From the MLJ Archive

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: The words to which I should like to call your attention this morning are to be found in Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians, in the first chapter and the seventh verse. The seventh verse in the first chapter of Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians.

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace. In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace.

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: There we are confronted with one of the most glorious statements that can be found anywhere in the entire compass of the Scriptures. One of those magnificent statements in which this first chapter of this Epistle to the Ephesians abounds. One of those staggering statements which seems to summarize in and of itself the whole essence and content of the Christian Gospel and the Christian faith.

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: And there is a sense in which I, at any rate, always feel, when I take a verse like this, or read a verse like this, there is a sense in which one feels that nothing ought to be necessary beyond just reading the statement.

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: And yet, of course, one is fully aware of the fact that merely to do that would be entirely inadequate. The very history of the Church shows clearly that a glorious statement like this needs exposition, because though we are Christians, we are not yet perfect. We are liable and subject to error. We are prone to heresy.

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: And the history of doctrine in the Church does show abundantly that it is with respect to a great and a mighty statement like this that there has often been the greatest confusion in the minds and the hearts of Christian people. And that, of course, is not at all surprising. We are here face-to-face with the heart of the Gospel, and therefore we can anticipate that the great adversary of our souls, the accuser of the brethren, the enemy of God, the devil, Satan, would be more anxious to confuse us and to becloud our minds and our understandings at this point than at any other point.

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: And therefore, I say, though there is a great deal within us that feels that we should just hold up this statement and drop on our knees before it, and worship and praise God on account of it, I say, in spite of that, it is at the same time most essential that we should look at it and analyze it, and be certain that we grasp its meaning.

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: It is, I say, therefore, one of those pivotal statements. It holds us right in front of the very nerve and center of the Christian faith. From our own experimental standpoint, therefore, there is nothing which is more important than that we should be clear with respect to the great doctrine which is taught in this particular verse.

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: Now, as we approach it, we must take it, of course, in its context. It insists upon our doing so. It says, "in whom." Well, to whom does that refer? Well, obviously, to the one who has been described at the end of the previous verse, the Beloved. There we were told that we have been made accepted in the Beloved. "In whom," says the Apostle, "we have redemption."

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: Here, in other words, there is one of those points of transition in this great preliminary statement in the introduction to this Epistle. We've reminded ourselves of that already, that the work of salvation is divided up in the Scripture everywhere as between the three blessed persons in the Holy Trinity: the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: And in verses 3 to 6, we have been considering already the work of the Father. The great purpose of the Father, the plan, the eternal plan of God. That which God has purposed before the foundation of the world for us. And it is, you remember, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, that we should receive the adoption of children, of sons, by Jesus Christ and to Himself, that we should be to the praise of the glory of God's grace, and, indeed, that we should become beloved, in the Beloved.

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: Now, that is the Father's work. The Father conceived it, planned it, purposed it, set it in motion. But how is it all come to pass? And the answer is that it has all come to pass in and through the Son. So that from this beginning of this seventh verse to the end of the twelfth verse, we are considering the particular work of the Son in the economy of redemption. And then in verses 13 and 14, we look at the work of the Holy Spirit in this great plan and purpose.

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: But now, here, I say, we come, we come to look at the particular work of the Son. We've been given the great vision. We've seen what God's ultimate objective is for us. There it is, that exalted position of sonship, of being holy and without blame, without blemish and without spot in the presence of God.

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: But here we are still on Earth, and still fallible, and still sinful. And the question that arises in our hearts is, how can we ever be brought into such an exalted state and condition? And here is the answer to that question.

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: And the Apostle comes at once to that which is most necessary. Obviously, something must be done to us before we can ever be brought there. There's a great obstacle to our ever getting there. And the obstacle is the obstacle of sin, sin in general and sins in particular. It is our sins that have come between us and God. You remember how the Prophet Isaiah puts that out. He said, "Why is it that God isn't blessing us? His arm is not shortened, His ear is not deaf that He can't hear us." Well, what is it then? Well, it is our sins that have come between us and God. And that is still true.

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: So that before we can ever arrive at that predestined position, which God has purposed for us, something has got to be done about this problem of our sin and our sins. And that is the special and peculiar work which the Son of God did when He came into this world. God, in His own eternal wisdom and foreknowledge, and according to His own purpose, devised the way whereby man could be reconciled to Himself. And the way is the way that is here outlined.

