I Peter 1:18,19

Good Friday, March 21, 2008

We have seen together the necessity of the cross, that Christ might free us from the curse of sin becoming the curse for us. (Gal. 3:13) We have seen the meaning of the wounds of Christ and how essential they are: revealing God’s wrath, exhibiting His love, and displaying His mercy for us.

In this last message we are on the holiest of all ground. What place and necessity is there for the blood of Jesus Christ our Savior? The New Testament has so many passages about Christ’s precious blood that one is pressed to choose, but we have taken these words of the Apostle Peter, “You know that you were ransomed from your futile ways inherited from your fathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.” (Peter 1:18, 19)

In the passion account the blood of Christ is ever before us beginning at Gethsemane where the anguish was so great that blood was forced from his pores, to the scourging with cords imbedded with stones to cause the back to bleed, and the crown of thorns pressed down on His brow. Throughout His suffering, blood trickled from the wounds we have come to love. And at the last, as if to empty the sacred heart of its last drops, the soldier thrust in the sword and out came water and blood. He gave it all – every last drop of blood was poured out. His blood was the only part of Himself physically that Christ left on earth. His body and His bones ascended into heaven, but His blood remains behind as a title of ownership of His people.

THIS OWNERSHIP IS AT A GREAT PRICE

“You are not your own, you were bought with a price….” (I Cor. 7:23)
In the New Testament the blood means, “life given up or laid down.” As “Christ loved us and gave himself up for us” (Gal. 2:20d) so the blood of Jesus embodies for us His whole act of dying for our sakes. It is called “precious” and so it is.
• Precious because of the life it nourishes – the life of God. It is called by the Apostle Paul, “the blood of God,” to feed the Church of God which He has purchased. (Acts 20:28)
• Precious because it is perfect. He is utterly sinless as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. He said which of you convicteth me of sin? Judas said, “I have betrayed innocent blood.” (Matt. 27:4)
• Precious because it is given voluntarily. He was the only one who did not have to die. Only He chose to die and therefore His blood is infinitely precious to us.
• Precious because it is poured out freely.
• Precious because it is so powerful. The blood of Christ cleanses us from all sin. “How much more shall the blood of Christ cleanse your conscience of dead works to serve the living God.” (Heb. 9:14) What else can cleanse the conscience of man?
• Precious because it is perpetual. It goes on doing now what it did on the cross as a fountain of immortality. It stands to cleanse and purify all who come to Christ in repentance and faith.

By its mere touch, it can change the center of our life from serving self to the serving of God and others. As the fluids of the eye are constantly wiping away the impurities that gather there, so does the blood of Christ constantly cleanse the heart of the believer from defilements. It is a forever cleansing blood. That is what John was saying when he wrote, “If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.” (I John 1:7) Had any lesser price been paid, we would have tried to pay it ourselves; e.g., silver and gold, but He paid a price no other can pay. Truly no one can ransom himself or give to God the price of his life.

OUR OWNER HAS PURCHASED US WITH HIS OWN BLOOD

Jesus spoke of, “giving his life a ransom for many.” (Matt. 20:28) “This is the blood of the New Covenant shed for many for the remission of sins.” (Matt. 26:28)
The fact is we were in bondage…
• To condemnation,
• To sin
• To the world
• To vain and futile living
• To iniquity.
These things had dominion over us. We were servants of sin and could not help ourselves. Under its tyranny our inability to save ourselves is revealed because nobody can pay the price of his own sin. The blood of Jesus is the price of our rescue from these hostile and evil forces; our ransom, our redemption.

The Bible insists that to be redeemed a price must be paid and Christ’s blood is that price. So we read in Ephesians, “In Him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace.” (Eph. 1:7)
Without this price, God would simply be letting sin go unpunished, losing His own righteousness but with the payment of the price, He is righteously and justly purchasing us from our bondage to sins, wrath and condemnation.

So the people who sing in the book of Revelation are not rejoicing that they were courageous or that they were good or served well. They sang, “And have redeemed us to God by Your blood…,” (Rev. 5:9) And when John asked, “Who are these?” He heard the angel say, “These are they who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” (Rev. 7:14)

THE BLOOD RECONCILES OUR NEW OWNER TO US

For sin caused a change in God – not in His nature but in His attitude toward us, in His relationship to us. It was one of hostility, “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness….” (Romans 1:18)

The blood was a sacrifice to that wrath….
• To appease,
• To propitiate,
• To reconcile Him to us.

He taught us that in Cain and Abel. Cain’s sacrifice is man reaching out to God. Abel’s sacrifice is God stooping down to man. “Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sin.” Abel brought blood as God commanded to show the need for a sin offering. Here God had expressed His divine desire for blood to the exclusion of all other sacrifices. These two ways go on forever – one the natural offering and the other the spiritual offering.

The blood of Christ is a final work. “The blood of Christ speaks better things than the blood of Abel.” (Heb. 12:24) When He finished, He sat down once for all and declared, “It is finished!” (John 19:30) And He has made an end of bloody sacrifice in all the religions of the world.
That sacrifice must be applied to us. It is not an automatic and universal application. The crowd ignorantly taught us this, “…His blood be upon us and on our children,” (Matt. 27:25) they said. This is now the sinners’ prayer. Apply your saving blood to me, Lord Jesus. Our Lord Jesus said, “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood you have no life in you.” (John 6:53) Here Jesus applied His sacred blood to our believing hearts.

Application:
If you are an unbeliever:
You can ask Him to sprinkle it on you
Or you can trample it underfoot

If you are a believer:
You can let the blood of Christ bring you into a self-sacrificing spirit so that you come conformed to the crucified Christ. “I am no longer my own.”

Do you have any unsettled controversy? The blood of Christ can bring reconciliation.

Search out the inner recesses of your heart and let the blood of Christ remove every stain of sin. Now forgive yourself also.

The blood of Christ will always be God’s answer to your soul’s deepest need. When you come to your dying hour the blood will be worth more than all the kingdoms of this world.

There is a Fountain

There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel’s veins,
And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains:
Lose all their guilty stains, lose all their guilty stains;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.
William Cowper

–Dr. Glen C. Knecht