In contemplating the death of Christ, as typified by the ordinance of the red heifer, we see not only the complete putting away of sin, but also the judgment of all that is in this present evil world. These two things must never be separated — the judgment of sin, root and branch — and the judgment of this world. The former sets the exercised conscience entirely at rest; while the latter delivers the heart from the ensnaring influence of the world in all its multiplied forms. That purges the conscience from all sense of guilt; this snaps the link which binds the heart and the world together.
Now, it is of the utmost importance for the reader to understand and enter experimentally into the connection existing between these two things. It is quite possible to miss this grand link even while holding and contending for a vast amount of evangelical truth; and it may be confidently affirmed that where this link is missing, there must be a most deplorable lack in the Christian character. We frequently meet with earnest souls who have been brought under the convicting and awakening power of the Holy Spirit, but have not yet known, for the ease of their troubled consciences, the full value of the death of Christ, in putting away, forever, all their sins, and bringing them nigh to God, without a stain upon the soul, or a sting in the conscience. If this be the present actual condition of the reader, he must pause here, and dwell upon the fourth verse of the nineteenth chapter of Numbers. May the Spirit of God enable him to understand, appreciate, and apply the truth contained in this passage!
“And Eleazar the priest shall take of her blood with his finger, and sprinkle of her blood directly before the tabernacle of the congregation seven times.” Here we have the solid groundwork of all real purification. We know, of course, that, in the type, it is only, as the inspired apostle tells us, a question of “sanctifying to the purifying of the flesh.” (Heb. 9:1313For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: (Hebrews 9:13).) But we have to look beyond the type to the Antitype-beyond the shadow to the Substance. In the sevenfold sprinkling of the blood of the red heifer, before the tabernacle of the congregation, we have a figure of the perfect presentation of the blood of Christ to God, as the only ground of the meeting place between God and the conscience. The number “seven,” as has frequently been observed, is expressive of perfection; and in the figure before us, we see the perfection attaching to the death of Christ, as an atonement for sin, presented to, and accepted by, God. All rests upon this ground. The blood has been shed, and presented to a holy God, as a perfect atonement for sin. This, when simply received by faith, must relieve the conscience from all sense of guilt. There is nothing before God hut the perfection of the atoning work of Christ. Sin has been judged and put away. It has been completely obliterated by the precious blood of Christ. To believe this is to enter into perfect repose of conscience.
And here let the reader carefully note that there is no further allusion to the sprinkling of blood throughout the entire of this singularly interesting chapter. This is precisely in keeping with the doctrine of Heb. 9 and 10. It is but another illustration of the divine harmony of the Volume. The sacrifice of Christ, being divinely perfect, needs not to be repeated. Its efficacy is divine and eternal. “But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building; neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood, he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption. 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. 9:11-1411But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building; 12Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. 13For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: 14How 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 9:11‑14).) Observe the force of those two words “once” and “eternal.” See how they set forth the completeness and divine efficacy of the sacrifice of Christ. The blood was shed once and forever. To think of a repetition of that great work would be to deny its everlasting and all-sufficient value, and reduce it to the level of the blood of bulls and goats.
But further, “It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us; nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holy place every year with blood of others; for then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world; but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.” Sin, therefore, has been put away. It cannot be put away and, at the same time, be on the believer’s conscience. This is plain. It must either be admitted that the believer’s sins are blotted out, and his conscience perfectly purged, or that Christ must die over again. But this latter is not only needless, but wholly out of the question; for, as the apostle goes on to say, “It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment; so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time, apart from sin, unto salvation.”
There is something most marvelous in the patient elaborateness with which the Holy Ghost argues out this entire subject. He expounds, illustrates, and enforces the great doctrine of the completeness of the sacrifice in such a way as to carry conviction to the soul, and relieve the conscience of its heavy burden. Such is the exceeding grace of God that He has not only accomplished the work of eternal redemption for us, but, in the most patient and painstaking manner, has argued and reasoned, and proved the whole point in question, so as not to leave one hair’s breadth of ground on which to base an objection. Let us hearken to His further powerful reasonings, and may the Spirit apply them in power to the anxious reader!
“For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. For then, would they not have ceased to be offered because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins. But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.” But that which the blood of bulls could never do, the blood of Jesus has forever done. This makes all the difference. All the blood that ever flowed around Israel’s altars — the millions of sacrifices offered according to the requirements of the Mosaic ritual, could not blot out one stain from the conscience, or justify a sin-hating God in receiving a sinner to Himself. “It is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins;” and it is not possible that the blood of Christ should leave sins unatoned for. Blessed, emancipating, triumphant conclusion! A conclusion arrived at by God the Holy Ghost for the eternal tranquility of every anxious soul, and the confusion of the archenemy and accuser. But let us continue to drink in this divine and heart-cheering logic.
“Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me. In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure. Then said I, Lo, I come, (in the volume of the book it is written of me) to do thy will, Ο God......By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once.” Mark the contrast. God had no pleasure in the endless round of sacrifices under the law. They did not please Him. They left wholly unaccomplished that which He had in His loving heart to do for His people, namely, to rid them completely of sin’s heavy load, and bring them nigh unto Himself in perfect peace of conscience and liberty of heart. This Jesus, by the one offering of His blessed body, did. He did the will of God, and blessed forever be His name, He has not to do His work over again. We may refuse to believe that the work is done — refuse to commit our souls to its efficacy — to enter into the rest which it is calculated to impart — to enjoy the holy liberty of spirit, which it is fitted to yield; but there stands the work in its own imperishable virtue, and there too stand the Spirit’s arguments respecting that work, in their own unanswerable force and clearness; and neither Satan’s dark suggestions, nor our own unbelieving reasonings, can ever touch either the one or the other.
