The Power Of The Blood

The Power of the Blood

1 Peter 1:18-23

Many like the French philosopher Voltaire and President John Adams are critical of biblical Christianity calling it a “bloody religion” or "a religion of gore" because of its teachings and emphasis on the power of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. The truth is that the entire Word of God centers around the doctrine of the Cross of Jesus Christ and the blood that He shed as an atonement for our sin. There is a scarlet thread which runs through the entirety of the Bible teaching this most central truth that there is power in the blood of the Lamb of God. Redemption, forgiveness, sanctification, accessibility, and victory through His blood for those who receive His sovereign grace.

I. The Blood REDEEMS that which is lost

A. 1 Peter 1:18-19 "Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot"

B. As a result of man's sin in the garden we have all inherited a sin nature and as Romans 6 tells us all mankind have been under the slavery or bondage of sin. In order to obtain deliverance from the slavery of sin, sin demands that a price be paid. The price or the wage of sin according to Romans 6:23 is death. The price of sin is death. So in order to purchase sinners from the grasp of sin there must be death.

C. Ephesians 1:7a "In Him we have redemption through His blood..."

D. According to God's Word Christ purchased our freedom from the bondage of sin. The word used for redemption in Ephesians 1:7 is apolutrosis, derived from the root word lutroo which was term used when one would buy a slave to set him free. And that is essentially what is the word right here, "In whom we have been purchased to be set free from sin, setting us free to serve God.

E. Not only did Christ pay the price He became the price that would provide us with the deliverance we all so desperately need.

F. Revelation 5:9-10 “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, and have made us kings and priests to our God; and we shall reign on the earth.”

II. The Blood provides the FORGIVENESS of Sin

A. Ephesians 1:7b "In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace."

B. Charles Haddon Spurgeon said " Redemption and forgiveness are so put together, as to look as if they were the same thing. Assuredly they are so interlaced and inter-twisted that there is no having the one without the other. Do you ask—"How is it that there should always need to be redemption by blood, in order to the forgiveness of sin?" I call your attention to the expression, "Redemption through his blood." Observe, it is not redemption through his power, it is through his blood. It is not redemption through his love, it is through his blood. This is insisted upon emphatically, since in order to the forgiveness of sins it is redemption through his blood, as you have it over and over again in Scripture. "Without shedding of blood is no remission."

C. 1 John 1:7 " 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.

D. Nothing we can do will ever add to or take away from the work that Christ did on the cross. As the song sings, "What can wash away my sins? Nothing but the Blood of Jesus!"

E. Hebrews 9:22 teaches us that without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of our sins.

F. Matthew 26:28 "For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins." (Remission = the pardon or the letting go of them as if they had never been committed)

III. The Blood SANCTIFIES or sets apart the redeemed as the special possession of God

A. Hebrews 13:12 " Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered outside the gate."

B. The first and simplest meaning of the word SANCTIFICATION is "separation." That which is taken out of its surroundings, by God's command, and is set aside or separated as His own possession and for His service-that is holy. This does not mean separation from sin only, but from all that is in the world, even from what may be permissible. Sanctification is fellowship with God and His dwelling in us. - Andrew Murray