Turn in your Bibles this morning to Leviticus chapter 17 Leviticus chapter 17 We're going to read beginning at verse 1 but Let me just preface this with a bit of a review of what we've just looked at, having just spoken about the Day of Atonement in the previous chapter, that day on which the high priest would enter the Holy of Holies with the blood of the sacrifices and sprinkle that blood on all of the articles within the Holy of Holies, first making atonement for himself and his family and then making atonement for the Israelites themselves. This one day a year, you can only imagine. Somebody was asking me on Wednesday night, how bloody that must have been for all of these sacrifices to be brought in by the Israelites. And, you know, if you actually consider the larger number of Israelites who were encamped at that time, it would have been close to two million people. I tend to, you know, look at the smaller number that's well grounded in Old Testament scholarship as well. But regardless, it would have been a very bloody affair for the high priest to be able to do those duties in a single day would have been something to behold for sure. But it was all for a grander purpose, was it not? It was all a means of foreshadowing or pointing to the ultimate sacrifice that would be made by Christ Himself. And those who were of the faith, those who had been given the gift of faith by God to look forward to the coming Messiah would have understood what we now know in Hebrews 10, 4, that the blood of bulls and goats could never have taken away sins. It was the picture that was being painted. It was the foreshadowing of the ultimate sacrifice of the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world that was in view there. And so those who are of precious faith, like precious faith as we, would have understood that, although not completely, but they certainly would have been carried along by their faith, not losing hope as so many invariably did. You know, you'd make a sacrifice and then you'd leave the tabernacle and something would happen and you would sin. And there goes, within the span of just minutes or hours or, you know, a few days, there goes your atoning work. And you had to wait until next year to come back where the priest would do it all over again. It's that sense of futility that's bound up in the sacrificial system that was designed to drive people to look to Christ. the author and finisher of their faith. Well, Moses's attention now turns to the Lord's instructions concerning sacrifices in general. And to be even more specific, he's talking here about the prohibition against eating blood or ingesting blood. Read it with me. He says, then the Lord spoke to Moses saying, speak to Aaron and to his sons and to all the sons of Israel and say to them, This is what the Lord has commanded, saying, any man from the house of Israel who slaughters an ox or a lamb or a goat in the camp or who slaughters it outside the camp and has not brought it to the doorway of the tent of meeting to present it as an offering to the Lord before the tabernacle of the Lord, blood guiltiness is to be reckoned to that man. He has shed blood and that man shall be cut off from among his people. The reason is so that the sons of Israel may bring their sacrifices, which they were sacrificing in the open field, that they may bring them into the Lord at the doorway of the tent of meeting to the priest and sacrifice them as sacrifices of peace offerings to the Lord. The priest shall sprinkle the blood on the altar of the Lord at the doorway of the tent of meeting and offer up the fat and smoke as a soothing aroma to the Lord. They shall no longer sacrifice their sacrifices to the goat demons with which they play the harlot. This shall be a permanent statute to them throughout their generations. Then you shall say to them, any man from the house of Israel or from the aliens or sojourn among them who offers a burnt offering or sacrifice does not bring it to the doorway of the tent of meeting to offer it to the Lord. That man shall also be cut off from his people. So in these first nine verses, we're not talking about the drinking of blood. We're going to get to that in just a second, but what we are talking about is conducting sacrifices in a way not prescribed by God Himself. Remember, we've talked about the regulative principle of worship, and the regulative principle of worship is not a byproduct of the Reformation. The regulative principle of the worship was established by God Himself in all of these detailed instructions. He says, here's how you're to worship me. Here's how you're not allowed to worship me. Here's how this process needs to take place. Here's how this process should not take place. Here's what you need to do. Here's what you don't need to do. Here's what you need to remember. Here's what you need to forget from your past pagan lives and practices. And so we see the regulative principle in full force, even this early on in redemptive history. Now, it seems like from what we just read that The Lord's prohibiting the Israelites killing of any animals without bringing them into the tabernacle to be sacrificed. That's not what is being said here. It was not a sin or otherwise prohibited to kill animals for food. They hunted all the time, and they would go out and make traps and use spears and whatever, you know, things they could utilize to kill the animals they needed for food, and they would kill them. They would dress them. They would field dress them. They would bring the meat back into the camp, and they would cook it, and they would share it. So not every death of an animal had sacrificial implications. We need to understand that. And that's not what the