the Fourth Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Mornings and Evenings with Jesus
In whom we have redemption through his blood. - Ephesians 1:7.
HIS blood here means his death; and the reason why his death is so often expressed by the word blood is twofold. First, It was to remind us of the nature of it:-that it was a bloody death. His anguish in the garden made him “sweat as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground;” a crown of thorns upon his head made the blood to flow, as well as caused the most agonizing pain. They drove nails through his hands and feet, and fastened them to the cross; a soldier pierced his side, and “forthwith came there out blood and water.”
Secondly, It was to remind us of the nature of his sacrifice:-“because the life is the blood.” Here, so to speak, we are reminded of the material of the atonement, namely, the life, for sin is the forfeiture of life. If any would become a substitute for a sinner in order to save him, he must die the death to which sin has exposed him. “Without shedding of blood there is no remission.” “But the blood of bulls and of goats could not take away sin,” for then, as the apostle says, “They would not have ceased to be offered, because that the worshippers would have had no more conscience of sin.” But these were renewed every year, every month, every week, every day, twice every day, four times every Sabbath-day, clearly showing that sin was not as yet expiated, but remained, against the transgressors. And as it was then so it must be now, had not He interposed who said, “Lo, I come, in the volume of the book it is written of me, to do thy will, O God.”
His blood was absolutely necessary and all-available. “In whom,” says the apostle, “we have redemption through his blood;” and “the blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanseth us from all sin.”
Go show thyself to the priest. - Mark 1:44.
OBSERVE the order these lepers received. Under the law the leper was to apply to the priest to examine his case, and to determine whether he was cured of the disease. The recovered patient, if the priest was satisfied of the reality of the recovery, performed the offices prescribed by the law in token of his gratitude, and then he was set at liberty; then he was certificated by the priest, and so could move abroad at large, and again, if he pleased, enter the camp or the congregation. The ceremonial law was not as yet abolished, and our Saviour therefore said, “Go show yourselves unto the priests.”
There are also two other advantages which would arise from this order: the first of which is, that it was very likely to awaken the attention of these priests to inquire after One who was able at his pleasure to cure a distemper so cruel and desperate; the other is, that it was a trial of the faith of the patients themselves. Unless they had possessed some trust in the Saviour, they would not have moved a step, and they would have been ready to exclaim, “Alas! alas! to what purpose shall we go to the priests to be examined and judged of? We know and feel that we are lepers. We know and feel that we are not cured. We shall only render ourselves ridiculous. And is it to be expected that we shall pick up a cure upon the road as we go to them?”
But it was not theirs to prescribe, but to acquiesce; not to reason, but to obey. And it is, or should be, the same with us. Those who expect a cure from him must take it in the way he prescribes; for though he will heal “without money and without price,” he will have the entire management of the case and cure, or he will have nothing to do with it. We see, therefore, how likely Naaman, the Syrian leper, was to have missed a recovery. When the Man of God ordered him to go and wash seven times in the Jordan, “he was wroth.” It was well his servants, who advised compliance therewith, were wiser than he, or he had retained his leprosy.
What a different disposition did Paul display when he says, “If by any means, however perplexing they may be to my understanding, mortifying to my pride, disliked by my passions-however they may require the crucifixion of my lusts-Lord, prescribe and I submit, if by any means I might attain to the resurrection of the dead.” The intimation, though our Saviour said nothing more, “Go show yourselves to the priests,” was encouraging. They understood it as such. It is the same with regard to all God’s addresses to us, and all his commands to us in the gospel.
When he says “Repent;” when he says “Believe,” “Be renewed in the Spirit of your minds;” all these commands are so many promises to us: they are all intimations that the thing is possible; that there is a possibility of this-not in nature indeed, not in ourselves indeed, but in the Saviour, “in whom it hath pleased the Father that all fulness should dwell.” “He shall,” says God, “take hold of my strength and make peace with me.”
