Because he loved us he has washed us in the precious blood of Christ. Strange effect of love, the washing! strange result of the affection of the Lord! The washing you, mother, can understand it. Your little son has been out all the summer day. He has had splendid fun. Oh, what enjoyment! And he has stayed out till the shadows have fallen, and he is very tired, tired even of amusement. He comes into the house where love is, and what does love do? Oh, he is very sleepy; just let him go to bed. "Mother, I am awfully sleepy; I am not for any supper; indeed, I am so tired." But love has something to say, love has some action to go through before the dirty little boy can get between the clean sheets. Love draws out the bath into the middle of the floor, and love puts the towels there, and love puts the soap there, and love catches hold of the little fellow's collar, and in spite of grumbling, in spite of the little fellow's bad temper -- for he is sleepy, God help him -- plunges him into the bath, and love takes him out spluttering, but clean. So with God. Oh, how foul we were, how the streets of time had left their defilement on our spirit. What must love do in the first place? "Oh," says one, "love will just please wink and take us, bad as we are, into heaven; love will open wide the pearly gates and let us all as we are, unwashed, foul, unclean, into heaven." Would love do such a thing? How can a soul in all its vileness get into heaven without washing? That is the problem that God had to set to solve. How can man be just with God? How can the sinful soul get into heaven without washing? Nay, nay. There must be ablution, there must be washing, and what is to do it? A thousand rivers -- have they water enough to cleanse a sinful heart? What is necessary? What did God find and feel to be necessary? What is that awful tinge that reddens the waves of the laver of regeneration? What is this mysterious chemical, thou God, art putting there? Why this agony of thy beloved Son? Why the open side, why the pierce d hands and feet, why the blood? "Without shedding of blood there is no remission," says God. Do you think that God would have shed the precious blood of his Son had it not been necessary? Was it superfluous? Was it a mere superfluous reddening of the laver? It was necessary, God saw it.
"What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus."
-- John Robertson.
By J. Wilbur Chapan, "Present Day Parables."
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