Lord is saying here. What the Lord's prohibiting here is the offering of any animals for sacrifice at any other place other than the door of the tabernacle. Now it's helpful at this point to understand that some of the Israelites had begun sacrificing animals out in the field. Instead of bringing them into the camp, making their way to the tabernacle, offering them at the door to the camp where the priest would then take them and, according to the regulative principle, handle those sacrifices as the Lord had prescribed, they would just kill an animal and they would more or less just mimic the priest's duties out in the field and they would consider themselves to have done their sacred duty. This was not acceptable. Why? Not only because it violated God's regulative principle, but it also was very much like the sacrifices that were offered by the pagan neighbors around them. During this particular time, there were many who worshipped the idol Pan. One commentator said this, he said, the Hebrew word translated devils in the King James and goat demons in the New American Standard is literally hairy ones. In Isaiah 13, 21, Isaiah 34, 14, it's rendered satyr. In the authorized version, and wild goats in the American Standard Version. He says, the satyr was an imaginary being, half goat, half man, of demon nature in Egypt. The goat man, Pan, was worshipped. It would seem as though this word recognized the fact that these people had in Egypt probably worshipped the false god. Not to get on a too much of a tangent here, but if you've ever seen the movies, the Chronicles of Narnia, I believe it's Mr. Tumnus, is it not? Who is one of these hairy ones. I can't reconcile in my mind how C.S. Lewis thought it would be a good thing to make one of the most beloved characters in the books and the movies just like Pan. Who knows, right? But it is fiction, so we'll just let him pass on that. There were many who had created various idols to be worshipped, and it was not uncommon, not only in the case of Pan himself, it was not uncommon for the pagans to develop idols that had human characteristics as well as animal characteristics. Why? Because they thought that we were all one in the same. You know, animism was a big thing among the pagans. They wanted to bring nature around them as close to humanity as they could, not recognizing that man is uniquely created to exercise authority and dominion over the rest of creation, not realizing that especially redeemed man was set apart and consecrated as hagios, He's completely different from the world around him. This is one of the things that really bothers me so much about the renewed interest in Thomism and natural law, natural theology today. There can be a blurring of the lines between nature itself and God's special revelation and God's special treatment of humankind. Don't ever blur those lines. It's neither good nor safe nor wise to do that. And yet that's what many of the pagan nations did. And so God's saying, look, I don't want you even coming close. Even though you might have the best of intentions as you kill those animals out in the field and you declare that this is a sacrifice unto the Lord, I don't want you coming close to mimicking the behaviors of the pagans. Don't do that. Again, in the interest of establishing that regulative principle, any sacrificial offerings that the Israelites might care to make should be brought to the tabernacle. That's why it was created, and that's where the priests and the priests alone did their sacred duty with regard to those things. In verses 10 to 14, though, the Lord instructs Aaron and his sons through Moses concerning the eating of blood. As I said, and we're going to spend most of our time on this, because this is one of the more misunderstood things. Even today among believers, I think this is fairly misunderstood. So let's read first what Moses writes here. And any man from the house of Israel or from the aliens who sojourn among them who eats any blood, I will set my face against that person who eats blood and I will cut him off from among his people. For the life of the flesh is in the blood and I've given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood by reason of the life that makes atonement. Therefore I said to the sons of Israel, no person among you may eat blood, nor may any alien who sojourns among you eat blood. So when any man from the sons of Israel or from the aliens who sojourn among them in hunting catches a beast or bird which may be eaten, he shall pour out its blood and cover it with earth. For as for the life of all flesh, its blood is identified with its life. Therefore I said to the sons of Israel, you are not to eat the blood of any flesh, for the life of all flesh is its blood. Whoever eats it shall be cut off." The eating of blood was prohibited, not just among the Israelites, but also for any foreigners who might be residing among them. Now, why would this apply to foreigners? Well, because it's very likely that, like people today, there were many of the foreigners who liked their meat cooked medium-rare or rare. And this was their common practice as aliens to the Commonwealth of Israel, as pagans who were just more or less looky-loos coming in to see what was going on in the camp. Many of them might have cooked their own meat, leaving some of the blood in the meat. And this would have been prohibited because the blood is identified with the life of the animal. It represents life as we read in verse 11. What would happen to someone who ate blood? Well, the Lord's very clear. The Lord says I will set my face against that person who eats blood and will cut him off from among his people. Now to set one's face against someone. Was basically to