When I See
The Blood

by C. H. Spurgeon
"The Prince of Preachers"

God's people are always safe.   But God's people
are only safe through the blood of Christ.   They
are bought with the precious blood of Christ.
Nothing can hurt them because "the blood"
is upon them.   It was so that night in Egypt;
God spared because He saw the blood-mark
on the lintel and on the two side-posts.   And so
it is with us.

In the case of the Israelites, it was the blood of
the paschal lamb.   In our case, it is the blood of
a divinely appointed victim.   Jesus Christ did
not come into this world unappointed.   He was
sent by His Father.   Sinner! The blood of Christ
is well-pleasing to God; for God Himself did send
Christ to be the Redeemer and He Himself did
lay upon Him the iniquity of us all.   It was
God's will that the blood of Jesus should be
shed.   Jesus is God's chosen Saviour for men.
Sinner! He is able to save you.

Christ Jesus, like the lamb, was not only a
divinely appointed victim, but he was spotless.
Had there been one sin in Christ, He had not
been capable of being our Saviour -- but He
was without sin.   Turn, then, your eye to the
cross and see Jesus bleeding there and dying
for you.   Remember, "For sins not His own,
He died to atone."
  The blood of Jesus is able
to save thee because He died, "the just for
the unjust"
.   (I Peter 3:18)

But some say, "Whence has the blood of
Christ
such power to save?"
  Not only because
God appointed that blood and because it was
the blood of a spotless being, but because
Christ Himself was God.   If Christ were man
only, there would be no efficacy in His blood
to save.

The blood is once shed for the remission of
sin.   The paschal lamb was slain every year.
But Christ, once for all, hath put away sin by
the offering of Himself.   He has said, "It is
finished"
.   (John 19:30)   Let that ring in thine ears.

For a moment, try to picture to yourself
Christ on the cross.   Lift now your eyes and see
the three crosses upon that rising knoll.   See in
the center the thorn-crowned brow of Christ.
See the hands nailed fast to the accursed tree!
See His face, more marred than that of any
other man.   See it now as His head bows upon
His bosom in the agonies of death!   He was a
real man, remember.   It was a real cross.   Do not

think of these things as fancies and romance.
There was such a being and He died as I describe
it.   Sit still a moment and think: "The blood of
that Man, whom now I behold dying, must be
my redemption.   And if I would be saved, I
must put my only trust in what He suffered for
me."
  God says, "when I see the blood, I will
pass over you"
.   (Exodus 12:13)

The blood of Christ -- nothing but it can ever
save the soul.   If some foolish Israelite had
despised the command of God and had said,
"I will sprinkle something else upon the door-
posts,"
or, "I will adorn the lintel with jewels
of gold and silver
,"
he must have perished.
Nothing could save his household but the
sprinkled blood.   And, now, let us all remember
that "other foundation can no man lay than
that is laid, which is Jesus Christ."
  (I Corinthians 3:11)   My works,
my prayers, my tears cannot save me.   The
blood, the blood alone, has power to redeem.
Sacraments cannot save me.   Nothing but the
blood of Jesus has the slightest saving power.
O you that are trusting in baptism, confirmation
or the Lord's Supper -- nothing but the blood
can save.   I care not how right the ordinance,
how true the form, how scriptural the practice:
it is all vanity to you if you rely on it to save.
God forbid that I should say a word against
ordinances or against holy things -- but keep
them in their places.   If you make them the
basis of your soul's salvation, they are lighter
than a shadow.   There is not -- I repeat it
again -- the slightest atom of saving power

anywhere but in the blood of Jesus.   That
blood only has the power to save.   The blood
stands out the only rock of our salvation.

So jealous is God about this that anything you
put with Christ, however good it is, becomes,
from the fact of your putting it with Him, an
accursed thing.   And what is it that thou
wouldst put with Christ?   Thy good works?
What! wilt thou yoke a reptile with an angel --
yoke thyself to the chariot of salvation with
Christ?   What are thy good works?   Thy
righteousnesses are "as filthy rags" -- and shall
filthy rags be joined to the spotless Christ?
It must not be.   Rely on Jesus only, and thou
canst not perish.   But, rely on anything with
Him and thou are as surely condemned as if
thou shouldst rely on thy sins.   Jesus only --
this is the rock of our salvation.

"Oh," says one, "I could trust in Christ if
I felt my sins more."
  Sir, is thy repentance
to be a part-Saviour?   The blood is to save thee,
not thy tears; Christ's death, not thy
repentance
.   Thou art bidden this day to trust in
Christ, not in thy feelings on account of sin.
Many a man has been brought into great
soul-distress because he has looked more at
his repentance than at Christ: "Could my
zeal no respite know, Could my tears forever
flow, All for sin could not atone, Thou must
save and Thou alone."

"Nay" says another, "But I feel that I do not

value the blood of Christ as I ought, and,
therefore, I am afraid to believe."
  My friend,
that is another insidious form of the same
error.   God does not say, "When I see your
estimate of the blood of Christ, I will pass
over you."
  No, but, "when I see the blood".
It is not your estimate of that blood -- it is the
blood that saves you.   As I said before, that
magnificent, solitary blood must be alone.

"Nay" says another, "but if I had more faith,
then I should have hope."
  That, too, is a very
deadly shape of the same evil.   Your are not saved
by the efficacy of your faith but by the efficacy
of the blood of Christ.   I bid you believe, but I
bid you not to look to your believing as the
ground of your salvation.   No man will go to
Heaven if he trusts to his own faith.   You may
as well trust to your own good works as trust
to your faith.   Your faith cannot hang
upon itself -- it must hang on Christ.   You must
not think of your faith, but of Christ.   Faith
comes from meditation upon Christ.   Turn, then,
your eye, not upon faith but upon Jesus.   It
is not the efficacy of your believing in Him;
it is the efficacy of His blood applied to you
through the Spirit.

I do not know how sufficiently to follow Satan
in all his windings into the human heart.   But
this I know -- he is always trying to keep back
this great truth: The blood, and the blood
alone
, has power to save.

"Oh," yet says another, "If I had such-and-such
an experience, then I could trust."
  Friend, it is
not thine experience -- it is the blood.   God did
not say, "When I see your experience," but,
"when I see the blood [of Christ.]"   Acquire
experience, cultivate the Christian graces.   But,
oh, do not put them where Christ's blood
ought to be.

    I hear Thy welcome voice
            That calls me, Lord, to Thee
    For cleansing in Thy precious Blood
            That followed Calvary.

    All hail, Atoning Blood!
            All hail, Redeeming Grace!
    All hail, the Gift of Christ, our Lord,
            Our Strength and Righteousness.

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