2951. With or Without Bloodshedding

No. 2951-51:421. A Sermon Delivered On Lord’s Day Evening, May 30, 1875, By C. H. Spurgeon, At The Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.

A Sermon Published On Thursday, August 31, 1905.

Without shedding of blood there is no remission. {Heb 9:22}

 For other sermons on this text:
   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 118, “Blood Shedding, The” 113}
   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2951, “With or Without Blood Shedding” 2952}
   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3418, “Unalterable Law, An” 3420}
   Exposition on Heb 9:18-10:25 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2951, “With or Without Blood Shedding” 2952 @@ "Exposition"}
   Exposition on Heb 9; Ex 24:1-10 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3293, “Blood of the Testament, The” 3295 @@ "Exposition"}
   Exposition on Heb 9 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2427, “Ark of His Covenant, The” 2428 @@ "Exposition"}
   Exposition on Le 16:1-31 Heb 9:1-22 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2369, “Blood Even on the Golden Altar” 2370 @@ "Exposition"}

1. Week after week, standing before this congregation to preach the things concerning the kingdom of Christ, I sometimes say to myself, “I wonder how much longer I shall have to point out to some of these people the way of salvation before they will walk in it; — I wonder how many times I shall have to preach to them the doctrine of justification by faith in the crucified Christ of Calvary, and how often I shall have to urge them to immediate decision for Christ, the renunciation of their self-confidence, and the forsaking of their sins.” It seems to me that, after I have done this, the right thing for me to do is to keep on asking you, “Have you given due attention to these truths? Do you know them in your soul?” For, “if you know these things, happy are you if you do them”; but the very opposite of happy are you if you leave them undone.

2. I am going to try to enlist the attention of any earnest, thoughtful people who are here, any of those who are still unconverted, but who have begun to consider their ways, and to turn to the Lord. To you, dear friends, I intent to preach nothing but the simple gospel of Jesus Christ, and not to preach it as though I were addressing the settlers in Australia or the pundits {a} of India, but to preach it distinctly to you, and to urge you to accept it here and now. If you have not accepted it by the time the sermon is over, it shall be through no fault of mine; but the blame must lie at your own door, that you have been directed to the way of salvation, but have not walked in it; or that, having heard the gospel, and taken some interest in it, you have wilfully rejected it.

3. The subject of my discourse is to be the remission, the putting away and getting rid of sin, and that concerns every one of us, from the youngest child to the oldest man or woman, for we are all sinners. It is very common for people to say, “Oh, yes! we are all sinners.” But I do not use that expression as they do; I mean that you have done wrong, and that I have done wrong, and that all of us have done wrong. “We have done the things which we ought not to have done, and we have left undone the things which we ought to have done, and there is no health in us.” We have chosen the wrong instead of the right, we have chosen to please ourselves rather than to please God; we have even lived as if there were no God; if there had really been no God, our conduct might not have been materially affected. We have all sinned in some way or other, —

    Each wandering in a different way,
       But all the downward road.

And, dear friends, all of us need to be cleansed from this sin. There is not one among us who can afford to live in sin, or who can afford to die in sin. We may find a temporary pleasure in it, but it must end in eternal loss to us unless there comes a time when God’s grace saves us from it; we cannot be truly happy while we are out of sync with God. And since we are immortal beings, and our soul will not die, but will live on for ever, there will come a time when the sin, which is unforgiven, will be a severe plague to us, so it is vitally important that we should enquire whether, being sinners, we have been forgiven or not.

4. I hope I shall be able to reach the conscience of each person here while I try to talk to you about two contrasts. First we have, in our text, sin unremitted, and sin remitted, and then, secondly, we have without bloodshedding, and with bloodshedding.

5. I. So, first, we will consider these two things which are so opposite to each other, SIN UNREMITTED, AND SIN REMITTED.

6. The apostle says, “Without shedding of blood there is no remission.” I do not like the sound of those words, “no remission.” They seem to me like a funeral knell, — “no remission.” That might have been the sound in the ear of every sinner from the time of Adam until now, — “no remission.” It would have made this world a dreadful prison-house if everywhere, when we sat down to think about our sin, there stared us in the face the words “no remission.” This is, indeed, one of the inscriptions across the vault of hell, — “no remission,” “no remission.” I say that I cannot bear the sound of those words, yet they must be sounded aloud, for there are still some people to whom they apply; I trust that the sounding of those words in their ears may be the means of their awakening.

