The World Guilty

We next ask, how far is the general world involved in this special guilt? Is it, like Israel, “guilty of the body and blood of the Lord”?

The world must come in for its share of guilt. The Gentile, as well as the Jew, must be reckoned a partaker in the deed of blood. Even if the world could clear itself of the crime of murder, it cannot clear itself from the guilt of “consenting to his death.” And is this u consent” not equivalent to blood-guiltiness? Must the hand be red with blood ere the charge can be made good? Is not the acquiescence of the heart enough?

Yes. Israel was but a part of the general race — foremost indeed in guilt, but still followed close behind by the Gentile multitudes. The Jew forms the inner circle of those who crowded the hall of Pilate, and cried “crucify, crucify him,” — the inner circle of the multitude who stood around the cross exulting and deriding. The Gentile forms the outer circle. But the crowd is the same. Each circle of it, outer as well as inner, is animated with the same murderous enmity to the Son of God. Each individual in the mass breathes the same spirit, if he does not make Jerusalem ring with the same words. In truth it was the world that did the deed. It was man that crucified the Lord of glory. It was man that rejected the true light which came into the world. It was man that loved the darkness rather than the light. It was man that said, “this is the heir, come let us kill him.”1

But how is this! Just as in the case of Israel, all are included in the responsibility, for all have acquiesced in the deed. All are held guilty of the deed done beneath these skies, and upon this soil where they dwell, unless they come forth and protest against it. God holds each hearer of the Gospel guilty of the blood of Christ, until he disown the act; protesting against it, and owning this crucified one as his Saviour and Lord. I am not now speaking of those who never heard of a Saviour’s name or death. I am not urging their guilt. I speak of those before whom a

1 “Then was the world brought to a voluntary confession of the sin of murdering Jesus Christ,” — Owen on the Death of Christ, referring to Acts ii. 37. crucified Saviour has been set. In making known to them his death, is not God just asking their opinion of it, and putting it to them, whether they will own or disown the deed. Is he not saying to each of them, “What think ye of this death, this blood!” He presses this point home upon each hearer of the Gospel. If they give no heed to the message, but turn away in indifference, — or if they reject the message and despise the Saviour of whose death it speaks, then are they counted guilty ot the blood of him whom Israel slew. For thus they are “consenting to his death.” And every moment that a sinner thus remains in unbelief, turning away from the Gospel, he is chargeable with blood-guiltiness. The crime, the curse, the doom of the murderer hangs over his head.

It was thus that Whitefield used to appeal to the consciences of the crowds that hung upon him; and it was thus that hio appeals were responded to. In Tanner’s account of his own conversion, we have a striking example of this. He was a ship-carpenter, working at Plymouth, who, along with five others as ungodly as himself, resolved to go to hear Whitefield, in order “to knock him off the place where he stood.” The first sermon overawed him and drew him back to hear a second, which went to his heart. It was upon “Christ’s mercy to Jerusalem sinners,” from Luke xxiv. 47. “From these words,” says Tanner, a God the Spirit led him to show the atrocious sin of crucifying the Lord of glory; secondly, He noticed the instruments who perpetrated this dreadful deed, which were the Jews and Roman soldiers. Then came the never-to-be-forgotten moment as it concerned me. I stood at his left hand. He was not at this time looking towards me, but had just been observing, ‘I suppose,’ said he, ‘you are reflecting on the cruelty of those inhuman butchers who imbrued their hands in innocent blood.’ When, on a sudden, turning himself towards me as if designed, (and I do believe the Lord designed it for me,) he looked me full in the face, and cried out, Sinner! thou art the man that crucified the Son of God. Then, and never before, I felt the Word of God quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword. I knew not whether to stand or fall. My sins seemed all to stare me in the face. I was at once convicted. My heart bursting, mine eyes gushing forth floods of tears. I dreaded the instant wrath of God, and expected that it would instantly fall upon me.”1

The first part, then, of our message to 1 Tanner’s Life, pp. 11, 12. each careless sinner that may read these pages, is, “you are a crucifier of the Lord of glory.” His blood is upon you; and it is the blood of the Son of God. It is this that God is requiring at your hand. From the first moment that you heard of that blood you have been held as consenting to its shedding. God made it known to you, that you might disown the deed. This you have not done. You have felt and acted precisely as if that deed had been entirely right and just. It has awakened no abhorrence, no amazement on your part; it has called forth no condemnation. From all that you have said, or felt, or done, one might conclude that it had met with your unmingled approval. And that approval God holds you as giving, by your continuing in unbelief. He reckons you guilty of the blood of his only-begotten Son.

