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No one familiar with Lev. 17: 14 ("The blood is the life") will fail to see the close
connection between faith, life and the atoning blood of Christ. Indeed, the connection is
more than verbal; it is spirit and life, it is fundamental. Faith unites us to Christ in such a
way that His very life becomes our own, and His very death is reckoned ours too. John
6: gives in figure what Rom. 6: teaches in plain doctrine.
3.
Purchase and redemption.
"Feed the church of God which He has purchased with His own blood" (Acts 20: 28).
A great deal has been written about this impressive and wonderful passage, but after
wading through a sea of manuscripts, after weighing over, most carefully, all the
evidences, and after waiting upon the Lord for guidance, most expositors have come back
to the text as translated in the A.V. It is indeed a tremendous statement. "The church of
God" we have read of before, but what a light is thrown upon that church, and that God,
when we read: "which He has purchased with His own blood!"
Fairly faced, this passage gathers up unto itself the true meaning and essential
condition pertaining to the office of the Kinsman-Redeemer, shows the close intimate
connection between the Lord and His chosen, called-out, people, settles all arguments as
to the efficacy and preciousness of that blood shed for the church's deliverance, and
leaves the deity of Christ unassailable, for none but Jesus Christ is the Redeemer of the
church.
The word purchase is peripoieomai, "to acquire", and peripoissis occurs in Eph. 1: 14:
"Until the redemption of the purchased possession", and in I Pet. 2: 9: "A peculiar
people."
Redemption by the blood of Christ issues in forgiveness of sins in Eph. 1: 1, and
redemption by the precious blood of Christ (as of a Lamb without spot or blemish) is set
forth in I Pet. 1: 18, 19 as a deliverance from "tradition".
An aionion redemption intimately connected with the new covenant is found in
Heb. 9: 12, while in Rev. 5: 9, 10, in the new song, we find the Lamb about to break
the seals, claim the inheritance, and place Israel in their position as kings and priests on
the earth, all this being effected by the blood of the Lamb.
4.
Propitiation the "atonement" of the O.T.
"Whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood" (Rom. 3: 25).
Propitiation, here, is "the mercy seat" of Heb. 9: 5, which in its turn gathers up all
the great typical teaching found in the O.T. under the word "atonement". Seeing that the
apostle Paul uses this O.T. word directly of the work of Christ, we most gladly and
thankfully accept the teaching, rejoicing that all the precious typical blessings
foreshadowed under the law are ours, in their glorious reality, through the precious blood