The Holiest of All By Andrew Murray

426 Gbe IboHest ot Bll
very nature the punishment of sin. It was an acknowledgment
of the righteous judgment of God against sin ;
the confession
that without blood-shedding there could be no remission of sins.
It was an act of faith ;
he counted that the sacrifice would be
acceptable, and that with it he would be accepted too. On the
other hand, the sacrifice was the offering and yielding up himself
to God and His service. He knew it was something that lay in
the very nature and spirit of a true sacrifice, that it could not
be pleasing to God if he offered the lamb, and kept back
himself. No, the sacrifice was the double confession that he
was unworthy to offer himself to God without atonement, but
that, believing that in the sacrifice he was accepted, he gave
himself to God s worship and service, he gave himself to the
very death, to die to self and live to God. And it was as if his
own death had to confirm and seal the truth ;
the man who had
offered the sacrifice of faith, had founded his worship in the
death of a lamb, had to die himself to find the way to God.
The atoning sacrifice has ever two sides ;
the lamb was at
once a substitute and a symbol, its death an atonement and a
consecration.
Faith draws nigh to God through sacrifice ;
in Christ this
truth finds its full realisation. By one offering He hath per
fected for ever them that are sanctified. Our access to God
and our fellowship with Him can only be in Christ s finished
work. We have boldness through
His blood His blood
cleanses and perfects the conscience. The first great work of
faith is to appropriate the sacrifice and obedience and righteous
ness of Christ as accepted for us, to hold it
up before God, and
by the Holy Spirit to have the witness given, and to experience
how acceptable we are. But faith cannot fully do this without
at the same time entering into the inner spiritual significance of