a miracle. Some have spoken of water in the pericardium or membranous sac which contains the heart. The subject has been

treated by medical authors of the highest rank. The soundest conclusion seems to be this: In cases of violent death from torturing: extension of the muscles, the Ijlood may continue Auid, even after dissolution.

and may readily escape passively fiom the great vessels. The stroke of the Roman lance was not any slight puncture or superficial wound; if it had been such, Jesus would never have said to unbelieving; Thomas, ‘Reach hither thy hand and thru-t it into my sideP The S23ear-head made open laceration and wide entrance; producing a twofold effect; first reaching nearer parts where the serous or watery portion of the blood found escape, and then plunging more deeply in the region of the heart, and making way on its return for the proj)er crimson tide. “Forthwith came there out blood and water.” It is especially to be remarked, that Scripture says nothing as to the quantity of either; whether great or small. The fact arrested the upturned gaze of the group below, and imprinted its image for life upon the loving Disciple, who, employing terms of modesty concerning himself, says: “And lie that saw it bare record, and his record is true, and he knoweth that he saith true, that ye might believe.”

There is a philosophy my brethren, wliieh has tam])ered with the interj)retation of the

Word; which lias climbed to chairs of theology; which has installed chill rationalism in the piiljdt; a philosophy which would drain off the last juices from the clusters of inspiration, and rob every bleeding type in Leviticus of its Christ-ward pointing. It is the philosophy of Socinian coldness and baptized infidelity. Seeing no substitution, imputation, penal suffering, or expiatory sacrifice in the Cross, it naturally beholds no more than a singular pathological phenomenon at this opened side. God grant us eyes to look more deeply, even into that mystery which the Apostle deemed worthy of his rehearsal, when he wrote: “there are three who bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.” The warm African imagination of St. Augustin* carries him into a flight in which we may not all follow him, but which yet suggests the hidden meaning of the signal event. This eloquent father, preaching nearly fifteen hundred years ago, thus spoke: “It is finished, said He, and

* Serm. V.

bowed his head and gave up the ghost; as thoiiii:h he had endured till all was finished. When he so willed, he gave up his soul. He therefore was God: they who were crucified beside him were men. He dies at once, they more slowly. And when it was ordered that the bodies should be removed on account of the sabbath, the officers found the thieves livino, and brake their legs, but the Lord already departed. Yet one of them with a lance pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water. Lo the price paid for thee! For what is flowing from this side, but the mystery (sacramentum) which believers receive? Spirit, Water, Blood. Spirit, which the [dying Jesus] breathed out: Blood and AVater flowing from his side. Signifying that of this very blood and water the church is born. And when was it that blood and water issued thus? It was when Christ [our second Adam] was sleeping upon the cross; just as, of old, Adam in Paradise was laid in deej) slumber, and from his side Em was taken. Lo the price paid for thee 1 “Earlier than Augustin, another African C/hristian, like all the ancients lovino to dwell on the “Cross and Passion,” thus speaks in Ms characteristic and almost extreme way: “Christ says Tertullian* had come, by water and blood, that he might be baptized with water and glorified with blood; and in order to render us by water his called, and by blood his chosen, he sent forth these two baptisms from the wound of his pierced side, so that those who should lelieve in this blood might be washed with this water, and likewise that they who should be cleansed with this water mio:ht drink of this blood.” You catch the allusion at once — - it is frequent in that Christian antiquity which our age neglects; it is like the famous saying, that out of the side of Jesus issued the two Sacraments; Baptism, the sacrament of water, the Lord’s Supper, the sacrament of blood. More rigorously stated, perhaps we should err less in saying. Out of that blessed, violated side issued twin emblems, parallel with the New Testament Sacraments; and symbolizing the same glorious

* De Bap. c. 16.

benefits. My brethren we have this day the piivilege of aj)proaching both. Let us, in reliance on Divine aid, contemphite the twofokl lesson. It will prepare the way for our better understanding of the matter, connected thus with the very heart of reliofion, if we return for a moment to the threefold witness. 1 Jo. 5: 7.” As this witnessing may be viewed from two different sides; either as outwardly proposed for the conviction of men, or inwardly applied for the consolation of believers, so we think those three Witnesses may be regarded under a like twofold aspect, that is as testifying within or without. Thus by the Spirit (that witnesseth) we undei*stand the power and efficacy of the Holy Ghost, as well outwardly working by the Word, as inwardly effectual in the heart. By the Water, first the sacrament of Baptism, administered in the Church under the symbol of water and then (that which Baptism signifies) its verity, which is wrought in the heart by the grace of regeneration. By the Blood, first the sacrament of the Eucharist, iCor. 10:1G which is the communion of the blood of Christ, and then the grace of justification, or remission of sins in the blood of Christ, which is sealed in this sacrament. And thus, we may in a sense note six several parts of this testimony, not differing totally in kind, but mutually answering and subordinate to each other. For the external are symbols of internal things; and the internal are the verity and reality signified by the external things.”*

