Moreover ye shall eat no manner of blood, whether it be of fowl or of beast, in any of your dwellings. Whatsoever soul it be that eateth any manner of blood, even that soul shall be cut off from his people (Leviticus 7:26, 27).
The Bible is a Book of blood and a bloody Book. When I am accused of preaching a Gospel of blood I proudly plead guilty to the charge, for the only thing that gives life to my preaching and power to the Word of God is the fact that it is the blood which is the very life and power of the Gospel. The Bible declares itself to be a “living” Book, the only living Book in the world; and it is able to impart life to those who will believe with their hearts what it teaches. In Hebrews 4 we read these words:
The word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword.
The word translated “quick” in this verse is “Living” or “Alive.” The Word of God is a living Word, wholly distinct from all other books for just one reason, namely, that it contains blood circulating through every page and in every verse. From Genesis to Revelation we see the stream of blood which imparts to this Book the very life of God. Without the blood the Bible would be like any other book and of no more value, for the Bible plainly teaches that the life is in the blood. As I begin this message on the blood, therefore, I must begin with one fundamental principle found in the Bible. This fundamental principle is given in Leviticus 17 and reads as follows:
For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul (Leviticus 17:11).
This same inspired principle is in the fourteenth verse where we read again:
For it [the blood] is the life of all flesh; the blood of it is for the life thereof.
Life, that mysterious something which scientists have never yet been able to define or fathom, is said by God to be in the blood of the flesh, so that there can be no life without the blood. Although this is true of all flesh, we are mainly interested in the human blood of the Man Christ Jesus because in His blood was not only life as we think of it physically, but Eternal life as well.
In the human body there are many different kinds of tissues. We define them as muscle, nerve, fat, gland, bone, connective tissues, etc. All these tissues have one thing in common: they are fixed cells, microscopically small and having a specific and limited function. Unlike these fixed tissues, the blood is fluid and mobile, that is, it is not limited to one part of the body but is free to move throughout the entire body and supply the fixed cells with nourishment and carry off the waste products and the “ashes” of cell activity, a process we call metabolism. In the normal human body there are about five quarts of this fluid, and this blood pumped by the heart circulates through the system about every twenty-three seconds, so that every cell in the body is constantly supplied and cleansed and at the same time is constant communication with every other cell in that body. This blood is the most mysterious of all tissues, being composed of scores of elements and compounds and strange chemical bodies, whose function is not yet fully understood, but all of which have to do with the mystery of life, for the life . . . is in the blood. Once the blood fails to reach the cells and members of the body, they promptly die and no man ever dies until his blood ceases to circulate. This life is in the blood.
Now all this is true of a physical body, but all points to a greater, deeper spiritual truth. The Church of Jesus Christ is called His body and we are members of his body and severally members one of another. In this body Jesus Christ is the Head and all believers are the members. These members are related by the blood of Christ. The life of each member depends on His blood and is dependent solely for life, nourishment, cleansing and growth upon the blood of the Lamb of God, for the life . . . is in the blood. Every born-again believer is a member of that body and lives the common life of every other member by the one thing which unites them and makes them “relatives and brothers,” even the blood of Christ. These members may be widely separated in the body; they may differ widely in color; they may differ widely in function, or structure; but they are all members of one body and united by the one tissue, the blood that reaches every member everywhere. Even so it is with the body of Christ, the true Church. Its members may differ in color, and be white or black or yellow. They may differ in their location as far as Eskimos are removed from the Boers in South Africa. They may differ in form as much as Catholics and Plymouth Brethren, but all born-again believers who have trusted the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Head of the body, are brothers by blood, members of one family and body, whether they be Jews or Gentiles, white or black, Catholic or Protestant, kings or peasants. All are one through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
God cares nothing about our man-made divisions and groups and is not interested in our self-righteous hairsplitting and religious, man-made formulas and organizations. He wants you to recognize the Unity of the body of Christ. Our business is not building denominations and proselyting men and women from one faith to another but to preach the truth that Ye must be born again and that you are lost no matter what church you belong to unless you have been washed in the precious blood of Christ. Show me the man or woman who is more interested in getting members for his church than winning them for Christ, and I will show you a person who does not yet know the unifying and purifying power of the blood, in making us all One in Him, not in form or ritual or mode of worship, but one in common interest to Exalt Our Head, the Lord Jesus, and to love one another. Some folk are so busy defending their pet doctrines and sectarian views and getting church members, that they never win a soul to Christ.
All men are related by the blood of Adam, sinful and polluted blood, dead in trespasses and in sins. Scripture teaches that God —
hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on the face of the earth (Acts 17:26).
All men have a “common” origin in Adam. All men are blood relatives of Adam, whether they be white or black, Jew or Gentile, pagan or cultured. Their blood carries the sentence of death because of Adam’s sin, and for this reason all men die a common death, with no exceptions. Remember that the life is in the blood, and so if man must die it is because there is death in the blood. Although we do not know the nature of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, we do know that the eating of it caused “blood poisoning” and resulted in death, for God had said:
The day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
So potent was this poison that six thousand years after, all who are related to Adam by human birth still succumb to that poison of sin which is carried in some way in the blood. A review of the story of Adam’s creation will make clear this truth. We are told that God formed man out of the dust of the earth. Up to this time Adam was a lifeless clump of clay. Materially he was just so much dust, and merely molded into the shape of a man, but without life; he was a mere dummy. Then the record tells us that —
God . . . breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
The breath of God put something in man that made him Alive. That something was blood. It must have been. It could be nothing else: for we have already shown that the life of the flesh is in the blood and so when life was added by the breath of God, He imparted blood to that lump of clay in the shape of a man, and man became a living soul. Adam’s body was of the ground. His blood was the separate gift of God, for God is Life and the Author of all life.
Then man sinned and ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and He Died — Died Spiritually and, ultimately, physically. Since life is in the blood, when man died, something happened to the blood. Sin affected the blood of man, not his body, except indirectly, because it is supplied by the blood. For this very reason flesh must be called sinful flesh because it is nourished and fed and sustained by sinful blood. And since God hath made of one blood all nations, sin is present in all of Adam’s progeny. For in that one sinned all have sinned.
