From very early in man’s history God evinced that the only way of blessing for sinful man was by the shedding of the blood of an innocent victim. To clothe Adam and his wife with skins, blood must be shed; for Abel to offer the firstlings of his flock and their fat, the blood of innocent victims must flow. When the firstborn of Egypt were slain, the firstborn of Israel were sheltered from the divine judgment by the blood of the passover lamb, sprinkled on the doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they lived. Even when Israel accepted the terms of God’s law, they bound themselves by a covenant of blood to keep the law, the blood being sprinkled on the book of the law and on the people.
Approach to God was by blood, as witnessed the blood of the burnt and peace offerings sprinkled on the brazen altar round about, and the blood of the sin offerings put on the horns of the altar and poured out at its base. On the day of atonement, the blood must needs by sprinkled on the mercy seat to meet the holy claims of God’s throne, and sprinkled seven times before the mercy seat so that Aaron the priest could stand in the presence of God. The whole tabernacle system was sprinkled with blood, pointing forward to the time when the whole universe, and all the redeemed in it, would be secured for God by the precious blood of His own Son that was shed while He hung upon the cross.
The priests of Israel were consecrated with blood, the blood of the consecration offering being put upon their ears, hands and feet, and sprinkled with oil upon them and upon their garments. When the leper was cleansed, which typified the cleansing of a defiled sinner, the blood of the bird was sprinkled upon him, and the blood of the trespass offering was put upon his ear, thumb and great toe of his right foot. Whether as sinners or as priests to God, we have been sanctified by “the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:2).
The Words of the Lord Jesus
Knowing that He must die upon the cross, the Lord Jesus said to the Jews, “Verily, verily, I say to you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you” (John 6:53). The life is in the blood, and the appropriation of the death of Christ is essential for the reception of the divine life that belongs to the Son of God, therefore the Lord added, “Whoso eats my flesh, and drinks my blood has eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.” To have eternal life in our souls now, and to have eternal life in our bodies for eternity, we must lay hold of the death of Christ, making it our own.
At the institution of His supper, the Lord Jesus took a cup, and gave it to His disciples, saying, “This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you” (Luke 22:20). The new covenant of which the prophet had spoken could only be secured for God’s people Israel by the sacrifice of Christ, and by the shedding of His precious blood (Jer. 31:31–34). These wonderful blessings of the new covenant to be made with both the houses of Israel are even now brought to the believer in Christ as shown in 2 Corinthians 3. We have a ministry of righteousness, a ministry of the Spirit, the knowledge of God in the grace and glory shining in the face of Jesus, and Christ written upon our hearts by the Spirit of the living God.
The Words of the Apostle Paul
When Paul addressed the elders of Ephesus, he exhorted them “to feed the church of God, which He has purchased with the blood of His own” (Acts 20:28). As we contemplate the vast numbers of believers who shall form the church at its completion it gives us some little appreciation of the infinite value of the precious blood of Jesus, for every one in the redeemed company forming the church had to be purchased by God in the blood of His own Son, the One who from eternity nestled in His bosom, the darling of His love. This is the price God had paid to secure the church for Himself. It tells us of the infinite love of God, and the value He placed upon having the church as a vessel capable of displaying His love, His grace and His glory.
In Romans 3, Paul brings before us the righteousness of God, for though we have sinned, and come short of the glory of God, He has justified us “freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood” (Rom. 3:23–25). Looking forward to the death of His own Son, God was able to remit the sins of His saints in past generation, and looking back to the work of the cross, God can now take away all our sins, and clear us completely from every charge of guilt. In the light of this Paul can write, “Much more then, being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him” (Rom. 5:9).
Christians have been called into the fellowship of God’s Son, Jesus Christ our Lord (1 Cor. 1:9), the only fellowship that God recognises for those He has redeemed, and the foundation of this divine fellowship in which believers enjoy together the wondrous privileges and blessings God has given us, is the precious blood of Jesus, even as it is written, “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ?” (1 Cor. 10:16). In this fellowship we rejoice in all that Christ has done for us, in all that God has brought to us through the death of His Son, and seek to walk for the pleasure of God and the honour of Jesus’ Name.
Writing to the saints at Ephesus, Paul opens out the rich heavenly, spiritual and divine blessings that God has given us in Christ, and so that nothing might be allowed to hinder our enjoyment of these wondrous blessings he writes, “In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace” (Eph. 1:7). With our sins removed, and with the state necessary to enter into the thoughts of God, we can explore the wonderful treasures of the purpose and counsels of God. It is the precious blood too that has made peace (Col. 1:20), and has laid the basis of the reconciliation of the universe to the fulness of the Godhead, and to bring us into right relations with God even now.
The Words of the Writer to the Hebrews
The Apostle Paul was probably the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews as the Apostle Peter suggests (2 Peter 3:15), and the ritual of the tabernacle system is much spoken of. The law was “a shadow of good things to come” (Heb. 10:1), and in Hebrews the substance of the shadow is brought out for the enlightenment, encouragement and blessing of those who had believed the Gospel. The shadow consisted of earthly things, a worldly sanctuary, a successional priesthood and repeated sacrifices, but the substance was in a heavenly system that centred in the risen Christ, and that was founded upon the one great sacrifice He made when He died upon the cross.
