Benefits Of Jesus Blood

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We're going to take a little detour on our study this morning. And I'd ask if you would please turn in your
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Bibles to John Chapter 19, John Chapter 19. We sing a hymn,
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There is Power in the Blood. And if somebody was to ask you the question, what does that mean, there is power in the blood?
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I wonder how many things that we could say would describe or give us an idea of what that means that there is power in the blood.
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Or maybe I could put it better this way. If we think about the blood of Jesus Christ, what is it, as Paul would write, we are blessed with all spiritual blessings in Christ Jesus.
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And the blessings that would come to us through the blood of Christ, that is going to be the
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Sunday school class this morning. I was wondering if you could think, maybe you don't have to do this, but if you had to list, what is it that comes to the believer through the blood of Christ, scripturally, biblically, what verses could we go to to take a look at that?
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That is what the Sunday school lesson is going to be. It is going to be kind of like a little bit of a quick tour, because we are going to have to go through several books in the
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Bible. But I thought that it might just be profitable for us, because sometimes we just say, well, we believe.
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We believe upon Jesus Christ. Jesus died for me. But what does that bring to us?
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What is it that God, in his wonderful wisdom, purposed to grace us with through faith in Christ, through the blood of Christ, what is it that comes to us?
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And that's what we'll look at this morning. But first of all, I want to look at John chapter 19 and just read a few verses by way of introduction.
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John 19, notice in verse 16, this is speaking here of Pilate.
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And it says, then delivered he him. Pilate delivered Christ. Therefore, unto them to be crucified.
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And they took Jesus, and they led him away. And he, Jesus, bearing his cross, went forth into a place called the place of a skull, which is called in the
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Hebrew Golgotha, where they crucified him and two other with him on either side one, and Jesus in the midst.
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And then if you go down with me to verse 23, then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took his garments and made four parts to every soldier apart and also his coat.
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The coat was without seam woven from the top throughout. And then let's look down in verse 30.
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When Jesus, therefore, had received the vinegar, he said, it is finished. And he bowed his head and gave up the ghost.
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The Jews, therefore, because it was the preparation that the body should not remain upon the cross on the
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Sabbath day, for the Sabbath day was in high day, besought Pilate that their legs might be broken and that they might be taken away.
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Then came the soldiers and break the legs of the first and of the other, which was crucified with him.
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Now, they did that because those that were crucified needed to use their legs to push up their bodies in order to be able to breathe.
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And if they broke their legs, it hastened the death. And in this case, they broke the legs of the thief on one side, the thief on the other side.
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But in verse 33, when they came to Jesus and saw that he was dead already, they break not his legs.
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But the one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side and forthwith came there out blood and water.
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Now, whether or not they took the spear and they pierced his heart or whether they pierced maybe the lower cavity of his chest,
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Jesus had already died. The blood had already begun to separate from the cells to the serum and out came the blood, the cells, the red and the serum, the water.
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And this is just to show us that Jesus was unquestionably dead.
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There's absolutely no doubt about it. It says over and over again, John's words in verse 16, he's crucified.
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Verse 18, they crucified him. This is the means of death. Verse 23, they crucified
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Jesus. In verse 30, Jesus gave up the ghost. That's so interesting to me.
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You can cross -reference back to John chapter 10 and in verse 18, where Jesus says, no man takes the life from him.
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He is going to willingly give up his life. And that's what he's doing here on the cross.
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He gives up the ghost, he dies. They come to him. They're breaking the legs of the others so that it'll hasten their death because they don't want the bodies on the cross through the holy day.
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And then when they come to Jesus, he's dead already. They pierce his side, out with comes blood and water.
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And John says this in verse 35, and he that saw it, this is John, bear record.
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And his record is true. And he knoweth that he sayeth true that you might believe.
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The record that we have, John is saying, I was an eyewitness of this. I saw it with my very own eyes.
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All of these things that I'm writing here concerning the death of Jesus Christ so that you might believe.
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Now, what comes to us is that we look back upon this today. We look in the scriptures and we have heard this truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ, that Christ has died for our sins according to the scriptures.
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And of course we know that he was buried and that he rose again, but we have believed. And we're gonna get to one verse in particular, but we have believed something about the work of Christ.
