PART  VII – Transactional Aspects of the Lamp-Stand Model

SUBPART C  –  GLORIFICATION

Article 4  –  THE PRINCIPLE OF INNOCENT BLOOD

By Daniel Irving

a.  Those He Justified, He Glorified

b.  The Tumult of Strangers Against the Sanctified of Christ

c.  The Principle of Innocent Blood

d.  The Broken Neck in a Defiled Land

e.  Lost Inheritance of the Murderous Heart

Article 4  –  THE PRINCIPLE OF INNOCENT BLOOD

a.  Those He Justified, He Glorified

The prophecies of Isaiah include the question:

Who hath believed our report?  And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?                                                                                      Is. 53:1

What report?  The Gospel report that God has walked in flesh in the Person of His only begotten Son;[1] and that He has offered the propitiation for the sins of humanity through the Person of His only begotten Son.  This is the vital truth that shall be vindicated against all controversy.   And “who has believed our report?”  Those justified by the blood of that  sacrifice.  And concerning those who shall be made a part of this vindication, God’s Son declares:

“. . . fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul:  but rather fear Him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.”       Matt. 10:28

For these, it will be the fear of God which begins to operate as the more vital reality than fear in the natural.  These justified by His blood shall be given a new awareness of the eternal.  They shall be given  armor whereby they need not fear the natural.  They can rejoice in the Lord’s words:

Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake:  for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.    Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you,  and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.  Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven:  for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.                Matt. 5:10-12

Having no more quarrel with men, they will find their quarrel to be against the spiritual agency responsible for darkening humanity’s understanding, and preventing men from knowing a day of salvation through the knowledge of Christ.  Natural strength is of no benefit in this new quarrel.  This quarrel belongs to God.  God has declared he shall conclusively reckon upon this controversy with a terrible finality:    

For it is the day of the LORD’S vengeance, and the year of recompences for the controversy of Zion.              Is. 34:8

Those justified by faith, shall lay down their lives for the purposes of God by that same faith.  Thus the justified by faith, shall glorify God by faith.  And God shall glorify them within Himself within Christ.

b.  The Tumult of Strangers Against the Sanctified of Christ

The third chapter of Joel’s prophecy relates to the nations coming presumptuously against the sanctified body of Christ.  When the hostility men have for God is directed against those beginning to bear His image in the world, there shall be a sudden and terrible consequence of the forfeiture of their own eternal life.  We read:

Egypt will become a waste, and Edom will become a desolate wilderness, because of the violence done to the sons of Judah, in whose land they have shed innocent blood.                                                                                      Joel 3:19

Why shall Egypt and Edom become a waste?  Egypt signifies the world spirit.  Edom signifies the natural man.  There is a time foretold when the world will go head to head with the Jerusalem-above, meaning those confirmed in Christ through sanctification by the Spirit.  In so doing, the nations outside of Christ and acting out against God’s purposes in Christ and His body, shall be decisively crushed beneath the rock that is the truth of Jesus Christ.  Recall that Christ said:

“And whoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken; but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.”                     Matt. 21:44

Isaiah as well prophesies of a terrible stumbling that shall befall the nations when they come against the sanctified of Christ.  God tells Zion:

Moreover the multitude of thy strangers shall be like small dust, and the multitude of the terrible ones shall be as chaff that passeth away; yea, it shall be at an instant, suddenly.             Is. 29:5

This Hebrew word translated “multitude”[2] in both the NASV as well as the KJV (and used twice here) is normally used in reference to a large crowd.  The word is most used in context with the nations of the world or the enemies of Israel, and seems to suggest uproar or a disquieted condition.  We find it used as follows:

Gen 17:4           . . .  thou shalt be a father of many nations.

Jdg 4:7             Jabin’s army, with his chariots and his multitude;

When the Philistines captured the ark in battle, Eli said . . .

1Sa 4:14          What meaneth the noise of this tumult?

When speaking of the army of the Philistines, it is written . . .

1Sa 14:16        . . . and, behold, the multitude melted away,

To avoid having to tell the king his son (Absolem) was dead, Ahimaaz said . .

2Sa 18:29        I saw a great tumult, but I knew not what it was.

Ps 65:7             Which stilleth the noise of the seas, the noise of their waves, and the tumult of the people.

Is 13:4              The noise of a multitude in the mountains, like as of a great people; a tumultuous noise of the kingdoms of nations gathered together:    

Prophecy foretells of the elect being brought low and suffering affliction in anticipation of a glorious resurrection.