7. What does it mean when we say that a man has sinned, and that there is no remission for him? It means, first, that he is the object of the daily anger of God. God has a benevolent regard for him as one of his creatures, and is not willing that he should perish. God would infinitely prefer that the sinner should turn to him and live; but, viewing him as an impenitent sinner, we read that “God is angry with the wicked every day.” I have learned not to take much notice of other people’s opinions, yet I do not like to make anyone angry if I can help it. If I have ever done so, — and sometimes it has happened unintentionally, — I have had no pleasure in reflecting that someone was angry with me; and if it was someone who would not be angry without a cause, it has been a very painful thing to live under a consciousness of his displeasure. I want you, whose sins are unforgiven, to reflect that God is angry with you every day. When he looks at you, he cannot regard you as a father regards a dear child who has done everything he can to please him, but he must look at you as a rebel, as one who has revolted against him, and defied him to his face. When he looks at your sin, his anger must flame out. A man, who is not angry with sin, must be himself a guilty man; and, in proportion to the holiness of God must be his abhorrence of evil.

8. Reflect, then, on what a sad condition you are in. If God should never strike you in his righteous wrath, — if he should continue to give you the mercies of this life every day just as he has done, I think, dear friend, that it ought to trouble you all the more that you are still provoking him by your continued sin. If you really are of the noble spirit that I hope you are, you will not be so selfish as merely to regret your faults because of the suffering it will bring to yourself, but you will lament it because it offends so loving, so good, so tender, so gracious a being as the God of the whole earth. Were he vindictive, — had he no heart of compassion, — if he had made no proclamation of mercy and no terms of grace, — I could understand how you could brazen your forehead, and defy him; but how can you live in enmity against the God who has been so gracious to you? Let the thought of the mercy of God make your unremitted sin such a burden on your conscience that you will not rest until you have repented of it, and been forgiven.

9. Remember, deal friends, that, in addition to being the object of the daily anger of God, you are in constant peril of suffering that anger to the full. A single step may cause you to fall, and that fall may lead to the grave. Who among us can tell all the perils of this mortal life? I remember reading a work in which there were collected together numerous examples of the simple means by which men have died, such as the swallowing of a fruit stone, or the sticking of a small bone in the throat, the breathing of some invisible noxious gas, or the failure of some almost imperceptible organ in the body to perform its usual functions. How suddenly death often comes! A friend said to me, this morning, “Do you know that So-and-so is dead?” He was a dear fellow servant of Christ, an eminent preacher of the gospel. I had no idea, when I saw him a little while ago in robust health, that he and I should never speak to each other again in this world. You also must often have heard of the death of friends, and some day people will tell the survivors that you too are gone. With unremitted sin in you, you know where you will go, do you not? I need not tell you where they are driven whose sin has never been forgiven, and whose sin never will be forgiven, when they have passed out of this world unwashed in the precious blood of Jesus.

10. May I very earnestly ask all of you who are still unsaved this question, — “How will you be able to die with unremitted sin in you?” There are some of us who believe that there is a spot on this earth where our mortal remains are to lie, and it is possible that the tree, of which the planks will form our coffin, has already been cut down. We expect to die unless the Lord shall soon come, and that will amount to much the same thing; and, expecting to die, we would like to be ready to die, and to have our house in order. I like to meet a sensible man, who insures his life so as not to leave his wife and family in poverty, or who, when he has means at his disposal, saves for a rainy day, so that, should he be out of work, he will not need to go and beg. Now, if such provision as this is commendable, — and who will say that it is not? — is it not much more commendable with regard to eternal things? Are we to be careful about lesser matters, and yet to make no preparation for that last moment in which we must pass out of this world to undergo the solemn testing in the scales of unerring justice? If unremitted sin is in you, — and it is to be feared that it is in very many of you, — please consider what you will do in that dread hour when the immortal tenant of your house of clay makes her fatal leap without a wing to buoy her up, and sinks into despair, and into even deeper despair in the bottomless abyss. May God grant that none of our spirits may ever know what it is to be found disembodied with sin unforgiven, and afterwards to hear the trumpet of the great day of judgment ring out, and to go back into our risen bodies with sin unforgiven, and then to be cast, body and soul, into the lake that burns for ever and ever.

