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©FOUNDATION
A MAGAZINE OF BIBLICAL FUNDAMENTALISM
Dennis W. Costella, Editor; Karel Beyer, Production Manager; Matt
Costella,
Copy Editor
M.H. Reynolds, Jr. (1919-1997), Founding Editor
The Blood of Jesus
by The Rev. William Reid, M.A.
"Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the
holiest by the blood of Jesus," Hebrews 10:19
[This is a reprint of a book
published by James Nisbet & Co., London, England, in 1866. Liberty Bell
Press no longer prints this book and has granted permission to the FEA for
reprinting. This resource is available in a booklet from the FEA. Click
here to order].
©FOUNDATION Magazine, July-August 1998
Contents
Preface
Chapter 1: Forgiveness Of Sins Through The Blood Of Jesus
Chapter 2: How Our Sins Are Taken Away By The Blood Of Jesus
Chapter 3: The Blood Of Jesus, Not Conviction Of Sin, The Foundation
Of Our Peace And Joy
Chapter 4: A Letter About The Love Of Jesus
Chapter 5: Salvation Through The Blood Of Jesus, The Gift Of God
Chapter 6: The Blood Of Jesus Our Only Ground Of Peace With God
Chapter 7: Regeneration Through The Blood Of
Jesus <= you are here
Chapter 8: Faith In The Blood Of Jesus Essential To Salvation
Chapter 9: The Blood Of Jesus The Believer’s Life And Peace
Chapter 10: Faith In The Blood Of Jesus The Spring Of Holiness
Chapter 11: The Blood Of Jesus The Essence Of The Gospel
Chapter 12: The Holy Spirit’s Testimony To The Blood Of Jesus
Chapter 7
Regeneration Through The Blood Of Jesus
Topics In This Chapter:
- The Necessity Of Being Born Again
- Reasons Why We Must Be Born Again
- Ye Must Be Born Again
- Born Again By The Word Of God
DEAR READER - JESUS SPOKE OF regeneration as essential to salvation; and it is possible
you may feel as if that experience stood between you and the "precious blood of
Christ," (1 Pet. 1:19). It seems as if it did, but it does not; for we are
saved by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost, which is "shed
on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour," (Titus 3:6). It can
do you only good to consider the necessity of being born again, for it will shew you at
once your utter helplessness and the all-sufficiency of the blood of JESUS alone to give
you peace with God and a new heart. We do not shrink from the fullest statement of the
truth of Scripture on this point; for it will be found that it does not clash in the very
least with the truth, which I am specially desirous to impart, that we are not accepted as
righteous in God's sight otherwise than in Christ; for, says the Word, "He made him
to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in
him." The necessity of being born again will shew us only the more clearly that
we must be saved by faith in Jesus Christ alone. Turn to and read the third chapter of the
Gospel by John, and then ponder the following thoughts on this vitally important subject,
and see how you are stripped of every plea for mercy arising from yourself, and laid down
as a lost sinner at the cross of Christ, needing to be saved by "grace"
alone: -
Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God, asserts the
absolute necessity of regeneration, when He says, "Verily, verily, I say unto
thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God," (John 3:3).
And farther on, He says, as solemnly and decidedly, "Except a man be born of water
and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God," (John 3:5). And He
gives a fact as the reason of this necessity: "That which is born of
the flesh is flesh," (John 3:6). "Flesh," or corrupt human nature - man
as he is - is unfit to enter God's kingdom, and will ever continue so. No
self-regeneration is to be expected. The total depravity of human nature renders a radical
spiritual change of absolute necessity. The whole race, and every individual
"man," is utterly depraved in heart, his will averse from good, his conscience
is defiled, his understanding is darkened, his affections are alienated from God and set
upon unworthy objects, his desires are corrupt, his appetites ungoverned; and, unless the
Holy Spirit impart a new nature, and work an entire change on the whole faculties of his
mind by "the washing of water through the word," cleansing away his filthiness
of spirit as water cleanses away outward defilement, he must remain an unfit subject for
God's holy kingdom.
