Christmas and the Shed Blood — Rolfe Barnard

Christmas, the Incarnation, and Christ’s Mission to Die

My friends, I would like to speak on the general subject of blood redemption and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and I come with this type of message on this, the Lord's Day just preceding the 25th of December, where this world will be plunged into a mighty riot of color and sentiment and sham and fraud will be perpetrated upon mankind in the name of the birth of the Son of God, trying to celebrate the fact that God was manifest in the flesh and that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself.

I speak on the truth that the birth of Jesus Christ means nothing unless this world comes back to a recognition of the fact that He was born to die and born to be a King. I would like to say just a word in warning and at the same time encouragement to people that this is the season of the year when sin will be sanctified by the singing of pious hymns such as Silent Night and Come, All Ye Faithful blared forth together with decked halls and White Christmas.

For instance, in Japan where Christmas is widely observed, it has become almost altogether a thing of toys and tinsel, of songs and selling. People in that day in Japan, they tell us, are not shocked when in a striptease nightclub they sing Silent Night, Holy Night, redeemed by the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Blood of Christ and Spiritual Life

We are aware of the fact that the value of any life is only in the blood that has redeemed that life. For instance, if the blood were drained from our bodies, we wouldn't live for one second, for the life of the flesh is in the blood.

Even so, when we think of the spiritual life we have, we know that we have that life in the blood of Christ, for it is only the blood of Christ that can give and sustain spiritual life. We can serve and protect and cling to the blood that flows through our veins, for we know that our life depends wholly on that blood.

Even so, the child of God clings to the blood of the Lord Jesus, for we know that our spiritual life depends completely on the blood of our substitute, the Lord Jesus Christ. When a young soldier is wounded on the battlefield and all his blood is about poured from his veins, the doctor runs for a transfusion, and by giving the young man the blood of another, by substituting someone else's blood in his veins, the young man recovers.

Even so, the man who realizes that he's a sinner, that he's perishing and has no merit, righteousness, or goodness to please, only he can fully appreciate the redeeming shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Only the sinner who sees himself as the boy on the battlefield, totally helpless, dying in sin, and hopelessly incurable by his own strength and power, only such a one can receive the blood of another, his substitute, to give him new life.

Substitution as the Heart of the Gospel

My dear ones, if the gospel can be summed up in one word, it is the word substitution. This day is born under you in the city of David, a Savior who is Christ the Lord. This substitute is Christ the Lord.

Christ truly is the sinner's substitute, giving us life by his death, giving us justification, being right with God through his blood, bearing our sins and our penalty in his own precious body. Whether you know it or not, people, you are a sinner.

Whether you realize it or not, you're in need of cleansing from your guilt in the sight of God. If over this radio I should call you a sinner, or anyone else calls you a sinner, it doesn't have much significance, but if I tell you that God calls you a sinner, and that God says you are wicked, that God says you are wretched, that God says you are deserving of hell, I beg you to sit up and listen to God speak to your soul.

When God says that your heart is deceitful, when God says that you are filled with vain imagination, I say that men had better fall at God's feet and listen to his holy demands. Listen a moment to what God says about man, even you, and even me.

As God describes him, he says, out of the heart of man proceeds evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, and blasphemies. Again, he says, the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.

Who can know it? Again, he says, there is none good. No, not one. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Again, he says, but we are as an unclean thing. All our righteousnesses are as filth to rags.

The whole head is sick, the whole heart is faint. From the sole of the foot, even under the head, there is no soundness in it but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores. These are some of the statements we find in God's holy word describing our terrible condition in his sight.

Humanity’s Helplessness and Need for a Substitute

My friends, therefore, it's not a question of my saying that you and I have done wrong. It is our taking notice of the work of God and paying attention to what he says. I tell you that man in the condition God says he's in desperately needs saving help.

Man in that condition is hopeless to give himself a new heart. He's helpless and unable himself to be converted. He needs a substitute to bear his sins away. He needs a Savior who is himself without spot or blemish to take his iniquity and to bear it away.

And there is only one who can do this for sinner, and that is the one whose birthday the world says it'll celebrate in these days immediately after this broadcast, the Lord Jesus Christ. He alone is our substitute.

He alone is the world's Redeemer. He alone can grant unto men the cleansing he needs. This life we are without. I'm sad to say as I speak now that for the most part modern-day preaching does not take account of nor recognize the fact that man is a sinner by nature.

So much preaching says that man is good, that man has inherent goodness, and therefore he needs help, and he needs a boost, and he needs encouragement, and he needs education, and he needs a change of environment, but he doesn't need a substitute.

But, O my soul, whatever else may be said of men, he needs not simply help. He needs somebody to grapple with the claims of God's holy law and deal with it in the stead of the sinner. You're listening to a preacher now who desperately can say, I don't want to face the law of God.

I don't want to have to try to grapple with the law of God with my own strength. Oh, God forbid that I should face the glaring claims and the awful penalty of God's inexorable law which is a mirror of his holy character and an exercise of his sovereignty.