But let us briefly consider apart the two truths set forth in the drops which issued from the side of Jesus. ‘^ Forthwith came there out blood and water;” or 23enetratinof to the hidden sense: The two

GREAT BENEFITS WHICH WE OWE TO OUR

DYING Lord are Expiation and Sanctifi-CATioN, Expiation by blood, Sanctification by water. You will observe a difference in the two writings of John, as to the order of statement. In the Epistle it is,” this is He that came by water arid hloodP Our text gives the order of appearance in the actual fact, which is at the same time the order of application in the sinner’s

* 4 Turretin, 115.

consciousness; seeing lie first comes to the blood of Jesus for pardon and then to the sense of being jDurified. But in the other statement the regenerating influence is placed first, which is also the order of the two sacraments, and in a sense the order of nature, because the soul is changed before it believes unto justification. We will follow the words before us.

I. Expiation. Blood has this meaning in all the Old Testament, the language of which was, “Without shedding of blood is no remission.” All the levitical rites, during centuries, were preparing the Church to comprehend this bloodshedding upon the Cross. Every lamb which throbbed, bled and died under the priestly knife; every baptism with the hyssop dipped in “the bowls of the altar,” every affusion of the sinner, the congregation or the mercy-seat, drew expectant eyes towards the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world. Nor is that system of types obsolete, as a means of instruction. For although the Old Testament is dark until we read the New, yet the latter gives a clew with wliicli to thread all the labyrinth of Mosaic rites

The first grand need which a returning sinner feels, is need of reconciliation. Till relieved here, he can attend to nothing else, not even the blessed work of the sanctifying Spirit. He has sinned against the glorious God. Wrath looks down upon his hell-deserving heart. Guilt stains and defiles his conscience. The cry within his bosom is, “Take away the venoeance of God — o:ive me reconciliation — standing in his presence — justifying righteousness or you offer me all the rest in vain!”

This demand of the heart only echoes the higher demand of infinite Justice. All ages were in travail with this unuttered secret. Rivers of blood flowed through the temple courts of Moriah, to prepare for Gethsemane and Golgotha. Here, amidst earthquake’ and darkness, the marvellous achievement takes j)lace. “Messiah is the end of the law for righteousness.” The mystery is revealed. The Holy of holies is made accessible. Its golden glories are now as a common thing, in comparison with the divine reality. And so the vail of the temple is rent in twain from the top to the bottom. The hour has come. The Son of Man is glorified. That immaculate Spirit passes away from pain forever. The emblematic blood is forced from his sacred side. Let me repeat the saying of Augustine: ‘Behold, O sinner, the price of thy redemption!’ O if the true protomartyr John the Baptist looked down upon the Cross from the paradise to which he had been borne out of his own blood... must he not with rapture and awe have repeated his Gospel, Behold the Lamb of God? Now is he lying dead on the divine altar. The work is complete in the court without. The High Priest has gone in with the sacrificial blood to sprinkle it upon the mercyseat, in the heavenly places not made with hands. But see! another John, stand.-^ all absorbed in wonder, grief, and believing love. He begins to comprehend the meaning of a thousand sayings of prophets and of his Lord. He catches an inspiration which, during a long j)igi’iiiiage, is to make him preeminently the apostle of love, lie beholds the frame which he loved, and with every fibre of which he is in tender sympathy, convulsed into agonizing distortion, stiffened by extension, marred with gore, and stark in the chillness of an evening from which the sun had so long withdrawn himself. But even the warmth of human love is swallowed up in a holier sympathy. ‘•My sins are visited there!’ “He is the Propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.”

In the solemn pathetic discourses of primitive Christians, when they met to commemorate the broken body and flowing blood of Jesus, they doubtless pointed to the holy sacrament as dej)icting the event which we are considering. ‘This broken loaf,’ they would say, ’ recalls to us the beloved side whose death-whiteness was crimsoned with its heart’s blood.” This we do in remembrance of Him, in remembrance of a death fresh and recent; a death to which we owe our soul’s rescue from wrath and curse. He bare our sins hi his own body on the tree. By these Btripes are we healed. It is Justification, and of course the Pardon (that Justification includes) wliicli comes to us from the side of our Redeemer. Jesus is made sin for us, that we might be made the I’igliteousness of God in liini. It is the fundamental doctrine of our faith as sinners. Not only do we believe in God the Father, but in Jesus Christ his Son, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was dead and buried.” But there is another great benefit which we receive from Christ on the Cross:

