Part 2 The Vitality of the Atoning Blood
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But oh what life does the believing communicant find in the atoning blood! What food, what refreshment, what nourishment! Is it any wonder that Jesus should be to him the Chief among ten thousand, and that the blood of Jesus should be the most precious thing in the universe? If the death of Jesus is his life, what must the life of Jesus be! If the humiliation of Jesus is his honor, what must the exaltation of Jesus be! If the cross of Jesus is his glory, what must the throne of Jesus be! If Jesus crucified is his boast, what must be Jesus glorified! "If, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life."
Reader, is the blood of Jesus the life of your soul? So momentous is the truth, though presented before, bear with me for pressing it again upon your attention. Believe me when, with all affection and solemnity, I say that your religion, your creed, your profession, are lifeless if they are not vivified, pervaded, and animated by the blood of the Son of God. God can have no dealings with you in this great matter of your salvation, but through the blood. He cannot 'reason' with you about your sins of 'crimson' and of 'scarlet' dye but on the footing of the blood. He cannot meet you for one moment in any other character than as a 'consuming fire,' but as He meets you at, and communes with you from above, the mercy-seat sprinkled with blood. The blood is everything to God in the way of satisfaction, of glory, and of honor. The blood should be everything to you in the way of acceptance, pardon, and communion. There is not a moment in which God's eye of complaisance is withdrawn from the blood in the perpetual acceptance of the believer; and there should not be a moment in which our eye of faith, in every circumstance of our daily walk before Him, should not also be upon the blood.
But here the brief and imperfect discussion of this great truth must rest. The remaining portion of the chapter will be devoted to a few PRACTICAL REFLECTIONS. The subject lifts us to the very porch, and within the porch of heaven. And what is the great truth which it presents to our view there? -the prevalency of the life-blood of Jesus within the veil. The moment the ransomed and released soul enters glory, the first object that arrests its attention and fixes its eye is the interceding Savior. Faith, anticipating the glorious spectacle, sees him now pleading the blood on behalf of each member of His Church upon earth. "By His own blood He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us." "For Christ has not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, NOW to appear in the presence of God for us." There is blood in heaven! the blood of the Incarnate God!
And because it pleads and prays, argues and intercedes, the voice of every sin is hushed, every accusation of Satan is met, every daily transgression is forgiven, every temptation of the adversary is repelled, every evil is warded, every need is supplied, and the present sanctification and the final glorification of the saints are secured. "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? It is Christ who died, yes rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us." Draw near, you Joshuas, accused by Satan! Approach, you Peters, whose faith is sifted! Come, you tried and disconsolate! The mediatorial Angel, the pleading Advocate, the interceding High Priest, has passed into the heavens, and appears before the throne , for you. If the principle of the spiritual life in your soul has decayed, if your grace has declined, if you have 'left your first love,' there is vitality in the interceding blood of Jesus, and it prays for your revival. If sin condemns, and danger threatens, and temptation assails, and affliction wounds, there is living power in the pleading blood of Immanuel, and it procures pardon, protection, and comfort.
Nor let us overlook the sanctifying tendency of the pleading blood. "These things I write unto you, that you sin not." The intercession of Jesus is holy, and for holiness. The altar of incense is of pure gold. The advocacy of Christ is not for sin, but for sinners. He prays not for the continuance of sin, but for the pardon of sin. "The righteous Lord loves righteousness." And if sensible of our sin- if mourning over our sin- if loathing and turning from our sin, we come to God through Christ, then "we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." The incense-breathing censer is in His hand the fragrant cloud goes up- the mercy-seat is enveloped- the Father smiles- and all once more is peace! Then, "I will arise and go to my Father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, and am no more worthy to be called your son."
Not the least costly blessing, flowing from the vital power of the atoning blood, is the life and potency which it imparts to true prayer. The believer's path to communion with God is called the "new and living way," because it is the way of the life-blood of the risen and living Savior. There could be no spiritual life in prayer but for the vitality in the atoning blood, which secures its acceptance. Not even could the Holy Spirit inspire the soul with one breath of true prayer, were not the atonement of the Son of God provided. Oh how faintly do we know the wonders that are in, and the blessings that spring from, the life-procuring blood of our incarnate God! Touching the article of prayer- I approach to God, oppressed with sins, my heart crushed with sorrow, my spirit trembling; shame and confusion covering my face, my mouth dumb before him. At that moment the blood of Jesus is presented, faith beholds it, faith receives it, faith pleads it! There is life and power in that blood, and, lo! in an instant my trembling soul is enabled to take hold of God's strength and be at peace with him, and it is at peace.
