Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"
Everywhere you look in the book of Hebrews you run into “blood.” It’s almost the “bloodiest” book in the New Testament, as Leviticus is the bloodiest in the Old. Blood is mentioned twenty-one times in Hebrews, and some ninety times in Leviticus. Only the last book of the New Testament exceeds Hebrews--Revelation mentions the Lamb some twenty-five times, the “Lamb slain.” It’s “the blood of the Lamb” in which believers “washed their robes and made them white" (5:6, 12; 7:14, etc.). Why this obsession with “blood”?
The ninety times it is featured in Leviticus, it’s animal blood that “makes atonement” for sin; in Hebrews and Revelation, it’s the blood of the Son of God. What is the Holy Spirit trying to say to us who are living now? We don’t like to see blood; we are horrified by the bloodshed in the Middle East and the murders in our own land.
Hebrews and Revelation direct our gaze to the cross where Christ sacrificed Himself to save us from eternal death. “Behold! The Lamb of God” is the message (John 1:29). The “light” that will eventually “lighten the earth with glory” (Rev. 18:1-4, KJV) will be a revelation of the “width and length and depth and height" of “the love of Christ which passes knowledge” (Eph. 3:18, 19).
Because it “passes knowledge” no human tongue can tell it adequately, but evidently in that final hour of proclaiming the gospel its dimensions will be probed more deeply than ever before in world history. Humanity will be brought face to face with ultimate Reality--“Christ and Him crucified.” “All men” will face the cross and see their involvement in the world’s moment of truth that happened there.
Many will choose to crucify Christ “afresh,” but thank God there are also many in the world who for the first time will “discern the Lord’s body”; He was crucified by themselves (1 Cor. 11:29)! They will repent. At last, that great IF in Christ’s proclamation will be fulfilled: “And I, IF I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all to Myself” (John 12:32, 33).
That IF has never been realized in its full sense. By a multitude of voices all over the earth, Paul’s message will be repeated, “I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” “God forbid that I should glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me and I to the world” (1 Cor. 2:1, 2; Gal. 6:14).
This is the “everlasting gospel” of Revelation 14:6, 7 that is to be proclaimed in mighty power to “every nation, tribe, tongue, and people.” It has been thought that this final message will grip the world with terror-stricken fright and thus force decisions. Rather, the last rays of merciful light, the last message of mercy to be given to the world, is a revelation of His character of love.
Thank you book of Hebrews, thank you book of Revelation, for bringing us to the cross of Jesus. And please, please, heavenly Father, send the Holy Spirit to melt our worldly hearts, so that by true and genuine faith we can be “crucified to the world.” That experience is long, long overdue.
--Robert J. Wieland
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: September 2, 2003.
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