And observe that Jesus spoke of two classes only - those
who are "fleshly," and those who are "spiritual." We are
naturally connected - as are all mankind - with those who are "born of the
flesh," who, on that very account, cannot even so much as "see the
kingdom of God;" and we can get out of our natural state only by a spiritual birth;
for only "that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit," (John 3:6). All of
us being born of parents who were themselves fallen and corrupt, are necessarily infected
by the hereditary taint of depravity of nature; and, besides, "the carnal mind is
enmity against God, and is not -subject to the law of God, neither indeed can
be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God," (Rom. 8:7, 8), and
cannot enter into His kingdom. Attempts at morality are of no account with God. A moral
Nicodemus was told he required something deeper and more comprehensive than conformity to
a certain standard which passes with the world for morality. God's standard of holiness is
not morality but spirituality.
But some may say that, by publishing such extreme views,
we may make many well-meaning persons feel disgusted at religion, and go off from it
altogether.
But it is not our fault if they do so on account of the
insufferableness of Divine truth. Are you convinced that Scripture is right when it says,
"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked?" (Jer. 17:9).
Do you believe that, as a man in the flesh, you are more like Satan than God? - incapable
of knowing, loving, or serving God, and although in reputation for the highest morality,
utterly unfit for entering into His holy kingdom?
It is, no doubt, hard to believe that one's own self is so
bad as I have indicated, and none but the Holy Spirit can truly convince us of it;
but does not Jesus represent our condition as utterly depraved - as "flesh?" Does
He not solemnly aver, that without a new birth from above, not one-no, not even a
moral, learned, inquiring, Nicodemus - can see or enter the kingdom of
God? He does not say that he may not, but that he cannot enter - leaving it
to be inferred that it is morally impossible. And this arises from the fact of its
being a kingdom, as well as from the fact of our depravity. An anarchist has a decided
dislike to constitutional and settled government; so a man, who hates the law by which
God’s kingdom is governed, cannot be a loyal subject of His holy administration. God
would require to change His nature before He admitted any of us into His kingdom
with our nature unchanged. But as God cannot change, we must be changed, if
we would see or enter His kingdom. Before we can be happy and loyal
subjects of it, we must be, "born again;" and, being new creatures, have
its laws written in our minds and hearts.
Besides, as a professor in one of our colleges has well
remarked, " It is a principle of our nature that, in order to happiness, there must
be some correspondence betwixt the tastes, the dispositions, the habits of a man,
and the scene in which he is placed, the society with which he mingles, and
the services in which he is employed. A coward on the field of battle, a profligate
in the house of prayer, a giddy worldling standing by a death-bed, a drunkard in the
company of holy men, feel instinctively that they are misplaced - they have no enjoyment
there." And what enjoyment could unregenerate men have in God's kingdom, on earth, or
in heaven? Even the outward services of the sanctuary below are distasteful to them, in
proportion to their spirituality.As long as preachers keep by the pictorial and
illustrative - and speak of the seasons of the year, the beautiful earth, and the ancient
sea, mountains and plains, rivers and lakes, fields, flowers and fruits, sun, moon, and
stars - they comprehend the discourse and applaud it; but when the deeply spiritual and
eternally important form the theme, they feel listless, and characterise it as dull,
prosy, and uninteresting. But if we cannot enjoy a highly spiritual
discourse, it must be because we are "carnal," and want the spiritual
"sense" which always accompanies the new birth; for "the natural man
receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him: neither
can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned," (1 Cor. 2:14).
