ere about the blood of Christ, he is not thinking of
that blood as shed on the Cross, the atoning sacrifice, but of that
blood as transfused into the veins, the source there of our new life.
The Old Testament says that 'the blood is the life.' Never mind about
the statement being scientifically correct; it conveys the idea of the
time, which underlies a great deal of Old and New Testament teaching.
And when John says the blood of Jesus cleanses from 'all sin,' he says
just the same thing as his brother Paul said, 'the law of the spirit of
life in Jesus Christ makes me free from the law of sin and death.' That
is to say, a growing cleansing from the dominion and the power of sin is
granted to us, if we have the life of Jesus Christ breathed into our
lives. The metaphor is a very strong one. They tell us--I know nothing
about the truth of it--that sometimes it has been possible to revive a
moribund man by transfusing into his veins blood from another. That is
a picture of the only way by which you and I can become free from the
tyranny that dominates us. We must have the life of Christ as the
animating principle of our lives, the spirit of Jesus emancipating us
from the power of sin and death.

So you see, there are two aspects of Christ's great work set before us
under that one metaphor of the blood in its two-fold form, first, as
shed for us sinners on the Cross; second, as poured into our veins day
by day. That works progressive cleansing. It covers the whole ground of
all possible iniquity. Pardon is much, purifying is more. The sacrifice
on the Cross is the basis of everything, but that sacrifice does not
exhaust what Christ does for us. He died for our sins, and lives for our
sanctifying. He died for us, He lives in us. Because He died, we are
forgiven; because He lives, we are made pure. Only remember John's 'if.'
The 'blood of Jesus will progressively cleanse us until it has cleansed
us from _all_ sin,' on condition that we 'walk in the light,' not
otherwise. If the main direction of our lives is towards the light; if
we seek, by aspiration and by effort, and by deliberate choice, to live
in holiness, then, and not else, will the power of the life of Jesus
Christ deliver us from the power of sin and death.

Now, my text presupposes that the people to whom it is addressed, and
whom it concerns, have already passed from darkness into light, if not
wholly, yet in germ. But for those who have not so passed, there is