In my own strength, I need a mediator, I need a substitute, I need somebody to deal with God's law in his own body and take the law in the grasp of his own power and for my sake and in my stead take care of the claims of that law and suffer the penalty of that law.

That's simply saying that men need a substitute, men need a substitute, and because we refuse to face the holiness of God's law and the sinfulness of man, there's a little preaching of blood redemption.

It's fast becoming a thing of the past, and when blood redemption becomes a thing of the past, salvation becomes a thing of the past, for there is no salvation apart from blood redemption through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Old-Time Gospel of Blood Redemption

Not long ago after I preached out my heart out on this subject of redemption through the blood, a sweet little lady with hair as white as snow came to me and with tears in her eyes said, Brother Barnard, that's the kind of preaching I heard when I was a girl in the church back home.

I saved by the blood of Christ under that kind of preaching. She said, I don't hear it much now. So many a day are ashamed of the old time gospel, and they don't preach it like the men of God used to.

She said, we didn't have much education in those days. We didn't have many modern conveniences then, but our preachers stood in those old rough timbered pulpits and with tears flowing down their cheeks preached against sin and lifted up the Lord Jesus as the perfect Savior for sinners.

And she said, you know, Brother Barnard, things happened then. Sinners got saved. Drunkards and adulterers, liars and profane men got right with God and became shouting saints of God. She says, I don't see much of it anymore because so many preachers today don't preach the blood of Jesus like they used to.

And I stood and listened to that old servant and saint of God, and I prayed afresh in my own heart, Lord, make me an old time gospel preacher. Fill me with thy power and keep me true to the old gospel story of the blood of my Savior.

I know that I must condemn sin for men are sinners. I know that I must lift up the Lord Jesus, for it is only through his precious blood that sinners are made whole. Oh Lord, help me. My friend, listen to me.

Christ’s Death, Resurrection, and Exaltation

That same Jesus whom they'll be singing about in these days, born of a virgin, lived a sinless life, prayed and strove against sin, resisting unto blood, crucified by the wicked malice hearts of sinful men who chose a thief by the name of Barabbas and set away with Jesus Christ, condemned by the religious leaders of his day, cast into the hands of a Roman government to get rid of as a common old criminal in the place of the skull.

Oh, I call you to hear me now. That one who poured out his soul unto death on Calvary's cross on Golgotha's hill, that one buried in another man's tomb, his body perfumed with spices borrowed from others, his body clothed with garments not his own.

Oh, hear me, hear me, hear me. The Bible says, do you believe it? Will you believe it? Will you act upon it? That he didn't stay there in that tomb, that God raised him, God raised him and declared him to be his son in the spirit of holiness and that he exalted him, that he sat him down in his right hand at a throne and told him on the throne and told him to sit there until all his enemies be made his footstool.

Would you believe, my friends, that power is in the hands, nailed, pierced as they are, of him who sits yonder at the right hand of God now in the body. There's a man in glory, thank God, and the only power to transform a human life and make it after the likeness of the Lord Jesus Christ is in the hands of him who sits there on that throne.

Oh, this ascended, exalted, living, reigning Son of God into whose hands all the plans of God have been given, in whose hands you are, in whose hands the reigns of men's hearts lie. He's the one the Bible talks about.

Oh, that his name shall be magnified, and glorified, and given the majesty due, the name that's above every name, the Lord Jesus Christ. In this Christmas season, renew your vows, fan the flames of your devotion and love, and loyalty and obedience to and trust in the one who was in a manger.

Now he's on a throne forever, and the one who's got you on his hands, he must save you, or he must damn you. Oh, glory to the name of the Savior who is Christ Jesus the Lord. It is not without significance that there are only five verses of scripture in the entire New Testament in which the titles Lord and Savior occur, just five of these scriptures where Lord and Savior both occur.

It is not without significance that in each one of these five verses of scripture, the title Lord always precedes the title Savior. I wish that we could get this into our hearts, and that this should characterize our gospel in these days where Christianity is becoming a joke, where theologians talk about the day of post-Christianity, when everything has been thrown into discard, and men now set themselves up as their own saviors.

I wish we could recall the emphasis of the Bible that in order for a man to know Jesus Christ as Savior, he must know him as his Absolute Lord, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Let me read just one of these five verses in the New Testament in which the term Lord and Savior appear in the same verse.

In 2 Peter 1 and verse 11, I read these words, For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. My old professor of theology in Southwestern Seminary years ago used to drill into those young preachers, I was one of them, whom he was trying to instruct in the great foundational truths upon which we are to stand and proclaim a living Lord who was crucified, but now is alive forevermore.

That dear old man of God used to try to drill into us that every awakening time in the history of the Church, every time we have some evidence of an outpouring of the Holy Ghost, has been accompanied by somebody getting a hold of a truth that's been long neglected and going crazy over it, and surely the truth that's been so long neglected in what we call gospel preaching today is the truth that Jesus Christ is God's Lord and that he saves men by translating them out from under the kingdom of the rule of darkness and putting them over under the rule of King Jesus, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Surely he must be preached as Lord to men and women who would experience the saving power of his life laid down on Golgotha's cross. I want us today to emphasize three truths about Jesus Christ as Lord, and before I come to them, let me insist again that he's Lord by God's decree.