And is it not an alarming truth, that this being "BORN AGAIN" is not a making of
ourselves better, but a being made anew spiritually by God himself! This appears evident
from what Jesus said during His conversation with Nicodemus. His words are these, "
Except a man be born of water and of THE SPIRIT, he cannot enter into the kingdom
of God," (John 3:5). This great change is effected by the Holy Spirit, through means
of the living "water" of the Word of God-the testimony of Jesus-and is of a
spiritual nature, "for that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." It
consists not in outward reformation, but inward transformation. We must be regenerated in
soul in order to be truly reformed in life. The change is of such a nature that it is sure
to be manifested outwardly if it exist inwardly. If you wish to have a holy life, you must
be born again. Praying, weeping, striving against sin, and obeying God's laws, is just so
much labour lost, unless you have in the first place this born-again experience.
Ah! but you say, as you read this hard saying, This lays
me entirely prostrate before God, a sick and dying sinner; and I may give myself up to
despair at once, for such an experience is utterly beyond my reach.
No, not at all! You may well despair of self, for
self is incurably bad, but you are by this shut up to trust in "Jesus
only," (Mark 9:8). For, remember, Jesus continued to before this Jewish ruler
atonement through Himself, lifted up as a mediator, and God's love to a perishing
world, embodied in the gift and work of His Son. You want to be born again?
Well, Jesus would have you look to the Son of man lifted up, as Moses lifted up the
serpent in the wilderness, and you will thus be pardoned and made to live. You say you are
prostrated and helpless - with the poison of the serpent coursing through you - sick and
dying, and you want to live - to experience such a new life as shall prove not only a
present counteractive to the virus of this terrible death-poison, but also an enduring
spiritual reality? Well, Jesus says, in this conversation with the inquiring ruler, that
"God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth
in him should not perish, but have everlasting life," (John 3:16).
God sent His Son not to condemn the perishing men of the
world to lie in their corrupt and diseased condition, and perish for ever, but that He
Himself might die that they might be pardoned and saved! And those who are
recovered from the disease of corruption, tell us that they were "born again"
not by lying in their corruption and crying for a new nature, and expecting it to come in
some arbitrary and different way from that of faith; but their uniform testimony is, "Of
his own will begat he us with the word of truth," (James 1:18 );
we are new creatures, "being born again by the word of God,"1
(1 Pet. 1:23); and "whosoever believeth that Jesus is
the Christ is born of God," (1 John 5:1). The realisation of regeneration
being by faith in Jesus, you must fill your eyes with the atoning cross if you would have
your guilt removed, and you must direct your eyes to the risen Living One at the right
hand of God, and through Him get out of the old creation with its condemnation and
death, into the new creation with its justification and life, if you would know what it is
to be "born again," and have your heart filled with divine life. (See Rom. 6 and
Eph. 2). This is the truth which Jesus taught in His conversation, with Nicodemus; and
the whole drift of the Gospel in which it occurs is a copy of the mind of Christ on this
point; for the writer says, towards its close, " These are written, that ye might
believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life
through his name," (John 20:31).
If you still feel that you know nothing of being "born
again," bring your mind into broad and immediate contact with THE WHOLE of this
conversation. Do not close the book and moan over the misery of your state, as it is now
discovered to you by the awakening truths contained from ver. 3 to ver. 9; but go on until
you take in the discovery of the plain, gracious, free, and righteous way of getting out
of your death and misery, as you have it laid down by Jesus, when He speaks (from the
fourteenth to the seventeenth verse) of His own all-sufficient sacrifice, and His Father's
unexampled love and gracious purpose towards perishing sinners, and His willingness to
save and give eternal life to every one who believes in Him. "He that hath the Son
hath life"" (1 John 5:12).
Footnotes:
1"Every one who really believes is said to be born
of God; and as every true believer is a converted man, it follows that the production
of saving faith is equivalent to the work of regeneration...Conversion properly
consists in a sinner being brought actually, intelligently and cordially, to close and
comply with God's revealed will on the subject of His salvation." - Professor
Buchanan, D.D., LL.D.
Continue With: Chapter 8: Faith In The Blood Of Jesus Essential
To Salvation
Back to: Chapter 6: The Blood Of Jesus Our Only Ground Of Peace With
God
Return to: Table of Contents
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