ignore them. This means you could be standing right next to them. You could make eye contact with them and turn away so as to convey to them that you had no interest in anything they had to say, no interest in talking to them, no interest in communing with them in any way. That's what it meant to set one's face against another. And to have the Lord say that means that if you do this thing that I'm prohibiting, I will ignore you. Now, of course, he's omnipresent. He can't leave from among their midst, but he can make them feel as if he is even more distant than many of them realized. He can make it seem as though they aren't receiving the blessings that those around them in good standing with the Lord might be receiving. Sometimes the Lord's greatest chastisements of us are when he is silent. Right? Remember Job. We've been talking about Job for a long time now. in our Wednesday night meetings, and Job is a quintessential example of this. Job himself, the righteous, upright man who fears God, is finding himself bereft of God's companionship, God's company, God's communion, and it's having a devastating effect on him. And so, again, this is what it means to set your face against another. The Lord also says here that the offender would be cut off from among his people. This simply means that the one guilty of eating blood would be exiled, or if not exiled, ostracized. deprived of any real meaningful communication with his people. The people themselves, on the basis of God's turning his face away, the people themselves were to consider that one who ate the blood to be out of fellowship. They would extend a cold shoulder to that person. And this would have been really one of the more terrifying prospects for the Israelite sojourning in the wilderness. I mean, especially being exiled. I mean, you're you're in the middle of nowhere. You don't know where you're at and they exile you. Where are you going to go? Well, chances are nowhere fast and chances are even greater that you would be exiled and try to make your way to the next city, the next village. Probably you would end up walking around in circles until you fell dead. That happened to a lot of people who were exiled, especially if they were exiled and tried to find their place in another community of Israelites. They would somehow have to explain why it is they're not where they should be. This wouldn't have happened during the Exodus, of course, because they're all in one place. But later on, there were all kinds of people being exiled and put out, and they would try to go to other places, other synagogues, only to quickly find out that word had been sent ahead that they are no longer to be considered part of our group. And so again, that would be a horrifying thing. Now, how about hunters? Well, the hunters, we're told, as the animal was slain and being processed for food, the hunter was to take great care in making sure that the blood was to be poured out. Normally, I'm not going to get too graphic here, but normally there are certain arteries that you can sever and hang the animal upside down and all the blood drains out. Come to find out, we actually do this when we field dress deer out on the reserve or the deer lease. We hang them up, get the block and tackle, hang them up, usually behead them and all their blood drains out. And we do that not because we're beholden to this particular provision, but we do that because it's better for the meat. You don't want to leave the blood in the meat. at least too much of it because it can quickly decay and things like that. So they were to make sure that the blood was poured out and covered with earth. In other words, they were to bury the blood. Why? Why would you have to bury the blood? Well again, it was a sign that you respected the life that was exchanged to provide for you. You know, there was a respect there. There was an immediate recognition that spilling this animal's blood was the equivalent of taking its life in exchange for my life, right? It's very important that we understand this in this particular focus because it also will come into a heavier meaning later on when we understand the blood of Christ that was spilled for us. It was an exchange of His life for our life. Once again, I'd have you go to Hebrews. Just go to Hebrews chapter 9. Let's read about this from the light of the New Testament. In Hebrews 9, the author helps us connect the dots between the old covenant practice of sacrificing bulls and goats and the new and better covenant that was introduced and ratified by the death of Christ. Hebrews 9 verse 11. But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, he entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation, and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through his own blood. He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling those who have been defiled, sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? For this reason, he's the mediator of a new covenant. So that since a death has taken place for the redemption of the transgressions that were committed under the first covenant, those who have been called, it's very important. Keep that in mind. We're going to talk about that in the next hour. Those who have been called may receive the promise of the internal inheritance. For where a covenant is, there must of necessity be the death of the one who made it. For a covenant is valid only when men are dead. For it is never in force while the one who made it lives. Therefore, even the first covenant was not inaugurated without blood. For when every commandment had been spoken by Moses to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of the calves and the goats with water and scarlet wool and