God is pure. He is like the snow on the top of the Himalayan mountains. We are un-pure. We are like the mud puddle on the road. You can’t mix the two together. The mud puddle water will contaminate the Himalayan snow. Then how do we get pure? How can we relate to God? We find out in Hebrews 9:14. That purity comes by the cross.
How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God! (Hebrews 9:14)
There are a lot of lives that are a mess and need to be cleaned up. Nothing can compare to the power of Christ in cleaning up a life. As lives are transformed by the cross, they will make a difference in society.
The context of this verse is found in Hebrews 9:1 talking about the first covenant. The whole of Hebrews 9 is filled with symbolism of the Old Testament. The blood of Christ did more than transform the Old Testament system. The blood of Christ cleanses us and makes us new.
The provision to worship God in the Old Testament all indicated something imperfect and temporary. It was the shadow of something greater to come. Every day the priests would offer burnt sacrifices to the Lord (Hebrews 9:6).
Once a year the high priest would enter the Holy of Holies. On the day of atonement there was the slaughter of a bull for himself. (Hebrews 9:7) The high priest himself was subject to weaknesses. (Hebrews 5:12) There were two goats one was slain and the other one was let loose. Animal sacrifices and other ordinances that accompanied it could at best be a ceremonial and symbolic removal of sin.
The law and the sacrificial system were only a shadow of the things to come. In Chapter 9 verse 10 it talks about external regulations applying until the time of the new order. But when Christ came, we are inwardly clean by the blood of Christ. The priesthood of Christ is the new order. Christ entered heaven itself of which the tabernacle of the Old Testament was just a copy.
Isaac Watts wrote a Hymn Not all the blood of beasts more than 300 years ago that expresses how the sacrificial system was pointing to the perfect sacrifice, the blood of Christ.
Not all the blood of beasts,
On Jewish altars slain,
Could give the guilty conscience peace,
Or wash away its stain.
But Christ, the heavenly Lamb,
Takes all our sins away;
A sacrifice of nobler name,
And richer blood than they.
Christ has no need to offer sacrifices for his sins. He was already sinless. For the sins of the people Christ offered himself. (Hebrews 11:12) Christ’s blood is the final and perfect offering for sin. Jesus died so that his blood would cleanse us from our sin. There is no shortcoming in the blood of Christ. There is nothing to follow when Christ shed his blood. He said, it is finished.
What Christ did by the cross is overwhelming. He is the sinless one and he was ready and glad for the sake of sinners to endure the shame and agony of the cross. He became the sacrifice, like what was done to the animals of the Old Testament.
Paul said of the wonder of it that it is so wide, so deep, so high that it passes knowledge (Ephesians 3:18-19). Christ shed his blood for us because of his great love and his great sacrifice, the two go together.
Nothing can compare to the power of Christ when it comes to cleaning up a life. The cross offers purity and hope in place of sin and despair. The Goat’s blood of the Old Testament was adequate for washing away the ceremonial guild, but not the moral guilt.
How much more will the blood of Christ cleanse your conscious. How much more than what? More than the Old Testament sacrifices. The writer of Hebrews is writing to Hebrews who lived by those Old Testament sacrifices. But now the new order has come because Jesus died on the cross.
The verse, chapter 9 and verse 14 says, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God. Christs blood cleanses us with an eternal purity. Christ offered himself once, and the single sacrifice needs no repetition for all time. The death of Christ on the cross has absolute eternal value.
There is no shortcoming on the cleansing power of Christ’s blood. We need to understand the nature of Christ. He was fully human, and he was fully God. Jesus offered himself in obedience. Christ’s willingness to die for us demonstrated his love for us.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross! (Philippians 2:8)
Jesus was the perfect sacrifice unblemished to God. The spotlessness of Christ is not outward as were the animals that were sacrificed of the Levitical system. Christ had as inward spotless character. The sacrifice was perfect and sinless, without spot or blemish. Jesus’ sacrifice was bringing to completion a promise God made to Abraham and repeatedly confirmed. Jesus the perfect sacrifice was the long-awaited blessing for all the nations.
Purity by the cross will cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death. The conscience is something God has built into everyone which may at times be a source of suffering. Our conscience has been defiled because of sin. We can allow ourselves to become hardened to the point that our conscience does not work properly exposing our sin.
Our defiled conscience will keep us from serving God. It is the blood of Christ that cleanses our conscience, the purity by the cross. There are numerous testimonies of the cleansing power of Christ’s blood. Sometimes those who have lived the most sinful lives are the ones that are most confident of the cleansing power of Christ’s blood. Nothing else can set free the slave to sin except the blood of Christ.
We have purity by the cross to serve the living God. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. (Galatians 5:17) We naturally want to do just the opposite of what the Holy Spirit wants us to do. These forces are in conflict with each other.
Our human nature is that even when we are cleansed by the blood of Christ, when we become a Christian, we have forces that battle over us to win control over us. If we are going to walk in purity, we need the power of God. That is what Paul wrote to the Thessalonians.
It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control your own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the pagans, who do not know God (1 Thessalonians 4:3-5)
This is a command to abstain from sexual immorality. We have been made pure by the cross and we must abstain from immorality. We are to present our bodies and mind as living sacrifices to God. (Romans 12:1) Our bodies are actually “members of Christ” they belong to him (1 Corinthians 6:15) We are expected to glorify God in our bodies. (1 Corinthians 6:20)
Our bodies can lead us off the course of purity if we allow our carnal nature to respond to their appetites. We must guide our minds and body in purity. Thank God you were purchased by the blood of Christ.
Have you allowed the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God! (Hebrews 9:14)
The point of purity by the cross comes to serving the living God. That is the “so that” of the verse on the blood of Christ that cleanses us. We are purified by the cross that we may pray and fellowship with God. We will worship God and glorify God when we are purified by the cross.