11. This is, surely, enough for me to say about that sorrowful theme, so let us now think about the brighter theme of remission. Our text seems to me to be musical with hope: “Without shedding of blood there is no remission.” Then, it is clearly implied that, with shedding of blood, there is remission. In the gospel, we always have glad news to tell. Unconverted sinner, with your unremitted sin, we have glad news to tell you, and it is this. Your sin may be remitted. There is no sin, of which you can repent, which may not be forgiven you. There is not a mortal man alive who, if he repents of his sin, shall not find mercy. There is a sin which is to death, but those who commit it never ask for mercy, or desire it. They are dead even while they live, their conscience is seared as with a hot iron, and they rush to hell willingly; but never has a man, sincerely anxious for salvation, committed that sin. Let no penitent man despair, for there is remission for every sin of which any man truly repents, and for which he exercises faith in the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.

12. The remission of sin, which God gives to his people, is complete; that is to say, it wipes out all his sins, whatever they may have been. Now look, believer, there is the list of your sins, it is a huge roll; if I were to unroll it, how long would it be? Would it not belt the globe, and reach from the earth to the sun and back again? Can you see all the sin that is recorded there? Yet, the moment that the blood of Jesus is applied to that roll, the whole record is blotted out, and there shall never be any more sin inscribed there, for Jesus Christ never yet divided a man’s sins, forgiving some, and leaving others unforgiven. He deals with sin collectively, and takes it all up, and flings it into the sea, or buries it in his own sepulchre, and never shall it have a resurrection, for, says the Lord, “the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be none; and the sins of Judah, and they shall not be found.” In the epistle from which our text is taken, the Lord says, “I will put my laws into their hearts, and I will write them in their minds; and I will remember their sins and iniquities no more.” King Hezekiah said to the Lord, “You have cast all my sins behind your back”; and King David wrote, “As far as the east is from the west,” — and that is an infinite distance, — “so far has he removed our transgressions from us.” So you see that God completely sweeps away our sins when he remits them.

13. Further, the man, who gets remission of sin, gets a clearance from all danger of any penalty resulting from sin, so that he can sing, —

    If sin be pardoned, I’m secure,
       Death hath no sting beside;
    The law gave sin its damning power,
       But Christ, my Ransom, died.

In dying, Christ bought my pardon, so that I have no reason to fear the punishment of my sin. What a blessing it is that the sin is gone, and the penalty is gone too! When a man’s sin is remitted, he comes to the position which would have been his if he had never sinned. We fell, federally, in Adam; and we fell, actually, by our own sin; but Christ has put us back where Adam was in his state of innocence; indeed, he has done more than that for us, for man was only man before he fell, but now man is linked to the Eternal in the person of the God-man, Christ Jesus, so we are nearer to God than Adam was before he fell. I said, sinner, that God was angry with you; but if your sin is remitted, his anger is gone. What does a forgiven sinner say to God? “Though you were angry with me, your anger is turned away, and you comfort me.” “Just as a father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear him.” Jeremiah wrote, “The Lord has appeared of old to me, saying, ‘Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you.’ ” It is sin that separates us from God; when that is put away, there is no longer any separation, but we are one in blessed amity, and sacred relationship, and holy concord, and near and dear communion.

14. Do all of you, dear friends, know what this remission of sin is? There are some of us who could boast of this; — not that we could boast of anything that we are, but we could boast and glory in the great goodness of the Lord to us, the very chief of sinners. There are many here, who could join with me in this declaration, “We were guilty and hell-deserving; but, having believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, we know that our sins, which were many, are all forgiven. We are clothed in the righteousness of Christ, and are ‘accepted in the Beloved,’ and we know it; and there is, therefore, now no condemnation for us who are in Christ Jesus, and we are not afraid of any, for, ‘being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.’ The peace we have, through believing in Jesus, is so full, so rich, so deep, that it cannot be broken. Death itself will only deepen it. We are not afraid now to die; why should we be? With the robe of his righteousness on us, we shall stand boldly even in the great day of judgment; and with the name of Jesus named on us, he will welcome us, and say to us, ‘Come, you blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.’ ”

15. I wish, with all my heart and soul, that every one of you had received the remission of your sin. I bless God that there are many, in this place, who are humbly resting on the great atoning sacrifice. My brothers and sisters in Christ, do not question the remission of your sins; for, to question that is to question the Word of God itself. God himself there declares that every believer in Christ is justified and saved. But many of you, who have heard the gospel, have not believed it. “This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.” This is your greatest sin, that you have not believed in Jesus Christ, whom God has sent. Oh, that God the Holy Spirit would convict you of the sin of unbelief, and enable you to repent of it, and to lay hold on Jesus Christ by an act of childlike faith, so that you might live through him!

