Blood Atonement — Dean Taylor

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Good morning, everyone. It's been a blessing to be here already this morning. We've already drank deep from that well of salvation. I thank your brother for that message, looking at that balance and looking at how we can swing that pendulum from one way to the other.

And boy, did I relate to that. And I just pray I can get my eyes fixed on Jesus this morning. Amen. And that children's message, being able to touch into some serious issues, heaven or hell. You know, is that something we can talk and tell our children about?

I appreciate that. So, amen. In Genesis chapter 22, Abraham was instructed to go to Moriah to offer a burnt offering to the Lord. And when he was there, you know the story, he took Isaac off and he gave him the sticks he put on him.

He gave him also a torch, it looks like, somehow. And this is what he said. And Isaac spoken to Abraham, his father, and said, my father. And he said, here am I, my son. And he said, this is Isaac, behold the fire and the wood.

The Doctrine of Blood Atonement

But where is the lamb for a burnt offering? This is a sermon today about blood atonement. Although it's a teaching sermon that I'm going to bring to you, I hope and I pray that today it will not be some sort of academic exercise.

It has come from a long-standing burden that I have about the importance of this doctrine. It's my firm conviction that this doctrine, while indeed has to do with a matter of teaching and a matter of looking at God, it affects every way and every part of our life.

So if we could, we could pray. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, Oh God. It's a vast subject we look at this morning, oh God, and I'm trembling. God, I pray somehow, Lord, you will preach this sermon today, dear God.

I pray that somehow, dear God, you will come and visit with us. Come here, Lord, we pray, by your Holy Spirit. And show us thy love. Show us thy blood. Show us what you have done upon that cross. What that means.

What you have done, Lord. Oh God, speak to us this morning, I pray. In Jesus' name, amen. When addressing, lately we've been addressing as a church, different slides, and we see that we're leaky vessels.

And that we need to every now and then take that and look at the road map. We take that and look at the road map and say, okay, this is where we are and that's where we've been. And that's good for us to do.

I like the way D .L. Moody put the idea of calling us leaky vessels. He said, the only way to keep a broken vessel full is to keep it continually under the tap. And this is the tap, amen? We come to the Lord, we come to God, and we say, show us your way.

And I so much appreciated that message this morning. Touched right on that. But you know, there's also some particular ways to think about God. Ways to think about His salvation. Some of these things can tend to be leaky in ourselves as well.

And so, this is one of those things that I would like to look at. Blood atonement. Blood atonement. Blood atonement. Blood atonement. It can leak out. It can leak out what was done there. What it means to us.

And like I said, I don't want this to be some sort of theosophical, you know, esoteric, high and mighty doctrine about some lofty thing. This is extremely important, what I talked to you about this morning.

In this understanding of the doctrine of blood atonement, of the teaching of what God did, we find our hope of salvation. We find the power in sanctification, walking a holy life. We find in the blood the power over Satan and his demons.

And it unifies and it builds a church. It also, blood atonement, it destroys compromise. It destroys compromise. It exposes hypocrisy. It absolutely demolishes modern ecumenism. That is this idea of the modern church, let's bring all the churches together and all the religions together and we'll just all claim one God and we'll all stand for things like peace and happiness and all these things.

The blood destroys ecumenism. It can't stand that there is one way and that way is through the blood of Jesus Christ. So, if God will permit, I would like to teach this doctrine of blood atonement in three main sections here.

The first, I feel a necessity to look at the nature of God. Who is God? The second, I would like to look at that sacrifice of the blood. And then finally, what the Gospel is. I believe that most of the problem in modern Christendom surrounding this topic deal to a large degree of an improper understanding of who God is.

It's extremely important that we know who God is. It's not just some dream or some imagination. And if we get all together and all that says, oh, we're going to think He's this way and think He's that way, let's go to the road map.

Let's go to the road map this morning and see who God is. He has revealed it to us. He has given us everything that we can understand about that. And if we get off and we invent another God, the Scriptures say to us, how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?

