by the late D. A. Doudney
“The life of the flesh is in the blood”. Lev. 17.11.
“Without shedding of blood, there is no remission”. Heb. 9.22.
Perhaps the reader will say, “I have read with interest what you have written, and there is no denying that the facts you have brought forward are encouraging; but still withal I have a weight upon my conscience and deep sorrow of heart. Sin lies like a heavy burden there, I cannot be at ease whilst yet I am in ignorance that my sins are forgiven. If they were pardoned, should I not ere this have felt relief? Oh, that the Lord would say to me as He did to the poor woman of whom you have spoken, ‘Thy sins are forgiven thee!’ There — then — I could be happy, but not before!”
Well, now, dear reader, I am glad indeed to hear you express yourself in these terms; and most thankful shall I be, if the Lord is pleased, through any poor instrumentality of mine, to lead you to obtain that relief, and to experience that place, which you so earnestly crave.
If you return to the 12th Chapter of Exodus, you will find, that upon the eventful night in which the Israelites were to leave Egypt, the head of each family was to kill a lamb, and to sprinkle its blood upon the lintel and upon the two side-posts of the door of the house where they dwelt. And the Lord declared, that, when the destroying angel passed through the land to smite the first-born of the Egyptians, both man and beast, “The blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are: and when I see the blood (He said) I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt”.
Moreover, the Lord added:
“And ye shall observe this thing for an ordinance to thee and to thy sons for ever. . . . And it shall come to pass, when your children shall say unto you, What mean ye by this service? That ye shall say, It is the sacrifice of the Lord’s passover, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, when He smote the Egyptians, and delivered our houses”.
Now, this paschal-lamb, as it was called, was a type of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world; (Rev. 13.8). And, as the slaying of the lamb in the house of the Israelites would not have sufficed to have saved the first-born, unless its blood was sprinkled upon the lintel and the two-sides of the doors of their dwellings, so in like manner, the blood of Jesus (the antitypical Lamb slain from the foundation of the world) must be sprinkled upon each of our hearts and consciences, if so be those consciences are to be purged from all iniquity. The Lord says now as emphatically as He did, in days of old, “When I see the blood I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you”.
Now, as in accordance with the passage I quoted at the head of this chapter, all real spiritual life centres in the blood! I wish to be most particular here in seeking to fix this all-important thought upon you.
I am the more anxious, dear reader, because, in these days, it is a subject sought to be set aside, or reasoned away. This, however, by no means alters the fact, All true peace, all solid joy, all true scriptural and saving hope, is based upon the blood. Whatever men may say to the contrary, such is the fact; and it is borne out and supported by the Word of God, the only true standards “To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this Word, it is because there is no light in them”. (Isa. 8.20).
Now, in the 9th and 10th chapters of the Epistle to the Hebrews, the apostle dwells at large, and most emphatically, upon the offerings made under the law, or under the Jewish dispensation, as typifying and pointing directly to the Great Sacrifice which, in the fullness of time, was made by Christ Himself, who, “by His one offering perfected for ever them that are sanctified”. (Heb. 10.14).
He declares that under the former dispensation, “the high-priest had daily to offer up sacrifices, first for his own sins and then for the people’s; but Christ (the antitypical high-priest) he says: “this He did once, when He offered up Himself”. (Heb. 7.27).
Again, in the 9th chapter, and 6th and following verses, the Apostle says: “Now when these things were thus ordained, the priests went always into the first tabernacle, accomplishing the service of God. But into the second went the high priest alone once every year, not without blood, which he offered for himself, and for the errors of the people”. Then, after showing that this was all figurative and typical, and by no means perfect or conclusive, he adds: “But Christ, having 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 once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us“. “For (says the Apostle) if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh”. In other words, if this service, appointed as it was by God, to answer for the time being, the great object of pointing like a finger-post to that ALMIGHTY ONE who was to come; then when He really had come, and once and for all presented Himself a sacrifice: then “How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit OFFERED HIMSELF without spot (or fault) to God, purge your conscience from dead works (or sins) to serve the living God”.
Then, in the 10th chapter, the Apostle having shown that, under the former or shadowy dispensation “in those sacrifices there was a remembrance of sin every year”: (it was only typically — not really — done away) he speaks of Christ, as the Surety and Substitute of His Church and people; “But this man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down at the right hand of God; from henceforth expecting till His enemies be made His footstool. For by one offering He hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified“.
And all this, dear reader, was in precise fulfilment of what had been foreshown of the Person and work of Christ, upwards of seven hundred years before He came to serve and to suffer, in the room and stead of every poor sinner to feel his condition as such, and to realize the great fact, that “Neither is there salvation in any other; for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved”. (Acts 4.12). “Who His own self bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed”. (1 Peter 2.24).
Reader, if you would have pardon of sin and peace of conscience, mark it is only by the doing and dying of the Lord Jesus Christ.