“Brought Near By The Blood” Ephesians 2:11-22
Introduction
John Wesley rode across Hounslow Heath late one night, singing a favorite hymn, he was startled by a fierce voice shouting, “Halt,” while a firm hand seized the horse’s bridle. Then the man demanded, “Your money or your life.” Wesley obediently emptied his pockets of the few coins they contained and invited the robber to examine his saddlebags which were filled with books. Disappointed at the result, the robber was turning away when evangelist cried, “Stop! I have something more to give you.”
The robber, wondering at this strange call, turned back. Then Wesley, bending down toward him, said in solemn tones, “My friend, you may live to regret this sort of a life in which you are engaged. If you ever do, I beseech you to remember this, ‘The blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanseth us from all sin.’” The robber hurried silently away, and the man of God rode along, praying in his heart that the word spoken might be fixed in the robber’s conscience.
Years later, at the close of a Sunday evening service with the people streaming from the large building, many lingered around the doors to see the aged preacher, John Wesley. A stranger stepped forward and earnestly begged to speak with Mr. Wesley. What a surprise to find that this was the robber of Hounslow Heath, now a well-to-do tradesman in the city, but better still, a child of God! The words spoken that night long ago had been used of God in his conversion. Raising the hand of John Wesley to his lips, he affectionately kissed it and said in tones of deep emotion, “To you, dear sir, I owe it all.”
Wesley replied softly, “Nay, nay, my friend, not to me, but to the precious blood of Christ which cleanseth us from all sin.”
Transition
What can take away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus can take away our sin. What can make us whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus can make us whole again. But what is the power of Jesus Blood? What does the Apostle mean when he says that we have been brought near by the blood of Christ? Is he referring to the liquid which fell from his body on the Cross?
Is he referring to the celebration of communion in a worship service? This morning, as I enter my text, I will seek primarily to answer those two questions as well as give some historical background to enliven our understanding as to the meaning of today’s text.
This is an ambitious undertaking for just one sermon, so it will not be exhaustive, but I trust that after having considered its meaning, that you will be further compelled to move beyond understanding’s foundation of the blood of Christ to understanding’s ultimate fruit; experience of the blood of Christ!
Exposition
At the outset I want to answer the two questions which I have raised already directly and plainly. I fear that there is a great deal of confusion in the minds of many believers with regard to the manner and nature of the meaning of the saving power of the blood of Christ. In this area of doctrine there are two major errors of biblical interpretation and application of this teaching.
There are many who are of the impression that this passage and those like it ought to be interpreted in light of Mathew 26:28 and the institution of the sacrament of communion. The idea is intrinsically linked to the doctrine of transubstantiation in the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox tradition, and among some high church Anglicans.
While I respect greatly the faith and genuine desire of these Christian believers, for the sake of doctrinal clarity, in light of what the Scriptures teach, it is important that not make this error. There is no efficacy, not saving power, in the “liquid” of communion just as there is no particular efficacy in the actual liquid blood which fell on Calvary’s Cross.
This is of course not to say that the blood has no power. Here in the text the Apostle says that we who were once outside of the covenants of God, we who were once distant from the grace and mercy of God, have been brought near by the blood of Jesus. The real question is what is meant by the blood.
Jesus died a horribly bloody and painful death for you and me. When the Apostle Paul speaks of us having been brought near to God by the blood of Christ he is saying that we have been brought near by the power of the sacrifice.
Indeed, we have been and are saved by the blood of Christ. We are brought near to God by the power of Christ sacrifice! In the Old Testament, the people of God made a sacrifice of animals; offering the blood of the animal for the purification or cleansing of personal sins and the sins of the people.
In Leviticus 17:11 it says, “For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life.” (NIV) It was the blood which symbolized the life of the animal since without the blood nothing that lives can live.
When the Apostle tells us that we have been brought near the God by the blood of Christ, he is pointing to the allusion of the Old Testament to the New Testament. He is drawing a parallel between the sacrificial systems of the Old Testament where God’s chosen people alone could make sacrifice for their sins and that of the New Testament where Christ has made a sacrificial atonement for all people, of all tribes, of all races, and of all nations!
Where there was once a wall of separation between Jew and Gentile there now no wall between any of God’s children. We have received the life of Christ by the sacrifice of Christ, as represented by His blood; the painful death which He suffered on our behalf to do two things:
(1) Christ death on the Cross highlights man’s inability to get life on His own. In Christ allowing Himself to die He highlights mankind’s lost and brokenness in sin. When God sends a savior, when we are in desperate need of love and forgiveness, even then we routinely reject the beauty of God.
When Pilate stood before the people and offered to free Jesus, the man who had committed no sin, or Barabbas, a murderer and thief, they cried out, “Give us Barabbas! Give us Barabbas!” Pilate, prophetically and likely unknown to him the majestic nature of his statement, said, “Let this man’s blood (Jesus) be on your heads and the heads of your children.
