“The blood of His cross.” Five words of immense significance! Let me note the passage in which they occur. “It was pleasing that in Him should all the fullness dwell; and, having made peace by the blood of His cross, by Him to reconcile all things to itself, by Him whether things on earth or things in heaven” (Col. 1:20). You will notice that God’s “dear Son” is spoken of as the vessel (if indeed such a word may be reverently used of Him by whom and for whom all things were created) of all the fullness. Deity in its absoluteness dwelt in Him. “Found in fashion as a man,” the Son who had ever dwelt in the bosom of the Father, had, in boundless grace, become incarnate; in order that through death, and under the judgment our sins deserved, He might not only become our Redeemer, but that, by “the blood of His cross,” He might effect, in due time, the reconciliation of all things on earth and in heaven. (Let us note well this is only said of “things,” not persons.) Believers are now reconciled. Unbelievers never will be reconciled should they die in their sins. It is the material universe which is here in view. The “blood of His cross” will bring all things in perfect accord with the mind of God throughout the wide universe. What an immense result! How fully the whole and awful question of sin raised and settled on Calvary shall then be visibly demonstrated! How the new heavens, the new earth, and the new creation, in their beauty and glory, shall demonstrate the eternal effects flowing from the “blood of His cross.” Meantime, we who are reconciled to God are privileged to enjoy peace with God. “Having made peace” (ponder the word) by “the blood of His cross.”
The peace that was marred and banished in Eden, when the serpent allured and man fell; the peace which fled and gave place to centuries of discord, rancour, and bloodshed; the peace for which the poor agonized heart of man craves, but which cannot be made by human efforts, nor bought with gold, or riches, that peace was made by “the blood of His cross.” The full result is still in abeyance, but the glorious foundation is laid, and faith appropriates it as a present blessing (Rom. 5:1). Well might the Baptist exclaim, as he saw Jesus: “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). The two scriptures are remarkably analogous, they both speak of a work which will affect the utmost bounds of the globe. “The blood of His cross”—so wickedly, wantonly shed by man—is the only basis on which peace can now be known and the harmonizing of the universe effected. His cross so despised, yet its effects so transcendant! How great the contrast!
Well may we sing:
“Whene’er we muse upon the cross
On which the Lord of glory died,
Our richest gain we count but loss,
And pour contempt on all our pride.”
For in point of fact, could anything be more truly marvellous than the crucifixion of the Lord of glory? Do we, beloved, meditate sufficiently on the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ? Do we allow the deep lessons of that most awful event to affect us as we should? Do we truly live in the power of that cross, concerning which an apostle could say: “God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, whereby the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world”?
By “the blood of His cross” our many sins have been washed away; by “the blood of His cross” the new creation shall be established in everlasting harmony; by “the blood of His cross” God has been glorified in respect of all the triumph of evil, and the enemy silenced for evermore.
May the Spirit of God grant a growing appreciation of “the blood of His cross” to all His blood-bought people.