16. II. This brings me to the second point of my discourse, which divides itself into two parts, — WITHOUT BLOODSHEDDING, AND WITH BLOODSHEDDING.

17. “Without shedding of blood,” says the apostle, — wherever that is the case, there is no remission. It is not possible that any sin should ever be forgiven to any man without shedding of blood. This has been known from the very first. As soon as man had sinned, God taught him that he needed a sacrifice. Adam and Eve, after they had sinned, tried to clothe themselves with fig leaves; but that was not a sufficient covering. God must kill some animals, shedding their blood, and our first parents must be clothed in their skins. When Cain and Abel had grown up, the only sacrifice that God could accept was the slain lamb. To Cain and his sacrifice of the fruits of the earth, God had no respect. Job is, perhaps, the earliest of the patriarchs, but he offered sacrifice for his children lest they should have offended God while they were feasting. He did not think nor did any of those ancient men who feared God think, of finding acceptance with him, and remission of sin, without shedding of blood. This belief has been almost universally held; there is scarcely to be found a tribe of men who have not believed in this. Wherever explorers go, they find that, wherever there is any conception of God, there is a sacrifice in some form or other. Many people have thought it necessary to make very great sacrifices, and some have imagined that they could only expiate their guilt by offering up their own children, so deeply seated is the thought in our humanity that there must be a sacrifice for sin. I scarcely know of any religion, except Socinianism, {b} without a sacrifice. Humanity craves for it, and cannot do without it. If anyone should proclaim a religion without a sacrifice, you would soon see how quickly this building would be emptied, or any other place of worship. There are always more spiders than people where the atonement is left out. Men must have a sacrifice; in their innermost hearts, they know their absolute need of it when they seek to approach the Lord.

18. The old Mosaic law revealed this need of a sacrifice for sin; the most prominent thing about it, what must have struck everyone, was the blood. I do not know whether you have ever thought that the tabernacle, which was praised for its beauty, must have looked like a veritable shambles, and the gorgeous temple itself must have needed abundant arrangements for its cleansing because of the continual sacrifices offered there, and because so much of the service consisted in the shedding and sprinkling of blood. The most prominent idea that a worshipper would get would be that there was something for which an atonement was needed, and that this involved the presentation of life before God; and that is just the thought that God would have us still retain in our minds, for, “without shedding of blood there is no remission.”

19. Do not quarrel with this truth, dear friends, for you cannot alter it. It is not for me is stand here to justify the ways of God to men, or to propound any theories of atonement. I have no theory; I simply say what the apostle says, “Without shedding of blood there is no remission”; and there is no remission otherwise. You may stand and weep for sin until you become a very Niobe, {c} or be transformed into a dripping well, and waste away in one continual shower of penitential lamentation; but no sin will ever be washed away that way. To repent of sin is a part of your natural duty; and attention to one part of duty cannot atone for the neglect of another part.

20. “Oh, but!” you say, “in addition to this weeping and lamentation, I intend to amend.” Well, suppose you do so; if, from this time on, you never sin again, — if a wrong thought, or word, or act should never stain your character again, you will have done no more than it was your duty to do; and the fulfilment of your duty so far will be no atonement for the faults of the past; all your tears and all your efforts cannot put away the guilt of the past, for “without shedding of blood there is no remission,” and repentance and good works are not bloodshedding.

21. Suppose you add to these things what you call religiousness. Very well; do so. Attend the house of prayer, join in the petitions of the saints as far as you can, sing with them; but, all the while, watch what you are doing, for you may be adding to your sin, instead of decreasing it, by relying on such things as those. I repeat the declaration that you have only done what you ought to have done, and that cannot make amends for your previous misdeeds and neglects, so that there too you rest on a broken reed.

