‘For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?’—Heb. ix. 13, 14.
It is impossible to think too much of the most precious blood of our most blessed Lord and Saviour. It throws its sacred power over every department of our Christian life. Our pardon, our peace, our communion, and our holiness, are all dependent on that most precious blood. Lose sight of the blood of Christ, and you lose sight of the very essence of your Christianity.
Our subject to-day is Sanctification through blood. There are three passages in the Epistle to the Hebrews in which we find a reference to such a sanctification: viz., x. 29,—‘Hath counted the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing;’ xiii. 12,—‘Wherefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered without the gate;’ and ix. 13,—‘If the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?’
I think we must all admit that these passages do not convey to us the idea of either separation unto God, or of imparted holiness by the indwelling of the Holy Ghost. They seem rather to refer to the legal result of blood-shedding, or sacrifice. So I believe they do; and if we would know the real meaning of sanctification in the Word of God, we must not be carried away by the recurrence of a familiar word, but pause to study carefully its real use in this Epistle.
Our first duty then will be to examine what is meant in these passages by the Sanctification through blood. And after having ascertained its meaning, we may proceed to consider its wondrous power.
First, then, what is meant by it?I am not aware that the expression is ever met with in any portion of the New Testament except the Epistle to the Hebrews, and this may at once suggest the idea that it has a Levitical signification. The great object of that Epistle is to expound the types of the book of Leviticus, and to show their fulfilment in our most blessed Saviour. Accordingly in two out of the three passages there is a direct reference to the ancient types. It is therefore only natural to expect that the phraseology employed in the Book of Leviticus, respecting the types, will reappear in the exposition of those types in the Epistle. And if we would understand the Epistle, we must learn from the Book of Leviticus what was the nature of that sanctification which was effected through blood in the law of types.
Some people seem to think that these sacrifices produced no result except in so far as they pointed typically to the Lord Jesus. But I do not think they will find that opinion borne out in Scripture. They will find there that, in addition to their typical and prophetic character, these sacrifices were, at the time of their being offered, effectual in God’s purpose for the bestowal of certain most important blessings. Thus this passage says, ‘If the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh:’ the blood then of bulls and of goats did actually ‘sanctify to the purifying of the flesh.’
There was a certain act of sanctification there and then wrought through the application of that blood. It was not merely that in it through faith believers laid hold on the future atonement by the coming Saviour, but there was something done for them at the time; so that after the sacrifice they were in a position different to that in which they stood before it.
Take the two cases referred to in this verse. First, there is the sprinkling of the blood of the bullock, as on the day of atonement. On that occasion the altar was sprinkled with the blood. (Levit. xvi. 19.) Now the altar was not actually purified by the sprinkling, as if it had been washed with water. Yet you read, ‘He shall sprinkle of the blood upon it—and cleanse it, and hallow,’ or sanctify, ‘it from the uncleanness of the children of Israel.’ In that case the altar was cleansed from legal guilt. In consequence of its contact with the sin of guilty man it was regarded before God as an unclean thing, and by the sprinkling of blood it was sanctified, or legally cleansed. Before the sprinkling it was polluted, but afterwards it was clean, or, in other words, all legal impurity was removed.
The purifying of the flesh by the sprinkling of the ashes of an heifer was of exactly the same character. The clearest account of it is given in Num. xix., the passage to which the Apostle apparently refers. There you find the description of certain persons who were accounted unclean: as, e.g., those who had touched a dead body. And those persons, being unclean, were cut off from the sanctuary. But when, after seven days, they were sprinkled with the ashes of the heifer, their legal uncleanness was removed, and they were restored to the congregation as clean persons. They were not really more pure than they were before, but they were no longer accounted as defiled, and thus they were reinstated into all their privileges.
The sprinkling of blood and of the ashes, therefore, did produce a real result. It did not change the inward state of the heart, but it did alter the position. It was God’s appointed ordinance for the removal of legal guilt; and it did remove it. It was effectual for its purpose, and after it had taken place the uncleanness was no more: it might soon accumulate again, and become possibly worse than ever; but the past defilement was gone, and the unclean man was clean.
