The Precious Blood of Christ – Charles H. Spurgeon

The Precious Blood of Christ – Charles H. Spurgeon

From the sermon “The Precious Blood of Christ”

The precious blood of Christ has a REDEEMING POWER. It redeems from

the law. We were all under the law which says, “This do, and live.” We

were slaves to it: Christ has paid the ransom price, and the law is no longer

our tyrant master. We are entirely free from it. The law had a dreadful

curse; it threatened that whosoever should violate one of its precepts,

should die: “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made

a curse for us.” By the fear of this curse, the law inflicted a continual dread

on those who were under it; they knew they had disobeyed it, and they

were all their lifetime subject to bondage, fearful lest death and destruction

should come upon them at any moment: but we are not under the law, but

under grace, and consequently “We have not received the spirit of bondage

again to fear, but we have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry,

“Abba, Father.” We are not afraid of the law now; its worst thunders

cannot affect us, for they are not hurled at us! Its most tremendous

lightnings cannot touch us, for we are sheltered beneath the cross of Christ,

where the thunder loses its terror and the lightning its fury. We read the

law of God with pleasure now; we look upon it as in the ark covered with

the mercy seat, and not thundering in tempests from Sinai’s fiery brow.

Happy is that man who knows his full redemption from the law, its curse,

its penalty, its present dread. My brethren, the life of a Jew, happy as it was

compared with that of a heathen, was perfect drudgery compared to yours

and mine. He was hedged in with a thousand commands and prohibitions,

his forms and ceremonies were abundant, and their details minutely

arranged. He was always in danger of making himself unclean. If he sat

upon a bed or upon a stool, he might be defiled; if he drank out of an

earthen pitcher, or even touched the wall of a house, a leprous man might

have put his hand there before him, and he would thus become defiled. A

thousand sins of ignorance were like so many hidden pits in his way; he

must be perpetually in fear lest be should be cut off from the people of

God. When he had done his best any one day, he knew he had not finished;

no Jew could ever talk of a finished work. The bullock was offered, but he

must bring another; the lamb was offered this morning, but another must be

offered this evening, another to-morrow, and another the next day. The

Passover is celebrated with holy rites; it must be kept in the same manner

next year. The high priest has gone within the veil once, but be must go

there again; the thing is never finished, it is always beginning. He never

comes any nearer to the end. “The law could not make the comer

thereunto perfect.” But see our position: we are redeemed from this. Our

law is fulfilled, for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness; our

passover is slain, for Jesus died; our righteousness is finished, for we are

complete in him; our victim is slain, our priest has gone within the veil, the

blood is sprinkled; we are clean, and clean beyond any fear of defilement,

“For he hath perfected for ever those that were set apart.” Value this

precious blood, my beloved, because thus it has redeemed you from the

thraldom and bondage which the law imposed upon its votaries.