What God Thinks of This Blood
He counts it infinitely precious, — more precious than all corruptible things such as gold and silver. Its value can only be measured by the greatness of him from whom it flowed. Its efficacy, too, is boundless in his eyes. He deems it available for the worst of cases, — for the very extremity of guilt and pollution. He sees in it also the blood of the “Lamb without blemish and without spot.” No tinge of sin does he behold in it. The lamb which Israel was commanded to bring was to b» a “he-lamb of the first year, without blemish, for a burnt-offering.”1 And in this type God made known what that Lamb was to be, by whose bloodshedding, in the fulness of time, sin was to be put away. Even the eye of Jehovah could discover no spot in that Lamb or in its blood. The blood that cleanseth must itself be clean; and such was this.
From the time that man sinned, God began to declare his mind respecting this blood, and to show the value which he set upon it. Not only did he begin to make known to sinners that without shedding of blood there could be no remission of sin; but he began to declare his estimate of that blood, that man might learn that it was no common blood. From the day of man’s sinning till the time of a Saviour’s coming there was a continual 1 Numbers vi. 14. testimony kept up by God respecting it. Both by deed and word, by promise, by prophecy, and by type, this witness-bearing was maintained from age to age. Blood without blemish, — blood of infinite price, — this was the substance of the testimony. And in that testimony was wrapt up the whole gospel, — glad tidings of great joy to man.
On the foreseen efficacy and availableness of that blood he began and carried on the work of reconciliation before the Reconciler had come. On the credit of it he began to save sinners four thousand years before it had been shed. For it was the value of it, irrespective of the time when it should be actually shed, that made it a righteous thing in God to bless the sinner, so long before its shedding. The time of the shedding was of less mo- 1 Rom. iii. 2 5; Heb. ix. 15. ment in the eyes of him with whom one day is as a thousand years; but the value of it was absolutely essential if there was to be such a thing as substitution, or sin-bearing, or cleansing. That value he never allowed man to lose sight of for a day.
During all these four thousand years, he was continually speaking of that blood, pointing to it, calling every eye to gaze upon it, proclaiming his estimate of it in manifold ways. Everything spoken or done under the former dispensation had reference to it, or was brought into connection with it. Each altar that was reared, from Abel’s down to that of Israel’s in the wilderness, was a divine witness to its efficacy. Each part of the tabernacle, — its curtains, its posts, its floor, its lever, its tables, its vessels, its ark, its priests, — all were made to bear witness to i Hebrews ix. 19-22. this, either by the actual sprinkling of the blood upon them, or by the crimsonhue of their carefully- wrought and divinely-appointed texture.
Though it was not possible that the blood of bulls or of goats could take away sin, or could have any value in the sight of God, yet even that blood was looked upon as sacred and holy, because prefiguring the blood of the better sacrifice. So excellent was the substance that it seemed to lend excellence to the shadow; so glorious was the antitype that it cast brightness upon the perishable type, and imparted to it a beauty, a value, and a reality, such as we attach to the picture or the statue of a beloved friend. So efficacious was this blood of the Lamb of God, that it made available the blood of the sacrificial lamb for the worshippers in Israel, as to all outward privileges in the service of God. The want of blood shut the door of the tabernacle against them, and kept them without. Without that blood they were treated as outcasts, as men with whom Jehovah refused to deal, and to whom the privilege of even coming into his courts was denied. With that blood they might enter in; for that blood was their title to admittance, — their only but their sufficient warrant for taking their place among the worshippers of Jehovah. Nay more, the very altar on which that typical blood was shed and sprinkled was counted holy.
“It shall be an altar most holy,” are the words of God to Moses. Such was the all-pervading virtue of the “better blood,” which remained to be shed in the ages yet to come. And then, as if to add something still more to this it is said, u Whatsoever touche th the altar shall be holy.” We 1 Exodus xxix. 37.
U. Of ill. lib. read of “the very shadow of Peter passing by,” being looked to for healing; and in the case of the blood of Christ, it is as if its very shadow, cast backward over Jewish rites, availed to consecrate them, diffusing an unseen influence over all the services of the sanctuary, and affixing a mysterious value to its ordinances, by reason of its own unutterable efficacy and excellence.
In the case of the typical blood this value was what we may call fictitious. It was not a value inherent in the thing itself, but pertaining to it solely by reason of its connection with that which was to come. But this fictitious value of the type illustrates most vividly the real value of the Antitype. If God did so much for Israel, because of the ceremonial blood which yet derived all its efficacy from the other, what will he not do for those who avail themselves of that other which imparted the efficacy? If a sinner of old might come into the courts of the Lord as an accepted worshipper simply because presenting to God the blood of bulls and goats, may not a sinner now come into the real, the immediate presence of J ehovah, with still greater certainty of acceptance, simply making mention of that divine blood which has flowed from the Lamb of God, — the Word made flesh, — who made his soul an offering for sin, and gave his life a ransom for the sins of many
The law having but “the shadow of good things to come,” could “never with these sacrifices, which were offered year by year continually, make the comers thereunto perfect,” that is, perfect as pertaining to the conscience, — perfect in so 1 Isaiah liii. 10; Matt. xx. 28. far as the entire removal of guilt from the burdened conscience was concerned. Had it been able to do so, thence “the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins.”1 But what the law could not do with its rivers of ritual blood, that the one sacrifice of Christ has done at once and for ever. And they who will but consent to employ it in their transactions with God will find that it can accomplish for them those things which the apostle declares could not be accomplished by all the offerings of the sons of Levi. It can “make the comers thereunto perfect;” it can so purge the worshippers, that they “shall have no more conscience of sins.” Let us but employ this blood as Israel employed the other, and we shall find how thoroughly efficacious it is to purge the guilty concience, to give perfect 1 Hebrews x. 1, 2. peace to the troubled soul, and to bring us into the presence of God with boldness and with joy.
An Israelite, when his conscience wras burdened with sin, had just to go to his fold and take thence a lamb, and bring it to the altar; and though that could not do everything for his conscience, yet it could do much. But our Lamb is already slain and offered, — nay, accepted too. We have but to avail ourselves of it, — to employ it, — nothing more. It is at all times available, — at all times ready for our use. And we use it, when, simply believing what God has told us of its efficacy and of his delight in it, we go to him, in the full assurance of faith, with no other plea, either within us or without us, but the blood alone.
1 Hebrews iv. 16; is. 14.