22. Are you so foolish as to hope that sin can be put away by some legerdemain {sleight of hand} that may be practised by so-called “priests”? A plague on them! They swarm on the face of this earth, — these men who say that they are endued with some strange power by which they can remit human guilt, by the muttering of certain words, and by passing you through certain performances which are generally attended with the transference of some part of your substance to the pockets of the so-called “priests.” Oh sirs, do not be deceived by them! Open your eyes, and see for yourselves what there can be in one of your fellow men just because there have been laid on his head the hands of a man wearing lawn sleeves, {d} that he should have the power to put away your sins. If this folly is to be believed, do not let us hear any more about “the enlightened nineteenth century.” It would be a disgrace to the people of any century to believe in such a transparent lie as that. Go to the living God for pardon, for he alone can give it. Make your confessions at his feet; they will be valid only there. And when you have confessed your sin to God, do not in any degree rely on sacramental efficacy, or on priestly power; but trust entirely in the bloodshedding. There is your hope; but, without shedding of blood, priest or no priest, sacrament or no sacrament, you will be lost, as surely as you are a human being and a sinner.

23. My last point is to be, with the bloodshedding, there is remission; that is a much more delightful topic. If God had not provided the sacrifice for sin, my text would have sounded the death knell of all our hopes. “Without shedding of blood — no remission,” would have been like the flaming sword of the cherubim keeping us back from the tree of life. “My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering,” was the sweet assurance of Abraham to Isaac; but to us there is a still sweeter assurance, God has provided the Lamb for a burnt offering. Listen to this, you who would have remission. God himself came into this world; he who was offended by man’s sin condescended to become the sacrifice to put away that sin; and coming here, he took on himself a human body, spotless and without taint of original sin; and he lived here as man, perfect man, yet just as truly very God of very God. When he had reached the appointed time, he offered himself on the altar as the one sacrifice for human sin; and, by the shedding of his blood, there is remission for sin. Think of this great truth. Here was an innocent Sufferer, the value of whose life was worth more than an innumerable number of ours. It did more for the honour of God’s law for Christ to die than if we had all died; for all created beings will see how just God is when he will not let his own Son escape even when guilt is only imputed to him.

24. Jesus Christ has died; the Son of God has offered himself as a sacrifice for sin; so, now, whoever believes in him shall have immediate remission of sin. It hardly matters how I tell you this great truth as long as I make it clear to you; if I spoke it ungrammatically, if I uttered it so that you had to lean forward, and strain your ears to catch the message, it would not matter, as long as you were able to understand it. You are bound to lay hold of this truth, for it is your life. If you do not grasp it, whose fault will it be? If I stood in the midst of a company of criminals condemned to die, and told them that a free pardon could be obtained in a certain way, there would not be one of them who would criticize my voice or my manner; because, if they really wanted pardon, they would all be taken up with the thought of getting it. It does not matter to me what criticism you may happen to say about me. I shall sleep just as well, I daresay, for all that, and live as long; but I beseech you not to let any remarks or thoughts about me, or the place, or anything else, drive any one of you from this conviction — that you must either be saved or lost, that you must have your sins forgiven, or else you will be ruined for ever, that the only way of getting them forgiven is through the shedding of blood, and that the only way of availing yourselves of the efficacy of the bloodshedding of Christ is by simple confidence in him. Does anyone misunderstand that expression? Then I put it like this, — give yourself up deliberately into the hands of Christ to save you from the consequences of your sin. As one who is falling drops, because he must; but drops cheerfully, because another stands with outstretched arms to catch him, so drop into the Saviour’s arms. We are all prone to sin; but, if we give ourselves up to Christ, he will change our natures, and make us love holiness. He will renew our hearts, so that we shall seek after what is good, and pure, and lovely, and excellent in the sight of God. Salvation from the propensity to sin, as well as from the guilt of sin, will be given at once to everyone who believes in the Lord Jesus Christ.

25. “But I do not feel right,” one says. Feeling right is not the all-important matter. “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved.”

