03.08. What the Blood Does Not Do.
PART II 8. WHAT THE BLOOD DOES NOT DO. IN the matter of deliverance from the Destroying Angel in Egypt the atoning blood sufficed by itself. The repentant tax-gatherer “went down to his house justified” solely by the virtue of the sacrifice on the altar (Luke 18:13-14).
Thus for the redeemed Israelites the blood was the commencement and basis of all future relations with God, it was the doorway out of estrangement into a life of faith and communion.
Moreover, all through the life thus entered there continued various sprinklings of blood, showing that it remained perpetually the basis of intercourse with God. Nor is the place and efficacy of atoning blood at all diminished by the abrogation of repeated sacrifices and sprinklings through the one complete and final sacrifice of the cross, because the virtue of that death, and of the blood of Christ there shed, is eternal and is the perpetual basis of all communion with God.
Nevertheless the door is not the road or its goal, the foundation is not the superstructure, the blood by itself serves its ends but not all ends; deliverance from the judicial penalty of sin is not the same as deliverance from the practical power of sin, freedom from servitude in Egypt must advance to conquest in Canaan, turning from idols is to develop into service to a living and true God. For the numerous phases and necessities of this developing life the blood is ever the basis but is not by itself sufficient. There are things which blood cannot do and does not do, which it is not its function to do. In particular, as all histories and types show, it does not (1) dispense with the obedience of faith, or (2) with need of bread, or (3) do the work of water. or (4) take the place of oil, or (5) act as fire and serve the ends of discipline, or (6) do the work of the sword.
1. Blood does not dispense with faith and obedience. The sprinkling of the passover blood opened the door to escape from Egypt, but the redeemed people had to take the next and immediate step of faith by obeying the order to march off that same night. If they had not so acted they would not have escaped from thraldom into freedom, though delivered from the Destroyer by the blood. Pharaoh would have held them still. It was no small faith that strengthened them for their hasty and complete flight. Pharaoh was active and angry, his chariots and cavalry were at hand, they had no unity or arms to resist an attack; but faith obeyed and set forth, trusting that God would protect, and make the enterprise successful.
How many there are today who have rested their hope of safety from eternal death upon the precious blood of Christ, but have failed to break with the world, and so they continue entangled by its pleasures and enslaved by its Prince. Either they never heard the call and command to break every yoke with unbelievers, or they have lacked the energy and decision of faith to do this.
Protected by the blood they yet remain enslaved by the world, the flesh, and the devil. The apostle rejoiced greatly in the continuing faith of his children in the faith (Ephesians 1:15 : Colossians 1:4; 1 Thessalonians 1:3), and gave thanks to God when he knew that it “grew exceedingly” (2 Thessalonians 1:3). He was keenly aware of the practical dangers attendant upon a failure of faith in children of God. He stressed heavily that the disasters that overwhelmed Israel in the wilderness, though they were the redeemed of the Lord, can have counterpart in the experience of Christians, for, he says, “these things happened unto them by way of example [Greek, figure]; and they were written [put into God’s historical records] for our admonition upon whom the ends of the ages are come” (1 Corinthians 10:1-13). These disasters befell “most of them” that had been redeemed by the blood of the lamb and brought into liberty and fellowship with God. They were sufficiently spiritual to know thatmanna and water had spiritual counterparts and to partake of these latter:“they did all eat the same spiritual food; and did all drink the same spiritual drink:for they drank of a spiritual rock that went with them:and the rock was Christ.” In the face of these explicit assertions of Scripture as to the spiritual state of those concerned, and in the face of the direct application of their experiences to Christians in Corinth, it is wholly without warrant to say that they were not real believers and that the application here made is to mere professors of this age, not to true believers. Such treatment of Scripture would mean that all but a very small number of the Corinthian Christians were either hypocrites or self-deceived, for of those who were examples for them only three or four of the men who left Egypt did not die in the desert. Jude refers to the same ancient events and says, “I desire to put you in remembrance, though ye know all things once for all, how that the Lord, having saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not” (verse 5). This is exactly how Paul warns us in the passage cited, saying, “Neither murmur ye, as some of them murmured and perished by the destroyer” (verse 10).
Therefore there is such a thing as being saved from the Destroyer in Egypt and yet falling under his power in the desert. The blood saves from being condemned at the same time as the world, but did not prevent carnal Christians in Corinth from losing their present life under the chastisement of the Lord (1 Corinthians 11:29-32). To have received eternal redemption from eternal doom by the blood of Christ does not dispense with the need of continuous faith and obedience by the redeemed, if such are to enjoy present communion with their holy Father and escape severe chastisement. To exactly the same effect are the solemn warnings in the parables of Christ and those in Hebrews. The whole Word of God emphasizes the urgent need of a continuous faith and ceaseless obedience in the redeemed of the Lord. Hence the force of the continuous tense in “eth”:heareth, believeth, eateth, drinketh, and the like words. See John 4:13-14; John 6:54; John 6:46 :etc. No backslidden Israelite or backslidden Christian ever has escaped loss and chastisement through redemption by the blood.