  But thou hast cast off and abhorred, thou hast been wroth with thine anointed.  Thou hast made void the covenant of thy servant:  thou hast profaned his crown by casting it to the ground.  Thou hast broken down all his hedges; thou hast brought his strong holds to ruin.  All that pass by the way spoil him: he is a reproach to his neighbors.  Thou hast set up the right hand of his adversaries; thou hast made all his enemies to rejoice.  Thou hast also turned the edge of his sword, and hast not made him to stand in the battle.  Thou hast made his glory to cease, and cast his throne down to the ground.  The days of his youth hast thou shortened: thou hast covered him with shame.  Selah.                                                                                      Ps. 89:38-45 

The elect shall be brought into acute affliction as a prelude to a future work of God.  Job, in his sufferings spoke in similar manner, lamenting,  “He has stripped my honor from me, and removed the crown from my head.”  However, for those strangers to God, there is a different result.  God tells Zion that the strangers that rise against her “shall become like fine dust.”  This word “dust” is not the same word translated in the preceding verses as “dust.”  This Hebrew word [3] is rarely used for “dust”, and the translators seem agreed that the connotation is that of a finer dust.  The Interlinear Version renders it, “ the host of your strangers shall be as fine powder,” while the King James Version renders it, “the multitude of thy strangers shall be as small dust.” The Hebrew word translated “small”[4] in the KJV and “fine” in the NASV derives from the Hebrew word for “crush.”[5]  Its rare usage in scripture includes:

And he shall take a censer full of burning coals of fire from off the altar before the Lord, and his hands full of sweet incense beaten small and bring it within the veil.”   Lev 16:12

Clearly, the prophet declares that in contrast to Ariel, who shall be only driven into the dust, those who oppose Ariel shall in fact become very fine dust that is blown away.

Who are these that are ground to powder in this way?  The Hebrew word translated “enemies” [6] by the NASV and “strangers” by the KJV, is never the word for “enemies” in the KJV.  “Enemy” is not even a listed meaning in the Hebrew lexicon.  It is not the enemies of Ariel that shall be ground to fine powder, it is the strangers to Ariel.  While not the most common word for stranger in the KJV, it is rendered this way in several instances, e.g.:

Ex. 29:33          & they shall eat those things wherewith the atonement was made                                     To consecrate & to sanctify them; but a stranger shall not eat thereof, because they are holy.

Ex. 30:33          Whosoever compoundeth any like it, or whosoever puts any of it                                     upon a stranger, shall even be cut off from his people.

Lev. 22:10         There shall be no stranger eat of the holy thing;

Num 1:51          & when the tabernacle is to be pitched, the Levites shall set it up;                                     The stranger that cometh nigh shall be put to death.

Num 18:7          I have given your priest’s office unto you as a service of gift; and the stranger that comes nigh shall be put to death.

Ps. 69:8  I am a stranger  unto my brethren, & an alien unto my mother’s children.

This word therefore has particular application when referring to outsiders concerning the things of God, ie. those that do not belong to the congregation of God’s people.  The principle of strangerhood expresses the contrasting relationship of those authorized to enter into the holy things.  To understand its meaning in terms of the Gospel, it would appear that, particularly in light of Exodus 29:33 (above), it would most fundamentally refer to those not within the mystical “body of Christ, or (at least) not solidly within a valid profession of faith in Jesus Christ.  Yet in verse seven of Isaiah’s prophecy these are said to “wage war” against Ariel.  The implication is that those outside of Christ will begin to wage a persecution of the body of Christ.  In fact, there is a prophecy of David which also uses the same rare word for stranger:

For strangers are risen up against me, and oppressors seek after my soul; They have not set God before them.                    Ps. 54:3

The Spirit of Christ is opposed by a spirit that rises up in the ungodly.  The “ungodly” being “strangers” to the things of God, who have not “set God before” their eyes.  They have not brought faith into the equation of their lives.  Because they have never chosen to set God and his righteous requirements before themselves in any way beyond a superficial sense, their consciences run unhindered despite the approach of judgment.

Recall that such occurred when the Pharisaical Jews opposed Christ when he declared to them the parable of the wicked husbandmen.  After the Lord told them this parable, they “sought to lay hands on Him.”[7]  After delivering to them the parable, Jesus states:

“And whoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken; but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.”                  Matt. 21:44

The meaning therefore of being crushed to “fine dust” refers to perishing in judgment due to opposition to the Person or purposes of Christ Jesus.

c.  The Principle of Innocent Blood

Looking again to Joel’s prophecy, we read:

Egypt will become a waste, and Edom will become a desolate wilderness, because of the violence done to the sons of Judah, in whose land they have shed innocent blood.                                                                                      Joel 3:19

There is a high-sacrilege represented in violence against the image of God that is Christ.[8]  The crucifixion of Christ itself was the fulfillment of this violence and constituted the altar sanctifying all suffering under this principle.   This violence as well, constitutes the unwitting “rod” God uses to perfect those entering into the kingdom of our Lord.

