Shedding of the Blood — F.J. Huegel

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer. Amen. Jesus, our Lord, in the way of the shedding of his blood, his most precious blood, is the theme of the evening.

The Garden Before Calvary

It began before, in terms of hours, long before the Savior came to the cross there in the garden, to which the Savior was wont to betake himself for prayer. A friend of mine has recently visited the Holy Land.

He says that there is no certainty regarding so many of the sacred sites. Because of the changes over twenty centuries, but the garden has not changed. The same gnarled oaks that witnessed the Savior's agony.

You will recall how he had been in the upper room with the twelve, giving them his farewell counsel, saying, I am divine, you the branches abide in me, and I in you. In my Father's house are many mansions.

I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go away, I will come again and receive you unto myself. Father, I will that those whom thou hast given me might behold my glory, my being where I am. Going forth with song, if it is as some Bible commentators tell us, it must have been a song of praise, the 118th Psalm.

O give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good, because his mercy endures forever. Let Israel now say that his mercy endures forever. Followed by his disciples, he crosses the brook to enter the garden. They were not permitted to behold, to look upon the Redeemer's agony.

The three, the favored three, who accompanied the Savior in the great hours, they were taken with him, but even they were left behind. We are told, in the distance of a stone's throw, neither were they permitted to look upon the Savior in that hour.

He bade them watch and pray. As he entered the shadows of the garden, saying, My soul is sorrowful even unto death, and then prostrate, the Savior calls upon the Father, saying, If it be possible, let this cup pass.

Yet not my will, but thine, be done. Surely the fulfillment of this word that we have in the epistle to the Hebrews, the fifth chapter, where we read in the seventh verse, who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared.

Christ Made Sin for Us

Strong crying and tears. Now, we may be sure it was not through the fear of death. At least, taking the term in its human, purely human connotation, why Christian martyrs through the years have gone to martyrdom and death with songs of praise and victory on their lips.

No, not the fear of death. The human terms really break down. What was it? What was in the cup? If it be possible, let this cup pass. I repeat, it couldn't have been the fear of death. Ah, the hour had come.

When he was to be reckoned with sinners, the hour had come. The iniquities of us all, as we read this evening in Isaiah 53, were to be laid upon him. The hour had come when he was to be made sin, he who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

When he was to be made, as Paul puts it in his epistle to the Galatians, a curse. Yes, your curse and my curse. And it was only, may I put it that way, natural, and of course he was a man, a son of man, truly man, that he should, were it possible, wish for some other way.

But he triumphs. An angel, Luke tells us, comes to strengthen him. He comes back to his own, but they are asleep. Peter couldst thou not have watched with me an hour? Watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation.

The spirit is willing, the flesh is weak. And we read that such was his anguish, that great drops of blood, his sweat, as it were, thus it reads, great drops of blood. The shedding of blood has begun.

Great drops of blood falling to the ground. You will recall how the Savior went forth with his own to meet the enemy, Judas, the soldiers, servants of the high priest, and how he was taken before the high priest and the council.

We shall not enter into details. Our object is otherwise. You will recall how he was taken before Pilate in the morning, having been condemned by the high priest, the council, because he had said, yes, art thou with Christ?

Thou hast said it, according to the high priest. I say how he was taken before Pilate and accused. Now, Pilate, it seems, truly made an effort, a sincere effort, to find release for the Son of Man. He was a keen Roman governor.

He saw that Mark tells us that it was because of envy that these Jewish leaders had decided upon the death, the crucifixion of Jesus. I say he made an honest effort. He resorted to one means and then to another, but it all came to naught, and then finally he crumpled.

He went under when the Jews cried, if thou art, if thou dost release this man, thou art no friend of Caesar's. Now, if there's one thing that Pilate was resolved to have, it was the friendship of Caesar.

And so he collapses and gives the sentence. Ah yes, he washes his hands and he says that he is innocent of the blood of this just man. And then the Savior is turned over to the soldiers. Ah, that scene in the barracks in the praetorium.

The Scourging and Mockery of the King

The whole band we read was called together. I was searching into this this evening, not altogether sure whether the scourging came before. It would seem so from what Mark tells us in the fifteenth chapter.

The fifteenth verse of his gospel, and so Pilate, willing to content the people, released Barabbas unto them and delivered Jesus when he had scourged him. And the soldiers led him away into the hall. Oh, that Roman flagellation, as it is in the Spanish, the Roman scourging.

Victims will want to die at the post, blackened by the blood of so many. And there the soldiers, with their lashes, at whose confines were these strong, sharp cubes of bone on the bared back of the Redeemer, rushed to the post to fulfill the Roman custom.