This is the salvation that He's given to us. The way we think about God affects how we behave. It affects how we worship. It affects how we pray. There's an old ancient saying from the Latin, if you don't mind me giving this to you this morning, it's just sort of a neat saying.

It's been going around for thousands of years, so I thought I'd write it up here. Lex Orandi. I don't write on a chalkboard very good. Lex Credendi. What this translates means to, our prayer is affected by what we believe.

In other words, the way we worship is the way we believe. If we believe that God is some sort of overpowering, non-forgiving, unmerciful God, then that's going to affect the way we pray. It's going to affect the way we worship.

It's going to affect the way we are. And the same way, if we believe He's apathetic, He doesn't care, there's nothing really matters, He has no ways about Him, then it's going to affect the way we believe.

It's going to affect the way we pray. How one prays is how one believes. A .W. Tozer put it this way, as humans, we try to be like our God. If He is convinced to be stern and exacting and harsh, so will we be.

And likewise, if we believe that He is careless and apathetic, so will our worship in life be. The question is, does it matter? Think about it this morning. Does it matter really all that much who you think God is?

Worshiping the God Revealed in Scripture

There's an interesting part in Scripture there in John chapter 4, when Jesus comes up to the Samaritan woman there at the well. And a lot of times we use this. It's a famous passage, those who worship God shall worship in spirit and truth.

He has a very important rebuke to that woman that we don't want to miss this morning. He says to her, after she says, do you worship here in the mountains, which was the Samaritan way, or do you worship here in the Jews?

He said to her, woman, this is John chapter 4, verse 22, ye worship ye know not what. Ye worship ye know not what. We know what we worship for salvation is of the Jews. He was very clear. You're over there doing this worship.

You don't even know what you're worshiping. I ask you, what was the sin of Samaritanism? Do you remember it? The Samaritanism heresy, the rebuke that... how it got Jesus' rebuke here came originally from Jeroboam.

Jeroboam took and rebelled with the northern tribes and he created everything like it was back in Judah because he was jealous that people were going to Judah to worship. So he got his own priesthood.

He got his own altar. He got two of them actually in two different places. He got feast days and holy days and all these things and they had all this worship and all these things just like they had back in Judah.

But was God there? At the very heart of that altar, at the very place where all those ceremonies and rituals and all those things, at the very heart was a golden calf. That's what Jeroboam and the people of the Samaritans, they worshipped.

And Jesus rebuked him. You don't even know what you're worshipping. You don't know who God is. It's a serious rebuke for us today. I asked you, I beg you this morning not to dismiss this message again, I'm going to ask, as an academic exercise.

The truths are life changing. Some of the words we're going to talk about, some big words, they're Bible words, propitiation, expiation, some of those things. It's important words that God has revealed to us in His Bible to see what God has done for us.

Listen to the way that Peter puts us to the importance of understanding the knowledge of God. In 2 Peter 1 -3, Peter says, according as His divine power hath given us all things that pertain to life and godliness.

He's given us everything you need for your life and a life of holy godliness. But listen how. Through the knowledge of Him that hath called us to glory and virtue. Verse 4, whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises, that by these, by what?

By those promises, we might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. So the idea there is the understanding that you see the importance that Peter repeating what Jesus said of emphasizing of knowing you've got to know who God is.

And so some of the verses I'm going to be bringing up today are sort of hard. They're sort of like this children's message today. We talk about some things that maybe we don't feel comfortable talking about in church all that time.

God's Omnipresence, Holiness, and Justice

But we have to know who God is and what exactly was that Jesus did for us. You know, the world cries, God is everywhere. He's everywhere. I can do what I want to do. I can say what I want to say. I can go where I want to go.

And there's God with me. In a sense, that's true. In His omnipresence, He can be reached anywhere. In His judgments, we can go anywhere and He's going to be able to see us. But His very presence, where His eyes are turned to, and the way we can lay our head upon Him, the Bible says that God is only in two places.

