Deliverance and Access by Blood.
By H. Sinclair Paterson
As in Exodus we have deliverance through the blood, so in Leviticus we have access by the blood. And it is in access to God that we enjoy the privilege of worship. I take the words in verse eleven of chapter seventeen as really the key-note of the whole method of access to God. They reveal the foundation on which worship rests, a foundation stable and sure, approved by our Maker and Redeemer himself. What words these are! "I have given you the blood upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls." "I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that maketh an atonement by the life." Blood is the primal, fundamental demand of God in all the approaches of man unto himself. Many do not apprehend this nowadays; they think they can approach God in ways of their own devising without blood. There seems to be nothing so distasteful to the natural and unrenewed man as the idea involved in the shedding of blood. "If we have any self-respect"—so men talk—"we abhor the very idea of sacrificial blood. Why should we not go to God in fairer, nobler terms? Surely we are quite competent to deal directly with God, to have friendship with him, without any such thing as the death of an innocent victim." We are unwilling to admit any necessity for death. Such is the pride of our hearts, we imagine we can dictate to God, and have fellowship with him in our own way. God's primal demand is death, not life; God's primal statement is "The blood, which is the life, must be poured out, and then I can speak with you." Judgment must take place before there can be mercy. There can be no intercourse between God and man save that which is based on judgment executed and sin put away; there can be no communion or fellowship unless judgment precedes mercy. So it is in Exodus, judgment executed, then deliverance; and so it is in Leviticus, judgment, then ministry; and so it is with the last great work of deliverance wrought at Calvary—judgment, then deliverance and ministry. Mark the precise words used: "I have given you the blood," not you have given it Me. The blood is God-given; I have no right to kill an animal any more than I have to kill a man. I have no right to take away life—life belongs to God alone. . . . There is a distinction intensely broad and deep between heathenish notions of sacrifice and the teaching of Scripture. The heathenish notion is, that I have freedom of action, and that the animal which is my own I may slay if I choose and bring as my offering. . . . But God says, "I have given you the blood." It is God's divine gift to man, and it sets forth that divine sacrifice which in his own body the Lord Jesus Christ offered in the fullness of time for my sin.—H. Sinclair Paterson, M. D.