Of all the Christian privileges upon earth none can surpass, none can compare with, the privilege of fellowship with God. And yet how restricted is this privilege in the experience of multitudes! And why? simply in consequence of their vague, imperfect, and contracted views of the connection of true prayer with the living blood of Jesus. And yet, oh what nearness to, what communion with, the Father, may the lowest, the feeblest, the most unworthy child at all times and in all circumstances have, who simply and believingly makes use of the blood of Christ! You approach without an argument or a plea. You have many sins to confess, manysorrows to unveil, many requests to urge, many blessings to crave- and yet the deep consciousness of your utter vileness, the remembrance of mercies abused, of base, ungrateful requitals made, seals your lips, and you are dumb before God. Your overwhelmed- your spirit exclaims, "O that I knew where I might find him! that I might come even to His seat- I would order my cause before him, and fill my mouth with arguments." And now the Holy Spirit brings atoning blood to your help. You see this to be the one argument, the only plea that can prevail with God. You use it- you urge it- you wrestle with it. God admits it, is moved by it, and you are blest!
Let, then, the life-power of the blood encourage you to cultivate more diligently habitual communion with God. With low frames, with sinking spirits, with even discouragement and difficulty, you may approach His Divine Majesty, and converse with Him as with a Father, resting your believing eye, where He rests His complacent eye- upon the blood of Jesus. "Having, therefore; brethren, boldness (or liberty) to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which be has consecrated (or new made) for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh; and having a High Priest over the house of God; let us draw near." Oh the blessedness, the power, the magic influence of prayer! Believer! you grasp the key that opens every chamber of God's heart, when your tremulous faith takes hold of the blood of the covenant, and pleads it in prayer with God. It is impossible that God can then refuse you! The voice of the living blood pleads louder for you than all other voices can plead against you. Give yourself, then, unto prayer- this sacred charm of sorrow, this Divine talisman of hope!
"Lord! what a change within us one short hour
Spent in your presence, will avail to make,
What burdens lighten, what temptations slake,
What parched ground refreshed as with a shower!
We kneel, and all around us seems to lower;
We rise, and all the distant and the near
Stand forth in sunny outline, brave and clear.
We kneel, how weak! We rise, how full of power!
Why, therefore, should we do ourselves this wrong,
Or others, that we are not always strong!
That we are ever overborne with care,
That we should ever weak or heartless be,
Anxious or troubled, when with us is Prayer,
And joy, and strength, and courage, are with Thee!"
What a powerful motive does this truth supply to a daily and unreserved consecration of ourselves to the Lord! If, under the old economy, the utensil or the garment touched with blood was sacred and solemn, how much more the soul washed in the heart's-blood of Christ! When the king of Israel, in the heat of battle, and in the agony of thirst, cried for water, and some of his attendants procured it for him at the hazard of their lives, the God-fearing and magnanimous monarch refused to taste it, because it was the price of blood! but "poured it out before the Lord."
Christian soldier! it was not at the risk of His life, but more- it was by the sacrifice of His life that your Lord and Savior procured your redemption, and brought the waters of salvation, all living and sparkling from the throne of God, to your lips. You are the price of blood! "bought with a price." Will you not, then, glorify God in your soul, body, and substance, which are His? will you not pour it all out before the Lord- presenting it as a living sacrifice upon the altar flowing with the life-blood of God's own Son?
If there be a vital, and therefore a deathless, principle in the atoning blood of Jesus, then it will avail to the salvation of the chief of sinners to the latest period of time. Ages have rolled by since it was shed, and millions have gone to heaven in virtue of its merits, and yet it still avails! Listen, lowly penitent, to these glad tidings. Approach the blood of Jesus, simply believing in its Divine appointment and sovereign efficacy; and the pardon it conveys and the peace it gives will be yours. Behold the sacred stream, as vital and as warm, as efficacious and as free, as when eighteen hundred years ago all nature was convulsed at the sight of this blood starting from the pierced heart of its Incarnate Creator! and when the expiring malefactor bathed in it and was saved.
No more; if the virtue of the Savior's blood, before it was shed, extended back to the time of Adam and of Abel, for He was "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world," surely since that it has actually been offered, it will continue its virtue through all the revolutions of time to the remotest age of the world, and to the last sinner who may believe. If Jesus is a 'priest forever,' the virtue of His sacrifice must abide forever, for He cannot officiate as a priest without a sacrifice. And as His gospel is to be preached to all nations, even to the end of the world, so the saving efficacy of His blood, upon which the gospel depends for its power and its success, must be as lasting as time.
