THE BLOOD OF CHRIST CLEANSETH FROM ALL SIN

"Christ, our passover, is sacrificed for us." -I Corinthians 5:7 [KJV] 

Thou art not wearied, my soul, I hope, with the subject of thy last evening's meditation; and if not, the subject itself of the passover is so abundantly interesting, that it furnisheth endless matter for the sweetest thought. Every thing in the Jewish passover was typical and figurative of Jesus; and therefore, that we might not err on so important a point, the Holy Ghost, by His servant the apostle, calls Him by this very name; "Christ, our passover," and adds, "was sacrificed for us." A lamb of the first year, without blemish and without spot, was set apart, in the Jewish church, for the observance of this service; and Christ, the Lamb of God, Who was "holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners," was set apart, in the christian church, for the redemption of His people, from all eternity. The lamb was slain, in the Jewish church, and roasted with fire; and when Christ was slain on the cross, in the christian church, the agonies of His soul were such as one sustaining the fire of wrath against sin: He was made both sin and a curse, that His people might be made "the righteousness of God in Him."  

The lamb, in the Jewish passover, was to be roasted whole, and not a bone of him was to be broken; and one of the principal features of the Lamb of God, in the christian passover, is, that we are to receive a whole Christ for salvation, whose bones, when on the cross, as if to prove the allusion of the type to Him, by a divine providence, were not broken. The blood of the lamb, in the Jewish passover, was to be sprinkled on the lintels and posts of the houses of the Israelites, to preserve the inhabitants from destruction; and in the christian passover, it is not the blood shed only, but the blood applied, by sprinkling on the sinner's conscience, that delivers him from the wrath to come. Neither the bolts nor bars of the Israelites' houses, no, nor all the prayers offered up within, became the least cause of their safety; but the blood on the door. So, in like manner, it is neither the prayers, nor repentance, no, nor faith, as an act of our own, that can preserve from destruction: it is "the blood of Christ alone, that "cleanseth from all sin."  

Oh! how blessed is it to see the great work of redemption thus shadowed forth in the scriptures from the beginning, and that the whole, and every part of the Jewish service referred to the christian sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. "Christ, our passover, is sacrificed for us." Oh! for grace to keep the feast at the Lord's table, a feast upon that sacrifice, and to remember what the Holy Ghost saith:  "Christ being come an High Priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building; neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood, He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us," Hebrews 9:11-12. 

-Robert Hawker (1753-1827 A.D.)