Oh, how much blood must have fallen. He was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquity. And then that awful scene in the praetorium, the soldiers gathering for the mockery. They stripped the Redeemer and clothed him with purple, while he pretends to be a king.

They read that we must give him a scepter. Then you will recall how he is buffeted and spat upon. And how the soldiers placed upon his brow a crown. Now, the Savior had refused the crown, you will recall, it was an occasion, it was after the multiplying of the bread, the loaves.

Ah, such a king we would have. But the Savior fled to the mountain. No, no, no earthly crown could have added to the glory of the King of Kings. But this crown, he accepts. Very fitting. Ah, was this within the providences of God fulfilled, that men might mock and jeer and laugh?

For he who bore in his body on the tree of sin, according to the scripture being symbols of sin, could not have been crowned more fittingly than in the manner in which the soldiers wrought. Great drops of blood, of course, from the Savior's brow.

The Road to Golgotha

And then the march. Then the rough beams upon those shoulders. Already so the custom was that the victims should bear about their necks a placard with the reason of their execution, the accusation, and on the Savior's placard the words, This is Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.

Oh, how that's dumb. Why, the servants of the high priest to Princess Haston, to Pilate, no, they said, Not that. But he said, I am the King of the Jews. What I have written, I have written. We can't but feel that Pilate had recovered some of his manhood and found great satisfaction in a certain degree of vengeance.

What I have written, I have written. You must take it. And then on the way, oh, it must have been, step by step, the heavy wooden beams on the bleeding back, that the drops continued to fall along the way.

Great drops of blood. We read that the soldiers compelled one Simon, a Cyrenian, who passed by coming out of the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to bear his cross for the Savior, fell beneath its weight.

This is lovely, is it not? Alexander and Rufus. Namely, the fact that though unwillingly Simon bore the cross, he did not understand, he knew nothing of the meaning of all this. He was passing by, no doubt, on the way to Jerusalem, the Passover feast.

I say the fact, namely, that, well, his son Alexander became a Christian, and his son Rufus, he must also have become a believer. Later on, bearing the cross willingly. And they bring him unto the place Golgotha, which is being interpreted, the place of a skull.

And they gave him to drink wine mingled with myrrh, but he received it not. And when they had crucified him, they parted his garments, casting lots upon them, what every man should take. And now, as never before, there is the shedding on the part of the Redeemer of his most precious blood during those six hours.

The Cross, Redemption, and the Church's Suffering

Now, seven, as we said last evening, is the perfect biblical number. Six hours, someone has said, well, that final seventh hour is left to the Church. Not that the Church can add anything to the great work consummated on Calvary of redemption, atonement, expiation, no.

But Paul says, I fill up that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ, as the Church must suffer, with her thorn-crowned head. You will recall how John, when in the writing of the gospel according to St. John, when he came to that moment in the history and the story, he seems to have been overcome for his style changes in that hour, that objective style.

And here we have John saying, and he that saw it bare record, and his record is true, and he knoweth that he saith that ye might believe. What is this of which John, in this fashion, bears record, overcome by his emotion?

It is the fact that as the soldiers came to the bodies, there were three, to fulfill that custom, just a slight ray of human compassion in the midst of that awful scene of cruelty. Victims were wont to live days unable to die, the custom to come, the soldiers, to break their legs.

But it had been written, we have it there in Exodus 12, we have it in one of the Psalms, not a bone shall be broken. There was no need. The Savior had dismissed his spear. It was then, John tells us, that a soldier took his spear and pierced the Redeemer's side, and came forth blood and water.

Chapter 19, verse 34,. But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came thereof blood and water. Physicians tell us that in such a death, the blood gathers little by little, it all gathers there in that sack which holds the heart, the pericardium.

And so we may truthfully say that in that hour, the last drop of his blood, it was all poured forth. Now why do we dwell upon this very, very sacred theme? Our friends, it is because of the immeasurable significance, according to the scriptures of the precious blood of Christ, even in the types long before the Savior's advent.

Passover and the Blood of the New Covenant

You will recall the great type, the Passover, how that the Israelites were commanded to sacrifice the lambs and to place the blood above the doorposts with the assurance that the angel of death, seeing the blood, would pass over.

The Savior himself said it, friends, this is my blood. He said it there in the upper room when the Last Supper was instituted, this is the blood of the New Testament, shed for the remission of sins. Of course, this appears in the epistles, all in his epistles to the Ephesians, to the Colossians, redemption through the blood, the forgiveness of our sins.

You know, it was there that God found a way to do what he said. It is not possible to justify the ungodly, the Lord cannot justify the ungodly. A judge here upon earth who for perhaps often because of money, the judge here upon earth who justifies the ungodly, the criminal ceases to be a judge, to place himself on the same level with the criminal.