hyssop and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people saying, this is the blood of the covenant which God commanded you. And in the same way, he sprinkled both the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry with the blood. And according to the law, one may almost say all things are cleansed with blood and without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness. That's the whole principle, right? Without the shedding of blood, there cannot be forgiveness of sins. Why? Because every one of us comes into this world with blood guiltness on our being. Every one of us comes into this world guilty of the sin of our father, Adam. This is what's known as the doctrine of original sin. We all come into this world, whether we've committed any actual sins or not, we are sinners because our father, Adam, plunged the whole of the human race into sin. And as such, we are an affront to a thrice holy God. Being an affront to a thrice holy God means only one thing. That means we are also subject to his wrath. That means that it's either our blood that must be spilled as a way of appeasing his wrath or it must be the blood of another. It couldn't have been the blood of bulls and goats because we know for a fact that that was not effective or efficacious. It must be the blood of someone that God himself deems to be a perfect substitute And who's that? It's Christ. It's Christ. And that's what the writer of the Hebrews is describing here. Jesus Christ, in shedding his blood on Calvary's cross, did something that all of the bulls, goats, pigeons, turtle doves, you name it, all the animals on earth, should we all spill their blood, every drop of it, it would not have atoned for us, even in the slightest. because God in eternity past designated that the only suitable sacrifice would be that of His Son. This is again why in Revelation 13.8 Christ is known as the Lamb of God slain before the foundation of the world. In the mind of God this was the only solution. And yet as this aperture opened slowly with regard to redemptive revelation He had to put shadows and types and pointers, ways for us to see that this was coming. And again, I have to say just how blessed we are to be able to look back on the finished work of Christ as opposed to having to look at types and shadows and figures and prefigurements that look forward to the coming of Christ. It's like I've said before, it would be like looking at really bad negatives to try to determine what a picture actually looks like. A lot of you younger people don't even know what a negative is. Long time ago, we used to take film to a photo processor. Somebody got wise back in the 80s and they started putting these little kiosks all over town where you could just, you could drive up and pass your film to them and then come back the next day or the next week and collect your pictures. And along with these pictures, which came in a little paper pouch, along with these pictures, these photos, they would also supply you with the negatives. And the negative is what they use, they put it in this little thing and it shines down on this photosensitive paper and they use chemicals and all this and it brings out the color. Well, if you've ever seen a negative, you can't hardly tell anything about that. I mean, people look grotesque, you can't see the color. Some people after the photos are, never mind. But it's really a good picture of what the Old Testament is until the light of the new is able to shine on it. Now we see Christ in technicolor. We see Christ in all of His glory. Now, there's coming a day when we will yet experience more of that glory for all eternity. But even now, we have the ability to see Christ for who He is. Back then, not so much. Back then, they had the prophets, they had little snippets of revelation, and they could kind of glimpse what Christ might be like when He did come. And even then, most of the Israelites that we're talking about now missed it completely. because they had manufactured in their mind who he was supposed to be, and when he didn't live up to their expectations, they rejected him. On this side of the cross, though, we only have to look back at the New Testament to see Christ in all of his glory and to understand him more fully. The old covenant, sacrificial system, as inefficient and ineffective as it was, still served a valid purpose and that was to train the minds of God's people concerning the importance of the blood that was required for forgiveness of sins. Now since we're here we should go ahead and read the rest of the chapter. Further solidify this in our minds, that is Hebrews 9. The author writes, therefore it was necessary for the copies of the things in the heavens to be cleansed with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ did not enter a holy place made with hands, a mere copy of the true one. but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us. Nor was it that he would offer himself often as the high priest enters the holy place year by year with the blood that is not his own. Now get that again, not that he would offer himself often, Roman Catholics. Otherwise, he would have needed to suffer often since the foundation of the world. But now once, At the consummation of the ages, He has been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once, and after this comes judgment, so Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time for salvation, without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him." Christ is coming back, but He's coming this time as one who has accomplished the work of redemption for his children. And this means he's not coming back as a lowly babe in a manger. He's not coming back as this