William Albright
A city missionary was visiting among the poor of London, and found his way to the third floor of a large tenement building. Knocking at the door of a room, he stood lace to face with a powerful young man
of ferocious and repulsive face. He kindly said to the brute that he had come to read out of the book to the sick and suffering, and that he thought there might be someone in the room who needed the consolation the book could give. The ruffian, understanding in a moment the purpose of the Christian’s mission, with a coarse oath ordered him away and threatened to hurl him from the landing if he did not instantly take his departure.
The servant of Christ turned to go, when a weak voice behind the door, broken by a distressing cough, asked him, “Does your book tell of the blood?” Pushing his way into the dirty room, he saw upon a wretched bed a woman apparently in the last stages of consumption. She was the mother of the young man, who stood behind the missionary without speaking. “Oh,” exclaimed the dying sinner, “I have been a bad woman, and no one knows how unhappy I am, and how much I suffer.” The man of God seated himself upon a three-legged stool beside the pallet of straw and said, “My poor friend, what do you know about the blood?”
“I was passing a church one morning,” she replied, “and went in: for a moment. I soon got out, for it was no place for such as me; but before I went, I heard the preacher read something about the blood that
cleanseth from all sin, and I have not forgotten it.”
“Would you like to hear about it again?” he inquired. “Hear about It?” she almost screamed, “yes, man, I want to hear about it, and hear about it now. Don’t you see that I am dying? And how can I face God? I
tell you, I have been a wicked woman all my life. and I am afraid to die. Is there no hope for me? If there is, let me know it at once I can’t get away from the words the preacher read when I was in the church, and he must have read them from the Bible. But I have no Bible, and I never had one in my life. I was born in sin; I grew up in sin; and I have done nothing but sin. It is dreadful to die this way, and I
cannot stand it. I would not care for death if I was ready to go, but I am not ready. Say, does your book tell of the blood?”
The missionary drew from his pocket the Book of God and slowly read, “The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin.” He then solemnly added, “This is true; for God says it, and God cannot
lie. The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin. It can cleanse you, and cleanse you from ALL sin, and cleanse you now, and cleanse you forever.” He told her of Christ’s coming down into the world, of His death upon the cross, of His resurrection from the dead, of His coming again to receive His people to Himself, of His love for the vilest of sinners, of His willingness to receive them just as they are, of’ His desire to make them happy here and hereafter. Hearing a slight noise behind him, he looked around and saw that tears were coursing down the cheeks of the young savage, although he had turned his head to conceal his emotion.
“Read more. read more,” said the mother as she gazed with hungry look into the face of the missionary. He continued to read a few verses from here and there, as he thought she would be able to understand
them, confining himself to the first epistle of John. “I write unto you, little children, because your sins ARE forgiven you for His name’s sake.” He told her to notice that all the believers’ sins are now forgiven, and that we are not asked to wait until the judgment day to find this out. “Beloved, now are we the children of God; and it does not yet appear what we shall be but we know that when He shall appear,
we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is.” The woman seemed to be overwhelmed by such a display of God’s grace, and when he read to her that “God Is love,” and that He “sent His only begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him,” and that “herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness In the day of Judgment: because as He Is, so are we In this world,” she sobbed out aloud at the greatness of God’s goodness and in the greatness of her joy.
Before the missionary left the room she was resting calmly and confidently on the sure words of the living God, “The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.” He continued to visit her
every day for six weeks until she fell asleep in Jesus, and her son, no longer the insolent and brutal bully, but gentle and subdued, listened with deepest interest to the “wonderful words of life,” and received
them into his own heart as all his salvation and all his desire. The day of his mother’s burial, when the grave was filled, he stepped to the side of his friend, and quietly said, “I have been thinking that
there Is nothing I would so like, as to spend the rest of my life In telling others of the blood that cleanseth from all sin.” This is precisely what he is now doing, unless he has recently departed to be
with the Lord.
What would the gospel of Higher Criticism, or the gospel of Modernism, the gospel of’ Culture and of imitating Christ, have to say to that poor, dying sinner? Not one word. Such a gospel is dumb as an
oyster in the presence of vileness and death. Although pretending the largest philanthropy, it can hold out no hope to the soul already wrecked, unless it whispers the lie of Universalism into the ear of the
dying wretch. But this will give no hope, because the stern voice of conscience pronounces it a falsehood and hence the gospel of culture is no gospel for the sinner, but only for the righteous. It cannot go into
the slums of society and bid the lost to believe and be saved, for it scorns the scriptural doctrine of salvation by faith without the deeds of the law.
Let these false prophets say what they please, there is no gospel but the Gospel of the blood. “It is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul,” is the testimony God bears in the Old Covenant Scriptures (Lev. 17:11). “Without shedding of blood is no remission,” is the testimony God gives in the New Covenant Scriptures (Hebrews 9:22). The Lord Jesus knew the meaning and purpose of His death: and He said, “This is my blood of the New Covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins” (Matt. 26:28). The saints in heaven know how they got there;: and they sing to Him, “Thou wast slain, and hast
redeemed us to God by thy blood” (Revelation 5:9). If we are Justified, it is because that “being now Justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him” (Rom. 5:9). If we are sanctified, it is because “Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered without the gate” (Hebrews 13:12). If we are made nigh to God, it is because “in Christ Jesus, ye who sometimes were far off, are made nigh by the blood of Christ” (Eph. 2:13). Look where we will in the Bible, from the first act of worship that presents Abel offering the blood by faith, to the last chapter of Revelation that shows the
entering into the gates of the city, and to the tree of life, of those who have washed their robes, the uniform testimony of the inspired writings is that nothing but the blood of Jesus put our sins away.
— J. H. B. in “Our Hope.”
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