Ah, but God found a way, oh, how wonderful, whereby he could justify the ungodly without that in the slightest degree, his throne, his government, his law, his shadow is to be found upon his throne, his righteous throne, his law, his government.

It was a man upon whom the law exhausted its righteous demand, the Son of Man, the Son of God. Now it is in his blood, and I wish to underscore this fact, it is not I, it is here in the Word, Romans 5, 9, justified by his blood.

I fear at times, friends, that we give to faith a virtue it does not have, justified by faith. I have a dear friend down in Mexico, Dr. Camargo, who is working on a new translation under the auspices of the Bible Society, he and Dr. Lloreda of Colombia, a new translation of the scriptures into the Spanish.

He tells me that he's not satisfied with what we have here in Romans 5, being justified by faith. He says that in the original, the thought is really springing from a courtroom scene, declared righteous, declared free from guilt on the ground of the blood.

So it's not because of some inherent virtue that is to be found in our faith. Why, faith is only the hand that is stretched out to receive the gift. But the gift springs from the cross, the procuring cause, as theologians, I want to put it, the blood.

Sanctification and Reconciliation Through Christ's Blood

And then, too, we are sanctified, as it is in Hebrews 13, by the blood. Let us go forth unto him without the camp. He says also that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate.

And then we are reconciled. Oh, Paul says, I've always longed to know, just to be able to peer a little bit deeper into that tremendous statement we find in Colossians, where Paul says that all things, both in heaven and upon earth, well, it seems that the cross affected the very universe.

All things in heaven, things in heaven, things in earth, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself. Brethren, there's no measuring that. Read in Hebrews that there was a cleansing.

You will recall the passage where the sacred writer refers to the ancient tithes, the sanctuary, the tabernacle. Cleansed, he says, by the blood of victims. And then he goes on to say, but the heavens cleansed by a better sacrifice.

Antitype, the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. And then we have it in 1 John that there's a cleansing forever going on in the life of the Christian. 1 John, the first chapter, verse 7,.

But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another in the blood of Jesus Christ his Son. You know that in the Greek the verb is in the present active tense, is forever cleansing.

Such is the efficacy of the sacrifice consummated on Calvary, that without the Christian realizing the fact there is a constant application of its virtue, his life, that he might walk in the light. Well, may I say it, his garments washed and made white, spotless.

Oh yes, I know what John says in the same epistle, that if we say that we have no sin, well, we deceive ourselves. Yes, here it is, 1 John, the first chapter, but we're also told that there's a cleansing going on every moment, even as your eye is forever washing its face and you're not aware of the fact.

Victory Over Satan by the Blood of the Lamb

And then, of course, friends, the victory, the victory over Satan. Ah, had I understood this in the early days of my missionary life, oh, what pain and shame would have been avoided. This fact that the Christian can shelter under the blood, and there's only one place, friends, where the Christian is absolutely secure, because the devil is deceitful.

Oh, how subtle he is. He'll use holy things. You know, he came to the Savior with the book in his hand, and he says it's written. There's only one place where the Christian is secure. They overcame him, you'll recall that word in Revelation 12, they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb.

Now, you stand on any other ground, friend, you can't face the enemy on any other ground. Because on any other ground, you stand on the ground of your own righteousness. He'll tear that into a million shreds in about ten minutes, when you're standing on the ground of the blood.

You can do like Luther did. We read that there in the castle where he labored in the translation of the scriptures, there were tremendous conflicts with the prince of this world, I am not surprised. And that the prince of this world, the devil, brought before him the story of all his sins.

He can do that. And you know, when the devil does it, don't confess them. It'll only make matters worse. To his Luther, Jan, he said, Yes, these are my sins, and you haven't told the whole story yet. Now write, the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleansed from all sin.

Can you see the devil writing anything like that? A cosmic blow in the face, and he fled. That's the only ground. And oh, how we need it in these days of unprecedented satanic oppression in the life of the world.

The Redeemed Sing of the Lamb Forever

And then finally, friends, ah, this word in the book of Revelation. We haven't exhausted the theme. This word in the book of Revelation, where we are told that millions upon millions The redeemed about the throne sing a new song, saying, Worthy art thou, Lamb of God, for thou hast slain and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood.

That in heaven hast redeemed us to God by thy blood, out of every kingdom and tongue and tribe. O gracious Father, how we thank thee, how we thank thee for this unspeakable gift. O Father, we have no words with which to express our gratitude.

We too would sing with the millions upon millions of the redeemed, the redeemed who say, Worthy art thou, Lamb of God, for thou hast slain and thou hast redeemed us to God by thy blood. So throughout all eternity, the redeemed will sing glories of the cross.

Accept our praises, Father, through Christ our Lord. Amen.