On Sanctification by the Blood of Jesus. Hebrews x. 10.-"Sanctified by the offering of the body of Jesus once." Hebrews xiii. 12.-" Jesus that He might sanctify the people by His own blood suffered without the gate." Ox a former occasion, we have considered that great act of God's grace in having provided for His people a Substitute, who kept for them perfectly, His holy Law, and who also bore the curse that was due to their transgressions against it. Thus, although we are criminals who deserve to be placed at the bar of God's justice and to be condemned; yet, in virtue of the accepted service of our Substitute, we are not condemned, but on the contrary, "justified," that is, pronounced righteous, in the Courts of heaven. Mercy has rejoiced against judgment; yet not without the governmental holiness of God, as expressed in His holy Law, having been adequately glorified: for Immanuel, as the Representative of His people, obeyed it, and Immanuel also, as the Representative of His people, suffered and died beneath its curse., Not one jot or one tittle has passed from the Law: all has been fulfilled. As respects justifying righteousness therefore, believers have nothing to do with the Law. They are justified "apart from it," (Rom. iii. 21), that is, apart from any personal fulfilment thereof. We could neither fulfil its righteousness, nor bear its curse. The claim of the Law was met and ended, once and for ever, by the satisfaction of our great Substitute, and as a result, we have attained to righteousness without works, i.e., without personal obedience of our own. "By the obedience of ONE shall many be constituted righteous." There may be indeed, and there are other relations in which we stand to the Law. It is the principle of our "new" nature to rejoice in its holiness. "We delight in the Law of God after the inner man." We know the comprehensiveness * See "Occasional Papers," Vol. I., p. 1. A his guilt upon him, cannot be allowed to take his gst God's servants. No leper that was not thoroughly ould serve in the Tabernacle. The existence of one adequately covered by compensatory atonement, shuts the presence of God. We must stand "uncharged" TO) in relation to the judicial Courts of God and vely "spotless" (apopo) in relation to the Courts of ship-in other words, we must be "perfectly "justified," fectly "sanctified," before we can attempt to worship or serve "Sanctification," therefore, when used in this sense, is not to itrasted with justification, as if the latter were complete, but rmer incomplete and progressive. Both are complete to the ver. The same moment that brings the complete "justification The fifth of Romans, brings the equally complete "sanctification" he tenth of Hebrews-both being equally needed in order that , as respects the claims of His holiness, might be "appeased" or lacated" (aokeo0a) toward us; and therefore both equally ded as pre-requisites to our entrance on the worship and service God in His heavenly Temple: for until wrath is effectually ppeased there can be no entrance there. The complete and finished sanctification of believers by the blood of Jesus, is the great subject of the ninth and tenth chapters of the Hebrews. "The blood of bulls and of goats" gave to them who were sprinkled therewith, a title to enter into the Courts of the typical Tabernacle, but that title was not an abiding title. It was no sooner gained than it was lost by the first recurring taint. Repetition therefore of offering, and repetition of sprinkling was needed again and again, and again. The same circle was endlessly trodden and retrodden; and yet never was perpetuity of acceptance obtained. Nor was the typical Tabernacle Heaven. The Tabernacle and its services were but shadows; but they teach us that, as "the blood of bulls and goats" gave to them who were sprinkled therewith a temporary title to enter into that typical Tabernacle, so, the blood of Christ, once offered, gives to all those who are once sprinkled therewith (and all believers are sprinkled) a title, not temporary but abiding, to enter into God's presence as those who are sanctified for Heaven. "Sanctified," says the Apostle, "by the offering of the body of Jesus once." This is the tenth verse of the tenth of Hebrews. In close connexion therewith follows the fourteenth verse, "By one offering He hath perfected for ever (or in perpetuity, eis To dinvekes) them that are |
