There’s power in the blood! Wonder-working power in the precious blood of the Lamb.
In Scripture, blood possesses a mysterious sacredness which belongs to life. Man is forbidden to eat blood. Cf. Genesis 9:4; Leviticus 7:26,27; Acts 15:20,29. It is clear that one can be eternally saved not by works, or power, or wealth, or human wisdom, or social standing; but solely by the merit of Christ’s blood. Cf. Titus 3:5; Eph. 1:7; 1 Peter 1:2, 18, 19.
Animal sacrifice was much in vogue during the age of the patriarchs and the Jews. But animal blood was inadequate. “For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins” (Hebrews 10:4).
It was necessary that man’s sins be put away, blotted out, erased. This was accomplished by the sacrifice of Christ. “But now. . .hath he been manifested to put away sins by the sacrifice of himself” (Hebrews 9:26).
The redemption procured by Christ is a moral-spiritual matter; not a commercial consideration. It is wrong to assume that Christ’s death was payment of an enormous debt, solely. If sin were only a debt, it might be forgiven without atonement. In paying another’s debt, the principle is discharged, the creditor is satisfied, but the moral status of the debtor is not affected. If Christ only paid the debt, justice, not mercy, commands the release, not the pardon, of the debtor. In his death, Christ not only propitiated (satisfied) God, but reconciled the sinner. “For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace; And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby:” (Ephesians 2:14-16). Christ satisfied the creditor and at the same time offered complete absolution to the debtor. We read in Hebrews 9:15, “And for this cause he is the mediator of the new testament, that by meansof death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.”
Christ’s blood, like his gospel, and like God’s grace, is of no benefit to one who will not apply it. It is applied as one believes in Jesus Christ as the Son of God (Mark 16:16) and as one comes into Christ through baptism. “Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4). Too, in living the devoted Christian life, one claims the merit of Christ’s blood. Listen to 1 John 1:7, “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, & the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.”