mild, obedient, supplicant to the Father who is treating everyone with kid gloves, as it were, and coming with gentleness and meekness. No, he's coming back as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He's coming back as the lion of the tribe of Judah. He's coming back with lightning at his fingertips and thunder in his voice. It's not going to be the same coming as it was before. But those of us who belong to him will recognize that. Those of us who belong to him, before any display of his wrath is meted out on his enemies, we will be taken to glory where we will enjoy His presence forever." What a wonderful thing that will be. So let's get back to our text. What if someone was to eat an animal that had just died? Roadkill. I don't think that was a thing back then. Most animals could probably get out of the way of a slow-moving cart, but roadkill, or just animals that die of old age. They just die of natural causes. Or what about those who have been killed by another predatory animal? A lot of people would believe that since the animal bled out anyway, it'd be okay to consume that animal. And I want you to notice how the Lord explains what to do in this situation in verses 15 and 16. He says, when any person eats an animal which dies or is torn by beast, whether he's a native or an alien, he shall wash his clothes and bathe in water and remain unclean until evening. Then he will become clean. But if he does not wash them or bathe his body, then he shall bear his guilt. There's a provision made for ignorance. Aren't you glad? Aren't you glad God makes provisions for the ignorant? I mean, sometimes we do things that are contrary to the Word of God and we don't really know that what we've done is contrary to the Word of God, especially as new believers, young believers. I remember years and years and years ago as a young believer, I shudder to think of all the silly things that I did not knowing. what it was that the Lord expected of me or demanded from me. And so this is the same sort of thing. You would have people who would think nothing of picking up these animals and just eating them as they normally would without going through the prescribed procedures. For them, the Lord says, okay, whatever, just go wash your clothes, take part in this ritual cleansing, and then by the time The evening comes, you'll be clean. But, here's the thing, there's still a command. Go and wash your clothes. Go and bathe. If you don't, then you will bear the same guilt that those in the previous mention will bear for not having taken this seriously. Now before we move on to chapter 18, which, given the subject matter, we'll be taking a very generalized approach to. If you've not read chapter 18 yet, I am not going to do a verse-by-verse exposition of chapter 18, especially in a mixed audience where there's young folks, not going to happen. I encourage you as parents, though, go over these passages with your young people and you can explain to them what I dare not explain in public. about those things. Now, this is not to say that there's any seedy nature to the Word of God. Understand, there is just certain subject matter within the Scriptures, I've mentioned Song of Solomon before, that is best left to private instruction. It's best left to your own reading. It's best left to parents training up their children in these things, rather than me running the risk of overstepping, embarrassing me, and perhaps you as well. It's not to denigrate the Word of God in any way. All of the Word of God is profitable, as the Apostle Paul says, but Paul also said, all things are profitable, but not all things, or all things are lawful, but not all things are profitable. So again, I have to be very careful in terms of these things. We are going to go over it, but again, it's going to be in fairly general terms so that we can at least get the overall import of what the Lord is conveying to us there. Anyway, since you may be exposed to this at some point, I want to talk about a subject that really needs to be brought up even today. This was a controversy back. It's, man, many years ago now. You know, when I think of the 80s, that was 20 years ago, right? It just dawned on me that 1985 was 40 years ago. How'd that happen? You know, you young people laugh, your time's coming. But there are many, and this seems to be, even today, more prevalent among independent fundamental Baptist types, but there are many who insist that the blood of Christ possessed some sort of supernatural or magic power which gave it its efficacy to remove sins, right? Some of us, again, are old enough to remember this was quite the craze at one point in our walking with Christ, and I'm glad we're not experiencing this as much today, but it certainly needs to be covered. This idea was actually carried along or helped along by popular hymns like, There's Power in the Blood, right? Remember that hymn? I actually like the hymn, as long as it's properly understood. But it does seem to attach a mystical or supernatural power to Jesus' blood that the scriptures themselves just don't speak about. If you've never heard the hymn, it starts out, would you be free from the burden of sin? There's power in the blood, power in the blood. Would you or evil a victory win? There's wonderful power in the blood. And then the chorus goes, there is power, power, wonder-working power in the blood of the Lamb. There's power, power, wonder-working power in the precious blood of the Lamb. Again, this has caused many to believe that the actual blood of Jesus was imbued with some sort of magical or mystical power, which again, it's not true, as we'll demonstrate in just a minute. But there's also another song that I absolutely can't stand, and