The Blood
of Jesus Christ
John 6:53-56 NKJV) Then Jesus said to
them, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat
the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have
no life in you. {54} "Whoever eats My flesh and
drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up
at the last day. {55} "For My flesh is food indeed,
and My blood is drink indeed. {56} "He who eats My
flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him.
It offends
our social sensibilities to be told to drink someone's
blood and to eat their flesh. It certainly offended many
of Jesus' followers who turned away at this point. (John
6:60). The blood of Jesus Christ is not an easy topic and
yet understanding it is absolutely central to the
Christian life. We will look at twelve benefits of the
blood of Jesus Christ.
- Eternal Life(John
6:53-56). Unless we "drink His Blood"
we have no life in us (6:53) but when we partake
of what Christ has done for us on the cross we
have eternal life (6:54). Eternal life has two
aspects. Firstly it is life that has its origin
in eternity and which flows from the eternal
realms. The blood of Jesus Christ introduces us
to a life that flows from the throne of God,
which is holy, pure and full of praise, and which
lifts us up to be citizens of heaven seated in
heavenly places with Christ Jesus. (Ephesians
2:6). It is the opposite of a selfish sensual
life that flows from the world or a life of envy
and hatred energized by evil that flows from
Hell.(James 3:15,16) It is life energized by
love. Secondly eternal life is eternal and lasts
forever because it is made of something
incorruptible, something glorious that cannot
fade away. It is grounded in God's eternal
Spirit. It is immortal, imperishable and
undefiled (1 Peter 1:4).
- Abiding in Christ(John
6:53-56) "Abiding" means that we are to
have a continuing personal relationship with God.
It is like taking a guest in to "abide with
you a night". We become God's guest through
the blood and are "at home with Him"
and also he becomes our guest and is "at
home with us". God and man visit each other
in love because of the blood of Jesus Christ.
(John 6:56)
- Purchased by His
blood(Acts 20:28 NKJV) "Therefore
take heed to yourselves and to all the flock,
among which the Holy Spirit has made you
overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He
purchased with His own blood.The blood of Jesus Christ is the
precious purchase price that bought us back from
sin and from the hand of the Devil who is the
enemy of God.(Psalm 107:2). This purchase price
also bought us out of our useless way of life
that we used to live in.(1 Peter 1:18-19
NKJV) knowing that you were not redeemed with
corruptible things, like silver or gold, from
your aimless conduct received by tradition from
your fathers, {19} but with the precious blood of
Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without
spot.To be redeemed
means to be purchased from slavery or
imprisonment or the ownership of another. The
blood of Jesus Christ is the price that has moved
us from darkness to light and from a futile and
aimless lifestyle to productive membership in
God's Kingdom.
- Our bodies were also
bought by Christ's blood(1 Corinthians
6:19-20 NKJV) Or do you not know that your body
is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you,
whom you have from God, and you are not your own?
{20} For you were bought at a price; therefore
glorify God in your body and in your spirit,
which are God's.Our
bodies were bought for God by Jesus Christ and he
now owns them and fills them with His Spirit and
His temples. Like any temple they are for the
glory of the God to whom they are consecrated.
Therefore since both our body and our spirit were
bought by the "price" which is the
blood of Jesus our bodies should be set apart for
God's service (Romans 12:1,2).
- We are washed from
our sins by His blood.(Revelation 1:5
NKJV) .. To Him who loved us and washed us from
our sins in His own blood,Jesus scrubs us clean from our
sins through the use of His blood. 1 John 1:7
explains the process He uses(1 John 1:7 NKJV)
But 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. There is
an "if" that begins this verse. If we
walk in the light as He is in the light. In other
words we have to bring our sins out into God's
light and let Him clean them. Just as its hard to
clean the bathroom if the light is off so God
needs us to bring our sin-stains into His light
if we are to be cleansed. There are two
consequences that flow from walking in the light
- fellowship with one another and the cleansing
of the blood. Being truthful about our sin gets
rid of hypocrisy, tears off our masks and makes
us able to have true fellowship (instead of
Christian pretense with one another. Instead or
receiving condemnation we receive fellowship and
purification. The blood of Jesus Christ is the
effective cleansing agent for the sins we
truthfully and honestly bring into the light of
God.