This very fact that sin affected the blood of man necessitated the Virgin Birth of Christ if He was to be a son of Adam and yet a sinless man. For this very reason Christ could partake of Adam’s flesh, which is not inherently sinful, but He could not partake of Adam’s blood, which was completely sinful. God provided a way by which Jesus, born of a woman (not man), could be a perfect human being, but, because He had not a drop of Adam’s blood in His veins, He did not share in Adam’s sin. I discuss the subject of the virgin birth more fully later, but I mention this thought here to connect the ideas that human blood is sinful and the whole plan of redemption, therefore, revolves around the blood.
For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, santifieth 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? (Hebrews 9:13-14).
The whole plan of redemption rests upon the power of the Lord Jesus Christ. We have pointed out that the blood is the only tissue which is unlimited in its movement within the body. Almost all other body tissues are fixed, such as muscle, bone, nerve, fat and skin. They remain where they are. The blood is the only tissue which is not fixed but circulates throughout the body to every living cell. There are other fluid products of the body, such as saliva and gastric juices, tears and bile, but these are not tissues, but secretions, and are not parts of th body but byproducts of that body. The blood alone is the liquid tissue that can reach every single cell in the body and, therefore, unites all the members with the head and the individual members as well.
Man has learned a great deal about this blood since the discovery of the microscope and the development of blood chemistry, and although much is still a mystery, we have a reasonably thorough understanding of its physical structure. The normal human body with its five quarts of blood is wholly dependent upon the circulation of this fluid for its life, for the life of the flesh is in the blood. Simply stated, the blood consists of a liquid vehicle called the plasma, a colorless liquid in which are suspended the various cellular elements and in which are found in solution a great many chemical compounds. The solid part of the blood consists mainly of three kinds of cells. These are called platelets, thin transparent cells whose function is still quite obscure. Then there are the red cells or erythrocytes, in the concentration of about 5,000,000 per cubic millimeter. These are the cells which carry the fuel to the tissues in the form of combined oxygen and which give the blood its red color. There are also the white cells or leucocytes, of which there are several kinds, which have to do particularly with the defense of the body in combating infection. Other elements in solution provide for the clotting of the blood when an artery or vein is severed, and the antibodies prevent disease.
A good deal is known concerning the red and the white cells, since they are the more easily studied. The red cells or erythrocytes are minute disc-shaped cells containing a mysterious substance called hemoglobin, an iron compound which has an affinity for oxygen, a fuel of the body. These red cells traveling through the lungs come in contact with the oxygen we breathe and unite loosely with it to form oxy-hemoglobin; in that form they travel to all cells and there discharge their little cargo to the cell, thus providing it with its vital oxygen for combustion and heat. Then the blood picks up the waste products of tissue metabolism, which we may well call “the cell garbage,” and discharges this through the kidneys, the skin, the bowels and then refills with a load of precious oxygen and repeats the entire cycle again, taking about twenty-three seconds for one trip around. The food is carried to the tissues by the blood and in the same vehicle the “garbage” is carried off, and yet there is never any contamination, so perfectly has the great Creator made us. Imagine our city produce dealers today delivering our foods unpackaged in the same truck in which they haul the garbage! Here is something in which our health departments may well wonder.
As essential then as the blood is to our bodies, so essential is the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ to the body of Christ. It, too, is fluid, so that it can reach every single member of that body no matter how far those members may be removed the one from the other. Just as the blood supplies the food elements for nourishment and life, and then carries off the waste products and poisons due to cell metabolism, so, too, the Lord Jesus Christ is to every believer the only Source of life, the only support and sustenance of life, but also the One who keeps cleansing us day by day, so that our eternal life is really Eternal, for the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.
Have you been to Jesus for the cleansing pow’r?
Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?
Are your garments spotless? Are they white as snow?
Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?
Here indeed is a marvel of divine chemistry! In Revelation we read that the saints of God had washed their robes white in the blood of the Lamb. Think of it — washing in blood and becoming white! Wash your robes in the blood of a man and see what color they are. It is impossible to wash clothes white in human blood, but God’s chemical laboratory of redemption has provided a way to wash away all filth and stain, and wonder of wonders, it is by washing in the Blood of the Lamb. His sinless, supernatural blood alone can do that.
In addition to the red cells in the blood plasma, we mentioned the white cells, scientifically called leucocytes. They are called “white cells” because they are pale or white in appearance, whereas the red cells, of course, are not. These white cells are somewhat larger than the red cells but fewer in number. They normally occur in the concentration of about four thousand to seven thousand per cubic millimeter, whereas the red cells have had a count of from four to five million. However, the number of these white cells may be very, very rapidly increased in cases of emergency. The seven thousand normal count may be called the regular “standing army” of the blood stream. When an infection occurs anywhere in the body and the body is attacked by an enemy “army” of germs, the news is flashed back to the “camp” where the white cells are manufactured and immediately the organ turns out a greatly increased number of these white cells and rushes them to the point of infection.
We might well call this “conscription of the white army” in times of emergency. The number of white cells is doubled and then trebled, for the white cells are the “soldiers” of the body. They have the strange power to kill germs and engulf them. So when you prick your finger and infection starts, you soon notice a swelling around the wound. This is caused by blood being rushed to the area carrying these little “soldiers,” the white cells. These white cells surround the point of infection completely and lay siege to the bacteria causing the trouble. Millions of “soldiers” are killed and are gathered in one place, where they form what is commonly called “pus.”
So now the battle is turning and the wound which at first was red and angry and swollen now comes to a head. It has been successfully surrounded and finally the pimple bursts and the pus is expelled. The pus consists of serum and dead “soldiers,” millions of white cells which gave their lives in the battle for the body, together with countless numbers of germs partly digested by the white cells.
When the “dead” in the form of pus have been expelled, the blood and other white cells come in, clean up the “battlefield” and build new tissues, until all is healed and nothing but a scar remains. The number of white cell “soldiers” during all this time has been greatly increased, but now the battle is over and they return to their normal peacetime number. This is the reason the doctor takes a little of your blood out of your finger for a blood count when he suspects infection anywhere. In doubtful cases of appendicitis he takes a drop of blood and examines it. If the white cells are greatly increased and the “army” is being “conscripted” as indicated by the increasing number of little white “soldiers,” he can be fairly certain that there is an attack by infection being made upon the body. Surely in the light of all this we can appreciate the words of David when he said, I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
What the blood in our bodies does for us in times of danger and attack the Precious Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ does for each and every believer. In this connection I must quote a passage from Revelation 12:
And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, Which Accused Them Before Our God Day and Night. And They Overcame Him by the Blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony (Revelation 12:10-11).