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We have believed first and foremost that Jesus Christ being God who came in the flesh, died for our sins, our substitute.
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And in so dying, we sing songs, we know the truth, and we say that he shed his blood.
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But there are scriptures that tie the blood of Christ to the benefit or something that takes place or something that comes to us as believers.
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And this is doctrine in the scripture, teachings, the apostles pass this down that I believe that we ought to be familiar with.
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And we ought to be able to lay hold upon and we ought to be able to rejoice in as we consider what was it that Christ did when he died upon the cross in our stead for us.
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And the focus this morning is not upon our work. The focus this morning is not what we have done in order to commend ourselves to God.
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The focus is not a man centered gospel or a gospel that is helpful to man.
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The whole idea here is that God has done something. The Holy God of heaven and earth has done something on the behalf of sinners and has graced us through the finished work of Christ with spiritual blessings in Jesus.
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With a work that he has done, and he has done something for us that we could never have done for ourselves.
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And what is it that he's done? What is it that the blood of Christ has brought us? What is it that through the blood we receive?
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And that's what we'll be looking at this morning. If you take your Bibles, just go back with me please to Matthew chapter 26.
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Matthew 26, we're gonna start there and we're gonna kind of just shoot right through the New Testament and look at several verses this morning.
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If you miss any of the verses, I'll be glad to give them to you afterwards. Matthew 26, and in verse 26, they're eating at the
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Lord's supper here. Matthew 26, 26, and as they were eating, Jesus took bread and blessed it and break it and gave it to his disciples and said, "'Take eat, this is my body.'
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When he took the cup and he gave thanks and gave it to them saying, "'Drink ye all of it,' for," verse 28, "'This is my blood of the
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New Testament.'" Now he's speaking of the blood that is about to be shed. He's not died yet, of course, it's the last supper, but he's telling them what his blood would be for and what it would bring them.
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"'For this is my blood of the New Testament, "'which is shed for many for the remission of sins.'"
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And there's the first thing, the remission of sins. And that word means freedom from sin.
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It means pardon from sins, deliverance from sins. It is forgiveness of sins.
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The blood of Jesus Christ is powerful because it can remove, forgive, deliver us from, and liberate us from the penalty that is due our sin.
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And it is so powerful that it can take the dead sinner who is, as Paul wrote in Ephesians 2, dead in trespasses and sins, and as the
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Psalmist said, tied and captive in the cords of our sins, even
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Paul wrote that in 2 Timothy 2, that if we tell the truth to somebody, they can be delivered from out of the clutches of Satan who are held, taken captive by him at his will.
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And it is powerful because it remits sin. It pardons sin.
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And it's not just all of the sins from the time we believe upon him backwards, those sins, but every sin, because when
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Jesus died, we haven't even been born yet. And yet all of our sins were laid upon him.
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He who knew no sin became sin for us, 2 Corinthians 5 .21.
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And in 1 Corinthians 15, verses one through three, particularly verses three and four, it says that Christ died for our sins and that he was buried.
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And according to the scriptures, the third day he rose again, according to the scriptures. And what's so amazing about the remittance of sin is that when
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God remits, when God delivers us from sin, it is not only the penalty that is due our sin, because the wages of sin is death.
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We deserve the judgment of God. We deserve to be banished from the presence of God because of our iniquity, because of the warfare that is between us and God.
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And yet God in his mercy, God in his grace, God loving his enemies, God loving the unlovable,
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Christ dies for us and delivers us not only from the penalty of sin, but from the power of sin.
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You'd realize that God never intended for anyone who was to be saved, not just to have kind of the legal transaction of the sins forgiven, but not only the legal transaction, but the life change.
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God delivers us from the power of sin, the clutch of sin, the love of sin, the passion of sin.
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It would kind of like be like a guy on a boat.
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Somebody is overboard. They drive up with a boat and they throw the lifesaver over with the rope in it and pull the gentleman to the boat and yet leave him in the water.
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I mean, he's hanging onto the boat, but he's just leave him there in the water, in the treacherous sea.
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And God does not do that. God does not just save us from the penalty of sin and then leave us in sin.
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He delivers us from sin. And that is just the amazing, to make us a holy people, to sanctify us and to conform us to the image of Christ.
