03.04. Why the Blood Saves?
4. - WHY THE BLOOD SAVES.
Even if we did not or could not know the reason for any command of God it were still our duty and safety to obey it; but God desired men to be intelligent as to His requirements and appointments; therefore when He ordained in Israel the sacrifice of blood He explained the ground of His orders. This is found in Leviticus 17:1-16. Giving to Noah the ancient prohibition against eating flesh with the blood in it God had said that the blood is the life of the flesh. This prohibition was repeated to Israel by Moses seven times.* They as a people were to maintain the rights of God by keeping His laws, which the other nations had long since rejected, and this law against eating blood was prominent and its re-enactment was emphatic. It was again solemnly stated that God Himself would exact the penalty of death:“I will set My face against that soul that eateth blood, and will cut him off from among his people” (Leviticus 17:10). **
[*Genesis 9:4 : Leviticus 3:17; Leviticus 7:26-27; Leviticus 17:10-14; Leviticus 19:26 : Deuteronomy 12:16; Deuteronomy 12:23-24; Deuteronomy 15:23.], [** This shows that the phrase to “be cut off from his people” meant death, for this was the penalty of eating blood, as before announced to Noah (Genesis 9:5-6).], The basis of this is now declared in three concise sentences (Leviticus 17:1-16) “For the life of the flesh is in the blood” (Leviticus 17:11); “the blood thereof is all one with the life” (Leviticus 17:14);”the life of all flesh is the blood” (Leviticus 17:14).
After 3000 years man’s investigations have informed him that what the Creator said to Noah and Moses was fact, even that the blood and the life are inseparable. There is therefore physical reality under the notion of the savage that by drinking the blood of his slaughtered foe he becomes possessor of his vigour and courage. Blood transfusion is further proof that the blood and the life are one.
Therefore, when on that dread night in Egypt blood was seen all round the door of a house, that was visible proof that death must have occurred to provide so much blood; therefore life had been taken, the sentence of death had been already executed in that house, and justice did not permit that the Destroyer should exact the penalty again.
It was essential that there should be proof indisputable that Jesus, the Son of God, the sinner’s Substitute, had really died. Without positive certainty of this there could be no assurance that the penalty of sin had been met and deliverance from eternal death secured. The Gospel narratives of the crucifixion supply distinct proofs of His actual death, leaving no possible ground for any such suggestion as that perhaps the Sufferer sank into a coma, was taken down only apparently dead, and later revived in the tomb. Had this been so there had been no atoning death and no life-imparting resurrection:we should all be still in our sins. But the details given exclude this notion. (1) At the moment of His death the Lord was still strong and conscious, for He “cried with a loud voice” (Matthew 27:50 : Mark 15:37 : Luke 23:46). (2) He dismissed His spirit by His own act, saying, “Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit” (references as before). (3) He bowed His head of His own will:it did not sink helplessly as in a faint or coma (John 19:30). It was when the centurion saw that the Crucified “so gave up the spirit” that he was convinced that somewhat supernatural was involved. He had seen many die, but never a death like this (Mark 15:39). But (4) the final proof that the Saviour had literally died was that, upon the piercing of His side there flowed out a stream of blood and water (John 19:34). John most explicitly asserts that he saw this take place and gave true witness to the fact; and on another occasion he emphasized that “Jesus Christ came not in [the power or virtue of] water only, but in [that of] the water and in the blood” (1 John 5:6). Of course, God the omniscient did not need visible proof that the lamb had been slain in the houses of the Israelites or that Jesus had really died. As to the latter fact, He had received back the surrendered spirit, devoid of which the bodily life of man cannot be maintained. But the Supreme Ruler carries on the administration of the universe under the scruting of men and angels, and of these many are His enemies and critics. No ground must be allowed for these to complain that His government is not always and wholly just. Fallen man and fallen angels are ready so to complain. Adam promptly hinted that God was to blame that he had been tempted, “The woman that THOU gavest me” led me astray (Genesis 3:12). Adam’s descendants are still all too eager to blame the Almighty as to His ordering of affairs. Satan did not hesitate to suggest that God had been unduly favourable to Job, making life too easy for him (Job 1:9-11). In particular, Satan, as the chief executioner of the Divine sentence of death against the sinner (Hebrews 2:14 :“the one having the power of death, the devil”), must be left no right to complain that some are withdrawn from his sphere of action without warrant in law and against justice. And even as in Egypt the blood was the proof of sentence having been executed and that the Destroyer had no right of entry, so the blood of Jesus delivers the believer on Him from the jurisdiction of the Devil. They are translated out of the sphere of authority of the Prince of darkness into the kingdom of the Son of God’s love (Colossians 1:13).
Thus by means of death Christ annulled the power of Satan over those who rely on Him anddelivers them from fear of death; for these “fall asleep through Jesus” (1 Thessalonians 4:14) and are in His charge and company as was the repentant thief (Luke 23:43), for they “die in the Lord” (Revelation 14:13). Of this real and blessed deliverance by death the blood of the Victim is the justification, being proof that death, the penalty of sin, had been exacted, for Jesus on the cross had made Himself answerable (Isaiah 53:7, Lowth, Newberry). When the debt is paid the court bailiff loses right of entry and execution. If by a miscarriage of justice an innocent person was executed for a crime, and later the real culprit should confess or be discovered, the latter would escape execution. The law would hold that its full penalty having been actually paid another could not be made to meet it. And “God will not payment twice demand, First at my bleeding Surety’s hand, And then again at mine.” The blood is the proof of death, and death delivers from death. As an epitaph reads, “Unless the death of death Had given death to death By His own death, The gate of eternal life had been closed.”