They overcame him (Satan) by the Blood of the Lamb. Now this refers to the nation of Israel in the Tribulation, but it applies just as well to us today. Satan is the accuser of the brethren. He brings charges against us before God, and, to be sure, there are plenty of charges to be made. But when he comes before God to accuse us, there is One there, even our great High Priest, the Lamb of God, and all He needs to do is to point to the blood that was shed for us and it is enough.
Sometimes Satan also comes to accuse us. He points out our sins and failures and we see our shortcomings and the sins of the flesh and he says, “Are you a Christian? Are you saved? You don’t look like a Christian.” The result is that often we go down and are defeated when we look at ourselves and our sins. We begin to doubt our salvation and question our redemption. How can we overcome this enemy? How shall we meet this infection? There is only one answer: They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb.
I see no good in myself — even less than the Devil sees. I have no hope in myself and have no confidence in the flesh. Then I plead the blood. I look to Calvary and point to Him who there died for me and shed His blood for me, and the light breaks through. I see that it is not my goodness nor the awful mountain of my sins, but it all depends on His blood. The blood fights for me. It is the army of “white cells” in the blood of Christ which puts the enemy to flight. I acknowledge my sin, I do not deny it and then I claim the promise:
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to Cleanse Us From All Unrighteousness (1 John 1:9).
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).
They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb (Revelation 12:11).
In our blood are not only the platelets, red cells, and leucocytes; but science has discovered in the blood the Antibodies or Antitoxins. These are elements which Prevent Infection. The leucocytes fight infection when it occurs, but the Antibodies prevent the infection from getting a foothold. Their nature is not fully understood, but we know clearly that except for these disease-preventing elements we would soon perish. It is of interest to note that these antibodies are produced in response to infection. That is, while these bodies which prevent a certain disease may be absent in the blood, After the Person Has Once Had the Disease, these bodies have been produced in a large amount, and thus prevent him from contracting the same disease twice. Some of those antibodies last for life, as in the case of smallpox, scarlet fever and other diseases. Once you have had such a disease, you will never contract it again. Other antibodies are only temporarily effective, giving immunity only for a time, so that after a certain period of time the same disease may be contracted again. The thing to notice is this: The body once attacked by disease builds up immunity so that it will not be attacked by that disease again. This immunity is in the blood.
A great lesson unfolds before us when we apply these facts to the blood of Christ. Even after we have been saved we are still open to the attacks of the world, the flesh and the Devil. Even after being born again we all to often fall prey to temptation and go down. The characteristic of the Christian who fails is that he seeks the cleansing of the blood of Christ and thereafter pleads the blood of Christ and guards against a repetition of the thing that once brought him down. He does not fall into the same sin again and again, for each experience builds up an immunity against that sin.
The difference between the sinner and the saint is that the saint Hates his sin and pleads the blood of Christ, whereas the sinner loves his sin and goes back into it. The saint is like a sheep. It may fall in the mud hole, but it is not comfortable there, and will bleat until the shepherd lifts it out, and thereafter will avoid that mud hole by ten rods. The sinner is like a pig. It goes about looking for slime pits and when it finds one it slides in with a grunt of glee and will squeal vehement objections if you try to pull it out and no sooner is it out than it will return to the slime pit again.
The saint may Fall into sin but he will never remain there, and he will be unhappy while in it. Oh, Christian, do not despair if you have failed. Our precious Lord knew when He came to die for you what a failure you would be. He knew how hard it would be to remain undefiled in this old world which is “no friend to grace.” He knew the pitfalls in the way and the deceitfulness of the flesh, and so when He died to save you, He also shed His blood to cleanse you, for He caused John to write:
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If We Confess Our Sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:8-9).
My friend, it will do you no good to deny your sins. God says if you do that you are only deceiving Yourself and nobody else. Your only hope is in Confession of your sin, and then He sends the “army” of “white cells” of the precious blood of Christ to cleanse you. Then Trust Him to keep you from sin through that same precious blood which, in addition to the “white cells” of fighting and cleansing, also contains the Antitoxin against further sinning. Do not despair today as you think of how you have failed, but flee to Him who shed His Precious Blood for your salvation, your cleansing and your Keeping.
God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth dwelleth not in temples made with hands; neither is worshipped with men’s hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things: and hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth (Acts 17:24-26).
One statement in this passage calls for special attention. Paul says that God hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth. The one thing which relates all men to each other is the blood that flows in their veins. All Men Are of One Blood and that One Blood was the blood of Father Adam, the first man and the progenitor of the whole human race.
Since the Life is in the blood, according to the Scriptures, and the wages of sin is death, sin affected the blood of Adam and caused him to die. Because the blood of all men partakes of the sin of Adam, it can be cleansed only by the application of sinless blood, for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul. As the first Adam’s sin corrupted the blood of the entire human family, so the pure sinless blood of the last Adam makes atonement for the sin of the world. For without shedding of blood is no remission . . . It is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul. Eve’s sin does not affect us, although Eve sinned before Adam did. It was the Sin of Adam which brought death upon the whole race because it [the whole human race – Ed.] is Adam’s Seed. Only Jesus is called the Seed of the woman, because He was born of a woman and thus His blood was without the sin of Adam. Jesus could have a human body, but He was not a sinner like you and me because He was born of woman by the Holy Spirit. There was then only one remedy for Sin: sinless blood; and only one could supply this, even the sinless Son of God.
From Genesis to Revelation we have this message of the atoning blood. In the Old Testament, we have it in the example of the blood of the lambs and the goats which were slain in the bloody ritual of Israel. Long, long before the perfect Lamb of God Himself came, the Lord was preparing the world for Him by the multitudinous types in the Old Testament. Without blood there could be no atonement, and until the blood was presented the holy law of God demanded justice and death for the sinner. That is why, when God gave the two tables of the law to Moses upon Mount Sinai — the law which called for justice and not mercy, the law which said, The soul that sinneth it shall die, the law which demanded Perfection or death — He also gave to Moses on the same Mount the pattern of the Tabernacle, which was indeed built on blood and whose whole ritual was bathed in blood. God knew when He gave the law to Israel that they could not keep it perfectly and Must Die, and so in mercy He gave the Tabernacle and the altar and the blood so that a sinning people condemned by the law might have life through the sheltering blood.
The blood of bulls and goats and lambs could not atone for sin, but merely pointed forward to the One that would come in the end of that age to Put Away Sin by the sacrifice of Himself. So in the fullness of time God sent forth His Son into the world to be born of a woman, and at the end of His life He shed His precious eternal blood Once and for all. After that there was no more sacrifice. The blood of the sacrificial animals of the Old Testament was corruptible and decayed and was soon gone, but the blood shed on Calvary was imperishable blood. It is called incorruptible. Peter says:
Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold . . . but with the precious blood of Christ. . . .
