We are Saved by the Blood of Jesus Christ Hebrews 9:19-22 NLT
I. The blood of Jesus gives us salvation.
There are but two essential requirements: First: has anyone cheated death and proved it? Second: Is it available to me? Here is the complete record: Confucius’ tomb is occupied. Buddha’s tomb is occupied. Mohammed’s tomb is occupied. Jesus’ tomb is empty. Argue as you will. There is no point in following a loser. G. B. Hardy
Throughout the ages, wherever the Gospel has been welcomed, Christians have sung with deep joy and gratitude about what the Apostle Peter calls “the precious blood of Christ”. But why this distinction? Because the Bible teaches us that without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin. The blood is not unimportant to the Bible’s message, something that can be put to one side without affecting the heart of the Gospel. It is the heart of the Gospel! The blood of Jesus refers to His sacrificial death on the cross.
Jesus told His disciples that the New Covenant was being found in His blood. It was told us in JER 31:31-34, "The day will come," says the Lord, "When I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah. This covenant will not be like the one I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand and brought them out of the land of Egypt. They broke that covenant, though I loved them as a husband loves his wife," says the Lord. "But this is the new covenant I will make with the people of Israel on that day," says the Lord. "I will put my laws in their minds, and I will write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. And they will not need to teach their neighbors, nor will they need to teach their family, saying, ’You should know the Lord.’ For everyone, from the least to the greatest, will already know me," says the Lord. "And I will forgive their wickedness and will never again remember their sins."
II. The blood of Jesus was God’s plan for salvation.
Paul told the elders of the church in Ephesus that the church had been purchased by the blood of the Lord. He wrote that the redemption of sinful men and women depends on the exchange Jesus made when He shed His blood. To exchange means to satisfy or to settle. It is according to God’s law that the penalty for sin is death. When Christ died on the cross, He satisfied God’s entire wrath against our sin.
The amazing truth of the Gospel: is that out of sheer unreasonable love for us, the Father and the Son, with the Spirit, created a beautiful plan for our salvation. The Father would pour out His judgment against our sins on His Son, who in loving faithfulness to His Father and out of love for us was willing to die on the cross. He took our sin so that we might be clothed in His righteousness. Through faith, we can stand before God’s holy throne as righteous as Jesus himself, because the righteousness in which we stand clothed there is Jesus’ righteousness!
The uplifting, convincing, wonderful truth of justification by faith is that it brings us peace with God. By Christ’s shed blood, we are released, let loose and set free from our sins. By His blood, we can overcome the evil one, since none of his claims against us can condemn us. RM 8:33-34 “Who will accuse those whom God has chosen? God has approved of them. Who will condemn them? Christ has died, and more importantly, he was brought back to life. Christ has the highest position in heaven. Christ also intercedes for us.
III. The blood of Jesus is spoken of in the bible as God’s remedy for our sin.
We need both the Old Testament as well as the New, to help us to understand this. Augustine said, “The Old is in the New revealed; the New is in the Old concealed.” “Why is the blood of Jesus so important for us?” Keep your eyes fixed on Jesus and learn from the Old Testament what He has done for you. HB 10:1: “The law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities”. Sometimes at the end of a summer evening, a person’s shadow may appear before we actually see who the person is. We know someone is coming, but who? Then the person appears and we recognize him or her. The shadow gives way to the presence of the person. Now that He has come, we can look at the things we read about in the O. T. and see how they were important as pictures of what Jesus actually accomplished.
Can you imagine with me that you were are Old Testament believer living in Jerusalem. What would you experience? Every day you would go into the temple and you would see priests making sacrifices for individuals’ sins. Such sacrifices had to be made every day. The priests could never sit down and say, “All sacrifices have been completed.” You would soon realize: These sacrifices cannot fully and finally take sin away.
