The Power of the Blood to Fit for the Service of the Living God
Ix. — 14. How much more shall the blood of Christ cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God P
WE must not regard the cleansing in the blood of Christ as the end, the final aim, of redemption. It is only the beginning, the means to a higher end — the fitness for the service of the living God. It is the restoration to the fellowship of Him who has life and gives life. The blood gives cleansing from dead works, the works of the law and of self, with its own efforts; it brings into a living relation to the living God. God and His fellow ship, a life in His love and service, the living God and the enjoyment of His presence, — this is the aim of redemption.
The living God! This name was used in the Old Testament as a contrast to the dead idols of the heathen. In the New Testament it points us to the danger of our forming an image of God, not in wood or stone, but in our mind and imagination — athought-image, in which there is neither life nor truth. What we need first of all in religion is that we believe that God is, that our faith realise Him as the living One, who is all that He is, in the power of an infinite life and energy. He is the living God! He speaks and hears. He feels and acts. He has the power to make us know that He is near to us, and that He receives us when we come near to Him. The know-
308 Ube f)olie0t of ail
ledge of the living God is the ground of a living faith, a living fellowship, a living service. As the living God, He is all, and does all and fills all — the ever-present, ever-working God.
To serve the living God! The glory of the creature is to serve God, to be a vessel in which He can pour His fulness, a channel through which He can show forth His glory, an instrument for working out His purposes. This was what man was created for in the image of God. The whole object of redemption is to bring us back to a life in the living service of God. It is for this the Holiest of All was opened to us by the blood as the place of service. It is for this our conscience is cleansed in the blood, as the fitness for service. A life in the Holiest of All is a life in which everything is done under the sense of God’s glory and presence, and to His glory; a life that has no object but the service of God.
It was thus with the priests in Israel. They were set apart by the sprinkling of blood (Ex. xxix. 19, 20). The object of this was (Deut. x. 8) to fit them to stand before the Lord, to minister unto Him, to bless in His name. One great reason why many Christians never enter into the full joy and power of redemption, into the life within the veil, is that they seek it for themselves. Let us beware lest we seek the access into the Holiest, the joy of unclouded fellowship with God, the power of the blood to cleanse, only for the sake of our advance in holiness or in happiness. The whole appointment of the sanctuary and the priests was that there might be men who could come before God to minister to Him, and then go out and bless their fellow-men. Christ entered through His blood within the veil, to go and serve; to be a minister of the sanctuary in the power of the blood, by which He could cleanse others and admit them too within the veil. To know the power of the blood to cleanse and
Ifoolfest of BU 309
admit within the veil, and give us part in the priests’ ministry of blessing men: this will come as we seek it as fitness to serve the living God.
How much more shall the blood of Christ cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? The cleansing is for service. There was a great difference between the people in the outer court and the priests within the tabernacle. The former saw the blood sprinkled on the altar, and trusted for forgiveness; the blood was not applied to their persons. The priests were sprinkled with the blood; that gave them access to the sanctuary to serve God there. We still have outer-court Christians, who look at Calvary, and trust for forgiveness, but know nothing of the access to God which the more direct and powerful application of the blood from heaven by the Holy Spirit gives. Oh let us give ourselves to be priests, wholly separated to the service of God, wholly given up to God, for Him to work in us and through us what perishing men need, — our consecration to this service will urge us mightily to claim an ever mightier experience of the blood, because we shall feel that nothing less than a full entrance into, and a true abiding in God’s presence, can fit us for doing God’s work. The more we see and approve that the object of the cleansing must only be for service, the more shall we see and experience that the power for service is only in the cleansing.
How much more shall the blood cleanse from dead works
1 “The blood contains that which makes white (Rev. vii. 14). Not only the man, but his garments are made white. This is more than cleansing. It is the word used regarding Christ’s transfiguration garments (Matt. xvii. 2); the angel robes (Matt, xxviii. 3); the heavenly clothing (Rev. iv. 4); the judgment throne (Rev. xx. n), whiter than snow, white as the garments of Christ. What potency, what excellency, what virtue does this blood contain! How it beautifies! How it glorifies!” — H. BONAR.
310 Cbe Iboliest of 2UI
to serve the living God! If we experience in ourselves, or in those around us, that there is little of the power and presence of the living God in our religious service, we have here the reason. If we find that in that service dead works still prevail, and that in prayer and preaching, in home life and work around us, the duties of the religious life are performed without the power of the life and Spirit of God, let us learn the lesson — it is only the effectual cleansing, through the Eternal Spirit, of the blood that has been taken into the Holiest, that can fit us to serve the living God. That blood, witnessed to by the Holy Spirit, brings us into the Holiest, and makes God to us a living God! That blood brings the life of the Holiest into our hearts, cleanses our conscience from every dead work, from every attempt and every hope to do anything in our own strength, gives the consciousness that we are now ransomed and set free and empowered from heaven to serve the God of heaven in the power of a life that comes from heaven. The blood of Christ doth indeed cleanse us to serve the living God!
1. How vain it would have been for anyone to seek the priestly consecration with blood, and the entrance into the sanctuary, if he were not to do the priest’s service. Let us give up the vain attempt. Let us seek the power of the blood to serve the living God, as His ministers to our fellow-men, The whole inward life of our High Priest, which He imparts to us, consisted of these two things: it was a life in the will of God, and in self-sacrificing hue to men.
2. The priests honoured the blood sprinkled on them by boldly entering the tabernacle. Oh let us honour the blood of the Lamb by believing that it gives the power for a life in the Holiest, in the service of the living God I
3. Conscience tells me what I must think of myself. The blood tells me what God thinks of me. A conscience cleansed with the blood is a conscience that glories in this, that in holiness and In sincerity of God we behave ourselves in the world.
4. Oh to realise it I Christ went Into the Holiest, not for Himself, but for us. And we go in, too, by His blood and in His Spirit, not only for ourselves but for others.
Cbe Doliest of ail 311