The blood of the Lord Jesus is sinless blood, and since it is sinless, it is incorruptible, for sin brings in corruption, and where there is no sin there is no corruption. Later I shall point out why the blood which flowed in Jesus’ body was sinless. Every drop of blood which flowed in Jesus’ body is still in existence, and is just as fresh as it was when it flowed from His wounded brow and hands and feet and side. The blood that flowed from His unbroken skin in Gethsemane, the blood that was smeared about His back when the cruel, weighted thongs cut through His flesh as the flagellator scourged Him, the blood that oozed out under the thorny crown and flowed from His hands, His head, His feet was never destroyed for it was incorruptible blood. David in speaking of Him in the sixteenth Psalm, which Peter quotes in Acts 2, says:
Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.
Although the body of the Lord Jesus Christ lay in the tomb in death for three days and three nights, no corruption entered it for that body contained incorruptible blood. Lazarus being dead only one day more was said by his sister to be Stinking with corruption, but this one saw no corruption because the only cause of corruption, Sinful Blood, was absent from His flesh. That blood, every drop of it, is still in existence. Perhaps when the great High Priest ascended into heaven, He went, like the high priest of old, into the Holy of Holies, in the presence of God, to sprinkle the blood upon the Mercy Seat in heaven, of which the material Mercy Seat and Ark in the Tabernacle were merely copies. In Hebrews we read:
It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens [referring to the earthly Tabernacle] should be purified with these [that is, the blood of beasts]; 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 . . . but now once in the end of the whole world hath he appeared to Put Away Sin by the sacrifice of himself (Hebrews 9:23-26).
After Christ had made the atonement, He arose from the tomb, and then, as the eternal High Priest, ascended into heaven to present the blood in the Holy of Holies where God dwells, and that blood is there today, pleading for us and prevailing for us. The priest in the Tabernacle never spoke a word. All he did was Present the blood, and that was enough. Perhaps there is a golden chalice in heaven where every drop of the precious blood is still in existence, just as pure, just as potent, just as fresh as two thousand years ago. The priest in the earthly Tabernacle needed to repeat the sprinkling again and again, and it is a significant fact that among all the pieces of the furniture of the Tabernacle there was no chair to be found. We read of the altar, the table, the candlestick, and the Lord’s Ark, but there is no mention of a chair in the Tabernacle of Israel. This fact simply signified that the work of the earthly priest who sprinkled the blood of the animal sacrifice was never done. He could not sit down. His work was never finished. Of the great High Priest Jesus Christ, we read:
But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, Sat Down on the right hand of God. For by one offering he hath perfected for Ever them that are sanctified (Hebrews 10:12, 14).
The blood has been shed — the incorruptible, eternal, divine, sinless, overcoming, precious blood. It availed then, and it avails now; and throughout all eternity it shall never lose its power.
Because of all this, the blood is called in Scripture by many descriptive names. “It is precious,” says Peter. “It is incorruptible,” says David. “It is overcoming blood,” says John in Revelation for they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony. No wonder Satan hates the blood and will do anything to get rid of that power of the blood of Christ!
Today it is as true as in the day of Israel that there is no remission without the blood. Today the law has not changed its character; nor has the blood. The law still is the ministration of death (2 Corinthians 3:7). It is still true that cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them. They that are of the works of the law are under the curse. The letter killeth (2 Corinthians 3:6).
God said to Israel and to us, When I see the blood, I will pass over you. He did not say, “When I see your goodness, your morality, your works, your fervent religious worship, your earnestness in trying to keep the Ten Commandments or observe the Golden Rule, I will pass over you.” No, it is simply this: When I see the blood, I will pass over you. Do you think that I have made too much of the blood; that I have overemphasized its importance? Listen, blood is mentioned in the Bible about Seven Hundred Times from Genesis to Revelation, and when we visualize the redeemed throng in heaven described in the book of Revelation, we hear them singing, not about their goodness, not about how long they have kept the law and been faithful, but this is the song:
Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood (Revelation 1:5).
Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, Before They Came Together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost. Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a publick example, was minded to put her away privily. But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife for that Which Is Conceived in Her Is of the Holy Ghost (Matthew 1:18-20).
Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with Us (Matthew 11:22-23).
Passing strange, is it not, that with such a clear record anyone can deny that the Bible Teaches the Virgin Birth. We can understand how men can reject the Bible record, but how men can say that the Bible does not teach the Virgin Birth is beyond conception.
The Bible teaches plainly that Jesus was conceived in the womb of a virgin Jewish mother by a supernatural act of the Holy Ghost, wholly and apart from any generation by a human father. This the Bible teaches so plainly that to the believer there is no room for doubt. The record cannot be mistaken by the careful and rigorous student of the Word.
The Bible teaches in addition that Jesus was a Sinless man. Whereas all men from Adam to this day are born with Adam’s sinful nature, and therefore are subject to the curse and eternal death, the Man Jesus was without sin and therefore Deathless, until He took the sin of others upon Himself and died Their death.
God has made of One Blood All the Nations of the earth. Even though Jesus, therefore, received His flesh, His body from a sinful race, He could still be sinless as long as sinful blood was not in His body. God provided a way whereby Jesus could be perfectly human according to the flesh and yet not have the blood of sinful humanity. That was the problem solved by the virgin birth.
It is now definitely known that the blood which flows in an unborn babe’s arteries and veins is not derived from the mother but is produced within the body of the foetus. Yet it is only after the sperm has entered the ovum and a foetus begins to develop that blood appears. As a very simple illustration of this, think of the egg of a hen. An unfertilized egg is simply an ovum on a much larger scale than the human ovum. You may incubate this unfertilized hen’s egg, but it will never develop. It will dry up completely but no chick will result. But let that egg be fertilized by the introduction of the male sperm and incubation will bring to light the presence of Life in an Embryo. After a few hours it visibly develops. In a little while red streaks occur, denoting the presence of Blood. And life is in the blood according to Scripture, for Moses says:
For the life of the flesh is in the blood (Leviticus 17:14). For it is the life of all flesh; the blood of it is for the life thereof (Leviticus 17:14).