Christ Is Lord by Divine Decree

God made him Lord. The most damnable thing I think that's being preached over this country is that men make Jesus their Lord. Won't you make Jesus your Lord? We have people exhort us today, but no, salvation doesn't come by men making Jesus Lord.

Salvation comes as men led of the Holy Spirit recognize that God's already made Jesus Lord, and they gladly bow to that one climactic act of Almighty God for time and eternity. One thing settled in the heavens, Jesus is God's Lord.

Oh, to be able to sweetly bow to that fact and to him as God's Lord on God's throne there forevermore until his enemy has been made his footstool. And as God's Lord, God's Lord by decree and by that decree, the Lord Jesus Christ does three things.

Christ Dictates the Terms of Salvation

First of all, he dictates. He dictates. He dictates. We do not come to an agreement, but he dictates. He spells out the terms of his salvation. He does that. Men will never be saved by making their own terms of peace with the Lord Jesus Christ.

Men may be saved if they're able to bow to his terms and obey his terms in the power of the Holy Ghost. And they are old, and they haven't changed, and they never will change. And he, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will have all men to be saved and come unto the knowledge of truth, faithfully presents in the gospel through his preachers and his witnesses the terms upon which his salvation predicated, their own repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Nobody's ever saved apart from being able themselves to exercise God-given repentance and God-given faith. You know, there's something about these expressions that's taught in the Word of God that I don't understand.

I know that God will not repent for you, and yet I know that he must grant you repentance. I know that God will not exercise faith for you, and yet that faith is his gift. If you can understand that, you're smarter than I am.

All I know for a sinner to do is to abandon all hope in himself and look unto God to grant unto you the ability to abhor yourself and recognize him on the throne and you in the dust at his feet and stay there at the foot of the cross in faith, believing until the Holy Spirit shall effect a union of peace in your soul, and until in the language of old Charles Finney of old you he'll say that many went away saying that they were comforted by the Living Lord, God's Son, God's Lord, our Lord, the Lord of all mankind, whether saved or lost, dictates the terms of salvation, repentance, and faith.

Christ Dictates the Time of Salvation

In the second place, Jesus says, Our Lord, that he may be our Savior, dictates the time of salvation. You know, it's not so you'll be saved any time you take an ocean. You'll be saved if you're ever saved in the time of God's visitation, when he's seeking men, when the wind is blowing, when the still small voice of the Holy Ghost is speaking and penetrating into the innermost spirit of you and me.

That's the time of salvation. And the word that's used in the New Testament is today or now. Now is the time. Today is the day of salvation. Seek ye the Lord while he may be found. Call ye upon him while he is near.

The Lord Jesus, says Lord, dictates the time of salvation. Oh, that a climate should come upon us by the preaching of his Word and the intercession of his people and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, when men and women should take advantage of that time when the wind is blowing and call upon the name of the Lord for the promises that such as do so shall, B-S-A-V-E-D, save.

The Lord dictates the time of salvation. It's right now, not tomorrow. It's today, not tomorrow. It's when the wind's blowing, not when you make up your mind. The dictation of God's Son relative to the time of salvation.

Christ Dictates the Place of Service

May God grant that this generation shall be visited one more time by an outpouring of the Holy Spirit, is the prayer of this preacher. And then as Lord, our Lord and Savior dictates the place of service, the place of service, the day he saves you, he puts you into the ministry whereunto you've been called.

There are no spectators sitting on a fence watching a world commit suicide in the Kingdom of God. If he saved you, he's given you a ministry. He didn't call you to be a pastor, an evangelist, or an apostle, or a prophet, maybe, but he gave you a ministry.

You're his witnesses, and if you're not his witness, you're not his. He dictates the place of your service. As a commander-in-chief of the armies of heaven and earth, he decides what little potato patch each one of his children shall occupy.

And to be in that particular potato patch, if it's where the Lord summoned you and commissioned you, is to be in the center of the will of God, and to know what it is to have peace and life and joy in this pilgrim journey.

Where has he placed you? In the home, in the factory, in the store, down on the street, on a foreign field. There are no spectators in the Kingdom of God. Hear me, hear me. Somebody said, well, I've been sent to go to Africa.

Well, the commander-in-chief can transfer one of his subjects any time he wants to. And I'm lifting up the sound of my voice now, and saying, away with this business that God saves some people, and they just go back to the old rocking chair and sit there and rock and watch the world go to hell.

No, sir, if he saved you, he put you into the ministry. Who did it? The Living Lord did it, the King of Glory, the Prime Minister of Earth. And if you're not functioning there, then you do not know the Lord, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, dictates the terms of salvation.

He dictates the time of salvation. He dictates your place of service. God pour out his Spirit upon his people, that once again this generation shall hear the rushing of the wind in the mulberry bushes, and men shall be stricken down by being confronted with the Living Lord and the power of the Holy Ghost, as God announced one more time his people to proclaim this glorious gospel.