FROM the very earliest times God’s only way for sinful men to return to Himself has been by a sacrifice. “Without shedding of blood is no remission” ―no forgiveness, is a truth inscribed upon the ways of God with fallen men of all ages. While the faith of all saints of all ages gives clear witness, that through the shedding of blood lies the path for sinful man’s pardon and justification.
Abel approached God by sacrifice: he brought the lamb of his flock for an offering unto the Lord, and was accepted. After the flood, Noah’s altar of burnt-offering caused a sweet savor to arise heavenward, which the Lord smelt, and because of which He blessed the earth. The father of the faithful built his altars and consumed thereon his sacrifices, and thus it was with the patriarchs, until God gave to Moses the laws concerning a system of continual sacrifices, which were to be presented to Him by His people Israel.
Thus, for the thousands of years which elapsed from the fall until the coming of Christ, a crimson line―a blood-stained pathway, as it were―is visible along the course of time. When the Lord was here He testified that through His death everlasting life should be received (John 3:1414And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: (John 3:14).), and that by His death He would draw men to Himself (12:32). And now, since He has died, and risen again, and ascended into heaven, the Holy Ghost witnesses, through the written word, that we are “sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once—for—all” (Heb. 10:1010By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. (Hebrews 10:10)), and that “the blood of Jesus Christ God’s Son cleanseth us from all sin.” (1 John 1:77But 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 1:7).) Through Christ’s sacrifice and blood is the only way whereby sinful men may be pardoned and accepted of God.
When God was about to bring Israel out of Egypt He gave them, in the words recorded in Ex. 12:1313And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye 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. (Exodus 12:13), both a sign for their confidence and the secret of their security in the blood of the paschal lamb. “The blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are” ―this was the sign for their confidence: “and when I see the blood, I will pass over you” ―this was the secret of their security.
“Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us;” His blood, once shed upon Calvary, is the sign for our confidence.
That which the sacrifices of the patriarchs and of Israel foreshadowed has been fulfilled. Jesus Christ the Son of God has died; His blood has been shed. The blood of the paschal lamb was to be a token to Israel in their houses where they were, and they were forbidden to go out of their houses until the morning; therefore their token, as they awaited their freedom, was out of their sight. We do not see our token, but the blood of Jesus shed for us is the sign that salvation is ours, and thus we rest, and so await the morning of our joy.
There are Christians who look for a basis of confidence in other things, and not solely in the blood of Christ’s cross, and they live a life of uncertainty. We heard once of a Christian who was brought to what he had reason to believe might be his dying hour; indeed, as the doctor stood over his bed, he said five or ten minutes would decide whether it should be life or death. At that solemn moment this Christian had no experience of joy in Christ; he was in a heavy state of soul, and as he overheard the doctor’s statement, he said to himself, “In ten minutes I may have passed out of time into eternity I feel no touch of Christ’s hand at till: moment, how then shall I go hence? I wit go with this text, ‘The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.’”
There is no other sign for the believer than Christ’s blood. He has died, and since He has died all who trust in Him have, by grace, the privilege of resting in the sign which God has given for their confidence―the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son.
Beyond the divinely given token for our confidence, God tells us His regard of the atoning blood, and herein lies the secret of our security.
“And when I see the blood, I will pass over you.” There was surely a divine intention in the fact of the people of Israel being constrained to keep within their houses on the night of the Passover. It was not God’s will that they should be continually looking at the lintels of their houses to see if the blood was really there; their responsibility was to do what God had bidden them do in sprinkling it, and then to trust His word to them about it. But God’s eye rested upon the blood― “And when I see the blood―”as if to teach us that God sees in the blood of His Son what human eye can never see.
We often measure the value of the blood of Christ by our sense of need, but God sees therein that which is infinitely precious tard Himself; and, because of what Christ’s sacrifice is in itself, there is absolute security for all who put their trust in Him. The strength of our security is God’s own infinite satisfaction in the infinite worth of the blood of the Lamb. We believe what God tells us respecting the value of Christ’s blood, but God sees the efficacy of the blood. Our confidence may fail, but we are secure, since God is glorified by the blood of Jesus. Our tremblings or our boastings are not salvation, but the precious blood alone, which God sees, and by virtue of which He passes over the sinner.
Now, if for all time the only way to God for a sinful man was by sacrifice, eternity itself shall prove that by the blood of Christ alone sinners stand before God. When the eternity of blessedness shall dawn upon all the children of faith, the ceaseless songs of heaven will attest the self-same truth, as every voice swells the song, “Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by Thy blood.”