“Like sacrificial winePoured on a victim’s head,Are those few precious drops of thine,Now first to offering led.“They are the pledge and sealOf Christ’s unswerving faith,Given to his Sire, our souls to heal,Although it cost his death.“They, to his Church of old,To each true Jewish heart,In gospel graces manifold,Communion blest impart.”
“Like sacrificial winePoured on a victim’s head,Are those few precious drops of thine,Now first to offering led.“They are the pledge and sealOf Christ’s unswerving faith,Given to his Sire, our souls to heal,Although it cost his death.“They, to his Church of old,To each true Jewish heart,In gospel graces manifold,Communion blest impart.”
“Like sacrificial winePoured on a victim’s head,Are those few precious drops of thine,Now first to offering led.
“Like sacrificial wine
Poured on a victim’s head,
Are those few precious drops of thine,
Now first to offering led.
“They are the pledge and sealOf Christ’s unswerving faith,Given to his Sire, our souls to heal,Although it cost his death.
“They are the pledge and seal
Of Christ’s unswerving faith,
Given to his Sire, our souls to heal,
Although it cost his death.
“They, to his Church of old,To each true Jewish heart,In gospel graces manifold,Communion blest impart.”
“They, to his Church of old,
To each true Jewish heart,
In gospel graces manifold,
Communion blest impart.”
In Gethsemane, the sins and the needs of humanity so pressed upon the burdened soul of Jesus, that his very life was forced out, as it were, from his aching, breaking heart, in his boundless sympathy with his loved ones, and in his infinite longings for their union with God, through their union with himself, in the covenant of blood he was consummating in their behalf.[613]“And being in an agony, he prayed more earnestly:and his sweat became as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.”[614]
Because of his God-ward purpose of bringing men into a loving covenant with God, Jesus gave of his blood in the covenant-rite of circumcision. Because of his man-ward sympathy with the needs and the trials of those whom he had come to save, and because of the crushing burden of their death-bringing sins, Jesus gave of his blood in an agony of intercessory suffering. Therefore it is, that the Litany cry of the ages goes up to him in fulness of meaning: “By the mystery of thy holy incarnation; by thy holy nativity and circumcision; ... by thine agony and bloody sweat, ... Good Lord, deliver us.”
In process of time, the hour drew nigh that the true covenant of blood between God and man should be consummated finally, in its perfectness. The period chosen was the passover-feast—the feast observed by the Jews in commemoration of that blood-covenanting occasion in Egypt, when God evidenced anew his fidelity to his promises to the seed of Abraham, his blood-covenanted friend. “Now before the feast of the passover, Jesus knowing that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end.”[615]“And when the hourwas come, he sat down, and the apostles with him. And he said unto them, With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer.”[616]Whether he actually partook of the passover meal at that time, or not is a point still in dispute;[617]but as to that which follows, there is no question.
“As they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and brake it; and he gave to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body.”[618]“This do in remembrance of me. And the cup in like manner after supper;”[619]“and when he had given thanks, he gave [it] to them,”[620]“saying, Drink ye all of it; for this is my blood of the covenant,”[621]or, as another Evangelist records, “this cup is the new covenant in my blood,”[622]“which is shed for many unto remission of sins”[623][unto the putting away of sins]. “This do, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me.”[624]“And they all drank of it.”[625]
Here was the covenant of blood; here was the communion feast, in partaking of the flesh of the fitting and accepted sacrifice;—toward which all rite and symbol, and all heart yearning and inspiredprophecy, had pointed, in all the ages. Here was the realization of promise and hope and longing, in man’s possibility of inter-union with God through a common life—which is oneness of blood; and in man’s inter-communion with God, through participation in the blessings of a common table. He who could speak for God, here proffered of his own blood, to make those whom he loved, of the same nature with himself, and so of the same nature with his God; to bring them into blood-friendship with their God; and he proffered of his own body, to supply them with soul nourishment, in that Bread which came down from God.
Then it was, while they were there together in that upper room, for the consummating of that blood-covenant of friendship, that Jesus said to his disciples: “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Ye are my friends, if ye do the things which I command you. No longer do I call you servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends [friends in the covenant of blood-friendship now]; for all things that I heard from my Father, I have made known unto you.”[626]A common life, through oneness of blood, secures an absolute unreserve of intimacy; so that neither friend has aught to conceal from his other self. “Abide in me, and I in you; ... forapart from me ye can do nothing,” was the injunction of Jesus to his blood-covenant friends, at this hour of his covenant pledging. “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatsoever ye will, and it shall be done unto you.”[627]
Then it was, also, that the prayer of Jesus for his new blood-covenant friends went up: “Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that the Son may glorify thee: even as thou gavest him authority over all flesh, that whatsoever [whomsoever] thou hast given him, to them he should give eternal life [in an eternal covenant of blood]. And this is life eternal, that they should know thee the only true God, and him whom thou didst send [as the means of life], even Jesus Christ.... Holy Father, keep them in thy name which thou hast given me, that they may be one, even as we are.... Neither for these [here present] only do I pray, but for them also that believe on me through their word; that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us: that the world may believe that thou didst send me. And the glory which thou hast given me I have given unto them; that they may be one, even as we are one; I in them, and thou in me, that they may be perfected into one; that the world may know that thou didst send me, and lovedst them,even as thou lovedst me.”[628]Here was declared the scope of this blood-covenant, and here was unfolded its doctrine.