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: The obstacle has been removed, the problem has been solved. There is a way for man to rise to that sublime abode. An offering and a sacrifice, a Holy Spirit's energies and advocate with God. Now then, let us consider together the Apostle Paul's exposition of that way as we find it here in this particular verse.

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: The first thing he tells us is that this obstacle which stands between us and God, and which must be removed before we can ever be reconciled to God, that this has been dealt with in Christ. In whom, this Beloved of whom he has been speaking and whom he has mentioned so frequently.

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: Now, here again, we must start with this. As we've been working our way through these verses, we've had occasion constantly to stop and to notice the way in which the Apostle goes on repeating this name: Jesus Christ, Christ Jesus, the Lord Jesus Christ, Christ, the Beloved, and so on. The name constantly keeps on coming in, and here it is again: in whom.

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: Now, we can't afford to assume that having emphasized it so often, that there's no need to emphasize it again. Because there is no question at all that just here is the cause. We are face-to-face with the cause which stumbles most people in the matter of salvation. I suppose there is nothing that a Christian minister or any Christian worker is told quite so frequently by people who are concerned about their souls and their salvation than just this.

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: You ask a person, "Well, are you a Christian?" And the reply one almost invariably gets is this, "Well, I'm trying to be one," or "I'm trying to become one." Now, there is a statement, I say, which is an admission at once that this first, primary statement has never been understood. So let me put it to you once more.

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: The heart and the center of the Gospel is the same. That there is no salvation at all apart from the Lord Jesus Christ. The person Christ Jesus. Christianity is Christ. And anything that may represent itself as Christianity which doesn't insist upon the absolute necessity of Christ is not Christianity at all. There is no such thing as Christianity apart from this person. And unless He is the heart and soul and center, the beginning and the end of what is offered as salvation, it is not Christian salvation, whatever else it may be. Now then, let me divide that up in this way.

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: To put it negatively, we can state it like this, that we do not and cannot save ourselves. Or to put it in another form, we cannot make ourselves Christian. Now, you would have thought that it would be unnecessary, after nearly 2,000 years of Christianity in the world, to make that statement. And yet, I say, it is more essential than ever. If you still are thinking in terms of making yourself a Christian, or trying to be a Christian, it's a clear indication that you're entirely on the wrong road. And that as long as you go on that road, you will never become a Christian. The first thing we have to realize and to understand is that no man has ever made himself a Christian. No one ever can make himself a Christian. It is an utter, absolute impossibility. It is not something that you or I do or ever can do. And all the efforts in the world that we may make, fasting, sweating, praying, it will make no difference at all. Indeed, it will be the greatest hindrance.

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: Now that, of course, was the very experience of this man Paul himself. He'd been trying to reconcile himself to God. And his grand discovery on the road to Damascus was that that was the very essence of error. And that all in which he'd boasted was dung and refuse. It's the great story of all the greatest saints. It's the thing that led to the Protestant Reformation. It was the thing that Luther discovered, and Calvin, and all the great leaders coming down through Wesley and all others to this present day.

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: I therefore say again that the essence of this statement is "in whom we have redemption," negatively, is to say that we can never make ourselves Christian. And that to be trying to make yourself a Christian is to display that you don't understand the very beginning of the way of salvation. But let me go on.

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: The Lord Jesus Christ did not even come to tell us what we have to do in order to make ourselves Christian. You see, there are some who think they can put themselves right with God without mentioning Him at all. That must be wrong. Yes, but even this is wrong. There are those who think that His main purpose in coming into the world was in order to teach us and to instruct us, and to give us a stimulus and an example as to what we've got to do in order to save ourselves. It isn't that either.

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: Because what He tells us to do is even more impossible than the Law that was given through Moses. Take your Ten Commandments, put them up against the Sermon on the Mount, and you'll have to agree at once that the Sermon on the Mount is altogether more impossible than the Ten Commandments to a man in his own strength. So that our Lord didn't come to tell us what to do in order to save ourselves. He came to save us. Not to tell us what to do, but to do something for us, to act on our behalf. That's the very essence of it. "In whom." It is in Him we have salvation.

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: Christ doesn't tell us what to do to save ourselves. He has come to save us. "The Son of Man is come," He says, "to seek and to save that which is lost." It is He Himself who constitutes our salvation, what He has done, I say, on our behalf. Or let me put it in a yet, in yet another negative.