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And in so doing this, the way that God does this is that through the blood of Jesus Christ, first and foremost, we're freed from sin.
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We're liberated from sin. We're pardoned from sin. Notice with me in Acts chapter 20.
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Let's take a look there. After the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and then we come to the book of Acts.
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Go with me to Acts chapter 20. So the first thing we see is that our sins through the blood, notice that verse said through the blood of Christ, there would be remission of sin.
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Acts chapter 20. Paul is departing from the elders at Ephesus and he gives them his farewell words and a couple of commendations.
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And he says this in verse 28. Acts 20, 28, take heed therefore unto yourselves and to all the flock over which the
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Holy Ghost has made you overseers to feed the church of God which he has purchased with his own blood.
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That verse is just so full. And of course here, we're going to see that through the blood of Jesus Christ, what is it that God has done for sinners on the behalf of those whom he's going to save?
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What does it say in the verse? Well, it is salvation, but what particularly has the, he says at the very last phrase, which he has purchased with his blood.
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The church has been purchased, bought. It says here in Acts 20, and what's so interesting, it says to the elders, the admonition goes out that they should examine themselves and they should be very careful as they, in their duties to feed the church of God.
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Now this is the church of God is to be fed. And who is it that's done the purchasing in this verse?
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What does it say? Who purchased the church? No, in the verse it says who? It says God purchased.
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Okay, now we know because we go elsewhere that we can cross -reference. But what's so neat in this verse is we see that the church of God is to be fed by the elders.
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And it says, feed the church of God, which he has purchased with his own blood. God purchased the church with his own blood.
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Now, what is so neat about that? It proves that Christ is
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God because who is it that died? Who is it that hung on the cross? Who is it that shed his blood?
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Well, it's Jesus Christ. But here, Luke records it in this way that God purchased the church with his own blood, speaking of Christ, Christ being
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God. And that's not even, I mean, that's just something that we glean from this verse as we look at it.
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But according to the study this morning, what we're looking at as far as the benefits, the spiritual blessings of the blood of Christ, we've been bought.
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We are the possession of God. We are owned by God. And we're gonna kind of get an idea of what this means a little bit more as we go through some of the other verses, of course, because it's dealing with redemption.
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And I'll touch on that a little bit more when we go elsewhere. But God has purchased us with his blood.
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The payment of Jesus Christ was on the behalf of those whom God had elected to be his very own, the ones that he had given to Christ.
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And Christ came and died for them, and he purchased us. Turn with me now to the next book in the
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Bible, the book of Romans. We're just gonna kind of look some of these verses that deal with the death of Jesus Christ, the blood of Christ.
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Romans chapter three. Romans 3 .23,
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we'll start reading there. For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
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And notice in verse 25, whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are passed through the forbearance of God.
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And we see in this verse that God set forth or God displayed publicly
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Christ to be a propitiation through faith in his blood.
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Those whom God graces, those whom God gives the gift of faith to those who believe,
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Christ is their propitiation. And that's not a word that we go around saying much, but propitiation basically means that Christ is an atoning victim.
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He is the perfect sacrifice who atones for our sins.
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And the picture that we have here, I like this as I remember doing this one time in the past.
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In Luke chapter 18, when Jesus spoke the parable about the
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Pharisee that had gone into the temple and he said that he was not like all the other sinners and he lifted himself up and he walks with his head high.
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He approaches God that way, but then there's the publican who would not lift up his head.
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And in humility, he comes before God. And he says, God be merciful to me, a sinner, the sinner.
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God be merciful to me. That word merciful in that verse and the word propitiation in this verse, they're derived from the same root word in the
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Greek. And basically in Luke 18, where the publican is saying
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God be merciful to me or God be mercy seated for me.
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God provide for me the atoning sacrifice. God be propitiated for me is saying the same thing as what
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Paul is saying here in Romans chapter three. And the idea is that in the Old Testament tabernacle and in the temple, the outer court and then inside that was the tabernacle and you had the holy place and the most holy place and the veil in between.
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And the priest could not go in to the holiest place where the Ark of the
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Covenant was without blood. He needed to go in there with blood and he sprinkled the blood upon the mercy seat.