But it did not touch the heart or conscience. It was an outward act affecting the outward person, and restoring a man to the sanctuary and congregation; but, if his heart was broken by the bitter sense of indwelling sin, it could not restore him to God: if his conscience was grieved by the bitter memory of sad sin, the ashes of the heifer could not heal that. Suppose a man had something weighing on his conscience: he might bring his kid to the altar; but unless he was able in that sacrifice to see the coming Christ, he would have the bitter pain of past transgression still festering in his heart. He might be sprinkled with the ashes of the heifer, and take his place in the sanctuary of God as if all was right; but that would not take away his burden. If that were all he would go back from the sanctuary with a heavy heart. He would be just like thousands amongst ourselves who have experienced the utter failure of any external remedy for the wounded conscience. They have been through the whole outward routine of a correct Christianity,—prayers, Bible reading, Church services, sacraments,—and you may truly say they are sanctified according to the flesh. But there is a heartache still within the soul; there is an uncleanness there too deep to be touched by anything external,—so deep that it baffles every effort to cleanse it, and appears to rise with fresh power at the very time that they endeavour to apply their remedy. It is this that has always been the great difficulty in our endeavours to serve the living God, for till this burden is removed it is sure to keep us in a position of bondage and inability. I once saw some poor prisoners driven to their work with a long and heavy chain riveted on their ankles; and what heart or power could they have for service? And what power can he have who is toiling on in dreary discouragement with the chain of unforgiven sin riveted on his soul? It is only the free man that can walk with God and serve Him.
And now let us turn back to the text, and see how it deals with the difficulty. It draws the contrast between the purifying of the flesh and of the conscience, and it shows how the sprinkling of the ashes of the heifer could accomplish the one, but how the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ could alone affect the other; for it is that, and that alone, that could ‘purge the conscience from dead works to serve the living God.’ The reason is obvious. That atonement wrought out by Him, was the atonement planned in the eternal covenant of God, and, when the time came, completed on purpose to meet the case of all sin,—not merely of outward acts, but the deep inward corruption of the heart; not merely by external restoration, but by complete, internal restoration to God’s love. It concerns the depths of the soul; and so completely blots out all sin, that the soul itself, whatever it has been, is now in Him spotless before God. This is the one secret both of peace and service. Till your conscience is thus purged through the blood of Christ, you will never know what it is really to serve the living God.
And now look at the great contrast of the text, and mark well the difference between those sacrifices and ours.
The sacrifice in the type was of very little value. The poor kid was led to the altar, and no one mourned its death; the poor scapegoat was left alone in the wilderness, and no one gave it a thought: a few shillings, or even pence, would replace it with another. It was picked out from the flock by what we should call mere chance, and no one missed it afterwards.
But how different is our Sacrifice! Consider for a moment the description given of it in this verse.
(1) Our Lamb was ‘Christ,’ the Messiah, the Son of God! As St. Peter said, ‘Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.’
(2) Our Sacrifice was offered in the eternal purpose of God; or, according to the text, ‘through the eternal Spirit.’ It was not an accidental selection, but a gift predetermined in the counsel of Jehovah, so that He is described by St. Peter as ‘the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.’
(3) Our Sacrifice gave Himself as a freewill offering to God. ‘He offered Himself.’ The calf, or the goat, was chosen by its owner, and, when chosen, had no knowledge of anything that was before it: it had no voice in the whole transaction, and knew nothing of what it was to bear. But our Blessed Saviour, He foresaw the whole. He knew the whole burden; He realised the whole sorrow; and keenly felt its bitterness. In His human nature He shrank from the cup. It was so oppressive to Him that He threw himself before God ‘with strong cryings and tears, and was heard in that He feared.’ And yet, with the whole horror of the dreadful burden fully before Him, and with the full and entire knowledge of what it was to be forsaken of God, He was so resolute in carrying out the great plan of the covenant of life, that He yielded up His own will, and offered Himself as a sin-offering to God.
(4) Our Sacrifice was ‘without spot.’
It was required that the poor kid should be without blemish; partly to show that God does not accept blemished gifts, but chiefly because it was typical of the coming Christ. But the fact that there was no spot, either within or without, did not add to its real value: the spotted kid would have fetched as much as the unspotted, in the market. But when it says of our Sacrifice that He was ‘a lamb without blemish and without spot,’ what a tale it tells of His sinless holiness! His perfect sinlessness had stood the test of the whole of pre-existent eternity. We all know how first impressions of character become modified by time: imperfections, unseen at first, soon begin to crop up; there are very few of whom you can say that you have known them for twenty or thirty years, and never heard a word escape their lips that you would be sorry to speak in your dying hour. But there was a oneness for all eternity between the Father and the Son; yet eternity itself could discover no flaw, so that when the time came for the great sacrifice, He was without spot, even before God. He that was the sin-bearer was Himself sinless; and if you think what is involved in the statement that ‘He knew no sin,’ then you may form some idea of the great fact that sin, even our sin, was imputed to Him; or, in other words, that ‘God made Him to be sin for us.’