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: There are those who seem to think that what our Lord came to do was to tell us that God was ready to forgive us. You know, they put it like this. They say there are many statements in the Old Testament which say that God is a Father, and that God is love, and that God is ready to forgive, plenteous in mercy, and so on. Gracious and full of compassion, as a father pities his children, so the Lord, and so on. They say, "Now, all that was revealed in the Old Testament. God had announced to the nation of Israel, and through them to the world, that He was a God that was ready to forgive sins." But, they say, mankind found it very difficult to take in the teaching and to accept it and to believe it.

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: So, they say, God resorted to this expedient. He said, "I'll send My own Son. And as they listen to Him, and as they see Him, and behold His works, they will believe that I am love and that I'm ready to forgive." "When they listen to His teaching, they will take it in. They didn't listen to the servants, but they will listen to My Son." So they suggest, you see, that our Lord came in order to teach us about God's love and about God's readiness to forgive. And that He did so in the parable of the prodigal son and so forth.

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: But they don't stop even at that. They say, "Well, God even went further than that." He sent His Son even to the cross. And what you really see on the cross on Calvary's hill, they say, is a great and a glorious display of God's love and of God's readiness to forgive. And they say it works like this. God sent His Son into the world. The world didn't recognize Him, and the world crucified Him. And what God is really saying from the cross is this, "I'll even forgive you that." "Such is My love," says God to the world, "that though you've crucified My only Son, I'll forgive you for even doing that." It is, therefore, the supreme statement of God's readiness to forgive.

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: But that isn't what the Apostle tells us here. His statement is not that the Lord Jesus Christ has simply come to proclaim God's readiness to forgive, or that God is a forgiving God. No, no, it isn't that. The cross of Christ is God's way of making forgiveness. The message here is not that God is prepared to forgive Calvary, but that God is forgiving through Calvary. It is what God did on Calvary that purchases our forgiveness. So Calvary is not merely a proclamation or an announcement of God's readiness to forgive in His love.

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: It is God through what He did on Calvary's cross in His Son, making the way whereby He can reconcile us unto Himself. Now, listen to the Apostle putting it elsewhere. He doesn't say that God was in Christ announcing or making a proclamation of reconciliation and forgiveness. No, what he says is this: God was in Christ reconciling unto the world, or reconciling the world unto Himself.

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: Now you see the difference. It is in Christ that God reconciles the world unto Himself. He's not making a statement about reconciliation. He is making the reconciliation. "In whom we have redemption." The redemption is in Christ Himself. He's not the mere announcement of it. He is it. He Himself is it. God was in Christ, in and through Christ, by means of Christ, in what He did to Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself. He goes on to put it like this.

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: "For," he says, "He has made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." You see, it isn't a mere statement that is made in Christ. No, no. Christ has been made sin for us. Our sins have been laid on Him. And it is as the result of that action that God has reconciled us to Himself. Now, this, of course, is absolutely vital. If the Lord Jesus Christ is merely a statement of God's readiness to forgive, well, then He's merely one of a number of statements. And if you had sufficient understanding, you could be saved by the Old Testament without the coming of Christ at all. He'd simply be an exaggeration of a statement already made.

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: But that isn't the Christian doctrine of salvation and of redemption. The Christian doctrine of salvation and redemption is this: that Christ Himself is the salvation. Our salvation is in Him, as Paul puts it in the second chapter. He is our peace, who has made of twain one, and has reconciled us. He, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: Now, this can never be repeated too frequently. It can never be emphasized too much. Shall I put it in the form of a question? Do you believe, do you know that your sins are forgiven? Do you know that God has forgiven you? Well, very well. If you say you do, let me ask this further question: How does God forgive you? Let me ask another question which is still more searching: Do you believe, and do you see, and do you know that it is because of what happened in Christ and because of that alone that God has forgiven you? When you think of yourself and the forgiveness of your sins, do you think solely in terms of the fact that God is love, and that God is piteous, and that God is merciful and compassionate? And is Christ merely the greatest statement of that that's ever been made, or did He make the greatest statement with respect to it?