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And when God looked down upon it, of course, what was in the Ark of the Covenant? There were three things in the Ark, right?
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Did anybody remember what they were? One is the law, the 10 commandments, the manna, right?
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And Aaron's rod that had budded, those were in there. When God looked down upon the
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Ark, of course, he would see the 10 commandments that were there broken by God's people.
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There's a remembrance of sin every year when the blood is sprinkled upon the Ark, God looks down upon it and the blood covers their sin and there is no remembrance of sin anymore.
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The sin is taken care of. There's a looking forward to in the Old Testament, of course, to the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
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And what's so unique about this verse here in Romans 3 .25, notice what it says. It says something very unique, very different.
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Normally, when we think of believing, we believe upon what? When we say,
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I believe, I believe what? Or I believe upon who? I believe upon Jesus. I believe I trust in,
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I believe that Christ is my savior. We might even say that I believe that Jesus died for me.
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But notice the verse, how it puts it. It says that God set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, faith in his blood.
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Now, what Paul is saying here, well, I guess what
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I can put it this way, what he is not saying, he's not just speaking of physical fluid.
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That can't be what he's speaking of here. What this means and what this refers to is the death of Christ.
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His life's blood was shed. Jesus died. He bled in his death, which was necessary, of course, to fulfill the
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Old Testament imagery of the sacrifice. But we believe, when we say that we believe in his blood or through faith in his blood, and isn't that an interesting statement?
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That we're to believe in the blood of Christ. Of course, we can't just think of fluid. We must think of what does that mean?
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Blood, to believe upon him. It's blood that is shed. It is life that was given on our behalf.
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And this means it's an atoning victim, an atoning sacrifice.
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And he atoned for our sins through his death. And the blood refers to the violent death in the atoning work of Christ.
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There are other places in the New Testament where the New Testament writers would use the term blood as a graphic way to describe a violent death.
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We won't go there, but in Acts chapter five, when the apostles are preaching the gospel and they're saying that Jesus has died, you killed him, you nailed him to the cross, and he was buried, but God raised him from the dead.
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They came with the gospel, this powerful message. Do you remember what the leaders did, what they said in Acts chapter five?
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They said that they're filling Jerusalem with this doctrine and they intend to bring this man's blood upon us.
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What they're saying is that that death, that violent death of Jesus Christ, you're intending to make us to be the guilty ones of that.
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You're pointing at us and saying, we're guilty of shedding this man's blood, this violent death. And what's really interesting, and this is not part of the
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Sunday school lesson too, but for those of you that are taking notes, that's in Acts 5 .28. Do you remember in Matthew 27 .25
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when they're doing everything possible within their means to get rid of Jesus? Through his ministry, they want him out of the way.
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They want him crucified. And in Matthew 27 .25, they say, as they're dealing with the religious leaders, and as they're dealing with Pilate and trying to get this to take place for Christ to be crucified, they just come to the point where they say, let his blood be upon our heads and upon our children's heads.
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That's what they said back then. And of course, Pilate and all, they agree, and they let Christ, they lead him to be crucified.
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And then in Acts 5, they're saying, you're intending to bring this man's blood upon our heads. You know, it's so hypocritical when it fits the circumstances.
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But the whole idea that what I was bringing that up for was that the blood meant violent death. The blood meant that somebody's blood was shed and death did take place.
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And of course, the death of Christ in this verse here shows us that through faith in his blood.
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And it's just an interesting way to put it. And that's really the verse that kind of just caused me to think about all this.
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What does that mean, faith through his blood? Well, faith in the death, belief upon the death of Christ on our behalf as a substitutionary sacrifice brings us the benefits of God, the graces that God gives us.
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And that which comes to us first, as we saw, is the remission of sins. We are purchased, the church is purchased.
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And in Romans 3 .25 here, it says that we have a propitiation through the faith in Christ's blood.
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In Romans chapter five, look at the next one. In Romans five. We know verse eight, but God commendeth or God demonstrated or God made it very conspicuous.
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God demonstrated his love toward us and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
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Notice what it says in verse nine, much more than being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.
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What does this verse tell us? Through the blood of Christ that we receive. We are justification.
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All right, now I know this. I've been here for a few years now and Pastor Mike has drilled this definition of what justification is.