II. Sanctification. — This is the natural significancy of Water in all the ceremonial hierogly2:)hic of the ancient rites. There were divers “washings” (baptisms)^ as the Apostle Paul writes. No figure could be more expressive, than cleansing of the body to represent the cleansing of the soul. And therefore we find the sacred writers sliding, as if unconsciously, from one to the other, and speaking of outward when they really mean inward washing. A Hebrew convert would especially do thus. Accustomed to the ceremonial ablutions, which relieved his conscience in regard to breaches of ritual holiness, he would recur to them, when he wished to feel and express the inward purity which they typified. Drawn to look into the true but invisible Sanctum sanctorum he would follow with his eye the divine proj)itiatory Messiah, entering within the veil with the tokens of his bloody sacrifice; and so would fall in, as thousands must have done, with those glorious words, Heb. 10:19-22, “Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest of holies by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which he hath consecrated for us, through the vail, that is to say, his flesh; and having a High Priest over the house of God; let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of fiiith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.” I pray you Christian hearers lose not the phrase; but mark how New Testament experience uses Old Testament idiom; our todies loaslied %iyitli ])iire water. ‘’ The like figure whereunto “we may without perversion of Peter’s words add, “doth now save us, even Baptism; not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God; by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” 1 Peter 3: 21. Nothing l)ut the most extreme bias of a foregone conclusion and partisan zeal for a darling form, coukl ever have led any to mahitain that the idea of cleansing is not essential to baptism. Washing, not dij)ping, is the primary notion. Ancient bathing was seldom by immersion, even when great lavers were used. The classical scholar knows that the Ba])tisterion of the Greeks was a small vessel. Scripture lays no stress on the mode of signifying a cleansing application of water, still less makes it essential. Cleansing operations are variously set forth in emblem. Of the great Laver of brass, it is written, “Aaron and his sons shall wash their hands and their feet thereat.” Ex. 30: 19. Of an unclean person. Lev. 15: 30 “he shall wash his clothes and bathe his flesh in runnino: water.” Of ceremonial defilement by corpses Num. 19: 18 “And a clean person shall take hyssop and dip it in the water, and sprinkle it upon the tent.” The minds of the people were imbued with these sjmibols of purification, so that bedewing with water signified to them the sanctifying influences of the Holy Spirit. Thus were they prepared to rejoice in the prophetic promise Ezek. 36: 25 “Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you and ye shall be clean.” The aspersion or affusion of water in the Old Testament signified the making clean; so did the holy drops which followed the cruel spear; so does the sacramental water which falls upon the brow.

Our salvation, Christian brethren, had been incomplete, if Jesus had stopped short with pardon. By atonement he procures another infinite good. In justification, we receive a change of standing, in reference to justice and law; but we need a change of nature and life. Our blessed Lord did not die to keep us in an eternity of sinning. JSTor yet did he secure for us remission of God’s wrath, simply that we mioht henceforward advance on our own account, and have a new trial. Nay; we should not have stood firm an hour. He came and suffered, moreover, for a higher end, than to afibrd us the greatest motive to be holy. These are not Grod’s ways. This Redeemer who hangs dead upon the tree has endured this death out of infinite love to holiness and infinite regard for the glory of the Father. “This is he that came by water,” (more exactly “with water.”) This is he that came with sanctifying influence; that “he might ])urify to himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.” While we look upon the baptismal flow which spreads over his side, we recognize in it not merely the wounding of a body which never knew sin, holy, harmless and undefiled — but the pledge of holiness in his people, as ensured by this his sacrificial death. For by his Cross, Jesus has made holiness desirable, possible and certain. First, the Cross makes holiness desirable. There can be no strono’er motive to inward purity than that which is presented in the death of Christ. “The love of Christ constrains us, because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then all died, and that he died for all that they which live should no longer live unto themselves, but unto him that died for them and rose again.” If you would be moved to holy living, self-denial and mortification of the flesh — gaze upon the Cross. Consider that it was sin which crowned that head, fixed those hands and feet with spikes to the tree, and rent its sacrilegious way into the chambers of that holy side. If indeed it should be your purpose to harbor sin, you will not be able to bear the sight; you will turn away to other thoughts; you will avoid those chapters of the Gospel which treat of the Passion, you will absent yourself from the communion of his body and ])lood For the more a believer contemplates the Cross, the more will he long to be holy, and to purify himself even as He is pure.