And I want to make this real clear right off the front. God only lives in two places according to the Scriptures. And let me read that to you. Isaiah 57 -15. For thus saith the High and Lofty One that inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy.

When the Bible talks about someone having God is, it's part of His very nature. God does not have to try to be holy. Nothing compels Him to be holy.

He is holy.

This is the Lord speaking. I dwell in the high and holy place. That's where God lives. High and holy. With Him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to relieve the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.

To revive the spirit of the humble. Those are the two places. God is high and holy. But He also will dwell with those with a humble heart. The world frequently says, I've heard this said a lot at work and it grieves me.

I sure am glad God has a sense of humor. You know, and usually following that some sort of blasphemy. Some sort of a thing that, excusing a sin, excusing a way of life. God said, for My thoughts are not your thoughts.

Neither are your ways My ways, saith the Lord. Isaiah 55a. So, I think the first way, the first step in understanding the atonement this morning, understanding what Jesus did this morning is to understand who God is.

So, let's look into that. In the Bible, God is revealed, like I just said a minute ago, often by many characteristics. When I just said God is holy, when He said, whose name is holy, again, He is holy.

We can speak as a man, even this is, to say He has a constraint, we can't say God can't help but be holy. But even to say He can't, it misses it. It's in our human understanding. You see Paul sometimes saying, I speak as a man, or I speak as a fool.

Sometimes to try to explain these sort of understandings of God. But He is holy. When we say God is love, it's not a mere sentimentality. It's something that's part of His very nature. The part of who God is.

He is love. That is who He is. Well, probably one of the most impressive revelations of the Father has come to us a time at the very beginning when Moses sought Him, or near the beginning, when Moses sought Him and begged Him, show me Your glory.

Show me who You are and continue to seek God. And after God wrote the commandments and since the second time, there's this beautiful passage in Scripture and I want everyone to turn to that. And if you don't mark in your Bible, I want you to start this morning.

Because you've got to know who God is. Exodus 34, verse 7. You've got to know who God is. And here God is explained. We get to see God by what's about to be explained to us and several characteristics of who God is.

Remember, He doesn't have to be constrained to be these ways. He doesn't have to try to be these different ways.

It is who He is.

It is who He is. There, okay, in verse 4, this is Exodus 34, verse 4. And at first there, He's making the two tablets of stone like unto the first. And Moses wrote up early in the morning and went up to the Mount Sinai as the Lord had commanded him and took in his hand the two tablets of stone.

And the Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there and proclaimed the name of the Lord. This is an important verse to mark in your Bible. It's one of those big times in the Bible. This is it.

He proclaimed the name of the Lord. And here it is. And the Lord passed by before him and proclaimed the Lord. The Lord God. Ready? Merciful and gracious. Long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth.

Hallelujah! Those are parts of His very nature. Keep going. Verse 7, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgressions and sin. Stop there. Do you see how beautiful that is? It is who God is.

It is His very nature. That merciful side, that love, that desire to forgive thousands is part of who He is. But I want you to keep reading. And that will by no means clear the guilty. And that by no means will clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and upon the children's children and to the third and to the fourth generations.

And will by no means clear the guilty. What is this meaning? The same God who said He's merciful for thousands and ten thousands and showing that, He also shows that another part of His nature is that not only is He unchangeably, immutably merciful, He is also completely and unchangeably and immutably just.

His justice is part of who God is. He is completely merciful. But He is completely just. So what does this mean? Does it mean that built into the part of God... Listen to this. This is incredibly important to you.

Built into the part of God is His law. Is His ways. Is His standard. Is His judgment. Is His punishment. It's built into who God is. By saying that He is just and that's part of His nature, He's not going to just forget about sin.

That if something happens or sin occurs, it's not in His nature to be able to just let this thing go. Interestingly enough, I'll just throw this out, in both the Hebrew and the Greek, the word for justice and righteousness are the same word.

The word for justice and righteousness are the same word. What he's pointing out is that being just means he can't just forget a crime. Again, I'm using the word can't. Notice, he does not forget a crime.