- We are made
righteous.The term the New Testament
uses for "made righteous" is
"justified".(Romans 5:9 NKJV)
Much more then, having now been justified by His
blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him.God no longer treats us as
sinners. He no longer pours out His wrath toward
us. It is turned away by the blood of the
Passover Lamb. (1 Corinthians 5:7, Exodus
12:6-13). The blood of Jesus Christ makes us
legally righteous - that is no longer the objects
of God's wrath; it also makes us actually
righteous cleansing us from sin and sanctifying
us. (Hebrews 10:29, 13:12). This means that
through the blood of Jesus Christ the Christian
can appropriate all the blessings that flow to
the righteous including boldness (Proverbs 28:1),
peace, quietness and assurance (Isaiah 32:17) and
peace and joy in the Holy Spirit (Romans 14:17).
- We are made holy
(sanctified).(Hebrews 13:12
NKJV) Therefore Jesus also, that He might
sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered
outside the gate. Jesus went to the cross in order that you and I
might become holy. Our holiness is not a
religious game, it is something that Jesus died
for. He shed His own blood so that our lives may
be spotless in every way. Holiness has two
meanings firstly it means "set apart for
God". The blood of Jesus Christ when applied
to our lives marks us as belonging to God and
saves us from destruction. The Old Testament
example of this was the blood of the Passover
Lamb(Exodus
12:12-13 NKJV) 'For I will pass through the land
of Egypt on that night, and will strike all the
firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and
beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will
execute judgment: I am the LORD. {13} 'Now the
blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where
you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass
over you; and the plague shall not be on you to
destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.. This was a "type" or
forerunner of Jesus who is our Passover.(1 Corinthians 5:7
NKJV) .... For indeed Christ, our Passover, was
sacrificed for us.God's
wrath is turned away by the blood and we become a
holy people that He spares. The second part of
holiness is more well known it means "To be
pure and without sin". The blood of Jesus
Christ cleanses us from sin and works practical
holiness into our lives on a continuing basis. (1
John 1:7). We work with the blood to achieve
holiness. We cannot achieve any degree of
holiness by our own efforts without the blood.
The blood applied can do much work alone. But the
applied blood plus our "working out our own
salvation with fear and trembling" is most
effective. It is a bit like cleaning an oven.
Without the oven cleaner chemical the task is
hopeless. A good oven cleaner when sprayed on can
get rid of much of the grime. If we add a bit of
our own effort a spotless oven results. This is,
at best, a very poor analogy to holy things but
it may help some of you. The blood of Jesus
Christ makes us holy.
- The blood of Jesus
Christ brings us forgiveness of sins.(Matthew 26:28
NKJV) "For this is My blood of the new
covenant, which is shed for many for the
remission of sins. (Ephesians 1:7 NKJV) In Him we
have redemption through His blood, the
forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of
His grace. The blood of
Jesus Christ brings about the forgiveness of our
sins. Nothing we can do can make God forgive us.
However the sacrifice of His Son on the cross has
brought in a new covenant and basic to this
covenant is the idea that God forgives all who
believe in His Son Jesus Christ. This is a sheer
undeserved gift. It is part of the riches of His
grace (Eph 1:7). All your sins past present and
future are forgiven by God because of the blood
of Jesus Christ.(Hebrews 9;12,28,10;10).
- A clean conscience(Hebrews 9:14
NKJV) how much more shall the blood of Christ,
who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself
without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from
dead works to serve the living God?What are these "dead
works".These are the futile good works of
the religious that always fall short of God's
standards and which just end up bringing
condemnation on us.(Isaiah 64:6 NRSV) We have all
become like one who is unclean, and all our
righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth. We all
fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the
wind, take us away.If
we need to be cleansed from these "righteous
deeds" how much more do we need cleansing
from our blatant sins! The things that torment
our conscience are forgiven, cleansed and removed
by the blood of Jesus Christ so that our
conscience instead of acting as the accuser is
now put into God's service to strengthen and
sanctify us.
