03.03. The Blood Gives Access to God.

3. - THE BLOOD GIVES ACCESS TO GOD.

Before morning dawned the whole redeemed people of Israel, with their cattle and chattels, were on the march to freedom. At the Red Sea their old tyrant was destroyed and they went through into the life of liberty, to walk with God in the desert. Yet, though redeemed and liberated, in themselves they were very much what they had always been; vices and habits, stiff necks and hard hearts, were still there. How then shall their holy God be able to bear with and bless them?

How shall their sins in the desert be pardoned? By precisely the same process as they were forgiven that night in Egypt. God appointed a permanent institution of worship and service, and this too had atoning blood as its legal, sacrificial basis. Innocent substitutes were perpetually to forfeit life to redeem the human lives forfeited by sin, and their blood was to be sprinkled openly on the altar of sacrifice where God and the sinner met. But as yet the time and the people were not ripe for open unrestricted access to the immediate presence of God in the Most Holy Place of the building where He graciously dwelt among them. This defect would one day be rectified, even when a Sacrifice should have been offered adequate to the putting away of sin for ever. Yet once in the year there was provided a foresight, an anticipation of that better thing which was to come. There was appointed in Israel an order of priests, and the head of this privileged order, the high priest, was the official religious representative of the whole nation. Annually he was privileged to draw aside the veil behind which Jehovah dwelt in glory and to enter that sacred Presence. Yet as a sinner he was liable to die there; the Presence of God is a fatal spot for a sinner. But he took there precious atoning blood, sprinkled it before and upon the golden cover of the ark above which shone the Glory, and thereby he was rendered safe from destruction. In him all whom he represented were kept secure. The need for and benefit of that annual atonement, as distinct from and in addition to the daily, weekly, and monthly sacrifices, was this:These latter provided forgiveness for all sins of which individuals were conscious, which they confessed and forsook, as well as for general corporate guilt and defilement. But over and above such acknowledged transgression there remained the accumulated guilt of the multifarious sins and failures which God alone detected and which Hemust punish. This guilt and defilement would have prevented Divine favour being upon the people:but God in grace made provision for removing it by the atonement of this chief day of the year. The Chief Priest laid his hands upon the head of the goat that was to bear away the sin, and confessed “over it all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions, even all their sins... and the goat shall bear upon it all their iniquities unto a solitary land” (Leviticus 16:22; Leviticus 16:21). And the blood of accompanying sacrifices was taken into the holy Presence and sprinkled. But this plenary atonement did not permit an Israelite to commit sin wilfully and conceive that the annual sacrifice would protect him from penalty incurred. No, he must do all that he knew of the will of God, must avoid conscious transgression, must offer every personal atoning sacrifice prescribed for failure recognized, and only so would his unrecognized transgressions, iniquities, and sins be held covered by the annual atonement. For us today this is the truth stated in 1 John 1:6-7 :“If we say we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth:but if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we [we and God] have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin.” But when we know that we have sinned it is vain and wicked to presume that the full atonement of Calvary renders it needless for us to desist and be humbled, for the Scripture goes on in verse 9 to assure us that it is “if we confess our sins He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” The plenary virtue of the death of Christ is not available that the Christian may be careless and presumptuous. In all times and for all persons the holiness of God demands this inflexible rule:“He that covereth his transgressions shall not prosper; but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall obtain mercy” (Proverbs 28:13). This subject will be enlarged later.