At once Pilate pronounces the truth that the people for whom Jesus had come to save, rejected Him and also that the very blood of that sacrificial rejection, the death of Christ, would indeed be on their head, covered in the blood of Christ is found the place of forgiveness for Jew and Gentile; for slave or free; you and me!
(2) The death of Christ also fulfills the promise of God foreshadowed in the sacrifice of animals in the Old Testament. I submit to you today, from the Holy Scriptures, that no man was ever saved by the blood of any animal, by the sacrifice of his hand, or by the good and obedient deeds of his keeping the law.
The sacrificial system of the Old Testament was but a type and a shadow of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ! His blood saves, this is true. But is saves not because of the elemental nature of the liquid, but because through the shedding of Christ blood we have received the life of Christ!
Allow me to illustrate it this way. If a person who was present watching the crucifixion of our Lord had, having heard Jesus teaching that we would be saved by His blood, ran up to the Cross after Jesus was removed and took some of his blood and rubbed it on his head so that he might be “’covered in the blood of Jesus” but having no religious devotion in his heart, no abiding love for the savior of whose blood he was literally covered in, that person would be no less lost in his sin than any other man who had ever lived.
But, if that man watching the savior die were to place his trust in Jesus as savior and Lord and believed on Him for eternal life, as the Scriptures says, receives eternal life because through the sacrifice of Christ, through the shedding of His blood, we have received what that blood contains; the life of Christ!
All of the riches of Christ in His eternal glory have become our! The Bible says that we are joint heirs with Christ. All of the righteousness of Christ which we could never earn in our fallen and imperfect state has become ours. We are not saved; we are not given the grace of God because of our worthiness or any goodness in and of ourselves. We are saved from sin and its eternal consequences, because of the life which we have received in Christ!
A sign in a convenience store read, “Check Cashing Policy: To err is human. To forgive, $10.” It’s a funny way to recognize the fact that we make mistakes, but it’s also evidence of the way many people think about forgiveness.
To forgive is to accept within yourself the consequences of the sins of others. It means to accept the pain, the problems and the burden that comes when someone sins against you. Forgiveness is neither an easy nor a frequent gift.
This is what God has done for us: “… knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot” (1 Pet. 1:18, 19 NKJV). What did God give for your forgiveness? It wasn’t money or anything of wealth or value in worldly terms. He gave His Son. Jesus took upon Himself the burden of our sins.
Conclusion
The blood of Christ is a difficult concept for some to comprehend. How is it that any man’s blood can atone or account for the sin of another? How is it that in Jesus death and subsequent rising from the dead that we are made alive? How these things can be, our hearts cry out and our minds are left to wonder.
It is because Jesus was not merely a man from Palestine. He was not merely another wise teacher or even a prophet of God. Jesus is Immanuel, God with us! Jesus is the only begotten Son of God, God incarnate, the mystery of God in the flesh that our minds cannot fully comprehend. This truth is no truth that can be fully apprehend from reading even the most wondrous of books, listening to the best of teachers, but only from communion with God.
The truth of Jesus blood covering our sins, our having received His life, the life of Christ, the presence of God abiding within us by the power of the Holy Spirit is a truth so sacred as it can only be fully revealed from the spirit of God unto us.
The Gospel is primarily about reconciliation with God. There has yet to be a rational person born under the sun who does not rightly sense that there is a God in the universe and that I need, I must, do something to correct the sense that I have that I am somehow out of sync with Him.
Religionists say that the way to correct our state of disconnection from God is to drink of the blood of the Cross in a metaphysical if not physical way; in communion which has been prepared and presented in just the right way so that we might celebrate the real sacrifice of Christ weekly, even daily in communion.
Moralizers say that the way to fix our disconnected relationship with God is to live according to the law; to live rightly, rigidly adhering to their standard of what that means.
The Bible, however, teaches that the sacrifice of animals was merely a shadow of the sacrifice of Christ and that the blood has made His life available through faith, not elements of wine and bread.
Dear saints of God, won’t you hear the word of the Lord today? It is the blood of Christ which brings us near unto God, not through physical elements and not through the ritual sacrifice of the works of our hands.
The life of Christ is in His blood which has been poured out to satisfy the wrath of God toward sin. Therefore we do not stand condemned but, in the words of Harry Green of Good News Prison Fellowship, we stand fully pardoned; having received the life of Christ through faith alone.
We are not saved by good works that any man should boast, nor are we saved by the commemoration of the physical elements of communion that Christ sacrifice should be repeated, as though it was originally in vain. Oh, precious grace, we are saved through faith in Christ and we are at peace with God as His Spirit abides in us! Amen.