Looking then at the contrast between the sacrifices, the one, in comparison to the other, is infinitely little. The poor calf, or kid, was nothing,—far less than nothing in comparison of the Son of God. There was nothing in it that could stand comparison for a moment. If you look at the sacrifice of the Son of God, the voluntary offering through the eternal Spirit of the spotless and Holy One, the sacrifice of the kid vanishes. It disappears altogether; it is no more than a grain of dust on the side of a mountain.
Yet those sprinklings under the law were effectual for their purpose. There was no failure in them: they accomplished all for which they were intended; every promise made respecting them was fulfilled. The legal cleansing in all cases was complete.
Now then, I come to the point. If these sacrifices, so insignificant, so valueless, and to the eye of man so powerless, were effective for their purpose,—shall not that most marvellous wonder in the whole history of the Godhead, the sacrifice of the Son of God, be effective for His? It is true their concern was with the flesh, His with the conscience; but is there any one prepared to say, ‘They never failed: but He may’? Can any one of us admit for one moment, that the man who was sprinkled with the ashes of an heifer was invariably reinstated as a clean man in the sanctuary; and that there can be the least shadow of the possibility of a doubt that the blood of Christ is completely restored to fellowship with God?Look at Him as the Son of God, as the anointed Messiah, as the Spotless Lamb, as offering Himself in obedience to the Father’s eternal will; and tell me, ye that cannot trust Him,—Can such a sacrifice as that fail? Shall that which is infinitely little succeed, and that which is infinitely great fail? Can you believe that the blood of a poor little kid was sufficient, but the blood of the Son of God insufficient? Think then of the ancient Jew walking home after his sacrifice, notwithstanding all that had passed, now clean and reinstated. Then think of the most precious blood of Christ, the Son of God, the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world,—slain too for those very sins that weigh on the conscience; and consider why should not you go home this day, as that Jew did in ancient times, Free?—in the position of those described by St. Paul, when he said, ‘Such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God’?
THE CLEANSING BLOOD.
‘But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.’—1 John, i. 7.
It should be the earnest desire of our hearts, in commemorating the great facts of the crucifixion of our blessed Saviour, to know the fellowship of His sufferings, and realise all that He endured. On this account it is well to dwell on His wounds, His sorrows, His tears, His prayers, and His bitter cry: but it is well to look also at the power of His precious blood, and at the great results accomplished in the covenant of God by that wonderful blood-shedding of the Son of Man.
I scarcely know which branch of the subject is the more important of the two, and I propose to-day [27] to consider the latter, and to draw your thoughts to the power of the blood, as taught us in these familiar and most sacred words, ‘The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.’ May God so teach us by His Spirit, that we may know in our own experience the cleansing power of the blood of Christ!
There are two questions which will require our careful study, in order to a right understanding of the text. To whom do the words apply? and what do they mean?
To whom do they apply?
They are often applied in a loose and haphazard way to all kinds of characters to whom they do not in the least belong, as drunkards, Sabbath-breakers, and all descriptions of unconverted men. But the most cursory glance at the text shows that it has no reference to such characters, and applies exclusively to those who are walking in the light. ‘If we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.’ The blessing is made in this text entirely dependent on our walking in the light; and if we are not walking in the light, it does not belong to us. The man who is still living the life of the unconverted cannot claim it, for he has never known the light, and his poor soul is still darkened by sin; nor can the backslider, who once saw the light, and now has turned back into the darkness of the world; for, though he was in the light once, he is not walking in it now.
There are other passages which apply to such persons, and invite them to reconciliation through the precious blood of Christ: but this text does not. It applies to those who have been brought into the light, and now are walking in it; not seeking it, nor groping after it, but in it,—and enjoying a holy fellowship both with God’s people and with God. There cannot be a higher standard, or, to use modern terms, a higher life. It is a life in the very presence of God Himself,—a life in which every step is lightened by the sunbeam of His love. Fellowship, light, love, and joy, abound through the whole of it. The persons possessing it are happy, loving, peaceful believers, rejoicing in the sacred privilege of companionship with God; and yet of them the text declares, ‘The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.’