we do sing it here on occasion. And I'm just going to be as transparent as I know how. I don't like this hymn. Why? Because there is no fountain filled with blood that flows from Emmanuel's veins. And all who are plunged beneath its flood lose all their guilty stains. There is no... I like hymns that are literal. I like hymns that allow us to sing forth the truth. Folks, there is no fountain in heaven. How gross is that anyway? There's no fountain in heaven that's filled with blood, that continually flows from Jesus' veins. Now again, if you take that to be not literal but figurative or metaphorical, okay, I understand what you're saying. What you're saying is that the death of Jesus Christ is efficacious from now until all eternity. Amen. Amen. But to ascribe some sort of magical or mystical meaning to the blood of Christ itself is something I'm just not willing to do because the scriptures don't do that. Back in the 80s, and that's the reason I mentioned the 80s, back in, I believe it was 1986, this argument came to a head. John MacArthur was blackballed. He was lambasted for his denial of the efficacy of Christ's blood. Some of you remember the blood controversy in John MacArthur? people actually began to send him hate mail. He had death threats because he had dared to question the efficacy of the blood of Christ. Now, what would lead somebody to believe that? Well, about 10 years earlier, and this is strange too because it took 10 years for anybody to be rattled by this, but it was during a Q&A session at his church when he said, it's not Jesus' bleeding that saved me, but his dying. It was that simple statement. It wasn't Jesus' bleeding that saved me, it was his dying. Ten years later, somebody at Bob Jones University decided to write an article in which he declared MacArthur's position as heresy. Unfortunately, instead of listening to MacArthur's entire answer, the author cherry-picked certain parts of it to make the issue look much more sinister than it actually was. Listen to Phil Johnson's recollection of all of this. He says plainly MacArthur was not denying that Christ literally shed his blood. No one would deny that. Of course he shed his blood. He was not denying that the literal shedding of blood was a necessary aspect of the atonement. We've been reading about that. Yeah, without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins. Got it, got it. His only point was that the efficacy of Christ's blood lies not in some property of the blood itself, but rather in the fact that Christ shed it in death. And such a death was the price of atonement for our sin. Moreover, if the blood of Christ is in any sense eternally preserved in heaven, it would be in the glorified body of the risen Lord, not in a bowl or a vial where it's perpetually offered or literally applied to sinners in some way." After an exchange of correspondence in which MacArthur thoroughly and carefully explained his original remarks, Jones wrote on October 16, 1986, saying, I believe the position MacArthur has taken in this matter is a heretical position, and all the correspondence in the world is not going to affect my convictions on that point. Nonetheless, Bob Jones' university officials soon began trying to downplay the controversy. They were clearly embarrassed by some of the squalid half-truths that were beginning to circulate among fundamentalists. They also now had a file of correspondence from MacArthur clarifying his position, making it clear that he was orthodox. Johnson goes on to write, to buttress their point, several of MacArthur's detractors insisted that Christ's blood was never human blood at all, but the very blood of God endued with divine power. That view is disturbingly similar to the ancient docetic heresy, which denied that Jesus's body was truly or fully human. Some of MacArthur's more militant critics have allowed their superstition on this matter to get the best of them. During the World Congress of Fundamentalism, which met on the BJU campus August 4th through the 8th, 1986, they passed a resolution declaring that Christ's actual blood is eternally preserved in heaven, where it is by some mystical means literally applied to each believer. According to the World Congress, such a rigidly literal view of Christ's blood is now to be considered a fundamental doctrine of Christianity, and they will break fellowship with anyone who denies it." And here's the thing, they still believe that. If you don't believe that there's a repository containing Christ's miracle-working blood in heaven from which it continually flows to make atonement for your sins and mine, then you can't be in fellowship with the independent fundamental Baptists among us. That's sad, that's tragic because what is our final authority on all matters of dispute such as this? It's got to be the Word of God. It has to be the Word of God. My point is simply this, given that as we just read from our text this morning, the life is in the blood and the blood sacrifice was representative of the exchanging of one life for another life, then it's not the blood itself that atones for our sin, but the death that the shedding of that blood brings about. Now think about it this way. If it's the blood, what could Jesus have done? Drip, drip, drip. How much of that miracle working blood would save us if he just cut himself and bled for us? Just a drop. A single drop would have been enough to save us for all time in eternity. Jesus didn't do that. Why? Because he was destined to die. The Old Testament prophets tell us it pleased the Lord to crush him. He was put to death by the hands of lawless men according to the divine appointment by God, Peter says in his Pentecost sermon. And it's only, get this, if