Secondly, The Cross makes holiness possible. Even if we were cleansed from the guilt of sin, that is, freed from being liable to punishment, the heart and conscience would cry out for more. There must be water as well as blood, purity as well as pardon, power to obey as well as sense, of escape. This power is only from the Holy Spirit of God, procured in the way of purchase, by Christ’s obedience unto death; and claimed by him on his ascension into heaven. Jesus, as Mediator, has merited that the Spirit of holiness should be given to Ills people. Before he suffered, lie insti’ucted them, that unless he suffered, this Comforter would not come. At Pentecost there was a signal epiphany of the Spirit; hut not confined to that day. “He that believeth in me” said the Lord, “’ from within him shall flow rivers of living water.” “This spake He of the Spirit which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given, because that Jesus was not yet glorified.” But now that he has been glorified (in the affectinor sense which he has himself explained to us, Jno. 13:31) the Holy Ghost is given to all believers, to enable them to live unto God. This power therefore we receive by the death of Jesus. Thirdly, the Cross makes holiness certain. Not merely desirable by giving motive; not merely possible, by giving aid; but infallil)ly certain, by giving pledge and assurance. The salvation which Christ has bought by his most innocent and infinitely precious dying, is not a loose contingency, a chance of doing better, a probability suspended on the believer’s mutable will; Imt a true and finished redem])ti()n, securing the grace wliicli shall sweetly but assuredly x that will. Look at the heavenly chain, remark how its golden links hang together, and consider which of them you would strike out. Rom. 8: 30 “Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified; and whom he justified, them he also ghrified.” The pledge issued from that blessed side. “If one died for all, then all died.” By the effect of the covenant, “we are crucified with Christ;” we die unto sin; ceasing more and more from the practice of it. The Spirit of holiness causes us to love and practise what is pleasing to God. As surely as any man believes in the Lord Jesus Christ, so surely shall he be saved; and saved from sin. Thus the cross makes our sanctification certain. But we must hasten towards our conclusion. We have beheld issuing from our Saviour’s pierced side both blood and water. We have learnt in the school of types that these denote our Justification and our Sanctification; and that the Christian sacraments, of the Eucharist and Baptism denote the same. Take the two together, and they comprehend our salvation. If Christ “is made unto us,” first, “righteousness” and then ‘’ sanctification,” we have all; at least in its beginning, in pledge, in lioi)e, and in certitude. Heaven itself is only the perfection of peace with God, and the consummation of holiness. Neither in heaven nor earth can we have one, without having something of the other. To seek for pardon, without hatred of sin or a desire to he delivered from it, is the delusion of antinomian hypocrisy. “In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil; whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother.” 1 Jno. B: 10 If God has touched us by his Spirit, if he has made us know the plague of our own heart; if he has so laid the plunnnet of the Law beside the crookedness of our life, as to cause despair of creature-help; if he has so revealed himself in the majesty of his holiness, that we have abhorred ourselves and repented in dust and ashes; — then, at the Cross, we

have craved both blood to expiate and water to cleanse. So did the Hebrew penitent at God’s altar; he craved the drops wliicli had just gushed from the lamb of sacrifice; he craved the l)aptism which should afford cleansing to his ceremonial vileness. The penitent king, stained with adultery and murder, groans forth a twofold wish: “Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” True faith looks toward the crucified Redeemer for both. God is offended, and of our own stores we can make no reparation or atonement: but “the blood of Jesus Christ his Son ckanseth us from all sin.” It is because we have approached the Saviour, that we desire to approach the sacrament. At altars, the blood was sprinkled upon the body; at the Lord’s Table, when faith is present, it is sprinkled upon the heart and conscience. And the effect is j)eace. Being justified by faith we have peace with God throusfh our Lord Jesus Christ. There is no more condemnation for us, than for Christ himself. The sword of justice can find no spot on the believing sinner, which is not covered with the blood of Jesus; and against that blood its edge is powerless.

And in regard to the other point;

every renewed soul longs and importunately

wrestles for sanctification. It would be a

serious error, if we sought it except from

the crucified Jesus. It is a current from

his heart. The principle of holiness flows

from him to us. Sin is nailed to his cross.

Virtue comes thence, to draw our feelings

heavenward. Our former life is no more;

we live anew.” And the life that we now

live, we live by faith in the Son of God,

who loved us and gave himself for us.”

Every believer therefore feels the force of

this exhortation, at the Lord’s Table: “Set

your affections on thi igs above, not on

things on the earth. lor ye are dead, and

your life is hid with Christ in God” O

brethren, let us continually look to Jesus,

for this complete salvation, jDurchased by

his agonies; attested by his wounded side;

and symbolized by the sacraments of this

day.