What is the “innocent blood” that God shall avenge?  This concept of innocent blood was laid down in the Law.  We read in the Law of Moses:

  Keep thee far from a false matter;  and the innocent and righteous slay thou not: for I will not justify the wicked.            Ex 23:7

Moses gave particular warning against becoming responsible for the slaying of innocent blood, particularly in light of Israel having assumed its place in the land of their possession. 

That innocent blood be not shed in thy land, which the LORD thy God giveth thee for an inheritance, & so blood be upon thee.   Deut. 19:10

Despite this plea that no “innocent blood” be laid to the account of the nation of Israel, what in fact occurred?  Israel ultimately did shed the innocent blood of Christ upon His visitation into the world and among His own.  Therefore these received the denunciation of the Lord,:

“Woe to you, scribes & Pharisees, hypocrites!  Because you build the tombs of the prophets & adorn the monuments of the righteous, & say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the  prophets.’  Therefore you are witnesses against yourselves  that you are the sons of those who murdered the prophets.”                  Matt. 23:29-31

But was it all of Israel that received this rebuke?  No, for there were also those in Israel that received Christ and entered upon the fulfillment of the true and spiritual Israel.  The “innocent blood” was shed in the midst of Jerusalem, the rightful place of the great king; a point which was made in the prophecy of Jeremiah concerning the reprobate Jews that did not go into exile into Babylon:

for thus says the Lord concerning the king who sits on the throne of David, and concerning all the people who dwell in this city, your brothers who did not go with you into exile –thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘Behold I am sending upon them the sword, famine, & pestilence, & I will make them like split-open figs that cannot be eaten due to rottenness.  & I will pursue them with the sword, with famine, & with pestilence; & I will make them a terror to all the kingdoms of the earth, to be a curse, and a horror, & a hissing, and a reproach among the nations where I have driven them, because they have not listened to My words,’ declares the Lord ‘when I sent them again & again by My servants the prophets; but you did not listen’, declares the Lord.                      Jer. 29:16-19

The prophecies of Jeremiah declared that something wonderful lay in store for those of His people that had settled in Babylon – ie. that God had “plans for welfare and not for calamity to give [them] a future and a hope.”[9]  In light of their rejection from the land, one would think they were in the least position to hope in the Lord, particularly considering those that had steadfastly held onto the indicia of salvation despite the Spirit’s witness against them of Sin.   They proved themselves resilient to the witness of the Word, a characteristic that did not accommodate the redemptive purposes of God.

At a time when Israel was divided and God’s word ignored – a time when the strength of God’s people lay predominantly in the flesh – there were those that ascended to prominence and thrived, ie. those that were the most resistant to the Divine witness against them – those that had the least true belief in the efficacy and power of the Law’s witness, or at least little truth within themselves by which to perceive their own non-conformity therewith.  This placed them in a vulnerable spiritual condition against which the Law itself had bid them fair warning, “saying, ‘Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm.’” [10]  Despite the solemn warning delivered them by Moses, they shed the blood of the righteous that co-existed with the unrighteous in the same land, incurring blood-guilt of a type not possible in any other nation.

d.  The Broken Neck for a Defiled Land

Despite the warning of the Law against incurring blood-guilt, there was nonetheless a means for purging the land.  There was a provision for the purging of guilt after the slaying of innocent blood.  When a man was found murdered in a field, the innocent blood had to be purged.  Thus a heifer was brought into a valley where there was running water and its neck was broken.  The elders of the nearest city were to wash their hands and call unto the Lord as follows:

  Be merciful, O LORD, unto thy people Israel, whom thou hast redeemed, and lay not innocent blood unto thy people of Israel’s charge.   And the blood shall be forgiven them.   So shalt thou put away the guilt of innocent blood from among you, when thou shalt do that which is right in the sight of the LORD.     Deut. 21:8

Note this sacrifice mentions nothing about purging the sin of the perpetrator.  Rather the sacrifice was for the purging of the land, meaning that God considered the whole population defiled by the shedding of innocent blood.  Notice the unusual mode of killing the sacrifice.  While the normal mode of killing the sacrifice was to release its blood,[11] the method used for the sacrifice for the shedding of innocent blood was to kill it in such a way that the blood remained within the animal.  This was also the method for killing any firstborn (ie. that belonging to the Lord) that was not to be redeemed:

And every firstling of an ass thou shalt redeem with a lamb;  and if thou wilt not redeem it, then thou shalt break his neck  and all the firstborn of man among thy children shalt thou redeem.        Ex. 13:13 

All firstborn sons of God were required to be redeemed by blood sacrifice – a symbol of the elect, redeemed by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.  But if there be a firstborn that is not to be redeemed, it shall have its neck broken.