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Now it's a little quiz time. What is justification? Just as if I didn't sin. Okay, that's half of it.
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That's a great part of it. Something good for us to remember. Just as if we had never sinned, we're guilty, we go before the judge, we ought to be condemned and God in his mercy and through the work of Christ declares us just as if we had never sinned, but he declares us.
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What's the other part, Bill? Righteous. Not only is it just as if we had never sinned, but then
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God declares us righteous and we receive the righteousness of God through the sacrifice of Christ and through believing upon Christ and it is something that God does to us.
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This is not something we do. We do not justify ourselves. This is legal terminology.
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This is something that God does. We're passive in this and God in that courtroom declares us not guilty and if we're not guilty, that means we cannot be condemned.
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We cannot have a sentence. There's no payment to be made. There's no penalty that is due to us because who took the penalty upon himself?
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Christ and in 2 Corinthians 5, 21 with a verse I quoted earlier, God has made him who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
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We are declared righteous, but that's part of it. The full part of it is that we are given the righteousness of God through and it says in this verse here, justified by his blood, by his death, by his atoning sacrifice on our behalf.
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Okay, the next one. Ephesians. Let's turn to Ephesians chapter one. In Ephesians chapter one, we notice this in verse seven.
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I'm just gonna kind of explain something a little bit. When you read the scriptures, are there times when you're,
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I don't know if this happens to you, but you're kind of reading along and then all of a sudden, I remember that verse over there and you go over there and you're holding your place here and you go over there and you find that, but that causes me to remember this one over here and you kind of,
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God uses it to pull all of these different verses together that it just kind of gels. Well, for me, when
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I was studying this and I was thinking about this, I'd always thought and looked at, we believe upon Christ.
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And then I looked at that we believe that Christ died for us and I saw that in scripture.
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But I began seeing some of these verses that said that we believe through faith in his blood or dealing with the verses that had blood in them, the blood, the death that referred to the death of Christ.
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And what is it that came to us? And I said, count your many blessings, name them one by one and it will surprise you what the
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Lord has done. I mean, it is rich and it is full and it is deep when we consider.
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I mean, I've been reading Packer's introduction to Owen's death of death in the death of Christ and how that's just an introduction of Owen's work, which is so wonderful, but the scriptures are even deeper.
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And we get in here and we look at these verses and we can see like in Ephesians one verse seven, in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of grace.
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And of course, all of you remember the wonderful series when we went through Ephesians and Pastor Mike over and over again, reminding us of what it is that God, the
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Trinity had done on our behalf. But here we see that it says that through his blood, we have what?
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What's one thing we see here? Redemption. What's the other that we see here? Forgiveness.
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We have redemption through his blood. What does that mean? Redemption. We're redeemed and bought through the blood of Christ.
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Okay, we're bought. What's the picture? What's the idea here? Okay, brought back or redeemed back to God through the blood of Christ, purchased back.
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But where were we when we were bought? What's the idea in scripture of where we are when it has this idea of redemption?
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This slave market. That's the idea here. Peter, I don't know if we're going to get there, but Peter said in 1
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Peter, when he wrote in chapter one, verses 18 and 19, said you were not redeemed with corruptible things or perishable things like silver and gold.
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So you're not redeemed with money because that was the idea. The way that you would literally back then, if there was a slave that was for sale, they would be purchased by money.
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And Peter said, you're not redeemed with money. He says, he goes on to say, but you're redeemed with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.
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Where the, and that word precious means valuable. It's costly. It is a price that was paid that we could not pay.
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We owed a debt. We could not pay. He paid a debt he did not owe. And what is the payment?
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The precious blood of Christ. It is the blood of God's son. It is the blood of Jesus shed on our behalf so that we could be redeemed out of the slave market of sin and become the very possession of God.
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You've heard me illustrate this before in the past too, is I mean, how many times does this payment need to be made?
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How many times does Christ's blood need to be sacrificed? How many times is it that the blood of Christ needed to be shed?
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And of course, Hebrews tells us it's a one -time sacrifice forever. It's just like when we go into a store and we go through the line with our goods and they ring it all up and we make the payment.
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When we make the payment, the transaction has taken place and the goods now, the ownership of the goods of those goods has transferred and they become ours.