And now, what is meant by the expression ‘Cleanseth us from all sin?’ I find that it is sometimes supposed to mean, ‘the inward cleansing of the soul,’ or the purifying of the heart by the Holy Ghost, as in Acts, xv. 9: ‘Purifying their hearts by faith.’ But I know of no other passage of Sacred Scripture in which this is the meaning of cleansing by blood; whereas there are many in which it means the removal of all legal guilt, as in Heb. ix. 13, 14, where the blood of the Jewish sacrifice is said to ‘sanctify to the purifying of the flesh,’ and the blood of Christ ‘to purge the conscience from dead works to serve the living God.’ The word in that passage in the Hebrews for ‘purging,’ is the same as here rendered ‘cleanseth;’ and, if there were nothing in the context to decide it, the general use of the language of Scripture would be sufficient. But the context appears to leave no doubt on the subject. The ninth verse clearly shows that the subject of the forgiveness of sin is the subject of discussion: ‘If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.’ And then in the opening of the next chapter you find the full explanation of the text. The first two verses are in fact little more than an expansion of it. The first verse sets before us the highest possible standard of sinless holiness: ‘My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not.’ After which the Apostle proceeds to show the provision which God has made for us under the sense of sin: ‘If any man sin we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and he is the propitiation for our sin.’ This is an expansion of the short statement of the text: ‘The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.’ It teaches of Christ Jesus, the righteous Advocate and the perfect Propitiation; it shows that the blood is the blood of atonement, and the cleansing the blotting out of the guilt of sin through the propitiation; it points the contrite believer, deeply humbled for sin, to what is now passing at the right hand of God, where the Son of God now stands as his Advocate, having completed the sacrifice, and sprinkled the blood before the mercy-seat. That sprinkled blood is the cleansing power, and the cleansing is the blotting out of guilt so completely that the soul stands before God as free from all legal pollution as if it had never been defiled. It is perfectly true that there are other passages in which we read of inward holiness as a purification of the heart: as e.g., 1 John, iii. 3. But that is quite a different thing to the cleansing through blood described in our text, the real meaning of which is the removal of all guilt from the guilty sinner by the transfer of it, according to the covenant, to the great sin-bearer: ‘The Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world.’
Now, this being the case, it appears to me that there are two great practical conclusions which irresistibly follow:—
First, that those who are walking in the light have sin in them which needs the cleansing blood. I know very well, and thank God for the blessed assurance that ‘Sin shall not have dominion over you, for ye are not under the law, but under grace.’ I know, too, that our blessed Saviour is the great deliverer, and that He will so surely and so effectually save His people from their sins, that every one of them, without a single exception, will finally be presented without a single spot, or stain, before His throne. But that is not the question. The question is whether in saving us it pleases Him to put an end, while we are in the flesh, to the deep corruption of our human nature, or to give us invariably such a victory that we shall never have reason to repent and deplore its power. If this verse stood alone it would decide the point, for it shows the deep need of the cleansing blood, even for those who are walking in the light. It describes two gifts as the sacred privilege of their life in Christ Jesus: fellowship one with another, and cleansing through the power of His blood. It proves, therefore, beyond the possibility of doubt, that whatever meaning we attach to the word ‘cleanseth,’ there is sin which requires to be cleansed, even in those who are walking in the light. But it does not stand alone, for the 8th and the 10th verses explain to us the reason of the need: the one teaches that we ‘have sin,’ and the other, that we ‘have sinned;’ the one speaks of the deep corruption of our nature, the other of the action to which this corruption has given rise; and both teach the same thing,—viz., that those who are walking in the light have sin in themselves and in their conduct,—sin which requires cleansing; that if ‘they say they have no sin, they deceive themselves, and the truth is not in them;’ and ‘if they say they have not sinned, they make Him a liar, and His word is not in them.’
I believe then that the compilers of our Articles were walking in the light when they wrote that, ‘The infection of nature doth remain, yea, in them that are regenerated;’ that the compilers of our Prayer-book were walking in the light when they taught us to confess, ‘We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; and we have done those things which we ought not to have done; and there is no health in us;’ and that old Hooker was writing in the light when he said, ‘If God should yield unto us, not as unto Abraham, if fifty, forty, thirty, twenty, yea, or if ten good persons could be found in a city, for their sakes this city should not be destroyed; but and if He should make us an offer thus large; search all the generations of men since the fall of our father Adam, find one man that hath done one action which hath passed from him pure, without any stain or blemish at all; and for that one man’s only action, neither man nor angel shall feel the torments which are prepared for both. Do you think that this ransom to deliver men and angels could be found to be among the sons of men? The best things which we do have somewhat in them to be pardoned.’
