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Tracts and Literature
To Help You Reach the Lost, Grow In Christ, and Sound a Faithful Warning
Fundamental Evangelistic Association
When I See The Blood
by C.H. Spurgeon
GOD'S PEOPLE ARE ALWAYS SAFE. But God's
people are only safe through the blood of Christ. They are bought with the precious blood
of Christ. Nothing can hurt them because "the blood" is upon them. It was so
that night in Egypt; God spared because He saw the blood-mark on the lintel and on the two
side-posts. And so it is with us.
In the case of the Israelites, it was the blood of the
paschal lamb. In our case, it is the blood of a divinely appointed victim. Jesus Christ
did not come into this world unappointed. He was sent by His Father.
Sinner! The blood of Christ is well pleasing to God; for
God Himself did send Christ to be the Redeemer and He Himself did lay upon Him the
iniquity of us all. It was God's will that the blood of Jesus should be shed. Jesus is
God's chosen Saviour for men. Sinner! He is able to save you.
Christ Jesus, like the lamb, was not only a divinely
appointed victim, but he was spotless. Had there been one sin in Christ, He had not been
capable of being our Saviour-but He was without sin. Turn, then, your eye to the cross and
see Jesus bleeding there and dying for you. Remember, "For sins not His own, He died
to atone." The blood of Jesus; is able to save thee because "He died, the Just
for the unjust."
But some will say, "Whence has the blood of Christ
such power to save?" Not only because God appointed that blood and because it was the
blood of a spotless being, but because Christ Himself was God. If Christ were man only,
there would be no efficacy in His blood to save.
The blood is once shed for the remission of sin. The
paschal lamb was slain every year. But Christ, once for all, hath put away sin by the
offering of Himself. He has said, "It is finished." Let that ring in thine ears.
For a moment, try to picture to yourself Christ on the
cross. Lift now your eyes and see the three crosses upon that rising knoll. See in the
center the thorn-crowned brow of Christ. See the hands nailed fast to the accursed tree!
See His face, more marred than that of any other man. See it now as His head bows upon His
bosom in the agonies of death! He was a real man, remember. It was a real cross. Do not
think of these things as fancies and romance. There was such a being and He died as I
describe it. Sit still a moment and think: "The blood of that Man, whom now I behold
dying, must be my redemption. And if I would be saved, I must put my only trust in what He
suffered for me." God says, "When I see the blood, I will pass over you.
"
The blood of Christ-nothing but it can ever save the soul.
If some foolish Israelite had despised the command of God and had said, "I will
sprinkle something else upon the door posts," or, "I will adorn the lintel with
jewels of gold and silver," he must have perished. Nothing could save his household
but the sprinkled blood. And, now, let us all remember that "Other foundation can
no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ." My works, my prayers, my
tears cannot save me. The blood, the blood alone, has power to redeem. Sacraments cannot
save me. Nothing but the blood of Jesus has the slightest saving power. O you that
are trusting in baptism, confirmation or the Lord's Supper-nothing but the blood
can save. I care not how right the ordinance, how true the form, how scriptural
the practice: it is all vanity to you if you rely on it to save. God forbid that I should
say a word against ordinances or against holy things-but keep them in their places. If you
make them the basis of your soul's salvation, they are lighter than a shadow. There is
not-I repeat it again-the slightest atom of saving power anywhere but in the blood of
Jesus. That blood only has the power to save. The blood stands out the only rock of our
salvation.
So jealous is God about this that anything you put with
Christ, however good it is, becomes, from the fact of your putting it with Him, an
accursed thing. And what is it that thou wouldst put with Christ? Thy good works? What!
Wilt thou yoke a reptile with an angel-yoke thyself to the chariot of salvation with
Christ? What are thy good works? Thy righteousnesses are "as filthy rags"-and
shall filthy rags be joined to the spotless Christ? It must not be. Rely on Jesus only,
and thou canst not perish. But, rely on anything with Him and thou are as surely condemned
as if thou shouldst rely on thy sins. Jesus only-this is the rock of our salvation.
"Oh," says one, "I could trust in Christ if
I felt my sins more." Sir, is thy repentance to be a part-Saviour? The blood is to
save thee, not thy tears; Christ's death, not thy repentance. Thou art bidden this day to
trust in Christ, not in thy feelings on account of sin. Many a man has been brought into
great soul-distress because he has looked more at his repentance than at Christ:
Could my zeal no respite know,
Could my tears forever flow,
All for sin could not atone,
Thou must save and Thou alone.
"Nay" says another, "But I feel that I do
not value the blood of Christ as I ought, and, therefore, I am afraid to believe." My
friend, that is another insidious form of the same error. God does not say, "When I
see your estimate of the blood of Christ I will pass over you." No, but, "When
I see the blood. " It is not your estimate of that blood-it is the blood that
saves you. As I said before, that magnificent, solitary blood must be alone.
"Nay" says another, "but if I had more
faith then I should have hope." That, too, is a very deadly shape of the same evil.
You are not saved by the efficacy of your faith but by the efficacy of the blood of
Christ. I bid you believe, but I bid you not to look to your believing as the ground of
your salvation. No man will go to heaven if he trusts to his own faith. You may as well
trust to your own good works as trust to your own faith. Your faith cannot hang upon
itself-it must hang on Christ. You must not think of your faith, but of Christ. Faith
comes from meditation upon Christ. Turn, then, your eye, not upon faith but upon Jesus. It
is not the efficacy of your believing in Him; it is the efficacy of His blood applied to
you through the Spirit.
I do not know how sufficiently to follow Satan in all his
windings into the human heart. But this I know-he is always trying to keep back this great
truth: The blood, and the blood alone, has power to save.
"Oh," yet says another, "If I had such-and
such an experience, then I could trust." Friend, it is not thine experience-it is the
blood. God did not say, "When I see your experience," but, "When I see
the blood of Christ." Acquire experience, cultivate the Christian graces.
But, oh, do not put them where Christ's blood ought to be.
I hear Thy welcome voice
That calls me, Lord, to Thee
For cleansing in Thy precious Blood
That flowed on Calvary.
All hail, Atoning Blood!
All hail, Redeeming Grace!
All hail, the Gift of Christ, our Lord,
Our Strength and Righteousness.
-C. H. SPURGEON
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