from Saint Paul's Epistle to the Hebrews:
God has given the reason for the stress which He lays upon the blood, and, in understanding this, we get to the very ground of our peace as redeemed sinners. The sacrifices of old, from the days of Abel onwards, furnish us with the key to the meaning of the blood, and explain the necessity for its being "shed for the remission of sins."
"Not without blood" (Heb 9:7) was the great truth taught by God from the beginning; the inscription which may be said to have been written on the gates of tabernacle and temple. For more than two thousand years, during the ages of the patriarchs, there was but one great sacrifice - the burnt- offering.
This, under the Mosaic service, was split into parts, the peace-offering, the trespass-offering and the sin- offering. In all of these, however, the essence of the original burnt-offering was preserved by the blood and the fire which were common to all of them.
The blood, as the emblem of substitution, and the fire, as the symbol of God's wrath upon the substitute, were seen in all the parts of Israel's service; but especially in the daily burnt offering -the morning and evening lamb- which was the true continuation and representation of the old patriarchal burnt-offering.
It was to this that Saint John referred when he said, "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." Israel's daily lamb was the essence of all the Old Testament sacrifices, and it was the blood of the lamb that carried the worshipers both back to the primitive sacrifices, and forward to the blood of sprinkling, which was to speak better things than that of Abel (Heb 12:24).
In all these sacrifices the shedding of the blood was the infliction of death. The "blood was the life." The pouring out of the blood was "the pouring out of the soul."
But the blood-shedding of Israel's sacrifices could not take sin away. It showed the way, it presaged, it forecast how this was to be done. It was in fact more a remembrance of sins than an expiation. It said life must be given for life, before sin can be pardoned; but then the continual repetition of the sacrifices showed that mankind needed "richer blood' than was ever poured on the temple altar, and a more precious life than man could give.
Now, with the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ on Calvary, with His shedding of His Sacred Blood, the great, final, conclusive blood shedding has been accomplished; the better life has been presented, and the one death of the Son of God has done what all the deaths of old could never do. God does not ask two lives, or two deaths, or two payments. Jesus Christ's one life was enough. His one dying paid the penalty. We believe that through the Atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel.
Now I'm going to make a big claim, an earth-shaking statement, an audacious boast:
The Lord's Atonement is the single most important event that has occurred from the creation of the earth to the present.
The blood of sprinkling cleanses us by making us partakers of the death of the Substitute. What is it that makes us filthy, unclean, impure before God? It is our guilt, our breach of law, and our being under sentence of death in consequence of our disobedience.
The sin which was like scarlet becomes as snow, and that which was like crimson becomes as wool. It is thus that we partake of the Blood of Christ in believing, for faith is simply the sinner submitting to the Blood.
Believing what God has testified concerning this Blood, we become one with Jesus in His death; and thus we are counted in law, and treated by God, as men who have paid the whole penalty, and so been "washed from their sins in his Blood."
Such are the glad tidings of life, through Him who died. They are tidings which tell us not what we are to do, in order to be saved, but what He has done. This only can lay to rest the sinner's fears; this only can purge our conscience; this only can make us feel to be completely pardoned, expiated, propitiated children of God.
The right knowledge of God's meaning in this sprinkling of blood is the only effective way of removing the anxieties of the troubled soul, and introducing it into perfect peace.
With the sacrifice of Jesus, with the pouring out of His blood on Calvary, however, we have a new phenomenon, a new dimension, a new beginning. Jesus was not a dumb animal led to slaughter, not a pigeon brought in a cage to the altar of sacrifice, not a slave carried unwillingly to a resisting execution.
No, Jesus first kissed him who was to betray Him, then stood silent as Pilate indicted Him and the guards humiliated Him. He was not dragged to Calvary - He carried his own instrument of execution.
Further, until the coming of ultrasound and other medical tests, we had no knowledge of what would issue from pregnancy. Our Lady, however, as soon as she received the angel's Annunciation, knew she was to be the God-bearer, the Theotokos, the Handmaid of the Lord. Mary knew that her blood was to give humanity to our Lord; her blood would inform His blood.
Mary's assumption of the role of the Mother of God had to be knowing and voluntary. Else, it could not have occurred, any more than Jesus Christ - perfect, sinless Man - could have accidentally assumed our sins on the Cross in perfect expiation for them.
Until, in his dying hours, my dad brought my brother Bill and me uniquely together, we had acknowledged the accident of blood relationship; we had condescended to be civil to our sibling; we had no deliberate bond. Happily, this accidental blood relationship has come to be one of spirit between Bill and me, now that we're getting some maturity.
Aren't we redeemed sinners fortunate that our Lord needed no fifty years to come to His atoning love for us, to His blood kinship with us!
This sacrifice to the Father was once and for all, sui generis, unique to itself, unduplicated and induplicable in the world. Never again would it be necessary, nay possible, for this perfect sacrifice, this universal atonement, this revolutionary condescension to humility, never again would it take place.
It is not by His Incarnation, but by Jesus Christ's blood-shedding that we are saved. The Christ of God is no mere expounder of wisdom, no mere deliverer or gracious benefactor; and they who think that they have told the whole gospel, when they have spoken of Jesus revealing the love of God, are sentimentally and foggily wandering away from the bloody redemption of mankind on Calvary.
If Christ is not the Substitute, He is nothing to the sinner. If He did not die as the Sin-bearer, He has died in vain. Let us not be deceived on this point, nor misled by those who, when they announce Christ as the Deliverer, think they have preached the gospel.
If I throw a rope to a drowning man, I am a deliverer. But is Christ no more than that? If I cast myself into the sea, and risk myself to save another, I am a deliverer. But is Christ no more? Did He but risk His life? The very essence of Christ's deliverance is the substitution of Himself for us, His life for ours.
"And there are three that bear witness on earth: the Spirit, the water, and the blood..." (1 John 5:8). This is the complete testimony which the heavenly Father has given of His beloved Son, Jesus Christ. Everyone who believes in the Lord Jesus must receive this testimony in full, and not lack any one of the three. Being born again by thoroughly repenting and confessing one's sins is the witness of blood. Abiding by the Lord's word, believing and being baptized in the name of the Holy Trinity is the witness of water. In our Confirmation being filled with the Holy Spirit is the witness of the Spirit.
Let us now, having been washed of our sins in the Blood of the Lamb, come with joyful hearts to his Altar, here to be fortified for our life in the faith by the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, who now lives and