It is unnecessary that a single drop of blood be given to the developing embryo in the womb of the mother. Such is the case according to scientists. The mother provides the foetus (the unborn developing infant) with the nutritive elements for the building of that little body in the secret of her womb, but all the blood which forms in it is formed in the embryo itself. From the time of conception to the time of birth of the infant not One Single Drop of Blood ever passes from mother to child. The placenta, that mass of temporary tissue known better as “afterbirth,” forming the link between mother and child, is so constructed that although all the soluble nutritive elements such as proteins, fats, carbohydrates, salts, minerals and even antibodies pass freely from mother to child and the waste products of the child’s metabolism are passed back to the mother’s circulation, no actual interchange of a single drop of blood ever occurs normally. All the blood which is in that child is produced within the child itself. The mother contributes no blood at all.
Now for the sake of some readers who may doubt these statements let me quote from a few reliable authorities. In Howell’s Textbook of Physiology, Second Edition, pages 885 and 886, I read:
For the purpose of understanding its general functions it is sufficient to recall that the placenta consists essentially of vascular chorionic papillae from the foetus (the unborn child) bathed in the large blood spaces of the decidual membrane of the mother. The foetal and maternal blood Do Not Come Into Actual Contact. They Are Separated From Each Other by the walls of the foetal blood vessels and the epithelial layers of the chorionic villae.
Or let me quote from Williams’ Practice of Obstetrics, Third Edition, page 133:
The foetal blood in the vessels of the chorionic villae At No Time Gains Access to the Maternal Blood in the intervillous spaces, Being Separated From One Another by the double layer of chorionic epithelium.
And from page 136 of the same recognized textbook I quote:
Normally there is no communication between the foetal blood and the maternal blood.
Now for the benefit of those of you who may be nurses, let me quote from a textbook which is familiar to you. I quote as follows, from Nurse’s Handbook of Obstetrics by Louise Zabriskie, R.N., Fifth Edition, page 75:
When the circulation of the blood begins in the embryo, it remains separate and distinct from that of the mother. All food and waste material which are interchanged between the embryo and the mother must pass through the blood vessel walls from one circulation to the other.
And from page 82 of the same book I quote:
The foetus receives its nourishment and oxygen from the mother’s blood into its own through the medium of the placenta. The foetal heart pumps blood through the arteries of the umbilical cord into the placental vessels, which, looping in and out of the uterine tissue and lying in close contact with the uterine vessels, permit a diffusion, through their walls, of waste products from child to mother and of nourishment and oxygen from mother to child. As has been said, this interchange is effected by the process of osmosis, and there is no direct mingling of the two blood currents. In other words, no maternal blood actually flows to the foetus, nor is there any direct foetal blood flow to the mother.
How wonderfully God prepared for the virgin birth of His Son. When He created woman He made her so that no blood would be able to pass from her to her offspring. In order to produce a sinless man who would yet be the son of Adam, God provided a way whereby that man would have a human body derived from Adam but have no blood from a separate source. Some have tried to answer the question, “How could He be sinless and yet born of a woman?” by making Mary the “Immaculate Virgin.” That, however, does not answer the question of how Jesus was sinless.
It is plainly taught in Scripture that Jesus partook of human flesh without partaking of the effect of Adam’s blood. In Hebrews 2:14 we read:
Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood he also himself likewise took part of the same. . . .
You will also notice that the “children,” that is, the human children are said to be partakers of Flesh and Blood, and then, speaking of Jesus, this verse says that He himself likewise took part of the same. The word “took part” as applying to Christ is an entirely different word from “partakers” as applied to the children. In the margin of my Bible, I read that the word translated “took part” implies “taking part in something outside one’s self.” The Greek word for partakers is Koynoneho and means “to share fully,” so that all of Adam’s children share fully in Adam’s flesh and blood. When we read that Jesus “took part of the same” the word is Metecho which means “to take part but not all.” The Children take both flesh and blood of Adam but Christ took only part, that is, the flesh part, whereas the blood was the result of supernatural conception.
Jesus was a perfect human being after the flesh. He was of the seed of David according to the flesh, but blood is that part of man which is the divine addition. In the creation of man, Adam’s body was made from the dust of the earth, but God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. Since life is in the blood, this act resulted in the formation of blood in Adam’s body, but the first Adam’s blood was corrupted and sin is in all mankind since God hath made of one blood all nations. In the last Adam and the second man, new and divine and sinless blood was produced in a body that was the seed of Adam and by this resulted in the production of —
Conception by the Holy Ghost was the only way the virgin birth could be accomplished. Mary nourished the body of Jesus and He became the seed of David according to the flesh. The Holy Spirit contributed the blood of Jesus. It is sinless blood. It is divine blood. It is precious blood, for there has never been any other like it. It is —
I have betrayed the innocent blood, Judas confessed in Matthew 27:4. Our Lord was innocent. He became like unto us in all things — Sin only excepted; like unto us with One Exception — instead of being conceived by a human father, He was conceived by a Divine Father. As a result, biologically, He had Divine Blood, Sinless Blood. Because this blood is sinless it is —
Sin made human blood corruptible. Soon after death decay sets in, and it begins in the blood. That is why meat must be drained well of its blood. That is why embalmers place the embalming fluid in the blood. David said that Jesus’ body should not see corruption. Though He was dead three days and three nights, His body did not corrupt. Because He was sinless they could not put Him to death but instead He laid down His life voluntarily that He might take it up again. He arose by His own power because death had no claim on Him except the claim of others’ sin, and when that was paid —
Death cannot keep his prey —
Jesus, my Saviour;
He tore the bars away —
Jesus, My Lord.
Up from the grave He arose,
With a mighty triumph o’er His foes.
Sinner, have you received this Saviour and have you been washed in His Precious Blood? If not, you are still under the curse and the awful sentence of death. Why not accept Him today and hear Him as he says:
God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now Justified By His Blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him (Romans 5: 8, 9).
But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat (Genesis 9:4).
This is part of the very command which God gave to man after the awful judgement of the Flood of Noah. After the wickedness of man had reached its peak in antediluvian days, God, in order to spare the human race from complete corruption, sent a great flood upon the earth and destroyed all men except one family — the family of a man who by the grace of God had still remained perfect in his generations. With this new family on a cleansed and renewed earth, the Lord began a new chapter in the history of humanity. No sooner had God, however, released Noah from the Ark, than He gave him some instructions concerning his conduct, lest another judgement should fall upon them. Chief among these instructions was the commandment “Eat No Blood,” But flesh with the life thereof, shall ye not eat. “Eat No Blood,” said God to man as he emerged on the new earth. Is there not here more than a mere suggestion that the Flood may have come in part as the result of man’s disregard for the “sacredness of blood”?