“And every priest standeth daily ministering, and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices which can never take away sins; but this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins, forever sat down on the right hand of God; from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool. For by one offering he hath perfected forever (τετελειωκεν εις το διηνεκές) them that are sanctified.” It is due to the blood of Christ that it should impart eternal perfection; and, we may surely add, it is due to it likewise that our souls should taste that perfection. No one need ever imagine that He is doing honor to the work of Christ, or to the Spirit’s testimony respecting that work, when he refuses to accept that perfect remission of sins which is proclaimed to him through the blood of the cross. It is no sign of true piety, or of pure religion, to deny what the grace of God has done for us in Christ, and what the record of the Eternal Spirit has presented to our souls on the page of inspiration.
Christian reader, anxious enquirer, does it not seem strange that, when the word of God presents to our view Christ seated at the right hand of God, in virtue of accomplished atonement, we should be, virtually, in no wise better off than those who had merely a human priest standing daily ministering and offering the same round of sacrifices? We have a divine Priest who has sat down forever. They had a merely human priest, who could never, in his official capacity, sit down at all, and yet are we in the stale of the mind, in the apprehension of the soul, in the actual condition of the conscience, in no respect better off than they? Can it be possible that, with a perfect work to rest upon, our souls should never know perfect rest? The Holy Ghost, as we have seen in these numerous quotations taken from the epistle to the Hebrews, has left nothing unsaid to satisfy our souls as to the question of the complete putting away of sin by the precious blood of Christ. Why then should you not, this moment, enjoy full, settled peace of conscience? Has the blood of Jesus done nothing more for you than the blood of a bullock did for a Jewish worshipper?
It may, however, be that the reader is ready to say in reply to all that we have been seeking to urge upon him, “I do not, in the least, doubt the efficacy of the blood of Jesus. I believe it cleanseth from all sin. I believe, most thoroughly, that all who simply put their trust in that blood are perfectly safe and will be eternally happy. My difficulty does not lie here at all. What troubles me is not the efficacy of the blood, in which I fully believe, but my own personal interest in that blood of which I have no satisfactory evidence. This is the secret of all my trouble. The doctrine of the blood is as clear as a sunbeam; but the question of my interest therein is involved in hopeless obscurity.”
Now if this be at all the embodiment of the reader’s feelings on this momentous point, it only proves the necessity of his deeply pondering the fourth verse of the nineteenth of Numbers. There he will see that the true basis of all purification is found in this, that the blood of atonement has been presented to God. Atonement is not made up of the blood of Jesus and our interest in that blood, but of the blood alone, as we read in Lev. 17, “It is the blood that maketh atonement for the soul.” This is a most precious truth, but one little understood. It is of all importance that the really anxious soul should have a clear view of the subject of atonement. It is so natural to us all to be occupied with our thoughts and feelings about the blood of Christ, rather than with that blood itself, and with God’s thoughts respecting it. If the blood has been perfectly presented to God, if He has accepted it, if He has glorified Himself in the putting away of sin, then what remains for the divinely exercised conscience but to find perfect repose in that which has met all the claims of God, harmonized His attributes, glorified His character, and laid the foundations of that marvelous platform whereon a sin-hating God and a poor sin-destroyed sinner can meet? Why introduce the question of my interest in the blood of Christ, as though that work were not complete without aught of mine, call it what you will, my interest, my feelings, my experience, my appreciation, my appropriation, my anything? Why not rest in Christ alone? This would be really having an interest in Him. But the very moment the heart gets occupied with the question of its own interest — the moment the eye is taken off that divine object which the word of God and the Holy Ghost present, then spiritual darkness and perplexity must ensue, and the soul, instead of rejoicing in the perfection of the work of Christ, is tormented by looking at its own poor, imperfect feelings.
But, it may still be urged, Must we not have an interest in the blood? Must we not appropriate, must we not apply that precious sacrifice to our own souls? We repeat, and press it with much earnestness upon the exercised reader, if only you heartily believe that the blood has been presented to, and accepted by, God — if you believe that God is satisfied as to sin—that the perfect record of Christ’s atoning work has been laid, with His own hand, upon the throne of God, then have you, in very deed, a deep, personal, and eternal interest in the blood. This, truly, is to apply, appreciate, and appropriate, the sacrifice of the Son of God — to know its perfect efficacy for your own soul. Depend upon it, beloved friend, the devil is seeking to cast dust in your eyes, to darken, perplex, and confound your soul, by leading you to dwell upon your own imperfect apprehension rather than upon the sevenfold sprinkling of the blood of atonement, before the true tabernacle of the congregation.
“The atoning work is done,
The Victim’s blood is shed;
And Jesus now is gone,
His people’s cause to plead:
He stands in heaven their great High Priest
And bears their names upon His breast.”
Here, blessed be God, we have the stable groundwork of “purification for sin,” and of perfect peace for the conscience. “The atoning work is done.” All is finished. The great Antitype of the red heifer has been slain. He gave Himself up to death, under the wrath and judgment of a righteous God, that all who simply put their trust in Him might know, in the deep secret of their own souls, divine purification and perfect peace. We are purified, as to the conscience, not by our thoughts about the blood, but by the blood itself. We must insist upon this. God Himself has made out our title for us, and that title is found in the blood alone. Oh! that most precious blood of Jesus that speaks profound peace to every troubled soul that will simply lean upon its imperishable virtue. Why, we may ask, is it that the blessed doctrine of the blood is so little understood and appreciated? Why will people persist in looking to aught else, or in mingling aught else with it? May the Holy Ghost lead the anxious reader, as he reads these lines, to stay his whole soul upon the atoning sacrifice of the spotless Lamb of God!
To be continued, if the Lord will.