Hebrews 9 shows the great contrast between the sacrifices under the legal system and sacrifice of Christ. The legal system was maintained “by the blood of goats and calves,” which the high priest offered year by year, but Christ has obtained eternal redemption with His precious blood, having “through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God” (Heb. 9:12–14). God has been infinitely glorified by the blood of Jesus, the heavenly system of blessing and worship has been founded on it, and the worshippers are able to serve the living God with consciences purged, so that have no more conscience of sins.
When the old covenant was ratified, the people were bound by a covenant of blood to keep the whole law, and brought upon themselves the curse of the law because they could not keep it. How different is the new covenant that is founded on the blood of Jesus, for all the blessings have been secured for God’s people by Jesus’ death, and all depends upon His work and the goodness of God, not upon the efforts of poor, failing mortals. Nothing but the precious blood of Jesus could take our sins away, “and without the shedding of blood is no remission” (verse 22).
Now we have “boldness to enter the holiest by the blood of Jesus” (Heb. 10:19), to commune with God in nearness to Him and to worship in the light of His glory that is seen in Jesus. The sprinkling of blood was necessary to save the firstborn of Israel (Heb. 11:28), but the shedding and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus shelters all who put their trust in Him. Soon there will be a new order of things, with heaven and earth under the control of Jesus, and that millennial day of blessing will be founded on the blood of Jesus, “the blood of sprinkling, that speaks better things than that of Abel” (Heb. 12:24). Abel’s blood called for vengeance, but the blood of Jesus speaks of eternal blessing through faith in His Name.
Israel could not eat of the sacrifices whose blood was brought into the sanctuary, but we have communion with God on account of the work of the Son of God. The work of the cross having been accomplished for the eternal glory of God, and for the securing of all His will, the God of peace “brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant” (Heb. 13:10–12, 20). The blood of Christ which enables us to enter the immediate presence of God as worshippers also takes us “outside the camp, bearing His reproach,” and gives us to know the eternal value of the work wrought upon the cross.
The Words of the Apostle Peter
Having shown that the elect of God have been set apart for His pleasure by the anointing of the Spirit and the efficacy of the blood of sprinkling (1 Peter 1:2), the Apostle writes of the redemption of God’s children as foreshadowed in the blood of the paschal lamb. A half shekel of silver sufficed to ransom each one of the children of Israel in relation to earthly things (Ex. 30:12-13), so that there should be no plague among them, and gold was offered by the captains of Israel as an atonement for the sparing of the lives of the warriors in their war against Midian (Num. 31:48–54), but neither silver or gold could redeem a soul from eternal judgment, a sacrifice of infinite value was required for this.
The blood of the Passover lamb was but a dim shadow of the blood of the Lamb that God has provided in His own Son to secure eternal redemption for sinners, not only from among the children of Israel, but also from among the Gentiles. God’s holy Lamb, without blemish and without spot, was “foreordained before the foundation of the world,” but manifested when God’s time had come to deal with our guilt in the cross of Christ. How wonderful it is that guilty sinners have purified their souls “in obeying the truth” presented in the Gospel concerning Christ and His death for us.
The Words of the Apostle John
In the rich grace of God believers in His Son now walk in the light of the revelation of God that was made in the Person of Jesus here below, giving us the knowledge of God and of His great love, for all that God is in His nature and disposition towards us was seen in Jesus. As walking in the light of this wonderful revelation we have fellowship with God, knowing the Father and the Son, being associated with the Son in His place before the Father, knowing God as our God and our Father. We also have fellowship as having learned the truth through the Apostles, whom the Lord chose to bring the message of divine love to us.
Our fellowship is also with all who have been brought into the light, who walk through this world with the true knowledge of God as seen in His Son. God has been pleased to make this full and perfect revelation of Himself, so that it is written that God “is in the light,” for we can only see God in the light that came out in Jesus. Walking in this light, and in Christian fellowship, it is without a stain on the conscience, for “the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). Such is the infinite and abiding efficacy of the precious blood of Jesus that not one sin remains for those who trust Him.
The precious blood is also one of the three witnesses that God has given to testify to the greatness of His Son, and to the precious truth that He has given to us eternal life. From the side of Christ in death the blood and water flowed, witnessing to the redemption and moral purification accomplished by the Son of God through His mighty sacrifice, and telling of the divine love that gave the Son to do such a great work, and of the love of the Son to stoop even to death for us. In coming into the world, the Son of God did not only bring the word of God to men, but He came to die, to shed His precious blood for us to give us life in Himself.
Even now we can sing the song of redemption, “Unto Him that loves us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood” that will soon be sung in heaven, “Thou art worthy…for Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed to God by Thy blood, out of every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation, and made them to our God kings and priests; and they shall reign over the earth” (Rev. 5:9-10). How great will be our privilege to join in the new song of heaven, and how great our privilege to worship the Lord Jesus now, and to celebrate His great work on the cross, when He shed His precious blood to secure God’s glory, His eternal purposes of love, and to bring us into infinite and eternal blessing.
R. 3.3.71