it's just the blood and he just bled, he could have done that, bled out a little bit and then continued to live until a ripe old age, at which point the Lord would have taken him home by natural means. That would not have been in keeping with the picture of these sacrifices. The blood was representative of the life that was given to allow it to be used in that way. Understand that. And this is not to take anything away from the precious blood of Christ. We read throughout the Word of God that the blood of Christ is precious. It is. Why? Because He drained Himself of all of it to die for your sins and mine. And again, the doketic heresy was that Jesus was not fully human. That there was this co-mingling. Remember, the doctrine of the hypostatic union tells us there is no co-mingling of His humanity and His divinity. He was 100% man, 100% God. As 100% man, His blood was 100% human blood. There's no such thing as God blood. Because there's no corporeity in God. This is why this had to be made known to the disciples when Philip said, just show us the father and that's enough for us. And he's like, Oh, have I not been with you long enough for you to know that if you've seen me, you've seen the father. I am the exact representation of his nature, not of his being. How do we know that? Because no man has seen God at any time. The thrice-holy God in the Father and the Spirit are just that. They're Spirit. There's no physical makeup. And so there's no blood running through God the Father's veins. That would, at best, be an anthropomorphic view of God the Father. At worst, it would be the doketic heresy to suggest that Jesus was this actual co-mingling. He was the God-man, but more God than man. And that's just not true at all. Without the resurrection, where would we be? What does Paul say? He says in 1 Corinthians 15 that without the resurrection, your faith is futile. Well, why would that be? Why would that be if Jesus shed his blood on the cross even? That would be sufficient to save us. No, because he had to die. Why? Because you don't raise yourself from the dead without being dead. Without the death, there's no resurrection. Without the resurrection, there's no hope for you and me. And so it's all tied to his death. Now, again, I don't deny for one second that without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins. It's just that in every case, and this is true even of the Old Testament sacrifices, if it was the blood of the sacrifice that was so important, you know, they practiced a thing called bloodletting. They do this to heal livestock all the time. You can bleed a cow. Did you know that? You can actually bleed a cow fairly significantly and get a large portion of blood from each cow. And guess what? You could use the same cow every year till it died. I mean, they have mechanisms within their body that are going to create more blood as time goes on. You know, when you go donate blood, it's not that you live the rest of your life deprived of that blood. It builds itself, providing you have healthy bone marrow and all these other things are working in your body. Your body reproduces the blood that was lost. Why couldn't they have just bled the cows occasionally? Collected enough blood for the sacrifice and Bob's your uncle. He couldn't do that because it required the death of the sacrifice. Why? Because that's a picture of the death of Christ. Listen to Spurgeon here, one of his own sermons on the subject. He said, when we speak of the blood, We wish not to be understood as referring solely or mainly to the literal material blood which flowed from the wounds of Jesus. We believe in the literal fact of his shedding his blood, but when we speak of his cross and blood, we mean those sufferings and that death of our Lord Jesus Christ by which he magnified the law of God. We mean what Isaiah intended when he said he shall make his soul an offering for sin. We mean all the griefs which Jesus vicariously endured on our behalf at Gethsemane and Gabbatha and Golgotha, and especially his yielding up his life upon the tree of scorn and doom. The chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed. Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission, and the shedding of blood intended is the death of Jesus, the Son of God. The only reason I bring that up this morning is because if you've ever been confused about that, you really need to understand that biblically speaking, it's always and forever been about the death of the sacrifice. And not just the death. You know, we can just peel back the layers of that onion. As I said, it's not just the death, it's also the resurrection. And it's not even just the death and resurrection. It's also the ascension. Because had Christ not ascended to sit at the right hand of the majesty on high to forever make intercession for us, he could have died, he could have raised from the dead and continued living in and around Jerusalem, and where would we be? We'd be without a mediator. We'd be without our high priest in heaven, who, as it were, continually applies the efficacy of his blood sacrifice, but it all consummated with his death. There was no other way around it, either prophetically or really. So anyway, we're going to stop there. Ladies, I have my meeting with you this afternoon. So if that stirred up any questions in your mind, jot those down. Come prepared. Irma said she's got weeks of questions to ask this afternoon. We're so glad to have you back. You don't know what a blessing it is to, it was such a downer to look out, not that you guys aren't important, but you know, you look out and where's Irma? There's no Irma, but we're glad you're back. I'm glad that all of you are here this morning. So.