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And we walk out of the store with our goods that we have purchased with that price that we paid.
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And when Jesus Christ died on our behalf, he redeemed us from sin, from the slave market of sin purchased us and ownership has transferred.
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And we are no longer our own for one and we are no longer the children of the devil, the children of the wicked one.
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As it says in Ephesians chapter two, we walked according to the course of the power of the other, children of disobedience.
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We are now the children of our heavenly father and purchased by the blood of Christ and we are his possession.
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And how long is that possession for? How long are we owned by God? It's forever.
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We are his forever. It's not to be undone. It cannot be undone. This is the work that God begins and it's a wonderful thing.
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It is redemption, but also it says, in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace.
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Not only redeemed, set free, that redemption being set free by paying the price to deliver us by ransom.
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That's the idea of the ransom has been paid. It has an idea of substitution also, this redemption.
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It's Christ doing it on our behalf, but we're also forgiven. Forgiven, what is forgiveness?
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Give me an idea of what forgiveness is. I mean, we use the words like that and we kind of just think in, we just say the words, but do we ever really consider what that means to be forgiven?
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Well, yeah, it's wiped out. It is, but in God, it was before we were guilty and now
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God has taken that and wiped the slate clean. And our sins have been removed and set aside.
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The idea of when we talked about remittance also of sin, taken out of the way.
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It reminds me of the Old Testament picture of the priest taking his hands and put it on the head of the scapegoat and driving that goat out into the wilderness as if the sins of the people transferred upon that and gone away, never to return again.
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And the Psalmist says that God has separated our sins from us as far as the East is from the
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West. It says that he's taken our sins and he's cast them behind his back.
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He's drowned them in the depths of the sea. And in Hebrews 10, it says that God, speaking of our sins, that our sins and our iniquities,
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God will what no more. Remember no more. God, they are forgiven.
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And it's all of them forgiven. All of them blotted out. All of them taken away and nailed to the cross of Christ.
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And here it says, it's through his blood. Okay, we've got to hurry on to the next one. I think it's in Ephesians chapter two.
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Yes, Ephesians chapter two, verse 12.
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This is what happened before we were transformed. This is the standing in the place that we had found ourselves in before salvation.
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In Ephesians 2 .12, that at the time, that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the
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Commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.
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Pretty bad, wasn't it? I mean, what a bleak picture. We were without Christ.
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We were without hope. And we were without God. And we were foreigners, aliens of the
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Commonwealth or the citizenship of Israel. That is what God in his word describes us as Gentiles in our position before being saved.
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But verse 13, but now in Christ Jesus, you who were, who sometimes were a far off are made nigh or near by what?
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By the blood of Jesus Christ. We were separated from God because of our sins.
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We were far away from God. Enemies of God, haters of God, at enmity with God.
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We were in a place where there was a great gulf between us.
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But now through the blood of Jesus Christ, we are brought nigh. We are brought close to God and in relationship to God.
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And what we'll look at next, notice, let's just go there for the sake of time. Colossians chapter one, in Colossians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians.
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We read these words in Colossians one in verse 20. Speaking of Christ, of course, verse 19, for it pleased the father that in him, in Christ should all fullness dwell.
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In verse 20, and having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself, by him
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I say, whether it be things in earth or things in heaven. Through the blood of Christ, what is it in this verse that it says that we receive?
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Peace, peace. Now this peace means a binding together of that which was separated.
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Remember the other verse in Ephesians 2 .13 that we're brought close? We're brought close because there was a time when we were far away, we were enemies, fighting against God, not caring about God, separated from God.
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I mean, we look back on our lives and we can understand that, right? We remember the day when the things of God did not mean anything to us.
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When we would look at religion, when we look at the Bible and we would look at God and it was just so foreign to us, we did not have eyes to see nor ears to hear, and it was a great separation, a great gulf between us, but now through the blood of Christ, it says that we're brought close to God and there's peace.
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Peace because you only can have a peace when previous to peace there was what?
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When the peace treaty is made, what happened before the peace? There was a warfare. And in the warfare, you have two opposing sides and the opposing sides are holy
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God and sinful man. And we are at warfare with God.
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God is perfect, holy, absolutely just in all that He does, high and holy and lifted up.