But there is a second lesson: viz., that while there is the deep need, there is the ample provision; for, although no ransom could be found among the sons of men, there is a perfect ransom in the most precious blood of the Son of God. The propitiation is complete, and, through the wonderful mercy which God has shown in His covenant, that precious blood cleanseth from all sin.
There are two points in this sentence to which I would draw your special attention.
(1.) It is all sin that is cleansed. Sin after baptism, as well as sin before it; sin committed in the light, as well as sin in the days of darkness; sin of omission, and sin of commission; sin of act, sin of word, sin of thought, sin of temper, sin of desire, sin of heart, sin in the acts of religion, and sin in daily life; sin that is not noticed as it ought to be, and sin that leaves an inexpressible pain on the conscience. It is all included in the one word ‘all.’ ‘The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.’
(2.) It is a continuous cleansing: that is, continued day by day as long as the walk lasts. It is well explained by those words, John, xiii. 10: ‘He that is,’ or hath been, ‘washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit.’ The first great washing took place when you were first brought to Christ, as represented in your baptism; and now as you are walking home through a defiling world, you require the continual cleansing of the feet. And this is what is promised in the text. We are walking, and the blood is cleansing. It might be rendered, ‘If we are walking in the light, the blood is cleansing us from all sin.’ The walk is continuous, and the cleansing continuous likewise. As we are taught in the Lord’s Prayer to ask for daily forgiveness with the same regularity as we ask for daily bread; so we are taught to trust the cleansing power for every step of the daily life. Day after day, and night after night, we return to the same fountain, and there experience the same power; and so it will be to the end, when all this earthly walking shall cease, and the ransomed spirit shall appear spotless before God.
But let us not speak of the blood, and its cleansing power, without remembering well what we mean by it. We do not mean the material blood which flowed from the feet and hands, or trickled down his careworn face from beneath the crown of thorns; nor that which after death gushed from His pierced side; for we can never be sprinkled by that. Still less do we mean what some suppose to be actual blood in the transubstantiated cup. We mean nothing material: for nothing material can cleanse the soul. We mean the sacrifice of the life of the Son of God as an efficacious offering for the life of the sinner.
In the sacred history of that mysterious death, we read His bitter cry: ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’ This cry it is utterly impossible to explain on any other principle than the imputation of sin. I am not one of those that would dare to speak of impossibilities with God. But when I think of the eternal and spotless holiness of the Lord Jesus, of His perfect purity and His blameless life, I find it utterly impossible to myself to imagine on what principle He could have been forsaken at such a moment by one with whom he had been one for eternity, if it had not been that sin, not His own, was imputed to Him; or in the words of Sacred Scripture, that ‘The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.’ And then, when I turn to the dying cry, ‘It is finished,’ I see the completion of the work. What He had undertaken He had borne: what He covenanted to do was done. The covenanted ransom was paid; the covenanted sacrifice offered; the covenanted life given; and then, the burden being gone, He yielded up His soul into the Father’s hands, and said, ‘Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit.’ This explains what we mean by the power of the cleansing blood. We mean the full and perfect freedom given to all those who are in Christ Jesus; because He, as their Head, has paid their penalty. We look on Him forsaken, and believe that we shall never be. We look on Him bearing the full penalty of the law, and we know that because He has borne it, the awful curse will never rest on us. We listen to Him crying, ‘It is finished,’ and we know that nothing more can be needed in sacrifice; that the whole redemption as planned in God’s eternal purpose is complete; and that therefore, as He did, so may we commend into a loving Father’s hand all we are, and all we care for, saying, ‘Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit, for Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord God of truth.’ We need no priest’s absolution; and we cannot endure the thought of any continuation, or repetition, or any thing approaching to propitiatory sacrifice. We believe that the whole work is finished according to the purpose of God Himself, and that ‘the blood of Jesus Christ his Son,’ without any addition of any kind whatever,—simply and alone,—‘cleanseth from all sin.’ Thus we agree, heart and soul, with the grand old words of Hooker: ‘Let it be counted folly, or frenzy, or fury, whatsoever, it is our comfort, our wisdom; we care for no knowledge in the world but this,—that man hath sinned, and God hath suffered; that God hath made Himself the Son of Man, and that men are made the righteousness of God.’
