No Forgiveness Without Blood

A couple of weeks after hearing a sermon on Psalms 51:2-4, a man wrote the following letter to the IRS.

"I have been unable to sleep, knowing that I have cheated on my income tax. I understated my taxable income, and am enclosing a check for $2,500.00. If I still can't sleep, I will send the rest."

King David had the same problem. His guilt about his adultery with Bathsheba and the arranged murder of her husband kept him from sleeping.

Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin! For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment. - Psa 51:2-4 ESV

David had sinned against Bathsheba's husband and against his own family. He had sinned against his nation and failed to provide the moral and spiritual leadership required of his office as king. But his sin ran even deeper and he knew it. He had sinned against the LORD God. Whatever happened now, the LORD would indeed be justified in doing it.

As he pondered his failings, David spoke of yet another troubling reality. This sin, this iniquity, was in him from the moment of his conception.

Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. - Psa 51:5 ESV

 Breaking God's commands, iniquity, transgression, depravity, sin, and the accompanying guilt—this theme  pervades and saturates the Biblical account from the Garden of Eden onward. It is an inner soul-sickness that passes on from one generation to the next. David saw it in his own miserable life. He had flaunted the commandments of the LORD to honor marriage and protect human life. Not only was he guilty, but so also was his family, his siblings and his parents. He had been conceived in sin and guilt! Inwardly he felt like all his bones were broken, so intense was his pain. Was there no way out of this misery and pain? He pleads with the LORD God to wash him and make him clean.

Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice. Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. - Psa 51:6-9 ESV

He must not hide from the truth. He must admit his guilt and be prepared to accept punishment for what he had done and for what he had failed to do. This was the chokmah, the wisdom he pleaded for. This is the basic, practical skill that every sinner must learn. Each must face up to his/her personal failings and sins. No more secrets. Every layer of this perversity must be uncovered. Only then is purging and washing possible.

Notice David's strange prayer: Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. What in all the world does a flower (hyssop) have to do with being purged and cleansed? Hyssop is an aromatic plant of the mint family. It has a strong wiry stem with bunches of flowers and leaves able to absorb liquids like water and blood in the same way as the natural and manufactured sponges we commonly use today. So hyssop was used in various rituals such as sprinkling blood on the doorposts at Passover (Ex. 12:22), blood and water on lepers (Lev. 14:4-7), on an infected house (Lev. 14:33-57), on a person who had touched a dead body (Num. 19:11-22).

These strange—at least to us—rituals were critical to the lives of these people. They were God's way of speaking to them through symbolical, ritual acts. And what was He saying? Death and disease is what you deserve. Separation from your family and homes is what you deserve. You deserve to be cut off from Me, your God, forever. You deserve death. But I forgive you and the blood of these animals who must die in your place, their blood sprinkled upon you with the hyssop, this blood is My word of grace and mercy to you. You are clean, you are washed.

The writer of the NT book Hebrews helps us to understand the significance of this cleansing. These symbolical rites and rituals were metaphors and parables that pointed to a deep reality: God does not desire the death of the sinner. He is a just God who demands that each and every command He has given must be obeyed, but He is also a God of mercy and forgiveness. How can these two contrasting realities come together? How can God be both just and merciful? All the OT sacrifices, with their accompanying rituals, point to the manner. Blood must be shed. Life for life. The animals—sheep, goats, cattle, birds— died instead of the people (Hebrews 9:9-10).

But were the deaths of animals truly sufficient to purify and cleanse the consciences of the sinner? For the moment it may have seemed so. But then sin came back and more sacrifices, more sprinkling and washing had to follow. Blood, blood, blood. Again and again. Sacrifices, rituals, sprinklings, washings. What did they all point to? What were these rites all about? The book of Hebrews interprets and clarifies it all for us. All the sacrifices and rituals were but copies of a greater heavenly plan. They pointed to that one, final and eternal sacrifice made by Christ. He is the world's High Priest who entered into the very inner Presence of God. There He has offered the final sacrifice, His life for ours, His death in our stead.

Thus it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him. - Hbr 9:18-28 ESV

Because of Christ the sinner may now be forgiven. I shall return to David and Psalm 51 in my next post.