they eat the little wafer handed them, but no one can sensibly believe that this is true, even though the priest claims it. Jesus claimed that He is the Bread of Life, and that we must eat Him. How do we do this? By partaking of His life. How do we partake of His life.? By receiving his love in our hearts so that it becomes our life. The same is true of His blood. As we partake of His truth, we are enlightened and vivified by it.
The entire Bible is written in symbols. The blood is mentioned so often and made use of because of its intimate connection with human life. It is true that the life is in the blood, of a man as well as of an animal. The writer of the Book of Hebrews says plainly, "It is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins" Those sacrifices were only a symbolism, as he says. And the writer of Hebrews is likewise speaking wholly in symbols, after the manner of the Hebrew symbolists of his time. The blood of Christ offered without spot to God is only a symbolism, and it means the life of Jesus which is "to purge our conscience from dead works to serve the living God." The life is in the blood. The blood is, as it were, a corporeal soul, and represents the spiritual life. The blood poured out for us on Calvary represents the life He poured out for humanity, the life of the maternal human, and it was truly a sacrifice,—not to another God, for God is One, but a willing sacrifice on His part incurred in His rescuing man from his enemies of the underworld.
The wtiter of Hebrews also says that "almost all things are by the law purged with blood." This blood represents the Divine truth and life which flow out from the Lord since His victory over the hells. In the ancient sacrifices it represents the blood of Jesus; but it became a living power as His life—the reality it represented—to purify and cleanse and make alive after the completion of His combats with the hells on Calvary.
A favorite quotation of the "Plan of Salvation" people is the verse in Hebrews which says, "Without shedding of blood is no remission." But what does it mean? That without the suffering of Jesus on the cross as the innocent victim, the shedding of His blood, we cannot expect the forgiveness of God for our sins? It is an interesting illus-