"Christ's blood is never lost and congealed, as the blood of the legal sacrifices. His blood is called a new way. The word rendered new signifies a thing newly slain or sacrificed. His blood is as new and fresh for the work it was appointed to, as when it was shed upon the cross: as full of vigor as if it had been shed but this moment. It is blood that was not drunk up by the earth, but gathered up again into his body, to be a living, pleading, cleansing blood in the presence of God forever. He did not leave His body and blood putrefying in the gave; the sacrifice had then ceased and corrupted, it had not been of everlasting efficacy as it now is." (Charnock)
Seek a constant renewal of the blood of Christ upon the conscience. The lamb, under the former dispensation, was to be slain morning and evening. Our Divine and spotless Lamb once slain is no more offered, except as faith deals with Him morning and evening, as if He were newly slain. Herein the vital power of His blood beautifully appears. We need the perpetual application of the blood of sprinkling- a present coming to it. As often as the Israelite was bitten by the fiery serpent he raised his eye to the brazen one reared by Moses, looked again, and was healed. Since each day brings its fresh contraction of guilt, each day should bring its fresh application to the blood. Allow no new wound in the conscience to inflame and fester, but the instant it is received seek the balsam that heals it. This will keep the heart fixed upon God, will embitter the nature and weaken the power of sin, and will preserve the conscience like a polished mirror, attracting to itself the beneficent beams of God's love, and reflecting from its surface the light and luster of the Divine image.
There is one view of this important truth which bears with great solemnity upon the case of those who entirely reject the atoning blood. It will be best illustrated by a reference to an event in the history of the exodus of the Israelites. It will be recollected, that upon Pharaoh's refusing to release God's people from bondage, God commanded the first-born in every Egyptian house to be slain. It was a night of woe in the land of Egypt, long to be remembered. The only exception in this work of destruction was in favor of the children of Israel. And yet even they could not escape the judicial punishment but in the strictest compliance with the Divine method for their safety. They were ordered on the eve of that fearful night to take "a lamb without blemish, a male of one year," and to "slay it, and take of the blood, and strike it on the two side-posts and on the upper door-posts of the houses; and the blood," says God, " shall be to you for a token upon the houses where you are; and when I see the blood I will pass over you! and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt."
They obeyed God. And when the angel of death sped his way through the land, smiting the first-born of each Egyptian family, he paused with solemnity and awe where he beheld the sprinkled blood- sheathed his sword, and passed on to do the work of destruction where no blood was seen. Thus will it be with the soul who has no interest in the life-giving and the life-saving blood of Jesus! The sinner who has not this Divine and sacred sign upon him is marked for condemnation; he is under the awful sentence of death! That sentence has gone forth- the destroying angel has received his commission- the sword is drawn- the arm is uplifted- one final word from that God who has long stretched out to you His beseeching, yet disregarded, hand- that moving, that inviting God, whose patience you have abused, whose mercy you have despised, whose law you have broken, whose Son you have rejected- and the stroke falls- and heaven is lost forever!
O fly to the atoning blood of Jesus! Not a moment is to be lost. Your only hope is there-y our only protection is there- your only safety is there. "When I see the blood, I will pass over you." Blessed words! Where he beholds the pure heart's-blood of His own Son- so precious to Him- sprinkled upon the broken, penitent heart of a poor sinner, He will pass him over in the great outpouring of His wrath; He will pass him over when the ungodly, the Christless, and the prayerless sinner is punished; He will pass him over in the dread day of judgment, and not one drop of wrath will fall upon him. Escape, then, for your life! Hasten to Christ. It may be late- your evening's sun may be setting, the shadows of eternity may be deepening around you, but you have the Divine promise- plead it in faith, and God will fulfil it in your experience- "And it shall come to pass that at evening time it shall be light." Relinquish now all the strongholds of your long rebellion against God, and Christ, and truth- give up your vain reasonings, and cavilings, and excuses, and come to the Lord Jesus, as a penitent and believing sinner; throw yourself upon His mercy, take hold of His blood, get beneath the covering of His righteousness, and tell Him that if He casts you off you are lost, eternally lost- and you shall be saved! "I went, and washed, and received sight!"
And when the chill of death is congealing the life-current of your mortal existence, and heart and flesh are failing- the world receding, eternity opening- what do you think will then throw life and vigor and bloom into death itself, illumine the dark valley, and place you in safety upon the highest wave of Jordan? Oh, it will be the living blood of the Divine Redeemer at that awful moment applied to the conscience by the Holy Spirit, testifying that all sin is blotted out, your person accepted, and that there is now no condemnation. "Precious blood! precious blood that has secured all this!" will be the grateful expression of your expiring lips, as your ransomed soul shoots across the dark stream into the light and splendor of eternity.
May the Lord bless to your soul, beloved reader, the consideration of this spiritual and important subject! May the Savior's life-possessing, life-imparting, and life-supporting blood be endeared to our hearts; and may we be constrained to wash daily in the fountain, living beneath the cross, where pardon and peace, joy and heaven are found- and found alone! Amen and Amen.
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