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And we are sinful creatures before God, thinking that we can fight against God, thinking that the world revolves around us and there's this enmity that it talks of, this constant warfare.
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And the only thing that can bring peace, the only thing that can bring us close to God, the only thing that can bring this binding together of that which was separated, the two enemies, is the blood of Christ.
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It's not just the change in feelings. It's not that part. I mean, that's the peace of God that passes all understanding.
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We receive a peace, but this has to do not only just with feelings, this has to do with a change of relationship.
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There's a new relationship. We were at enmity. We were enemies of God. Now through the blood of Christ, God has allowed us to be friends with God and for God to be the friend of sinners.
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Colossians 1 .20. Hebrews chapter two. No, we won't go there. How about Hebrews chapter 10?
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Hebrews chapter 10. In Hebrews 10 verse 17 is the verse that I quoted earlier.
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And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. Now where remission of these is, or the sins, there is no more offering for sin.
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Verse 19, having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he has consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, his flesh.
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Verse 19 tells us, what is it that we have because of the blood of Jesus Christ?
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Verse 19, we have a confidence to do what? A boldness to do what?
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Access into the very throne, very presence of God through the blood of Christ. Remember I said earlier that the
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Old Testament priest could not enter into the Holy of Holies to do that work without blood.
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If he didn't have blood, he didn't go. That was the way that God had designed it to be.
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He needed to bring the blood, sprinkle it upon the altar, I mean, sprinkle upon the
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Ark of the Covenant over the lid of that Ark.
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And that is what the mercy seed is. God would now look upon that and say, and declare for the people that their sins were remitted.
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And that was a picture of Christ. Where it says in verse 20 here, it says that we have a new and living way, which he has consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, his flesh.
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When Christ was crucified on the cross, do you remember what took place in the temple? The veil was ripped from top to bottom and it allowed, and it was showing that access was now made through, for the people to access
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God through the death of Christ. And what we're saying is here, is through the blood of Christ, through the death of Christ, we have a boldness now to come into the presence of God.
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Well, we could not have done that in the past. You cannot just go into the, you know, I remember one of the first pastors that I had wrote, he wrote this,
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I think it was, do you remember the, it's not, it wasn't, the way that he did it, it wasn't crass the way that he did it, but you remember the knock -knock jokes, okay?
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And he wrote one and it was basically knock -knock, who's there? Jesus, Jesus who?
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Jesus of the Bible, won't you please let me in? You know, and the idea is to be able to, for Christ to come into our lives is something that we had to do.
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And the whole idea was, is that it has nothing to do with us, but it has everything to do what God has done. Christ shed his blood so that we can go into his presence.
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The idea isn't that we must allow God to come into our presence, it's us going into his presence.
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And before we could not do that on our own, because if we did, we'd be consumed. But because of the blood of Christ, we now have access to the very throne of God.
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And we can directly go and pray and cry out to God and come into his presence, but it's only through the blood of Jesus Christ.
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Wow, 1 Peter 1. Let's just quickly go there. I just have a couple, three more and we'll be done.
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1 Peter 1, I already made reference of this, but just wanted to read it. 1 Peter 1 .18, for as much as you know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things or perishable things like silver and gold, from your vain conversation or your futile way of living, received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious or the valuable or the costly blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.
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Peter undeniably puts it that we're redeemed, purchased out of the slave market through the blood of Jesus Christ.
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Notice every one of these verses reference the blood of Christ, that atoning sacrifice of Christ on our behalf.
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Notice chapter three, 1 Peter 3, one of my favorite verses in 1 Peter, 1
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Peter 3 and in verse 18. For Christ also has once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the spirit.
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Now this verse doesn't particularly mention the blood of Christ, but I wanted to look at it because what I love is this phrase in the middle of the verse that Christ died, he suffered for our sins.
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Of course, that deals with his death, the just for the unjust. What did he do in that? That he might bring us to God.
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Jesus Christ is the only one who can bring us to God or bring us into a right relationship with God. And that happened through his atoning sacrifice, complete, propitiatory, satisfactory sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
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We are brought to God. It's not us commending ourselves and we bring ourselves to God.