It was not an utterly new symbolism that Jesus was introducing into the religious thought of the world: it was rather a new meaning that he was introducing into, or that he was disclosing in, an already widely recognized symbolism. The world was familiar with the shadow of truth; Jesus now made clear to the world, the truth’s substance. Man’s longing to be a partaker of the divine nature, had manifested itself, through all the ages and everywhere. Jesus now showed how that longing of death-smitten man could be realized. “The appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ ... abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel”[629]of his blood-covenant.
But a covenant of blood, a covenant to give one’s blood, one’s life, for the saving of another, cannot be consummated without the death of the covenanter. “For where [such] a covenant is, there must of necessity be [be brought] the death of him that made it. For [such] a covenant is of force [becomes a reality] where there hath been death [or, over the dead]: for doth it [such a covenant] ever avail [can it be efficient] while he that made it liveth?”[630]Jesus had said,“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”[631]Of his readiness to show this measure of love for those who were as the sheep of his fold, he had declared: “I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly.... I lay down my life for the sheep.... Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I may take it again. No one taketh it away from me, but I lay it down of myself.”[632]And again: “I am the living bread which came down out of heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: yea, and the bread which I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world.”[633]“For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.”[634]Such a covenant as this, could be of force only through the death of him who pledges it.
The promise of the covenanting-cup, at the covenanting-feast, was made good on Calvary.[635]The pierced hands and feet of the Divine Friend yielded their life-giving streams. Then, with the final cry, “It is finished,” the very heart of the self-surrendered sacrificial victim was broken,[636]and the life of the Son of God and of theSeed of Abraham, was poured out unto death,[637]in order that all who would, might become sharers in its re-vivifying and saving power. He who was without sin, had received the wages of sin; because, that, only through dying was it possible for him to supply that life which would redeem from the penalty of sin those who had earned death, as sin’s wages.[638]He who, in himself, had life, had laid down his life, so that those who were without life might become its partakers, through faith, in the bonds and blessings of an everlasting covenant. So, the long symbolized covenant of blood was made a reality. “And the witness is this, that God gave unto us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath the life; he that hath not the Son of God hath not the life.”[639]
Under the symbolic sacrifices of the Old Covenant, it was thebloodwhich made atonement for the soul. It was not the death of the victim, nor yet its broken body, but it was the blood, the life, the soul, that wasmade the means of a soul’s ransom, of its rescue, of its redemption. “The life [the soul] of the flesh is in the blood,” said the Lord: “and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement [to be a cover, to be a propitiation] for your souls [for your lives]: for it is the blood that maketh atonement by reason [of its being] the life [the soul].”[640]“For as to the life [the soul] of all flesh, the blood thereof is all one with the life [the soul] thereof.”[641]And so, all through the record of the Old Covenant.
It is the same in the New Covenant, as it was in the Old. Atonement, salvation, rescue, redemption, is by the blood, the life, of Christ; not by his death as such; not by his broken body in itself; but by that blood which was given at the inevitable cost of his broken body and of his death. The figure of leprosy and its attempted cure by blood, may tend to make this truth the clearer. In the leper, the very blood itself—the life—was death smitten. The only hope of a cure was by purging out the old blood, by means of an inflowing current of new blood, which was new life.[642]To give this blood, the giver himself must die; but it was his blood, his life, not his death, which was to be the means of cure. So, also, with the sin-leprous nature. His old life must be purged out, by the incoming of a new life; of such a life as only the Son of God can supply.In order to supply that blood, its Giver must himself die, and so be a sharer of the punishment of sin, although he was himself without sin. Thus was the new life made a possibility to all, by faith.
