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Chosen no: R-1276 a, from: 1890 Year. |
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The Blood.
Christian people talk a good deal about blood. What do they mean?
Why is it they take such delight in singing and speaking about blood?
Go into some religious meetings, and presently you hear some one get up
and tell that he is saved by the blood; and then another one says that
he rejoices to know he is living under the blood, and another says that
the blood cleanses him from all sin; and so they continue all through
the meeting; and they really seem to enjoy it. Whenever any one mentions the blood, you see the faces of the others light up with joyful emotion, and hear words of
gladness come from their lips. What is it all about? Are they lunatics? No; on
the contrary, they are the most sensible and moral people in the community,
whose testimony would be received as good in any court of justice. Then surely
they must have some reason for their language about the blood. Let us ask one
of them about it.
Friend, will you explain why you people are always talking about blood
and seem to find so much comfort in doing so? Yes, gladly; it is the precious
blood of Christ, the Son of God, who is called the Lamb of God, about which we
talk and sing. But why is that blood so precious to you? Because it continually
reminds us that our sins are all forgiven and put away, in perfect accordance
with God's infinite justice and righteousness, as well as mercy; so that
trusting in the blood we have actually no more consciousness of sins. [R1276 : page 8]
But how does Christ's blood do away with your sinfulness? I can best
answer you by pointing you to the record of Scripture concerning the penalty of sin, which is everywhere declared to be death. Under the Mosaic and
Patriarchal dispensations this was also taught by a series of object lessons.
Animals were killed, and their blood was carried in by the priest and presented
before God as the evidence that death had really taken place, as the broken law
required. In accordance with this God told the Israelites, "The blood is
the life...and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for
your souls, for it is the blood which maketh an atonement for the soul." The
blood, being no longer in the victim's veins, was the positive evidence that
the life was taken.
But could the life blood of animals satisfy divine justice on behalf of
sinful man? No; "the blood of bulls and goats could never take away
sins," but it could shadow forth the truth that if human guilt was ever
removed, some way must be found by which divine justice as well as mercy could
be magnified, and sin be seen in all its awfulness through the terrible
consequences it entailed. The doctrine of Scripture is, that Christ, by
offering up himself, or shedding his life's blood, or pouring out his soul unto
death, put away our sins. We read that "he died for our
sins"--"put away sin by the sacrifice of himself"--"offered
one sacrifice for sins forever:" in fact, did what the Levitical
sacrifices had pointed to but never accomplished. But how could Christ become
legally responsible for the guilt of others, so that his death would meet the
requirements of justice on their behalf? By identifying himself with them, and
offering himself as a sacrifice for their redemption, he became a new federal
head to the human race, with power and authority to bestow upon those
previously under sentence of death a new life from himself, over which death
should have no power. Making himself thus a shelter for sinners, he became
responsible for their sins. Justice, being unable to reach the sinner, demanded
and received satisfaction at the place where the sinner thus legally escaped
it.
Adam, the old life-giving head, entailed death on his seed. Christ, the
new life-giving head, undertook to carry the race safely through the
death which otherwise would have completely and eternally overwhelmed it. So in
order to make a way out of death, he was obliged to go down into death, bearing in his own person the legal responsibility for the sins of the
world; and so the shedding of his blood became the evidence that he really and
truly died. By offering new life to man he burdened himself with the debt which
attached to the old life, and therefore he laid down forever the natural or
creature life, that he might rise again in the divine, spiritual life, and
become the source of life to all who would come into union with himself. Thus,
the blood of Christ, his death, stands as an evidence before God and before the
conscience of believers that the law's demands have been met and fully
satisfied by our great federal Head. Do you wonder that we make much of the
precious blood of Christ; and that we feel and know that it cleanseth us from
all sin? --Selected.
[page 8]
MISSIONARY ENVELOPES.--The price of these is reduced to 25 cents per
hundred, or $2.00 per thousand. (This includes expressage or mail charges of
delivering them to you.) We want these messengers to go everywhere, bearing
testimony to the Truth, and calling attention to God's gracious Plan of the
Ages.
W.T. R-1276a : page 7 - 1890r