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It is Christ through his death, brings us to the father and now we are in this relationship and we have this peace, this new standing, this new relationship with the
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Lord. Okay, you all know this verse, we won't be able to look at it. It's in 1
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John 1 and verse 7 that it says that if we confess our... No, that's 1 .9.
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In 1 John 1 .7, but if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another and the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin.
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The idea that we have there is that through the blood of Christ, there is that perpetual, continual cleansing of all of our sin.
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When we sin, yes, we confess it, but we're so grateful that we can go before God and confess it and God continues to wipe the slate clean and give us a sense of that forgiveness.
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But the verse, one of the last verses that I wanna look at is in Revelation 1. Revelation 1 and in verse 5.
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Revelation 1 .5, and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness and the first begotten of the dead and the prince of the kings of the earth.
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Notice how he finishes this verse. Unto him that loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood.
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What a tremendous verse. The Bible tells us that Christ, through his blood, has washed us from our sins.
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One of the most daunting, depressing, debilitating thing in the life of any believer is for Satan to hang it over your head that you're no good, you're guilty, look what you just said, look what you just did, the slate is not clean,
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God is not favorable to you, how do you think God is going to bless you because of your sin?
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And the Bible tells us, without a shadow of a doubt, that through the blood of Christ, the slate is completely wiped clean and it's not based upon our merit, but what
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Christ has done for us, that we have a right standing before God and we confess our sins and go to the
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Lord, it is completely where God cleanses away all our unrighteousness and our relationship never changes.
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It's always father -child. The fellowship can be broken because of sin, but the relationship never changes and we always have that hope, that assurance to be able to stand upon it, that there is power in the blood of Christ to keep us, to maintain us in that right relationship because our sins are all washed away, not just in part as the hymn writer says, but the whole is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more and then he breaks out and says, praise the
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Lord, praise the Lord, oh my soul. So we've seen in this just quick brief study, that through the blood of Christ, speaking of his death, remission, redemption, justification, he's our propitiation.
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We are drawn nigh, made nigh to God. There's peace or we're brought back together, reconciled.
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We have boldness to enter into the presence of God, redeemed. He's brought us to God.
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He keeps cleansing us from all sin, washed away our sin and we didn't look at it, but if you're taking notes, you can look at Revelation 12, 11 and it says of those that are in heaven, those that are then the triumphant in the kingdom of God, they overcame by the blood of Christ the
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Lamb and we are made overcomers through the blood of Christ. All right, any quick question before we close about this?
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Anybody ever really, had anybody ever really seen this in the scripture where it speaks to the blood of Christ and the blessings that flow from that, the power that is there, the treasure chest, so to speak, the spiritual treasure chest that is open to us and we can see all that comes to us.
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Now, if anybody ever asked you, what does it mean to believe, have faith in his blood and what is it that the death of Christ has done for us?
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What has God done for us in Christ through his death? Hopefully you have something to be able to share with them and we can greatly rejoice as we worship the
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Lord today and think of all that has come to us through his atoning work on our behalf.
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Yes, Gladman. The sprinkling, did it say?
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The sprinkling of his blood. Yeah, and the sprinkling, of course, looks back upon the
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Old Testament, what took place there. And even in Hebrews 2 .14, and I didn't go there, but if you're taking notes,
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I think it's Hebrews 2 .14. It says that through the blood of Christ, we've had our consciences purged from the dead works through the blood of Jesus Christ.
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That sprinkling, that cleansing, the purity that comes unto obedience and the fruit and the result of it is an obedience unto
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God. Let's pray. Our Father, we thank you and we praise you for the truth of the word of God.
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And as we look at it and we just see how rich and how deep and how wonderful your word is and you've preserved it for us, and we're grateful for that.
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But even more so, the focus is Christ your Son, our Lord and Savior. And we consider and think about the deep, deep love of Jesus, vast, unmeasured and boundless and free and loving us and showing that love for us and that while we were yet sinners,
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Christ died for us. And Lord, your Son came to shed his blood so that we might have all of these things that we've heard of and read even this morning.
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These things which we did not deserve, these spiritual blessings that come to us from God and are bestowed upon us and given to us.
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And Lord, we're humbled this morning and we adore you as we should and we lift up our souls in grateful praise and thank you for those blessings in Christ.