MODERN theologians would drown its voice, but still it speaks. It proclaims many and varied virtues. By it God is glorified and the sinner saved. It is the sole and only way by which your sins and mine can be remitted. The life of Christ, apart from His death, avails nothing. It is perfect, the blessed example of what a man’s life should be; but it is not by following His example, or walking in His footsteps, that our sins can be atoned for. The blood alone maketh an atonement for the soul. It is not the life-blood in the veins of a living man which atones, the blood must be shed, life muse be given up in death; for without shedding of blood there is no remission (Heb. 9:2222And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission. (Hebrews 9:22)).
THERE IS NO REMISSION APART FROM SHED BLOOD.
Do not be deceived; life spent in aiming at high ideals or in self-denying labors for your fellow-man will never work out your atonement. Scripture is clear, positive, and emphatic. The blood alone atones; nay more, it must be the blood of a spotless Victim. Christ is the only Man whose nature was absolutely spotless and without blemish. Christ, therefore, is the only One Who can take the guilty sinner’s place. More than this, if He had only been a mere man, He must have sunk under the accumulated load of man’s guilt. The grave would still retain Him. He is both God and Man, and the only Man of Whom it could be said, “All the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Him bodily.” Being God, He could measure the claims of God. Being a perfect Man, He could take man’s place and satisfy those claims. To arrogate divinity for sinful man, or drag Christ down to mere humanity, is a satanic delusion.
Christ became Man in order to die, but He never ceased to be God in becoming Man. You had no previous existence. He had. You can only be what you are, a sinner away from God, subject to death. He was sinless, and need not have died. Let the new theology get rid of death, then we may listen to its teachings. So long as death exists, the all-important question is, What will be thy portion after death? When you come to pass into Eternity, “ethical teachings, higher ideals, elevated humanity,” will avail you nothing. Shall I tell you what will? The precious blood of Christ. “The blood in its own solitary dignity.” It is the only passport to Glory. The alone way into the presence of a holy God.
It not only has a message as to your future, but it speaks to you of present blessings. Is your conscience burdened with guilt? Turn to the blood—the blood of Christ, Who through the Eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God (Heb. 9:1414How 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? (Hebrews 9:14)). That blood will relieve your burden.
Are you disturbed and unhappy, fearing the judgment to come? Trust in the blood I God says, “When I see the blood, I will pass over you.”
Would you be brought into nearness to God? The blood of Christ is God’s way to bring you nigh (Eph. 2). You may enter with boldness into the Holiest, but only by a blood-sprinkled way, even the blood of Jesus (Heb. 10:1919Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, (Hebrews 10:19)).
Do not delude yourself that your defiled life and unholy ways can be “evolved” into Godhead. The only way you can be cleansed is by blood. “The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.” It is only by being washed from our sins in His own blood we shall ever be clear of them (Rev, 1:5).
The unvarying testimony of God’s Word is that redemption, justification, propitiation, is by blood. The new theology teachers never can have pondered that touching scene in Gethsemane’s garden, “Jesus was withdrawn from them about a stone’s cast, and kneeled down, and prayed, saying, ‘Father, if Thou be willing, remove this cup from Me, nevertheless not My will but Thine be done.... Being in an agony He prayed more earnestly, and His sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground’” (Luke 22:41-4441And he was withdrawn from them about a stone's cast, and kneeled down, and prayed, 42Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done. 43And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him. 44And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground. (Luke 22:41‑44)). What do those appealing words mean? Surely this: “If there is any other way by which sinful man can be reconciled to God, do not let me drink the cup of judgment.”
Had it been possible that by working in the slums, or following noble ideas, or by self-denying labors, man’s sins could be atoned for, we should never have had such a sequel to that prayer. The path of God’s will led Christ to the death of the cross. There He drank the bitter cup. There was wrung from Him that agonizing cry, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” He died because there was no other possible way by which God could be glorified and the sinner saved. The soldier pierced His side; forthwith there came out blood and water.
That blood atones for the soul. On that atonement I rest. For over forty years it has given me a solid ground of peace. I listen to the voice of the blood. Its blessed messages afford me divine certainty. By the way of the new theology I never could be certain. Its teaching is only another form of the same delusion that leads the misguided Romanist, the unbelieving Jew, and the heathen Buddhist, to seek to work out a righteousness for themselves.
Instead of divinity being in fallen humanity, the devil and demons find a home there. Christ said to the religious teachers in His day, “Ye are of your father the devil” (John 8:4444Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. (John 8:44).). The Holy Ghost speaks of him as “the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience” (Eph. 2:22Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: (Ephesians 2:2)).
Let me earnestly, urgently beseech you to turn away from these delusive teachings. Ponder these words,
“WITHOUT THE SHEDDING OF BLOOD THERE IS NO REMISSION.”
“In Heaven the blood forever speaks in God’s Omniscient ear.” Let it speak also to you! Trust in that precious blood. It will wash you, cleanse you, sanctify you, justify you, and bring you nigh to God. It will afford you a solid ground of peace, and completely atone for your guilt apart from anything and everything else. We urge you to turn to Jesus, the Mediator of the new Covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel (Heb. 12:2424And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel. (Hebrews 12:24)). H. N.