Daily Devotionals

Music For the Soul

Devotional: April 25th

DEATH AND LIFE

The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and death. - Romans 8:2

The blood of the first martyr spoke of death; the blood of Christ speaks of life. The former, as I have said, was the first death. We can partly understand how awful must have been the experience of those who stood by and saw, for the first time, that mystery before their eyes - a dead man. How there comes from this first incident the dark foreboding of all the dim subsequent events of a like kind. It heads a great series stretching away into the darkness; the first of millions like itself, the first experience of that which saddens all hearts sooner or later, of that which lays its hand upon all joys one time or other, of that which comes to each man as a tear, even when the better man within him reaches out towards it as a hope and a deliverance. Abel’s death speaks of the beginning of the fulfillment of the solemn law which wraps us all. The veil is spread over all nations, and we walk beneath its black folds.

"The blood of sprinkling speaketh better things." The blood is the life; the blood shed is the life given up; the blood received is the life incorporated. You can live on the blood of Jesus Christ. You can have it, if I may so say, transfused into your veins. The spirit of life which was in Him may be yours. It was shed that it might be partaken of by all the world.

And so, whilst the stark corpse of the first martyr lying there, pale and bloody in its gore, proclaims the beginning of the reign of death, the blood of Jesus Christ proclaims the beginning of life, and is the means of the communication of His own eternal and Divine life to all that love Him and believe upon Him. The alabaster box of His manhood is broken that the house of the world may be filled with the odor of the ointment. " He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood hath eternal life."

In that life is given, too, purity like its own. Abel "being dead yet speaketh," and proclaims the nobleness of goodness, of righteousness, and of faith; but Christ living, not only proclaims the nobleness of goodness and righteousness and faith, but gives us His own purity; and "the law of the Spirit of life which was in Christ Jesus makes us free from the law of sin and of death."

So, dear brother, one voice speaks of hatred, the other of all-embracing love; one voice speaks of retribution, the other of pardon; one voice prophesies a dolorous prophecy of universal death, the other proclaims a glad evangel of all-conquering life. Listen, then, to the solemn warning with which, as with uplifted finger and grave look of admonition, the writer in the Hebrews speaks: " See that ye refuse not Him that speaketh." Let not your ears be dumb to the infinite mercy and gracious pardon which speak to you from the shed blood of Christ. God hears its voice, and forgives all our hate. Do you hearken to its voice, and accept the love that speaks its tenderest message in the blood shed for you.