It was once a year, on the Day of Atonement, you would see a great sacrifice made for the sins of the nation. During the ceremony, the high priest would kill a bull as a sacrifice for his own sins. Then two goats were brought to him and the sins of the people were confessed over them. One goat was killed as a sacrifice. The high priest then carried its blood into the Holy of Holies and sprinkled it over the mercy seat. The other goat was led away into the wilderness and released, wandering in no man’s land, separated from all life, still bearing the sins of the people. But the next year, the Day of Atonement would come around all over again. When would a sacrifice be made that would take away your sin and guilt once and for all?
All these sacrifices were simply “shadows” cast backwards by the cross! There the Lord Jesus experienced the reality pictured in them. He was the One on whom our guilt was placed. As He bore our sins on the cross, it seemed that God Himself was leading Him into a wilderness, an experience of abandonment that made Him cry out “My God, why have you forsaken me?” On the cross, Christ’s blood was shed as a sacrifice, His death for our death, His life for our life.
Why should this be so wonderful? Why is the reality so much better than the shadow?
Unlike the high priests, Jesus had no sins that required a sacrifice. He did not enter into a “man-made” Holy of Holies, but into the very presence of God. Nor did He bring the blood of bulls and goats. He became the sacrifice Himself. In this one Man, God made the sacrifice for man’s sins. Because of His perfect sacrifice, unlike the priests who stood, day after day, repeating their sacrifices, Jesus “sat down at the right hand of God”. His work was done; His sacrifice was adequate and effective for all who trust in Him and that is forever.
Live Churches vs. Dead Churches from Wade Hughes Sr. “Alive churches constantly change; dead churches resist and refuse change. Alive churches love to try new things; dead churches feel they have done it all. Alive churches have children that are noisy and can’t be still, dead churches are very quiet. Alive churches have people problems, dead churches don not want to have any problems and never deal with them. Alive churches need money and take many special offerings; dead churches focus on their savings and keep their money for only local purposes. Alive churches have dirt, garbage and people have to clean the church often; dead churches like to live in the dust and cobwebs. Alive churches are never satisfied and want to improve; dead churches live in the past and only talk about how things used to be or dwell on how bad the world is. Alive churches want their worship and praise to be up to date and lively, dead churches only live on what used to be. Alive churches move because they want to exercise faith, dead churches have to see it first. Alive churches are filled with giving of time talent and money and doing what God asks, dead churches have give like they do when they give a tip and they do only what has to be done. Alive churches make mistakes and learn from them, dead churches live as though they can do no wrong. Alive churches have a vision for what they want to do and they put into action what they know to do, short term and long term; dead churches are asleep. Alive churches try and try again; dead churches say we never did it that way before. Alive churches reach out to sinners and backsliders with personal love to help them come to Jesus, dead churches are immovable and want things that are not needed for spiritual growth. Alive churches are better, dead churches are BITTER. Alive churches are lighthouses in their community; dead churches are 20-watt light bulbs in a refrigerator. What kind of church would my church be, if every member were just like me?”
IV. The blood of Jesus keeps us from sin that ruins life.
This is why the Apostle John tells us that when we sin as Christians we do not despair. We do not immediately fear we have lost our salvation. No! Instead, we confess our sins, return to the light and have the assurance that the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin daily. Since His one sacrifice is sufficient to pardon all the sins of all of God’s people, it is as powerful to pardon us today as it was when He shed His blood on the cross!
When Jesus died, the great curtain of the Temple in Jerusalem was torn in two. It was a double signal: the way into the presence of God was now open; and the purpose of the temple had come to an end, God was de-consecrating it. Now the place of access to God is in Christ alone and through the blood, He shed on the cross.
When we understand this, we can be thankful for the great privileges. We understand that:
Christians have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that He opened for us through the curtain, that is, through His flesh. Christians have been given a great high priest over the house of God. And Christians can now draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith.
Are you enjoying these privileges? If you are, we need to pause and thank the Lord Jesus again for shedding His precious blood for us. If you are not enjoying these privileges, will you think about quietly on your need for forgiveness and a new life? Then turn to Christ, and trust Him to pardon you. He promises that you, too, will receive the forgiveness of sins, discover the way back to God and experience the assurance of His love. Then you will want to live for His glory because you have been “saved by His precious blood.”
Taken from a message By Sinclair Ferguson