26. “I will go home and pray,” says another. That is not what I urge you to do first of all. First believe, and then pray; to put prayer in the place of faith, is to suggest to God that he should change the plan of salvation, which is, as I just reminded another friend, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved.” “What am I to do, then? Am I to believe that Jesus Christ died for me in particular?” I did not say that; you are to trust Jesus Christ whether you have any particular interest in him or not. You will find out your particular interest in Christ in due time. Just now, look at Christ on the cross. That is a spectacle that is well worthy of your careful observation. There he hangs, he who made all worlds; with hands and feet fastened to the accursed tree, he hangs there to die the death of a slave, — the death that the Romans would scarcely inflict on slaves unless they had committed some extraordinary crimes. He, whom the angels worship, hangs there to die, “the Just for the unjust, so that he might bring us to God.” Can you not trust your soul with him? Will you not believe that God, for Christ’s sake, can forgive you? Will you not now rush into his arms, and there confess your sin, yet look up and say, “I know that you can forgive, for Christ has died, and I do rest my soul on his atoning sacrifice?”

27. I remember, — though it was many years ago, — when I first really understood that I was simply to look to Jesus Christ and that in doing so, I should be saved. I felt in my heart that I wished I had known it long before, for I had been for years seeking rest, and finding none, and I only needed just to be told that there was nothing for me to do but simply to look to Christ. Oh, how I leapt at that message! It was the best sermon I ever heard, yet it was, in itself, a very poor one; but it had in it what was the means of saving my soul. I trusted Christ then with my soul, and I have nothing else to rest on now. I have preached some thousands of times since that day, and God has given me many souls, but I have not found out any improvement concerning the way of salvation. I trusted entirely in Christ then, and well I might, for I had nothing else to trust in; and I trust in nothing but Jesus Christ now, and well I may, for I have nothing else to trust in. If there is a poor sinner here, who sees the life-boat of faith come close up to him, and he is afraid to step in, if it is any comfort to you, sinner, let me tell you that, if you step into that life-boat, and are lost, I must be lost too, for I do not know of any other way of escape. If there is anyone, who trusts in Jesus Christ, and is damned, I must be damned with him; I am perfectly willing to go with him to prison and to death. If my Lord Jesus Christ is not able to save a sinner just as he is, then he is not able to save me; and if the blood of Jesus Christ cannot wash out sin, then mine will never be washed out, for I have nothing but the blood of Jesus Christ to trust in, and I say to him, —

    Other refuge have I none:
    Hangs my helpless soul on thee.

Oh sinner, you can hang where I can hang, and where all God’s people are hanging. “Ah!” you say, “you do not know what a great sinner I am.” No, and you do not know what a great Saviour he is. “Ah, but I have such a hard heart!” But his heart was broken, and he can break yours. “Indeed, but it will be an amazing thing if he ever saves me.” Ah! there you are right, and so it happens when he saves anyone, and he delights to work wonders of grace. I wonder which will be the biggest wonder in heaven, — you or I, or someone else here or elsewhere. Well, we shall see when we get there; but take care that you do get there. May God bless you, for his dear Son’s sake! Amen.

{a} Pundit: A learned Hindu; one versed in Sanskrit and in the philosophy, religion, and jurisprudence of India. OED. {b} Socinianism: A sect founded by Laelius and Faustus Socinus, two Italian theologians of the 16th century, who denied the divinity of Christ. OED. {c} Niobe: According to the Greek myth, Niobe boasted of her superiority to Leto because the goddess only had two children, the twins Apollo and Artemis, while Niobe had fourteen children (the Niobids), seven male and seven female. By using poisoned arrows, Artemis killed Niobe’s daughters and Apollo killed Niobe’s sons, while they practised athletics, with the last begging their lives. A devastated Niobe fled to Mount Sipylus and was turned into stone and, as she wept unceasingly, waters started to pour from her petrified complexion. Mount Sipylus indeed has a natural rock formation which resembles a female face, and it has been associated with Niobe since ancient times. See Explorer "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niobe" {d} Lawn Sleeves: Sleeves of lawn, considered as forming part of the episcopal dress. OED.

Exposition By C. H. Spurgeon {Heb 9:18-10:25}

9:18-22. Whereupon neither the first testament was dedicated without blood. For when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and of goats, with water, and scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book, and all the people, saying, “This is the blood of the testament which God has commanded you.” Moreover he sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle, and all the vessels of the ministry. And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood there is no remission.

Under the law, some things were purified by fire or by water, but “almost all things” were “purged with blood”; and there was, and still is, no remission of sin “without shedding of blood.”