We know the earth was filled with violence, and the first overt sin committed after the fall was the sin of the shedding of Abel’s innocent blood. This blood cried for vengeance from the ground. If that innocent blood called for vengeance in the Flood of Noah, shall God not also avenge the blood of those who today are dying because of the latter-day violence which is unquestionably in fulfillment of the words of our Lord when he said:
But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
Yes, one of these days He is coming to put an end to the reign of terror on the earth, and, cleansing the world, by the judgement of the Tribulation, of which the Flood was but a type, He will bring a kingdom of peace on another renewed and cleansed earth.
Because life is in the blood, and not in the flesh of God’s creatures, he permitted man to eat Flesh, but it must be Without Blood. God was very insistent on this point. In giving the national dietary and ceremonial laws to Israel He repeated the prohibition of Genesis 9:4:
Moreover ye shall eat no manner of blood, whether it be of fowl or of beast, in any of your dwellings. Whatsoever soul it be that eateth any manner of blood, even that soul shall be cut off from his people (Leviticus 7:26-27).
The same injunction is repeated at greater length in Leviticus 17. God said, “It is sin to eat any manner of blood.” So serious was this sin that the transgressor was to be cut off from his people. Meat which had not been thoroughly drained of its blood was unfit for food, as well as all things strangled. Today, the orthodox Jew, at least, still remembers this prohibition, and will eat nothing but Kosher meat, that is, meat which is without blood and which has been slaughtered according to the law. Every kosher meat market and every bit of kosher food is evidence of the sacredness of blood.
Now someone will say, “But we are under grace and that command was given to the Jews under the law.” That objection carries no weight. God first gave the command to Noah and Noah Was Not Under the Law. He lived over a thousand years before the law of Moses was given on Mt. Sinai. More than that, after the law had been fulfilled in Christ and the age of grace ushered in, God is careful to let us know that this rule still holds: “Eat No Blood.” In the fifteenth chapter of Acts we have the record of the first general Church council at Jerusalem. A very vexing question had arisen in the early Church after Paul and Barnabas had taken the Gospel to the Gentiles. The Jewish members of the early Church insisted that these Gentile believers become circumcised and demanded that they keep the law. A bitter controversy arose and a meeting was called in Jerusalem to decide this question. Paul and Barnabas came down from Antioch for the meeting, and after much disputing they were sent back to the Gentile believers at Antioch with this message:
Forasmuch as we have heard, that certain which went out from us have troubled you with words, subverting your souls, saying, Ye must be circumcised, and Keep the Law: to whom we gave no such commandment (Acts 15:24).
Please not carefully what the apostles said: “We Gave No Such Commandment.” They denied that they ever taught that the Church was under the law or that Gentile believers had to be circumcised. Nineteen hundred years after, the Church is still vexed by these legalists who would make Jews out of us all, but the apostles emphatically declared that we are not under the law but under grace. The Christian does not keep the law because he Must, but he serves God because of his gratitude for having been delivered form the law. Now notice the further instructions of the apostles:
For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things; That ye abstain from meats offered to idols, and From Blood, and From Things Strangled, and from fornication (Acts 15:28-29).
They were not under the law, but still they were to abstain from the eating of blood, not because they were under the law, but because of the Sacredness of Blood, which is the life of all flesh. God gave the commandment to Noah a thousand years Before the law. It held during the age of law and although the age of law has passed, the commandment still holds today.
God’s commands are never arbitrary but always logical and reasonable. Many reasons can be found for abstaining from blood. We might mention the reasons of Health and Hygiene, but there are two reasons which stand out most prominently.
First, the life is in the blood and Life is sacred. It was God’s special gift and the effect of His own breath. Moses tells us, in Genesis, this fact:
God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the Breath of Life; and man became a living soul (Genesis 2:7).
Now follow closely the Biblical argument. Since life is in the blood, all flesh is lifeless without blood. Here was Adam formed from the dust — a lump of matter without life. God breathed into his nostrils and, lo, he became alive. Since the Life Is in the Blood, it was Blood which God added to that body when He Breathed Into Him the Breath of Life. Adam’s body was of the earth, but his blood was Directly From God. God demands that we respect this fact, since it was God’s own breath which filled all flesh with blood. To eat blood, therefore, is to insult the life of God for the life . . . is in the blood.
There is a Second and a more potent reason still. The blood was God’s only purchase price of redemption. When man sinned, something happened to his blood, for the life . . . is in the blood. Instead of being incorruptible and, therefore, deathless blood, Adam’s blood became corrupt through sin and became subject to death. To redeem this Dead sinner, life must be again imparted. The only remedy for death is Life. This life is in the blood, and so blood must be furnished which is sinless and incorruptible. Now none of Adam’s race could do this. For in Adam all died. All have sinned and come short. The angels could not furnish that blood for they are spirit beings and have neither flesh nor blood. There was only one, yes, Only One, who could furnish that blood: the virgin-born Son of God, with a human body, but sinless supernatural blood, imparted by the Holy Ghost. Elsewhere in this message I showed scientifically that every drop of blood in an infant’s body is formed in the foetus separate from the mother, whereas the egg from the mother furnished the beginning of the flesh of that little body. Jesus’ body was of Mary; His blood was of the Holy Ghost. This sinless, supernatural blood was the only price of redemption God could accept, without violating the integrity of His holy nature. Death can be banished only by life. A blood transfusion must be performed and provided.
We hear much today about blood transfusions. Many lives have been saved by this procedure. In cases of hemorrhage and various diseases, the blood from healthy individuals is put in the veins of the suffering victim and death is cheated of its prey. The greatest of all “transfusions” is performed when a poor sinner, dead in trespasses and in sins, is saved by the blood of Christ the moment he believes. The only requirement is faith in the atoning blood.
We hear much, too, in these days about Blood Banks. A “blood bank” is a storehouse for blood taken from healthy individuals for future use in the treatment of injured or sick persons. By adding certain preservatives to it, the blood taken from healthy individuals can be kept for future use in sterile containers. This preservative does not reduce the potency of the blood so that it can be used at some future date. Persons are asked to come to the hospital or laboratory to donate this blood. There, this blood is taken, treated and stored. In this way there is always an ample supply of blood for transfusion in any emergency. How wonderful are the findings of scientists! Today, you can give your blood which will a month from now save the life of some stranger a thousand miles away.