Do you sit easy under this fearful charge which God himself makes against you, even here, as an earnest of what will be brought against you in the day of dark reckoning when you stand before the throne? Think what it implies. It means that you are a second Cain, though guiltier far than he. Better blood than that of Abel’s is crying out against you. Your hands are red with blood. And it is not the blood of the guilty, shed righteously, but it is the blood of the holy and the just, — the blood of Him “who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth,” — , who was “holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners,” — who though he was rich, for your sake became poor, that you by his poverty might be rich. This is the blood that is laid at your door. It is innocent and it is divine. Such is your crime and such its infinite aggravation.

Do you shrink from the charge? Do you plead not guilty? Then what means your long rejection, — your deliberate unbelief? These are the proofs of the accusation. They hear full and fatal witness against you. No evidence can be more conclusive than that which they furnish against you.

Do you say, “I do not reject, I do not disbelieve.” If so, then you have received him. Is it so? Have you received the Son of God Then what has this reception of him done for you? If it be such a reception as God can recognise, then are you already a son of God, for it is written, “as many as received him to them gave he the right of being sons of God.”1 Is it so; and are you in truth a son? If not, then where is your reception! Are you not guilty of rejection still? If you have receiv-

1 John i. 12. ed him, then with him yon have received forgiveness, and with forgiveness peace, and with peace everlasting life. Is it so? Are you at this moment in possession of these? No. Then are you not still guilty of this very rejection? and if so, then are you no less truly guilty of the blood of the rejected one.

Do you grow indignant, as if your good name were slandered! Are you exclaiming, “What! do you mean to bring this man’s blood upon us!” Yes, I do. For God has done so. He charges it to your account. He lays it at your door just as Abel’s blood was laid at the door of Cain. Upon you must that blood lie till you clear yourself of it, by ceasing your acquiescence, and coming forth to protest against the deed, and thus washing your hands clean of the stain.

Do you say, “but how am I to enter my protest against it?” Simply by believing on the name of the crucified, owning him as your Saviour, and receiving him as your all. This is the only way in which you can now protest against the deed, and come out from under the curse with which that deed has burdened you. And this is the way which God has appointed for the sinner’s entering his protest, and being delivered from the doom of the blood-guilty. He has given you time to protest. Many long years has he afforded you. Of these you have not yet availed yourself, and thus have added unspeakably to the infinite crime. Yet still does he extend that space. It is not yet too late. He is willing, even up to this hour, to receive your protest; and in receiving it, to receive you also; not only acquitting you from the charge of blood, but treating you as righteous ;l not only delivering 1 At the risk of its boing thought out of place. you from the eternal curse which that blood was drawing over you, but turning that curse into a rich and endless blessing.

I shall ask the reader’s attention to the following illustration of the truth embodied in the above sentence. It is from Reichard’s Initia Doc - trince Christiana, which contains an exposition of the Lutheran doctrine of justification. I need not give the original. “Justification is that divine act by which man the sinner is absolved from all the guilt and punishment of his sins by reason of the satisfaction of Christ; and is so reckoned and treated of God, as if he had not only committed no sin, but as if all his life he had lived most holily. At the same time, we must remember that this divine blessing is not of a physical, but of a moral kind, and refers wholly to imputation; since the substitutionary satisfaction of Jesus Christ is reckoned by God as entirely ours. For this divine proceeding is like a forensic transaction, in which there are judges, accusers, and accused, advocates, laws, witnesses, and in the end an acquittal from the charge. ... It consists of two parts: the one, by Do you scoff and say, like the murderer in the olden time,

A little water clears us of the deed;

How easy is it then I

Bear then the guilt and brave the Judge. Refuse to answer his demand for a reckoning on this score. And see how it will fare with you. Ah! the hour is coming, when the guilt of that blood will he fully seen; hut seen too late. It might have been washed away here; it cannot be washed away yonder. It will spread itself ove*

which, on account of Christ’s merit, our guilt is totally removed; the other, by which Christ’s obedience is held as ours. For seeing the divine law demands, not only that we should commit no sin, but that we should do all manner of good, (neither of which is in our power,) it is plain that the satisfaction of Christ avails us in a twofold manner; partly as he bore in our room the guilt and punishment of our sins, and partly as he obeyed the divine law most perfectly for US.”

your whole eternity in the horrors of undying remorse and shame, — horrors which only blood-guiltiness can awaken, — horrors which no fallen angel can experience, — horrors which none can taste save men who have first shed this blood and then rejected it.

1 Does the reader here call to mind the well-known lines: —

Will all the mighty ocean wash this blood Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will The multitudinous seas incarnadine, [rather Making the green, one red.