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: Or do you see and know and realize solely upon the fact that it is what happened in Christ that is God's way of forgiving you? That's the question. "In whom we have redemption through His blood." He is not merely a preacher. He is the salvation. Listen to Paul summing it up again in a great statement in the Epistle to the Corinthians. "But of Him," he says, "are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption." To be saved is to be in Christ, not simply to believe His teaching, but to be in Him and to be a sharer in His life, in His death, in His burial, in His resurrection, in His ascension. "In whom we have redemption through His blood."

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: Well, that is that first statement. Let me go on to the second. Not only is our salvation in Christ, but we are told in particular that He has redeemed us. "In whom we have redemption through His blood." Now, here again is a very important term, this term "redeeming" or "redemption." And as we look at and analyze this term, we shall see still more clearly the all-importance of what I've already been saying. Now, this is the great word that is used everywhere in the New Testament with regard to our salvation. I've already quoted one. "Whom God has made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption."

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: You've got it again in Paul's First Epistle to Timothy, in the second chapter and the sixth verse, "who gave Himself a ransom for all." You get it again in the Epistle to Titus, in the second chapter, where Paul puts it so clearly that He gave Himself for us, that He might separate unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. And in that whole context, you see, the suggestion is still that who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: And the Apostle Peter says exactly the same thing. "For as much as ye know," says Peter in the First Epistle, in the first chapter, in the 18th verse, "For as much as ye know that ye were not redeemed from your vain conversation inherited by tradition from your fathers, by gold or silver or any such thing, but by the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without spot and without blemish." You notice his term, it is "redeemed."

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: Now, this, therefore, is a very vital term as we come to consider this doctrine. What does it mean exactly? What is the meaning of this term "redemption"? The Bible itself answers the question in the Old Testament and in the New: it means deliverance by the payment of ransom. That's the meaning of redemption. You redeem something by paying the stipulated price.

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: Now, that's used in many ways in the Old Testament. If a man had been made a slave, he'd been captured and conquered by somebody, and he'd been made a slave, he could be redeemed by his nearest kinsman if the kinsman was able to pay the adequate price. And if the kinsman paid the price, he redeemed his relative. That's how the term is used. It's used in the same way if a man had been put into prison. He could only come out of prison if his kinsman paid the adequate price. Or if a man was killed by somebody else, then his nearest relative could redeem his death by taking certain action. That's the way in which the term is used in the Old Testament.

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: And it's used in the same way in the New Testament, and sometimes it's used like this. It is the term that was used about setting free a slave. If a man had been made a slave, I say, he could be set at liberty by someone paying a purchase price for him. In fact, slaves were sold from one owner to another, and the price that was paid was the kind of ransom price. You could buy a slave in a market, and you could buy him out of slavery. Now that is the essence of the meaning of this term "redemption." It's a term that is used to explain the doctrine, and it must be taken in its New Testament and in its Old Testament setting, and there we have it.

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: So that as we are told here that "in whom we are redeemed," or "in whom we have redemption through His blood," that's the meaning. Now, you remember that our Lord Jesus Christ Himself taught exactly the same thing. There is one of the most important statements in the Gospel according to Matthew, the 20th chapter and the 28th verse. He said, "The Son of Man is not come to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give His life a ransom for many." He said, "That's why I've come into the world. I've not come that you might minister to me; I have come to minister to you. I have come to do something for you that no one else could do." "And what I've come to do is this: I have come to give My life a ransom for many."

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: Very well, then, we are face-to-face with this doctrine. You and I and the whole of mankind were in a state of bondage as the result of sin. We are held as slaves and as serfs. And we simply cannot set ourselves at liberty. The story of the Old Testament, in a sense, is the story of mankind, and especially His chosen nation, trying to set itself free by keeping the Law, but completely failing. There is none righteous, no, not one. The whole world lies guilty before God. The whole world is in the slavery of sin and of Satan, under the dominion of Satan. That's the term.

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: We are in bondage to the Law. The Law of God holds us in and condemns us, and stands between us and the knowledge of God and reconciliation to Him. Its demands, its penalties are perfectly plain and perfectly clear. And there is no man and no collection of men that can ever pay the price. That's the fundamental teaching of the whole Bible. Very well, what has happened in Christ? Well, this is what has happened in Christ. He came into this world in order to redeem us. He came in order to pay the ransom price. He came in order that He might lay down that deposit that would secure our emancipation. He came to purchase our deliverance.