This is not one millionth as wonderful as what God did nineteen centuries ago. Then there was one Man who gave All His sinless blood on the Cross of Calvary. There a Blood Bank was opened and into that bank went the blood of the Lord Jesus. It suits every type, avails for everyone and is free to all who will submit to its “transfusion” by the Holy Spirit. All you need to do is apply for it by Faith. We must add chemicals to the blood in our blood banks to preserve it, and then it eventually deteriorates just the same, but no preservatives need be added to His precious blood, for it is Incorruptible and sinless blood. Not one drop of that blood was lost or wasted. It is Incorruptible.
Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with Corruptible Things, as silver and gold. . . . But with the precious Blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot (1 Peter 1:18, 19).
Hallelujah for the blood! Reader, do you know that blood is as fresh today as it ever was and always will be? It cannot perish. There is a hymn which goes something like this:
Upon the Cross His blood was spilt,
A ransom for our sins and guilt.
That is not true. Jesus’ blood was not “spilled.” Spilling is the result of an accident. The death of Christ was no accident. He laid down His life and voluntarily shed His precious blood that we might live.
Oh, sinner, won’t you appropriate that precious blood Now! There is nothing else which can wash you clean from the guilt and the power of sin. Receive it today and be saved.
You believers who have been grieving over your sin, remember —
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to Cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:19).
There is a fountain filled with blood,
Drawn from Immanuel’s veins;
And sinners, plunged beneath that flood,
Lose all their guilty stains.
Through the Bible from cover to cover runs an unbroken, continuous scarlet red stream of blood from an atoning sacrifice. It begins in the sacrifice spoken of in Genesis 3:21 where we read that God made coats of skin through the sacrifice of an innocent animal, that Adam and Eve might be covered. It runs in a continuous stream through the sacrifices of Noah, Abraham, Exodus, Leviticus and the whole Old Testament system until it bursts forth in the supreme sacrifice of Calvary and runs on in an ever-increasing and widening course through the years and will flow on through the countless ages of eternity. The song in eternity will be: Unto him who loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood.
The first recorded sacrifice in the Bible is in Genesis 3:21.
Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them.
This verse teaches us that after man had sinned, God supplied an animal and shed its blood, and used the skin as a covering for Adam and Eve’s nakedness. In this one brief record we have the plan of all subsequent Scriptural sacrifice. We have in the Bible a law which we call the “Law of First Mention”: When applied to this particular verse, it gives us the key to the meaning of sacrifice in the Word of God. This law of first mention might be stated as follows:
The First Use of a Word, a Phrase or Incident in the Bible Gives the Key to Its Exact Meaning Everywhere Else in the Word of God.
Apply this law to Genesis 3:21 and we find that it teaches three things:
Every acceptable sacrifice must meet these three conditions. It must not be man’s work but God’s work, not man’s provision; not the fig leaves of man’s own righteousness but bloody skins of God’s providing. Every true sacrifice mentioned in Scripture has three essential features. We find that Abel’s sacrifice met the condition of Genesis 3:21 whereas Cain’s did not. Cain brought a sacrifice of his own. It was not the substitute of another. Abel, on the other hand, brought a lamb, an innocent substitute, in his place, and was justified before God in the shedding of its blood; namely, its death.
This same plan holds true in every sacrifice mentioned in the Old Testament. Noah took one of the clean animals which God had provided by commanding him to take seven instead of two, and thus it was a sacrifice of God’s provision. It was the death of an innocent substitute and acceptable by blood. As we read in Genesis 22, when Abraham was ready to slay his son, God showed him a ram caught by its horns in the thicket. Again, God provided a sacrifice, and the sacrifice was an innocent substitute and accomplished by the shedding of blood. All through Leviticus we have the same plan clearly evident in the Burnt Offering, the Peace Offering, the Sin Offering and the Trespass Offering. All through the Old Testament this scarlet line runs unbroken until it bursts at the Cross in the antitypical sacrifice of the Lamb of God. He fulfilled the three requirements of an acceptable sacrifice:
That stream is still flowing and will avail through all eternity.
Dear dying Lamb, Thy precious blood
Shall never lose its power.
Till all the ransomed Church of God
Be saved, to sin no more.
The reason why the Lord must demand blood for the atonement of sin lies in the nature of God and in the nature of sin. Since God is perfectly and unimpeachably holy, sin can never be passed over without a satisfaction of the justice of God and since sin is rebellion against an infinite God, the Highest Being, only the greatest and highest price can be accepted as an atonement for sin. God gave unto Israel a holy, a perfect and a just law upon Mount Sinai.
Disobedience to this law demanded the greatest penalty in payment. It was for this reason that God gave in the Tabernacle Service the Ark of the Covenant in the Holy of Holies. You will remember that this Ark consisted of an oblong box made of acacia wood and covered with beaten gold. In this Ark reposed the law which had been broken by Israel when Moses was upon the Mount. The broken law demanded the eternal damnation of Israel, but God had made a provision and so planned the Mercy Seat of beaten gold to cover this broken law.
Once a year, on the day of Atonement, the high priest took the blood of the animal sacrifice, God’s provision, from the Altar of Burnt Offering and sprinkled it on the Mercy Seat. The broken law was then covered by the blood of a sacrifice. God was appeased; and atonement had been made. His justice was satisfied. His mercy could flow out unhindered to His erring people.
To look upon the broken law without blood is to face wrath. God said, When I see the blood, I will pass over you. To remove the blood from God’s righteous judgement is to invite certain destruction.
As an illustration of the above, we have the record in 1 Samuel 6 of the Ark of the Covenant being taken captive by the Philistines. During the time that the Ark was in the possession of the Philistines, God had sent them divers diseases and plagues. The hand of the Lord was against the city with a very great destruction, we read in 1 Samuel 5:9. They were plagued with a very painful and rare disease. As a result the lords of the Philistines called for the diviners and soothsayers and inquired into the cause of this dire calamity. These men rightly diagnosed the case and informed the lords that it was because of the Ark of the Covenant of Israel that was in their midst.
Accordingly, they devised a clever plan. They decided that a pair of young kine who had recently given birth to calves should be harnessed to a new wagon upon which the Ark was to be placed, together with some golden emerods and golden mice, and headed in the direction of the land of Israel. If the two cows went in a straight line away from their young, it would be an indication that the Ark was the cause of their distress. But if the cows would refuse to leave their calves and turn around, it would indicate that the Ark was not the cause of their plagues and sickness.