23-26. It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the copies of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us: nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest enters into the holy place every year with blood of others; for then he must often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the ages he has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.

In every respect, our great High Priest was superior to the high priests under the law; though, in some points, they resembled him, and were types of him.

27, 28. And just as it is appointed to men to die once, but after this the judgment: so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and to those who look for him he shall appear the second time without sin to salvation.

His one offering so fully met all the claims of divine justice on behalf of all his people that there was no need of another offering for sin, and no room for it, so his second coming will be “without a sin offering to salvation,” as the passage may be rendered.

10:1. For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers to it perfect.

This refers to the old ceremonial law, under which the Jews lived for so long. They always had to go on, year after year, offering the same kind of sacrifices, because the work of atonement was never done perfectly; men were not cleansed or saved by it, so the process had to be constantly repeated.

2. For then would they not have ceased to be offered? For the worshippers once purged would have had no more consciousness of sins.

There would have been no need to bring another lamb to be offered if the one which was presented had put away sin; there would have been no need of another day of atonement if the sacrifice on the one day had really made atonement for sin.

3, 4. But in those sacrifices there is a reminder made of sins every year. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.

Their blood was only a picture, an emblem, a type of a far more precious blood, — the shadow of the real atonement which was afterwards to be offered.

5. Therefore when he comes into the world, —

That is, the true Messiah, the Son of God, Jesus of Nazareth, our Redeemer: “When he comes into the world,” —

5. He says, —

According to Ps 40:6-8, —

5-9. “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but you have prepared a body for me: in burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin you have had no pleasure. Then I said, ‘Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do your will, oh God.’ ” Previously when he said, “Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin you did not desire, neither had pleasure in it”; which are offered by the law; then he said, “Lo, I come to do your will, oh God.” He takes away the first, so that he may establish the second.

He takes away the type because the great Antitype has come. He abolishes the offering of young bulls, and goats, and lambs, because HE has come whom they all foreshadowed.

10. By that will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once and for all.

Or, “once.” It can never be offered again. The pretence of offering up the body and the blood of Christ in the mass is sheer profanity. It has been done once, and there is no need of a repetition. To suppose that it could be repeated, is to imply that it was incomplete on the first occasion; but it was not, for by it we are already sanctified.

11, 12. And every priest stands daily ministering and offering often the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins: but this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God;

It was done, totally done, and done for ever; nothing was to be added to it; and, therefore, Jesus “sat down” in the place of honour and power “on the right hand of God”; —

13, 14. From that time waiting until his enemies are made his footstool. For by one offering he has perfected for ever those who are sanctified.

Or, “set apart.” He has fully saved all those for whom he died. His one sacrifice was so effective that, by it, he has for ever put away the sin of the whole multitude of those who believe in him.

15. Of which the Holy Spirit also is a witness to us:

And what more veritable witness can we have? Whatever the Holy Spirit bears testimony to must never be questioned by us.

15-17. For after that he had said before, “ ‘This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days,’ says the Lord, ‘I will put my laws into their hearts, and I will write them in their minds; and I will remember their sin and iniquities no more.’ ”

What a wonderful covenant that is; — not that he will bless you if you keep the law, but that you shall be enabled to keep it, and that he will lead you to do so by putting his law, not on tables of stone, where your eye can see it, but on the fleshy tablets of your heart, where your soul shall feel its force and power, so that you shall be obedient to it. Meditate on those glorious words: “Their sins and iniquities I will remember no more.”

18. Now where there is remission of these, there is no more offering for sin.

If the sins themselves have gone, and God will remember them no more, no further sacrifice is required for them. What need have you of cleansing if you are so clean that God himself sees no sin in you? Oh glorious purification by the atoning sacrifice of Christ! Rejoice in it, and praise the Lord for it for ever and ever.

19-25. Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he has consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh; and having a high priest over the house of God; let us draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold firmly the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful who promised;) and let us consider each other to provoke to love and to good works: not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting each other: and so much the more, as you see the day approaching.

Notice the practical teaching of this great truth. If you have been washed like this, do not defile yourselves again. If, by God’s rich mercy, you have been delivered from the transgressions of the past, let gratitude move you to holy living; and endeavour, not only to grow in grace yourselves, but to help others in the same direction, so that the abounding mercy of God may have abundant praise from us. May God grant it for his name’s sake! Amen.