He does not just let the thing unpunished. Sometimes we feel that we look at sin in a way that we're robbing from a rich man. We're robbing from a rich man. We go and we go steal bread from a rich man.

You broke into my house and you came and you took a loaf of bread and I caught you right before you walked out. You know, I looked at you. Oh, you're stealing bread for crime. Here, take the bread. Have some more.

It's okay. Go. I forgive you. Go. See, the way I forgive is different. I forgive because of what Jesus did for me. But God is just. He's just. And so these things that are broken, these laws that come against God in His justice will not just clear the guilty.

Sin, Judgment, and the Need for Atonement

So what does that mean practical? Let me break this down. And I do believe, listen to me soberly here this morning, I do believe this is one of the biggest traps that Satan has. And here it is. In your past, you have committed sin.

In your past, you have gone away from God. In your past, you have rebelled. But for some reason, later in your life, you've come to your senses. You got married. You wanted to join the church. You just got older.

Or you just plain matured. So, you start living a good life. You start just saying, okay, I'm going to start... I like the people I'm with. I like godly people. I don't want my children to end up on drugs or something.

So I'm going to just start living a good life and being a good man. And there's those sins that happened long ago. There they are. But I'm just... I'm a good man now. I'm in the church now. I believe all the things about all that he's done.

And there's those sins. You see, what this is telling us this morning is that those sins are still there. They didn't just wash away. They didn't just go. As a matter of fact, it's showing that they're following us.

And they're following. And actually, it says in a Scripture I'm about to show you that they're collecting. That they're building up weight like water that's pushing on a levee. That's pushing that. And it's weighing up.

It's treasuring up, as the Bible says, the weight of that sin. And then we go about our life and think that, okay, we build this more holy and we become hypocrites. We put on all these things and those sins are still there.

Sometimes people say, Dean, why do you make such a big deal about this born-again business? Why do you make such a big deal? Can't people just start being okay? Let's reform their lives and be godly?

No.

No. These sins are there.

And they must be paid for. They must be. No more than a murder. I've seen it just the other day at work. I saw that some murder killed some African-American person 60 years ago or something. And then just now, they caught him because of some DNA test.

They brought him in, tried him and threw him in jail at like 70 or 80 years old because of a crime he committed when he was a very young man. Those sins are there and they are resting on you and they are waiting on you and they are building up in you until the day of wrath and judgment from God.

That's the Bible. That's what the Word of God says. Romans 2 .5 gives us these sobering words of this building up. Romans 2 .5. But after thy hardness and impenitent heart, treasureth up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath, and revelation of the righteous judgment of God.

Here it is. The judgment seat of God. Verse 6. Who will render to every man according to his deeds. The Bible warns us over and over again there will be a day of reckoning. There will be a day of judgment.

And we just heard there that those sins that you think you just walked away from, that are just sitting there, are going to follow you. They are going to hunt you. They are going to walk with you all the way until the day of wrath.

Treasuring up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath. You know, it is awful for us to contemplate the severity and the judgments of God. It's an awful thing. It's not really all that common in the church today.

Maybe it's sort of uncomfortable to talk about some of these things. Listen to how Paul said it though. Again, warning of the judgment day. Listen to this. 2 Corinthians 5 .10 -11. 2 Corinthians 5 .10 -11.

He's warning. He said, don't you see? Listen. Listen. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ that every one may receive the things done in his body according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.

Now listen to how he then preaches. Listen to how the apostles preach. 2 Corinthians 5 .11. Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men. This is something God has put into His Word for us to understand that the wrath of God, which is not a very popular subject today, rests upon the sinner.

And it's sitting there. And Paul is saying here, because of the terror of the Lord, I want to persuade men. I want to persuade men. It has to be clearly understood that the judgment day is a terrible day.

A terrible day to those who do not have what we're going to get into here, the sacrifice of Christ. When we begin to understand the justice of God, when we begin to understand more, I should say, that we understand God's perfect holiness, His infinite holiness, it begins just a little bit more to understand about His punishment.