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: You can't explain the term "redemption" in any other sense than that. That is its characteristic meaning, I say, everywhere, right through the Scriptures. So the result is, you see, that we are told about ourselves who are Christians, "You are not your own; you have been bought with a price." And what is a Christian? Well, a Christian, says Paul, is a bond servant, a bond slave of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's how he always describes himself. He calls himself a servant of Jesus Christ. What he really says is, "I am the bond slave of Christ. I was the slave of Satan. Christ has bought me in the market. I'm now the bond slave of Christ. I'm His property. I belong to Him."

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: We are not our own. We have been redeemed. We have been bought. We have been purchased. Listen to it in the Book of Revelation: "Thou art worthy to take the book and to open the seals thereof," cried the glorified saints. Why? Well, "for Thou has been slain and has redeemed us to God by Thy blood." "In whom we have redemption." It is in Christ and by Christ we are saved. And what He has done to save us is that He has bought us. He has redeemed us.

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: The term is still used, isn't it? People who get into difficulties sometimes go to a pawnbroker, and they lay something there as a deposit in order that they may receive a certain amount of money on loan. And then they want to have that priceless possession back. What do they do? Well, they must go and pay money to redeem it. It's the same principle exactly. And Christ saves us by redeeming us, by ransoming us, by paying the price that was necessary for our liberation. And what was the price? Well, that brings me to my last subject for this morning. "In whom we have redemption through His blood."

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: "By His blood." Now, here, of course, we are at the very center, the very crux of the whole doctrine. I wonder whenever you've read this great statement, whether you've ever been struck by the fact that the apostle says that "in whom we have redemption by His blood." Why didn't he say "by His death"? Why did he deliberately say "blood," do you think? Now there are so many people who object to this. They say they can't abide this theology of blood. They say, if it were death, it'd be all right, but why blood? But Paul deliberately says blood. "In whom we have redemption through His blood," not through His death, but the blood in particular.

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: Again, we have to emphasize the fact that when the apostle does a thing like this, he's obviously doing it quite deliberately. And I think he does it deliberately in order to emphasize this: that what happened in the death of Christ can only be understood adequately in terms of the Old Testament sacrificial language. Now let me give you some examples and illustrations of how this is the characteristic language of the Old Testament. of the New Testament with regard to our redemption. Listen to Romans 3:25. "Whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood." There it is again, you see, quite explicitly. "That He might declare His righteousness," etc.

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: You've got it in this second chapter of this Epistle to the Ephesians, in the 13th verse: "But now in Christ Jesus, ye who sometimes were far off, are made nigh by the blood of Christ." And, of course, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, as we saw in that reading at the beginning, and it's to be found everywhere else, this is the great and the central doctrine. Did you notice it there in that ninth chapter, in the 12th verse: "Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood, He entered in once," and so on. "Therefore, holy brethren," says the same men in the 10th chapter, in the 19th verse, "having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus." It's always this blood.

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: And again, you remember Peter puts it, "We are redeemed not by gold or silver, but by the precious blood of Christ." And John says it, "If any man sin," he says, "the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin." It's the blood that cleanses. It's always the blood. And in the Book of Revelation, again, you remember we have it: "unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood." It's always the blood, not simply the death of Christ, but in particular, the blood of Christ.

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: And why? Well, I say for this reason: It is to show us that what the Lord Jesus Christ has done for us by His death is in line with the whole Old Testament doctrine as to the value of sacrifices. Our Lord Himself put it, "Think not that I am come to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill." He says that heaven and earth shall not pass away until every jot and tittle of the Law has been fulfilled. He's come to fulfill the Law. Listen to Him again after His resurrection, He puts it like this: He says, "These are the words which I spoke unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled which are written in the Law of Moses and in the Prophets and in the Psalms concerning Me."

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: The Old Testament sacrifices and offerings point to Christ. They have their meaning in Christ. What they teach is the teaching about Him. Well, what do they teach? Well, here is the teaching: The design of the sacrifices is to propitiate God. Men took the blood of bulls and of goats. They sacrificed, they killed the lamb, the sacrificial, the Paschal Lamb. Why? That God might be propitiated. That God might be reconciled, that God might smile upon them. They were done to propitiate, to appease God. That was one object.

