0922. The Cross and Its Rejecters
The Cross and Its Rejecters
"And hath counted the Blood of the covenant, wherewith He was sanctified, an unholy thing" (Heb_10:29).
It seems to us that this lesson would not be complete if we did not give a brief consideration to the unbeliever's attitude to the Cross. Through the Cross the believer has salvation. The unbeliever may have a form of Godliness; he may in charity follow a system of ethics; but he knows nothing of the power of a Godly life. From such an one, Christians are told to turn away (see 2Ti_3:5).
1. The last days are to present false teachers, who will bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them. We know that we are bought with the precious Blood of Jesus; but these false teachers deny the purchasing power of the Cross. They confess not that Jesus Christ is God come in the flesh. They believe not that Jesus Christ was the God-man, Who died that He might bring us to the Father. These sinners accept the Cross only as the emblem of a meritorious adventurer. They have gone in the way of Cain.
2. These false teachers count the Blood of the covenant unholy. "Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the Blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing?" (Heb_10:29).
There are men to-day who think the Blood of Jesus Christ was just as common and no more efficacious than the Blood of a robin–they deny the saving efficacy of the Cross of Christ. They believe that the blood of a man could not save us, be that man ever so good and ever so true. To this latter we would agree; but, Jesus Christ is more than a man. He is God manifest in the flesh. God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself. It is not the Blood of Jesus Christ the son of Joseph, or even the son of Mary; it is the Blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, which cleanses us from all sin.
When ungodly men defame the Blood of Christ, they defame the Deity of Christ, because they make Him no more than a man.
3. There remains for these false teachers who deny and denounce the Blood of Christ, no more a sacrifice for sin. Who can die, the Just for the unjust, and bring them to God?
"Oh, to have no Christ, no Saviour!
How dark the world must be!
Like a steamer tossed and driven
On a wild and shoreless sea.
O, to have no Christ, no Saviour,
No rock, no refuge nigh!
Oh to have no hope in Jesus,
How dark this world must be!"
4. These false teachers will be punished. When our Lord Jesus comes He will execute judgment upon these ungodly men for "all their ungodly deeds, which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches, which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him." There is nothing more despicable than for a man to deny the power of the Cross.
The one who despised Moses' Law died without mercy under two or three witnesses; "of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the Blood of the covenant, wherewith He was sanctified, an unholy thing?" (Heb_10:29).
Let the Cross-despisers beware! Only the Blood-washed can stand before the throne of God, and serve Him day and night forever. The lot of those who reject the Blood will be the same as the lot of the first-born sons of Egypt who had no blood on the door post–they shall fall under the sword of the avenging angel.
Autor: R.E. NEIGHBOUR