The Law pronounced a special curse concerning the man that accepted a reward for the killing of the innocent.

  Cursed be he that taketh reward to slay an innocent person.  And all the people shall say, Amen.                  Deu 27:25

Judas realized exactly what he had done after delivering up Christ to the Jews:

Saying, I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood.  And they said, What is that to us? See thou to that.  And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself.                  Matt. 27:4-5

Why did Moses warn the people concerning the shedding of innocent blood?   The nation was ultimately destined to shed the innocent blood of Christ.  For the day would come to Israel when the Righteous One[12] would present Himself, and His innocent blood they would shed:

When Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing, but that rather a tumult was made,  he took water, and washed his hands before the multitude,  saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye to it.  Then answered all the people, and said, His blood be on us, and on our children.                   Matt. 27:24-25 

Despite the warning of Moses, those claiming stake under the Law were eager to shed the blood of the righteous just as their fathers had done before them.  But the Lord’s sacrifice would call forth many more of “the righteous;” those made righteous through the justification of God and cleansing of conscience provided in the blood of the Cross; those following in the Lord’s example:

Little children, let no man deceive you:  he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous.                     I John 3:7

If this is the case, ie. if the sanctified in Christ are “righteous, even as He is righteous,” then shedding the blood of the saints also constitutes the “shedding of innocent blood.”   Thus the Jewish nation heaped wrath upon itself through its continual persecution and killing of the body of Christ in the earth, even as it had persecuted and killed their Head.  This went on until its land was hopelessly defiled.  Paul writes concerning the nation of Israel:

Who both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us;  and they please not God, and are contrary to all men: Forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved,  to fill up their sins alway: for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost.        I Thess. 2:15-16

And to think that this was formerly God’s own people!  Hopefully this will be a warning to us today lest we presume upon the things of God and fail to perceive when the Spirit of Christ is at work sanctifying men in the present day.  For Paul warns us that just as they were broken from off the olive tree, the same is true of us.[13]  Just as God’s people that rejected Christ and who rose against the sanctified in Christ in the first century became the unwitting tools of antichrist, so can God’s people today become the unwitting tools of the antichrist spirit through unbelief.[14]  For this is the basis for our attachment to, or detachment from, the Lord; “. . they were broken off for their unbelief; but you stand by your faith.”[15]

e.   The Lost Inheritance of the Murderous Heart

Consider that the epic struggle of king David was not against Goliath, nor was his primary struggle against the Philistines.  The first book of Samuel begins with the transgression of the priesthood of Israel, ie. between God and His own people.  Ultimately, the book develops into the epic struggle between David and Saul.  Saul sought to kill David with maniacal zeal.  Yet, David had done nothing untoward except to sanctify the God of Israel.  Therefore Saul’s own son, Jonathan, delivered to his father this rebuke:

For he did put his life in his hand, and slew the Philistine, and the LORD wrought a great salvation for all Israel:   thou sawest it, and didst rejoice: wherefore then wilt thou sin against innocent blood, to slay David without a cause?                                                                                                 I Sam. 19:5

Those rejected by the Lord and continuing in unbelief, shall receive a deluding spirit.  It shall manifest as hatred (ie. a spirit of murder) within the Church.  Prior to judgment upon Jerusalem, Jeremiah prophesied:

Thus saith the LORD; Execute ye judgment and righteousness, and deliver the spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor:  and do no wrong, do no violence to the stranger, the fatherless, nor the widow, neither shed innocent blood in this place.                                                                                      Jer. 22:3

Who is the oppressor?[16]

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.         Eph 6:12

If the “oppressor” be “spiritual wickedness in high places,” then who are the “spoiled?”  Those that have been spoiled of their inheritance in Christ due to the oppression of Satanic agency; “spiritual wickedness in high places.”  The “spoiled” reside in Sin, and so in Death, due to the lies and oppression of Satan until such time as they receive faith to overcome.   Those having life in the Spirit abide in a place to receive from the Lord and to give to those in need.  But those living in the flesh can only trample upon the things of God.   This is the work of “Edom” (ie. the flesh), and therefore the prophecy denounces the violence done by Edom.  Edom is destined to become a permanent desolation from the Spirit of God; “because of the violence done to the sons of Judah, in whose land they have shed innocent blood.”