- Boldness in
Christian living(Hebrews 10:19-23
NKJV) Therefore, brethren, having boldness to
enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, {20} by
a new and living way which He consecrated for us,
through the veil, that is, His flesh, {21} and
having a High Priest over the house of God, {22}
let us draw near with a true heart in full
assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled
from an evil conscience and our bodies washed
with pure water. {23} Let us hold fast the
confession of our hope without wavering, for He
who promised is faithful.Once we are fully aware of what
the blood of Jesus has done for us then we become
fantastically bold. The first place this boldness
takes hold is in prayer"boldness to
enter the Holiest"it then moves into other areas of
our life giving us"full assurance of
faith".The
author to the Hebrews who was writing to
Christians who had apparently lost much of their
original boldness (Hebrews 6:12)takes the
majority of the epistle to explain the working of
the blood. He knew, through the inspiration of
the Holy Spirit, that the knowledge of the work
of the blood is the basis for boldness in the
Christian life.
- Victory over the
Devil and his angels(Revelation 12:11
NKJV) "And they overcame him by the blood of
the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and
they did not love their lives to the death.When we testify to what the Word
says about what the blood does we defeat the
enemy of our souls. The testimony of the saints
is about what Jesus Christ has done for them. By
proclaiming this testimony they make it possible
for others to believe and when these believe then
Satan is defeated. Our testimony should always be
about the cross and about the blood. Paul knew
this when He wrote(1 Corinthians 2:1-5 NKJV) And I,
brethren, when I came to you, did not come with
excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to
you the testimony of God. {2} For I determined
not to know anything among you except Jesus
Christ and Him crucified. {3} I was with you in
weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. {4} And
my speech and my preaching were not with
persuasive words of human wisdom, but in
demonstration of the Spirit and of power, {5}
that your faith should not be in the wisdom of
men but in the power of God.Paul did not rely on persuasive
Greek rhetoric but on the simple manifest power
of the message of Christ crucified. The testimony
of the blood is powerful overthrowing the
fortresses of Satan (2 Corinthians 10:3-5). Its
message leads to a power which is spiritual but
not hidden - it can be demonstrated in power. (1
Corinthians 2:4)
- Unity in Christ(Ephesians 2:13-14
NKJV) But now in Christ Jesus you who once were
far off have been brought near by the blood of
Christ. {14} For He Himself is our peace, who has
made both one, and has broken down the middle
wall of separation, (Revelation 5:9-10 NKJV) And
they sang a new song, saying: "You are
worthy to take the scroll, And to open its seals;
For You were slain, And have redeemed us to God
by Your blood , Out of every tribe and tongue and
people and nation, {10} And have made us kings
and priests to our God; And we shall reign on the
earth."These
two verses tell us that the blood of Jesus Christ
is the basis for fellowship between Christians of
every tribe and tongue and nation who have had
the dividing walls between them broken down. We
have been redeemed out of our cultures and into
the church of God. No longer are we many groups
but rather we are one group in Christ though our
ethnicity will still be part of us. The basis of
this unity is not some constitution or set of
rules but the sheer fact that we have all been
redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ. And not
just redeemed - given a heavenly status as kings
and priests to God. And not just status but real
power 'we shall reign upon the earth". The
blood has bought us back from separation and
powerlessness to unity and being "more than
conquerors".
Well that is the twelve things
that the blood of Jesus Christ does for you. Are you as
impressed as I am? Are you "shouting hallelujah
through the bunghole" like Billy Sunday? Its
magnificent. Why don't we end this article with a prayer
of praise. Lets use the one from Revelation 5:9,10.
Prayer
(Revelation
5:9-10 NKJV) And they sang a new song, saying: "You
are worthy to take the scroll, And to open its seals; For
You were slain, And have redeemed us to God by Your blood
, Out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation,
{10} And have made us kings and priests to our God; And
we shall reign on the earth."PRAISE THE LORD!
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