Cleansing with blood is a common
expression in the book of Leviticus, but in the New Testament it is found only
in the 9th chapter of Hebrews, and the beginning of the First Epistle of John
(Heb. 9:14, 22, 23; I John 1:7). The latter passage claims notice, not only
because of its connection with the present subject, but also on account of the
difficulties that seem to surround it:"If we walk in the light, as He is
in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus
Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin."

 

It is a canon of interpretation
that whenever the benefits or results of the death of Christ are ascribed to
His blood, the figure thus implied is borrowed from the types. It behooves us.
therefore, to turn back to the Old Testament, and there to seek out the
particular key-picture to which it is intended to direct our minds. In I Peter
1, for example, the second verse will naturally turn our thoughts to the only
occasion on which blood was sprinkled on the people of Israel (Exodus 24); while verse 19 brings us back to their one great redemption sacrifice of
the passover in Egypt.

 

Here then we have a certain clue
to the meaning of the text before us:"The blood of Jesus . . . cleanseth
us from all sin." The particular type in the light of which we are to
understand the word must be that of some offering which was for sin; and
one moreover which was for the people generally, as distinguished from those
which were for individuals; and further, it must be a sacrifice of which the benefits
were abiding. This at once excludes all the offerings of the first fifteen
chapters of Leviticus, and it will confine our consideration to the great day
of atonement prescribed in the 16th chapter.  "For on that day" (was
the word to Moses) "shall the priest make an atonement for you, to cleanse
you, that ye may be clean from all your sins before the Lord" (v. 30).

 

We can picture to ourselves some
devout Israelite telling of his God to a heathen stranger, recounting to him
the proofs of Jehovah’s goodness and faithfulness to His people, and going on
to speak of His holiness, His terribleness—how He was "of purer eyes than
to behold iniquity," and how, for acts in which his guest would fail to
see sin at all, He had visited them with signal judgments. And we can conceive
that, in amazement, the stranger might demand whether the people were free from
the weaknesses and wickedness of other men. And, on his hearing an eager
repudiation of all such pretensions, with what deepening wonder and awe he
would exclaim, "How then can you live before a God so great and
terrible?"

 

And here the heathen stranger
within the gates of the Israelite would have reached a point analogous to that
to which the opening verses of John’s Epistle lead us. Eternal life has been manifested,
and life is the only ground of fellowship with God. But "God is
light," and it is only in the light, as the sphere of its enjoyment, that
such fellowship is possible. The light of God, how can sinners bear it? Is it
by attaining sinlessness? The thought is proof of self-deception and utter
absence of the truth (v.8). But just as the question of his guest would turn
the thoughts of the Israelite to his great day of atonement, and call to his
lips the words, "It is the cleansing blood which alone enables us to live
before Jehovah," so the Christian turns to the great Sin-offering, and his
faith finds utterance in the words, "The blood of Jesus Christ His Son
cleanseth us from all sin."

 

It is not "has
cleansed," nor yet "will cleanse," but "cleanseth."
It is not the statement of a fact merely, but of a truth, and truths are
greater and deeper even than facts.

 

But how "cleanseth"? ¹
Just as the blood of the sin-offering cleansed the Israelite. It was not by any
renewal of its application to him, but by the continuance of its efficacy. With
Israel its virtue continued throughout the year; with us it is for ever.  It
is not mere acts of sin that are in question here, but the deeper problem of
our condition as sinners (compare v. 10 with v. 8). And neither the difficulty,
nor yet the answer to it, is the same. In regard to the one, the Israelite
turned to the day of atonement, and said "the blood cleanseth"; but
in case of his committing some act of sin, he had to bring his sin-offering,
according to the 4th or 5th or 6th chapter of Leviticus. But the need of these
special offerings depended on "the weakness and unprofitableness" of
the sacrifices of the old Covenant (Heb. 10:9-18). And I John 1:7, 9 seems
clearly to teach that all our need is met by the twofold cleansing typified by
the blood of the great sin-offering of Leviticus 16, and the water of the great
rite of Numbers 19. For the believer who sins against God to dismiss the matter
by "the blood cleanseth," is the levity and daring of antinomianism.
For such the word is, "If we confess our sins":no flippant
acknowledgment with the lip, but a solemn and real dealing with God; and thus
he obtains again and again a renewal of the benefits of the death of Christ:
"He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all
unrighteousness."

 

And this, no doubt, is the truth
intended by the popular expression "coming back to blood." The
Israelite "came back to blood" by seeking a fresh sacrifice; but had
he attempted to "come back to blood" in the sense of preserving the
blood of the sin-offering in order to avail himself of it for

[1]uture cleansing, he would have
been cut off without mercy for presumptuous sin. The most superficial knowledge
either of the precepts or the principles of the book of Leviticus, will make us
avoid a form of words so utterly opposed to both.

 

With one great exception the
blood of every sin-offering was poured round the altar of burnt-offering, and
thus consumed; and that exception was the sacrifice of the 19th of Numbers, so
often referred to in these pages. The red heifer was the sin-offering in that
aspect of it in which the sinner can come back to it to obtain cleansing. And
here the whole beast and its blood was burnt to ashes outside the camp,
and the unclean person was cleansed by being sprinkled with water which had
touched those ashes. But to confound the cleansing by blood—the 16th of
Leviticus aspect of the sin-offering with the cleansing by water—the 19th of
Numbers aspect of it—betrays ignorance of Scripture. The one is a
continuously enduring agency; the other a continually repeated act.

 

 There is no question, observe,
as to whether the benefit depends on the death of Christ. But with some,
perhaps, it is a question merely of giving up the "form of sound
words"; with others, the far more solemn one of depreciating the sacrifice
of Christ and denying to it an efficacy which even the typical sin-offering
possessed for Israel. Christ has died and risen and gone up to God, and now His
blood cleanses from all sin. It is not that it avails to accomplish a
succession of acts of cleansing for the believer, but that its efficacy remains
to cleanse him continuously. (Heb. 10:14) It is not in order that it may
thus cleanse him, that the believer confesses his sin:his only right to the
place he holds, even as he confesses, depends on the fact that it does thus
cleanse him. It was only in virtue of the place he had through the blood of the
lamb that the Israelite could avail himself of the ashes of the red heifer. And
our life, our hope, our destiny, depend entirely upon the enduring efficacy of
the blood of Christ; that, whether in bright days of fellowship with God, or in
hours of wilderness failure, "the blood cleanseth from all sin":here
it is a question only of the preciousness of that blood, and of the
faithfulness and power of Him in Whom we trust.