I shake at the punishment. We should tremble at these punishments. If you show up to judgment day, listen to me, if you show up to judgment day and you have been found guilty, you will go to hell as brother Paul showed us this morning, and there will be no mercy.

No mercy. Once that judgment has been passed, it is an eternal judgment. Justice demands that once convicted, no mercy will be offered. This is a horrible thing to imagine. It seems impractical. It seems so far away from our senses.

Listen to what Jesus said, What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in the light, and what ye hear in the ear, ye preach upon the housetops, and fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul, but rather fear Him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

Fear Him. Fear Him who is able to kill both body and soul in hell. He warns us. Jesus warned us. John the Baptist warned us when he talked about the baptism of fire that's to come in Matthew 3, verse 12.

He said, Whose fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly purge His floor and gather His wheat into the garner, but He will burn up the shaft with unquenchable fire. Unquenchable fire. That means a fire that will never be extinguished.

The sin against an absolute pure God returns to us an eternal consequence. This unquenchable fire, Jesus talks more about in Mark 9. In Mark 9, verse 43, where He's talking about if your hand offend thee.

He says here, better than that, than go into fire that never shall be quenched. Verse 44, where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. He talks about the foot offending thee, and He says, better to do that than to be cast into hell and to the fire that never shall be quenched.

It is a horrible and dreadful as it may sound, once that judgment is passed, that will go on into eternity. It will not be quenched. It will never be quenched. As a matter of fact, when that judgment is made, you know how all in our life now, we talk about how God forms us.

He's creating us into good works. We talk about the potter, and He makes that potter, and He makes that vessel fill to do things that He wants us to be done. He has a purpose. After the judgment, you will become, if you are not born again, an object and a vessel of His wrath, as it said there earlier.

Listen to another very sobering one in Romans 9 .21. Hath not the potter power over the clay? This is Romans 9 .21. Of the same lump to make one vessel into honor and another into dishonor, what if God, willing to show His wrath and to make His power known, endureth with much longsuffering?

He's waited. He's tried. He's listened. He's compelled you. He's had longsuffering with you, but now you continue to the end. But now, endure with much longsuffering the vessel of wrath fitted to destruction, and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercies which He had aforeprepared unto glory.

In an age of toleration and gray lines, we judge that perhaps just a little punishment will be enough. You know, okay, you know, He had a few days in hell. I think that's enough. Maybe a thousand years.

Maybe ten thousand years. Isn't that enough? Some benighted souls have dreamed up a thing called purgatory, which has the idea that you burn your way through a few hundred years and then you finally can work your way up to heaven.

This is a dreadful lie of the devil to give us a sloppiness to understand that God, that sloppiness, and that theology and understanding does not understand the wrath and the ways of God. It says in the Bible that once that judgment, there will be no mercy.

Speaking of this, in Ezekiel 8 .18, he says this, speaking of the judgment on Judah, he says, therefore, will I also deal in fury? Mine eyes shall not spare. Neither will I have pity. And though they cry in mine ears with a loud voice, yet will I not hear them.

Do you see that? That's not a popular view of God today. But we want to know who we worship, what we worship, and what Jesus has done. And that's the reason I brought these Scriptures up to you this morning.

But you say, you know, Brother Dean, I go to church. You're talking to a bunch of people who go to church. You know, Isaiah 33 answers a little bit of that. Isaiah 33 .13 -24 says this, Hear ye that are far off what I have done.

Again, this is the judgment day. He wants the glory. He wants everyone to see. Every knee shall bow and give Him glory. He says this, Hear ye that are far off what I have done, and ye that are near, acknowledge My might.

The sinners in Zion are afraid. Fearfulness hath surprised the hypocrites. Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burdens? Ask yourself this morning.

Who among us today will dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us? He surprised the hypocrites. Who among us this morning shall dwell with the devouring fire? How horrible it is if we knew one setting here.

