"The blood of Jesus Christ His 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). The Apostle is speaking of what that blood is in its own intrinsic nature before God; and what is that? That it cleanses; that is to say, that is what it effects, that is its abstract nature. As poison kills and food nourishes, so that blood cleanses. It is not the continual application, as some would, in their mistaken zeal, assert. The perpetual application of the blood would be the destruction of its efficacy. There is no surer way to cast a slight, even though unwittingly, upon the efficacy of the blood of Christ, than to speak of it as being continually applied. Therefore to say here, "is cleansing," meaning thereby as continually applied, is to reduce it to the level of the blood of bulls and goats. But when you speak of it in its own blessed nature, as God does, and say that "the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin," it is simply unfolding it as God does there. And it is so blessed and so full that the believer stands before God in the acceptability and nearness and dearness to God of Him whose blood it was, and in all the value of that blood as God measures it.
Now what a blessed, living reality that is! Here, then, is a basis that never changes; here is a relationship that can never be broken; here is a place in Christ before God, that knows neither variation nor shadow of turning. The precious blood of the Christ of God in its efficacy is "the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever"; that is, to the ages of ages. What He has accomplished in His grace by the shedding of His blood puts us, in all the unchangeableness of its own blessedness, before God according to God's measure of it. It is an immense thing for our souls to know the ground upon which we are, and our God has set us on no less a footing than this. And I am assured that nothing could be more important for every one of us than to be established in all the truth and reality of it by Himself. Bear in mind it is not our taking a place. We have no right to take a place; but if God puts us in such a place before Him, can we exaggerate its blessedness or make too much of the grace that bestows it upon us? Or would it be possible to exalt too highly the changeless efficacy of Christ's blood, and thus the glory of the One whose blood was shed?
How much the truth of God has suffered from and been lowered by such thoughts! What a really blessed thing it is to look at that precious blood as the blood of Him who upheld and vindicated all the glory of God. And who will limit the issues and consequences of all this work? Christ glorified God down to the very dust of death, where His precious blood was poured forth and shed, for, remember, the blood came from the side of the One who had been crucified-it came from the side of a dead Christ, not of a living Christ. If, let me say, Christ glorified God down to the very dust of death, down to where we lay in our moral ruin and distance from God, who will deny that we must be blessed up to the very heights of where that Christ is? If you lower the blessing, you must somehow reflect upon the Blesser. And that is the very reality which we should strive to impress upon one another's hearts more and more every day.
If you omit or lower the blessing, you correspondingly take away from the glory of the One who secured it. But the more your heart has been impressed with the sense of the glory and perfections of Him who has made all this good for His Father's glory, and for us, the higher your conception must be of the blessing. I repeat it, if Christ has given to God a glory that He went down into the dust of death to secure and make good; if the blessed God has been glorified down to the lowest depths where He went and lay in death, then I say the believer must be blessed up to the very heights of where that precious One is, whom God has raised up from among the dead and claimed as His own. And therefore, Christ's acceptance, blessed be His name, is the measure of ours. His acceptance as man, the glorified Man in heaven, is the acceptance of His saints who, through grace, believe in Him. Then see, beloved friends, what a wonderful comfort that is, because it settles and establishes everything as certain. It does not leave things uncertain or undecided; it settles everything, and forever; it puts everything into a fixed, settled position before God; and that is outside all the flittings and all the ebbings and all the flowings of our poor life down here.