So it is, that “we have redemption [rescue from death] through [by means of] his blood”;[643]and that “the blood of Jesus ... cleanseth us [by its purging inflow] from all sin.”[644]So it is, that he “loosed us [freed us] from our sins by his [cleansing, his re-vivifying] blood.”[645]So it is, that “if any man is in Christ [is one in nature with Christ, through sharing, by faith, the blood of Christ], he is a new creature [Of course he is]: the old things are passed away; behold they are become new.”[646]So it is, also, that it can be said of those whose old lives were purged away by the inflowing redeeming life of Christ: “Ye died, and your life is hid with Christ in God.”[647]And “this is the true God and eternal life.”[648]
“These things have I written unto you,” says the best loved of the disciples of Jesus, “that ye may know that ye have eternal life; even unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God”;[649]“that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that, believing, ye may have life in his name.”[650]For “God commendeth his own love toward us, in that, while wewere yet sinners, Christ died for us [while we were separated from God by sin, God yielded his only Son, to give his blood, at the cost of his death, as a means of our inter-union with God]. Much more then, being now justified by [or, in] his blood [being brought into inter-union with God by that blood], shall we be saved from the wrath of God [against sin] through him [in whom we have life]. For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God [restored to union with God] through the [blood-giving] death of his Son, much more, being [thus] reconciled, shall we be saved by [or, in] his life.”[651]
All who will, may, now, “be partakers of the divine nature,”[652]through becoming one with Christ, by sharing his blood, and by being nourished with his body. Entering into the divine-human covenant of blood-friendship, which Christ’s death has made possible, the believer can be so incorporated with Christ, by faith, as to identify himself with the experience and the hopes of the world’s Redeemer; and even to say, in all confidence: “I have been crucified with Christ; yet I live; and yet no longer I, but Christ liveth in me; and that life which I now live in the flesh, I live in faith, the faith which is in [which centres in] the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself up for me.”[653]“For as the Father hath life in himself, even so gavehe to the Son also to have life in himself.”[654]And “it was the good pleasure of the Father that in him [the Son] should all the fulness dwell; and through him to reconcile all things unto himself, having made peace [having completed union] through the blood of his cross”[655]—in the bonds of an everlasting covenant—between those who before were separated by sin.
“Remember, that aforetime ye, the Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that [people] which is called Circumcision, in the flesh, made by hands,—that ye were at that time separate from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of the promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus ye that once were far off are made nigh in the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who made both [Jew and Gentile] one, and broke down the middle wall of partition, having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; that he might create in himself of the twain one new man, so making peace; and might reconcile them both in one body unto God through the cross, having slain the enmity thereby: and he came and preached peace to you that were far off, and peace to them that were nigh: for through them we both have our access in one Spirit unto the Father.”[656]“For in him [Christ] dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, and in him ye are made full, who is the head of all principality and power: in whom ye were also circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands, in the putting off of the body of the flesh, in the circumcision of Christ.”[657]“For ye all are one man in Christ Jesus. And if ye are Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, heirs according to promise”[658]—inheritors of the blood-covenant promises of God to Abraham his friend.
No longer is there a barrier between the yearning, loving, trusting heart, and the mercy-seat of reconciliation in the very presence of God. We who share the body and the blood of Christ, by faith, are one with him in all the privileges of his Sonship. “For by one offering he hath perfected [hath completed in their right to be sharers with him] for ever, them that are sanctified [that are devoted, that are consecrated, to him]. And the Holy Ghost also beareth witness to us: for after he hath said,
This is the covenant that I will make with themAfter those days, saith the Lord;I will put my laws on their heart,And upon their mind also will I write them;
This is the covenant that I will make with themAfter those days, saith the Lord;I will put my laws on their heart,And upon their mind also will I write them;
This is the covenant that I will make with them
After those days, saith the Lord;
I will put my laws on their heart,
And upon their mind also will I write them;
then saith he,
And their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.
And their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.
And their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.
Now where remission of these [of sins and iniquities] is, there is no more offering [no more need of offering] for sin. Having, therefore, brethren, boldness [the right of boldness] to enter into the Holy Place [the Holy of Holies] by the blood of Jesus, by the way which he dedicated for us, a new and living way, through the veil, that is to say his flesh; and having a Great Priest over the house of God; let us draw near with a true heart in fulness of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our body washed, with pure water [there being no longer need of blood-sprinkling or blood-laving, to those who are sharers of the divine nature—the divine blood].”[659]
No more an altar of sacrifice, but a table of communion,[660]is where we share the presence of Him in whom we have life, by the blood of the everlasting covenant. To question the sufficiency of the “one sacrifice” which Christ made, “once for all,”[661]of his body and his blood, as a means of the believer’s inter-union with God, is to count the blood of the covenant an unholy, or a common, thing, and is to do despite unto the Spirit of grace.[662]“Wherefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry. I speak as to wise men; judge ye what I say. The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which webreak, is it not a communion of the body of Christ?[663]Seeing that we [believers together in Christ], who are many, are one bread, one body: for we all partake of the one bread.”[664]
“Now the God of peace, who brought again from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep with [or, by; or, by means of] the blood of the eternal covenant, even our Lord Jesus, make you perfect [complete] to do his will, working in us that which is well pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be the glory for ever and ever. Amen.”[665]