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Hebrew characters)
"The blood of Jesus, the Messiah, cleanseth us from all sin." You remember how, four days before the Passover, it was necessary to select a lamb without spot and without blemish. We think of the true Paschal Lamb, the Messiah, how, four days before the great sacrifice, he came up to Jerusalem, and was examined before the tribunals, and declared to be without sin. Pilate's testimony was, "Ye have brought this man unto me, as one that perverteth the people; and, behold, I, having examined him before you, have found no fault in this man touching those things whereof ye accuse him: no, nor yet Herod: for I sent you to him; and lo, nothing worthy of death is done unto him." (Luke xxiii. 14, 15.) You remember how the destroying angel passed over the houses where the blood was sprinkled: we look forward to that more dreadful time, when he shall come as the Psalmist describes:—
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"Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence: a fire shall devour before him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about him. He shall call to the heavens from above, and to the earth, that he may judge his people. Gather my saints together unto me: those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice." (Ps. l. 3-5.) And we hope to be found amongst that number, and that the blood of the true Sacrifice will then deliver us. It is evident that the Psalmist here is not speaking of the sacrifices of the temple, for immediately after we read—
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"Hear, O my people, and I will speak; O Israel, and I will
testify against thee: I am God, even thy God. I will not
reprove thee for thy sacrifices or thy burnt offerings, to have
been continually before me. I will take no bullock out of thy
house, nor he goats out of thy folds." Here God plainly
excepts the offerings of bulls and goats, and thereby overthrows
the exposition of Rashi and others, who say that the covenant
and sacrifices here alluded to are the same as those described
at the giving of the law, when Moses said, "Behold the blood
of the covenant," &c. (Exod. xxiv. 8.) The sacrifices then
offered were "burnt-offerings and peace-offerings of oxen,"
which God here declares that he will not accept. Besides, God
is not speaking of many sacrifices, but of one sacrifice (Hebrew characters)
