“Did it never strike you how the whole tabernacle must have been smeared with blood everywhere? Blood was on every side. The priest himself, when at his work, with garments on which showed every stain, must have looked as though all besmeared with gore. You could not look at his hands or at his vestments without seeing everywhere blood: indeed, when consecrated, he had blood on his ear, blood on his foot, blood on his hand-he could not be made a priest without it. It was blood, blood everywhere.” –C.H. Spurgeon.
Now, doesn’t that just make you nauseous?
In this excerpt from one of C.H. Spurgeon’s sermons, he describes the ancient Hebrew practice of making animal sacrifices at the tabernacle where they worshipped. This was a way to atone for the sins of the people.
Can you imagine what it must be like to stand in a room covered in some heifer’s blood, while you yourself are drenched in blood as well? Doesn’t that just make you want to hurl? It reminds me of this one time I visited a messy butcher's store somewhere in Asia, and I swore I could have gagged my life away. Is it just me, or does anybody else find that bloody tabernacle imagery utterly disgusting?
Here’s the amazing part: the ugly, gruesome, revolting nature of this Old Testament practice was an attempt to visibly display a mere hint of God’s hatred towards sin.
He is righteous and holy. He is pure, and He shines unfathomably brighter than the sun and ten thousand stars combined. He is Love. He is Beauty. He is good and perfectly just. As Creator, He has an undoubted right to do whatever He pleases.
Yet you and I are imperfect. We mess up. We lie. We cheat. We harm our bodies in more ways than one. We harm others. We think bad thoughts. We speak destructive words. We harbor ill-feelings towards others and decisively refuse to forgive. We abuse our God-given sexuality. We dishonor God for the sake of our own real, yet ultimately fleeting pleasure. We forget the poor. We ignore injustices. We are materialistic, fake, and selfish. We are self-righteous.
Think of that blood-drenched room and high priest. Sickening, contemptible, abhorrent, and messy. That’s our sin. Let’s face the facts. How our God hates sin!
Nevertheless, He loves you and me. It is because of our hateful sin that Jesus died on the cross. Jesus took it upon HImself to deal with our sin through His bloody passion. Messy, disgusting, and grotesque of a job as it was to quench the just and good wrath of God, Jesus suffered what our sins deserved. Yet He did it out of love, in order to bring us to God.
Old Testament practices called for a spotless animal sacrifice to atone for the sins of the people. At just the right time, Jesus Christ, God Himself, became that ultimate and perfect Sacrifice who dealt with the problem of sin once and for all. Because of His perfect blood, we are no longer condemned to hell. Because of His perfect blood, we may draw near to God. Through Jesus, and only Jesus, our sins are forgiven. Because of His perfect blood, we may enter into the pleasures that come with an abiding relationship with Him.
If you consider yourself a Christian, I wonder if you hate your sin? Does the mess and stench of your sin make you want to hurl? If not, why not? Are you quick to get rid of the sin in your life? I certainly need tons of work in this area myself. This sounds really lame, but I oftentimes feel more sophisticated when I sin in certain ways. To my demise, I am unhealthily content or merely indifferent with the very things Jesus suffered at great lengths for.
I pray that God would give us the grace to see our hearts and our sin with His perspective. Moreover, that we would be utterly changed and moved in light of Jesus' work on the cross. Oh, that we would stand in awe of the beautiful holiness and kindness of our God Christ! It's my hope that we would be altogether stunned at the magnificence and power of the cross of Jesus.