The result was that the cows, contrary to nature, went in a straight line to the land of Israel and came to the city of the Levites, Beth-shemesh. Upon the arrival of the Ark of the Covenant in Beth-shemesh, there was great rejoicing and in the course of their hilarious celebration the men of Beth-shemesh inadvertently lifted up the Mercy Seat to see whether the contents of the Ark had been disturbed by the Philistines. Moved by curiosity, they removed for a moment the bloody covering from the Ark of God. For a brief minute they looked upon the broken law of God without the blood, and we read the tragic result in 1 Samuel 6:19:
And he smote the men of Beth-shemesh, because they had looked into the ark of the Lord, even he smote of the people fifty thousand and threescore and ten men: and the people lamented, because the Lord had smitten many of the people with a great slaughter.
To look upon the broken law of God without blood meant certain death. The only sacrifice must be by blood.
Another striking illustration which will set forth this truth in a clear way is in the atonement which Moses offered after the people had broken God’s law by the making of the golden calf at Mount Sinai. Moses and Joshua had been on the mountain for forty days and forty nights. During their absence Israel had given them up as dead. They demanded that Aaron construct a god to lead them on the way. The result was the manufacture of the golden calf. When Moses descended from the Mount with the Tablets of the Testimony in his hand he found that Israel had already broken the first two of God’s commands and had already placed themselves under the curse of God. Moses knew that nothing but a blood atonement could avert disaster for the children of Israel, and so we find an account of a unique sacrifice for Israel’s sin. Moses said to them in essence: “You have sinned a great sin. You ought to die, yet I am going to bring an atonement unto God. I don’t know whether this thing will work. I am not sure this will avail, but I am going to try it in order that you may be saved and spared.” We have the whole story in the record in Exodus 32.
And he took the calf which they had made, and burnt it in the fire, and ground it to powder, and strawed it upon the water, and made the children of Israel drink of it (Exodus 32:20).
In Deuteronomy 9 we have the same record a bit more elaborately.
And I took your sin, the calf which ye had made, and burnt it with fire, and stamped it, and ground it very small, even until it was as small as dust: and I cast the dust thereof into the brook that descended out of the mount (Deuteronomy 9:21).
Notice that six things are mentioned concerning the golden calf:
Then, as we shall see later, he took some of the water out of the brook and presented it to God for the blood atonement of the sins of Israel.
It is evident from this record that Moses had a supernaturally given knowledge of the science of chemistry. You may have wondered why Moses took the calf and submitted it to the melting, pounding, grinding and suspension. The result was a suspension which became a vivid type of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
In chemistry we speak of three kinds of mixtures. They are as follows:
“Gold is insoluble in water, being nineteen times heavier with a specific gravity of 19.5. In fine powder it assumes a colloidal condition, and added to water results in a coloration that appears to be a solution. As the particles are made finer the bulk is greatly increased and acquires an ‘apparent’ specific gravity permitting its suspension in water, giving the liquid a deep red color. Scientific records state that ‘colloidal’ gold in water is a rose-red color when the particles are of 10 micron size in a dilution of 1 to 100,000 (10 microns equal 0.0003937 or about 0.0004 inches). From this you will see that gold in ‘dust’ size will color water as ‘blood,’ which means that this calf of gold need not to have been very large to color sufficient water blood-red to furnish drinks to at least two or more million people. Colloidal gold can be made in many ways but the method of Moses is the best under the circumstances in the wilderness. The burning removed the impurities; the stamping (beating) reduced it to thin sheets because of the ductility of gold. Gold leaf can be made so thin that it requires about 280,000 sheets to make one inch. Sheets as thin as 0.000004 inch have been made. Then the grinding becomes easy, and further information proves that Moses ground it very fine, as fine as dust, reducing it to the size of colloidal gold; this cast into the brook would make the water blood-red. It was non-toxic (impurities having been burned out) and was inhibitory to germ life. The resultant waters would be blood-red and possess purifying qualities. All of this was a fitting type of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.”1
This blood-red solution was taken by Moses before the Lord and presented to Him as an atonement for their sin. We have the record clearly given in Exodus 32:30-32.
And it came to pass on the morrow, that Moses said unto the people, Ye have sinned a great sin: and now I will go up unto the Lord; peradventure I shall make an atonement for your sin. And Moses returned unto the Lord, and said, Oh, this people have sinned a great sin, and have made them gods of gold. Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their sin —; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written.
Here Moses presented his atonement, saying, Peradventure I shall make an atonement for your sin. The Lord saw the blood-red solution, a fit type of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. His wrath was averted, His justice appeased, and His love again flowed forth.
One other thing remains to be said concerning this blood. Although Moses made an atonement and God accepted it, only those who by faith appropriated it were saved. The others died. This is very strongly suggested in the record of Exodus 32:26-28:
Then Moses stood in the gate of the camp, and said, Who is on the Lord’s side? Let him come unto me. And all the sons of Levi gathered themselves together unto him. And he said unto them, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Put every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbour. And the children of Levi did according to the word of Moses: and there fell of the people that day about three thousand men.
Although it is not explicitly stated, it is plainly suggested that the three thousand men who were slain by the swords of the Levites on that day were those who refused to stoop down and drink of the crimson brook that descended out of the Mount. Those who accepted God’s provision through the molten calf were saved. Those who rejected were lost. Although it is true that Christ died for the sin of the whole world and He tasted death for every man, it still remains a fact that only those who by faith appropriate His provision will be saved.
Nineteen hundred years ago on Calvary’s Cross the fountain was opened in the wounded side of the dying Christ. From that day to this a stream has been flowing into which all who may plunge and receive remission of sins and eternal salvation. To accept the blood is to live. To reject it is to die. What have you done with the blood of the slain Lamb? In heaven today there is a resurrected Christ who paid for the sin of the world on Calvary’s Cross, waiting to give life, peace, joy and victory to all who will stoop down and drink and live.
I heard the voice of Jesus say,
“Come unto Me and rest;
Lay down, thou weary one, lay down
Thy head upon My breast.”
I came to Jesus as I was,
Weary and worn and sad;
I found in Him a resting place,
And He has made me glad.
I heard the voice of Jesus say,
“Behold, I freely give
The living water; thirsty one,
Stoop down and drink, and live.”
I came to Jesus, and I drank
Of that life-giving stream;
My thirst was quenched, my soul revived,
And now I live in Him.