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: But you notice that the propitiation was always secured as the result of the expiation of guilt. What I mean by that is this: that sin must be punished. Because sin carries guilt with it, and the sins were placed upon the animals. You remember the procedure. The high priest and the people put their hands upon the sacrificial animal, and then the animal was slain, and the guilt was expiated. And the proof of that was when the blood was taken and sprinkled on the mercy seat. God accepted it, and He forgave their sins. God is propitiated as the result of the expunging, the wiping out, the making atonement for the sin. Something has been done which satisfies God, and He therefore forgives. He is propitiated as the result of expiation.

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: And you notice that always that expiation was achieved in a vicarious manner. That means, I say, that the guilt was transferred to something else, to an animal, to a beast. It was the beast died vicariously. And therefore, the effect of such sin offerings was always to produce forgiveness and pardon for the offender who thus had suffered in and through his substitute. That is the teaching. And all that animal sacrifice and offering in the Old Testament is but an adumbration. It's a foretelling of what Christ was going to do once and forever. And there, in that ninth chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews that we read at the beginning, we are given the full and complete explanation of it all. It says the blood of bulls and of goats and the ashes of a heifer, they really were but figures. They merely covered for the time being. They really couldn't cleanse the conscience. They couldn't purify the heart.

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: But Christ has come, and He has offered Himself, and He has taken His own blood into the heavenly sanctuary, and He has laid it upon the heavenly altar. That's the blood that secures our forgiveness. Once and for all, He has done it once and forever. But it is the sprinkling of the blood that achieves it. And that for this good reason that "without shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins." Well, now we begin to see, do we not, why it was that the apostle speaks about the blood of Christ and not simply about the death of Christ? It wasn't the mere killing of the animal; the blood of the animal had to be taken and sprinkled upon the mercy seat, and God was propitiated. In the same way, says the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, it is Christ's blood that saves us. Not only the death, but the sprinkling of this blood in the heavenly sanctuary. And as the result of that, we are forgiven by God.

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: So that you see, the specific teaching about your salvation and mine can be put in this form: We are saved in Christ and by Christ alone. Not by any teaching, but by what He has done, by what He has achieved, by what God has done in Him and through Him. What has He done? He has ransomed us. He's paid the price. What was the price? The price was His own precious blood. He gave Himself for us. "I delivered unto you first of all," says the apostle to the Corinthians, "that which also was delivered unto me, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures." I've simply been expounding that verse this morning. It's the teaching of this book everywhere.

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: God has taken your sins and mine and has laid them upon Him. You see, in the Old Testament, as I've reminded you, the people came and they put their hands on the head of the animal that was to be killed. They were transferring their sins, transferring their guilt to that animal. The animal is killed, the blood is sprinkled. God forgives. And that is what has happened in Christ. He, God, has laid on Him, the Son, the iniquity of us all. He is the Lamb of God. Is it clear to you, my friend? If it is, you'll never again talk about trying to become a Christian or trying to make yourself a Christian, or that you are a Christian because you're living a good life and not committing certain sins. He, His death, His blood. It's that that saves you.

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: And it does and will save you. Though you may have sinned yourself almost into hell until this moment, if you believe this, you are forgiven. And that is salvation. Trusting solely, utterly, only, entirely to the fact that Christ is the Lamb of God, on whom your sins were laid and who's paid your price, who's ransomed you from the Law and from hell and from death and the grave, and has reconciled you to God.

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: You are not your own. You have been bought with a price. You have been redeemed by the precious blood of Christ. That's the doctrine. That's the message. And I know of nothing in heaven or earth this morning which is in any way comparable to this. That the Son of God has loved me and gave Himself for me, gave His life a ransom for me. His blood was shed, that I might be forgiven. Oh, the riches of His grace. Oh, the abundance of His love. It is here and here alone. We truly see and contemplate love so amazing, so divine. Therefore, my friends, go to the cross. Stand there and look at it. Survey it with Isaac Watts. See from His head, His hands, His feet, sorrow and love flow mingled down. Stay there until you see that you haven't a vestige of righteousness, that all your goodness is as filthy rags. But see your sins laid upon Him and see Him paying the price, the purchase price of your redemption, your salvation. And fall at His feet, and give yourself to Him, and worship Him and praise Him. And give yourself to Him, saying, "Love so amazing, so divine demands my soul, my life, my all," and give them to Him. Amen.