We knew for a fact it's so and so. He will be there with this unquenchable fire. He will be there. And though He begs for mercy, it will be too late. There's nothing that He can do. I'll tell you this, sinner today, if you're listening to me and you're saying, I've got a plan.

Every single soul in hell this morning had a plan that they would outwit God. Mind that. Every person on earth has some plan of salvation. Either they have brought God down to the point that they don't really believe it's important to obey any kind of God, or they have somehow outwitted their parents by some rebellion, or they have maybe sped and talked the policeman out of a ticket, and somehow are bringing that insanity to the thought that on judgment day, you will somehow be smarter than all those who go to hell.

Paul showed us today that the way to destruction is wide. And you know that. You heard that. But you think in your mind, but towards the end, I'm going to get this figured out. Towards the end, I'm going to work this out.

I'm going to deal with these things. Every soul in hell has thought that same thing. If you were to go and ask them and ask this person burning in hell, did you think you would be here? They'd say, no.

No, I didn't think I'd be here. What if someone here today... How serious would we be? So what do you do? What can we do if He doesn't just clear the guilty? What do we do? All that, I'm afraid, was introduction.

Until we understand God, who He is, what He is, what His judgments are, and what Judgment Day is about, this whole thing of salvation and atonement becomes some silly little thing that means nothing to us.

Propitiation and Expiation Through Christ

We need an atonement. We need a propitiation. We need an expiation. I'm going to write a big word, but it's a Bible word. So here we go. One of the most important words in your Bible. Propitiation. In the Greek, it's hilosmos.

It's 2434. And you're strong. You always want to write that down. Propitiation. That's an important word. Propitiation. Expiation. To be paid. To be satisfied. What do we do with this judgment hanging over us?

In Romans 5, verses 8 and 9, the Gospel is explained to us. This is Romans 5, verses 8 and 9. But God commanded His love towards us, and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5. I'd like to hear those pages.

That's good. I'll wait. Verse 9 now. Much more than being now justified by His blood. The justified is a legal term. It means here the guilt. It's there. You're a sinner! This is the weight that's on you.

We talked about wrath. It's on there. But now being justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God to the death of His Son, much more being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.

And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, for whom we have received the atonement. The atonement. Hebrews 2 says this. Hebrews 2 .17, I'll just read the verse. Wherefore, in all things it behooves Him to be made like unto His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people.

What is this propitiation? What is this atonement? What does this mean? Let me just go. I'm not going to get into a large detail. We can't this morning. As it says in Hebrews, time would not let us go into everything that happens there.

But in Leviticus 16, actually all of Leviticus, what God has shown is that He's allowed some way for this sin to be covered. In the Old Testament covenant, covered. The Old Testament word atonement actually doesn't completely fit the New Testament sentence.

The word literally means covered. Even when Aaron came into the Holy of Holies, to go in there, he first took a censer and filled that thing with smoke so that when he came into the Holy of Holies, it was there and he was completely covered with smoke.

This word atonement over and over, how do we come before God? How do we be a holy people? How do we come before Him? And He gave us the atonement. So Leviticus, all of the book of Leviticus is to show us ways that here's a sin.

What do you do? And over and over, you can read right through it. There's many different things it goes through. There are lots of feast days and lots of things that talk about it. Some of the cheap ones that strike us today, there's the talk about the day of atonement.

The great day when we look at that thing and say, okay, let's have a day where he goes into that Holy of Holies. And there's many things that Aaron would go through to purify himself, to purify himself, killing a bull and sprinkling blood on the altar and then to sacrifice for the people.

But one thing he did there, when you took the animal and you came up to the priest, let me ask you this question. You're a sinner and you want to come before God. You took your sacrifice and you brought it to the priest and he took it there.

What was the priest supposed to examine? I mean, what object? You're the sinner. And you bring, let's say, that goat. Here's my sacrifice. What did the priest examine? The sacrifice. The sacrifice had to be perfect.

The sacrifice had to be pure. They say with the sacrifice of the red heifer, that those guys would, in the mission it said they would go through and look and see if one hair was black instead of red. They wanted a red heifer.