The Power of the Blood of Christ
There is a fountain filled with blood,
Drawn from Immanuel’s veins,
And sinners plunged beneath that flood,
Loose all their guilty stains.
A while back I preached a message about the Power of the Word of God, and the gist of the message was that if we do not know and have the power of the Word we cannot have the power of God on our lives. I believe that most of us do not want to live mediocre Christian lives: we want to really do something for God but we cannot do that unless God’s power rests on us. In order for us to have God’s hand on us we must live in the Word and know its power, but we also must know and have applied to us the “Power of the Blood of Christ.” That is the title and topic of my message today. I want to go through the Scriptures and find out what the Blood has the power to do. Why we need that power.
I.The Blood of Christ Has the Power to Save Us
A.The Blood Takes Away Our Sin
1.Look at Heb. 9:26, “For then must He often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.”
That is the whole reason Christ came to the earth in the first place: to put away sin forever. To settle the sinproblem. But how did He do that? He did it by the shedding of His precious blood.
2.Matt. 26:28, “For this is Myblood of the New Testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.”
3.Heb. 9:22, “And almost allthings are purged with blood,and without the shedding of blood there is no remission.”
4.What these verses are tellingus is that it was not enough that Christ died for us, but that He died in a particular way. His sacrificial death had to include the shedding of blood. His death would never have taken away or remitted our sins if He did not bleed when He died. If He had been hanged by a rope, suffocated, broken His neck, or died in any other of the various ways people are executed we would still be in our sins.
5.The reason for this is that thewages of sins is death and according to many verses in Scripture the life is in the blood. So the shedding of the blood is symbolic of the shedding of the life and so then God’s perfect justice is satisfied.
6.There are preachers all over this country who will not preach about the Blood of Christ because they fear people will consider them barbaric and their religion a “slaughterhouse” religion. When they do this they mock the language of God’s Word where it says in Isaiah 53:7, “He was oppressed, and He was afflicted,
yet He opened up not His mouth: Heis brought as a lamb to the slaughter...”
7.The blood takes away our sin andwhen it is gone it is really gone.
a.Heb. 8:12, “...and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.” b. Psalm 103:12, “As far as the east is from the west, so far hath He removed our transgressions from us.”
When we are saved our sins are as far from us as the east is from the west. You everwonder why God says as far as the east is from the west instead of how far the north is from the south? Take a look at a globe. The distance from north and south can be measured because there are fixed points of reference called the north and south poles. But there are no east or west poles, so from any point on the globe the east extends in one direction and the west in the other. Another thing is that there are two worldviews which are predominate and they are the eastern and the western and they are opposites.
c.Micah 7:19, “He will turn again, He will have compassion upon us; He will
subdue our iniquities; and Thou will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.”
B.The Blood Justifies Us
1.Rom. 5:9. “Much more then, being now justified by Hisblood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him.”
This verse is chock full of doctrinal truths: we see a clearstatement that we are indeed justified by His blood, we see that we are justified now, and we can see that we will be raptured before the time of God’s wrath which is the tribulation period.
2.Now do not let the word justification cause you to stumble. It really is a very simple concept. The easiest way to think of justification is to break the word down and say it like “just-as-if” I had never sinned. That is what it means. When God looks at those who are justified He sees a person who is just as if they had never sinned. That is because the blood has been applied and it covers our sinful hearts.
3.Rom. 3:24-25, “Being justified freely by His grace through the
redemption that is in Christ Jesus: Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God.”
4.It is only through the blood of Christ
that sinful man can be declared just.
C.The Blood Redeems Us
1.The verse we just read refers to the redemption that comes through the blood.
2.Eph. 1:7, “In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins...”
3.Rev. 5:9, “And they sang a new song saying, ‘Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by Thy blood out of every kindred.’”
4.The idea of redemption is aninteresting one. It has the idea of a person who became a slave because they had a debt which they could not repay. Because of this great debt they would work for the one they owed until that indebtedness was repaid. Most of the time they were a slave for the rest of their life. When Christ died His blood paid the debt that we could not repay, it satisfied God concerning our debt of sin. Christ has already paid the debt for the whole world, but only those who will by faith accept that their debt is paid in full, will indeed be forgiven of that debt.
D.The Blood Cleanses Us From Our Sin
1.Rev. 1:5, “And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the firstbegottenof the dead, and the
prince of the kings of the earth. Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood.”
2.1 John 1:7, “But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.”
3.Just a little physiology lesson. If you were to take something and cut the circulation to your arm you would feel some discomfort after a few seconds, but that would soon go away. If you began to flex your hands like this you could do it normally a few times but on about the tenth time you wouldbegin to feel a slight weakness, but then, without warning, you would feel a hot, excruciating pain. The muscles would cramp and you would be in extreme agony. In fact, it would be nearly impossible to continue moving as the pain would be unbearable. Then if you released the pressure and allowedthe blood flow back in there would be a feeling of great relief. Why does that happen? Physiologically, you have just experienced the cleansing power of the blood- your blood. While the blood supply was cut off, the continued moving of the muscles converted oxygen in your blood to energy, thereby producing waste products called metabolites. These metabolites are usually flushed away instantly by your bloodstream.
However, while the blood flow was hindered the poisonsor toxins were accumulating in your cells causing tremendous pain. Then, as soon as the pressure was released, the swirling stream of blood “cleansed” and “washed away” all the poisons, thus producing relief and joy. This is exactly what happens to one and all when the precious blood of Christ is allowed to swirl away the poisons of sin accumulated over the years.
So the Blood of Christ has the power to save us, but once we are saved the Blood does some other things for us.
II.The Blood Has the Power to Sanctify Us
A.Heb. 13:12, “Wherefore Jesus also, that He may sanctify the people with Hisown blood, suffered without the gate.”
Now because we are saved: justified, redeemed, and cleansed, we can be assured that we are sanctified or made holy in the sight of God because Christ sanctified the people by His own blood.
B.When does one become sanctified?There are actually three parts to the answer.
1.Instantaneously uponaccepting Christ as our Savior. Heb. 10:10,14 “By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. For by one offering He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified.” By the death of Jesus Christ the believer is sanctified at once. The very moment a man believes in Christ he is sanctified, that is, in this first sense, he is separated from sin and unto God. That is why all believers are called saints.
2.Progressively by growing in the Lord. 2 Peter 3:18, “But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord...” Look at Eph. 4:11-15. We see here that God gave the church apostles, pastors, etc. so that they would be perfected. That is another way of saying sanctified. The moment we are saved we are sanctified as far as God is concerned, but as far as our lives are concerned we grow into holiness as we mature in our Christian lives.
3.Completely at the Coming of Christ. 1 Thess. 5:23, “And they very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
1 Thess. 3:13, “To the end He may establish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints.”
Someday we will be completely holy. Someday we will be holy as He is holy.
III.The Blood of Christ Has the Powerto Give Us Peace With God
A.Col. 1:20,21 “And having madepeace through the blood of His cross, by Him to reconcile all things unto Himself; by Him, I say, whether they in earth, or things in heaven. And that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by
wicked works, yet now hath He reconciled.”
B.Before we were saved we wereenemies of God because of the wickedness we constantly did. However, once we are saved we have such a feeling of peace because we are then reconciled to God through the blood of Christ.
Conclusion: There are probably many other things the Blood of Christ has the power to do but these seem to be the most important for us. The blood does indeed save us, to take away our sins, redeem us, cleanse us, sanctify us, and give us peace. Christ shed His blood for us even though we were still sinners. His blood will save you and keep you from an eternal hell, but it is up to you to accept it. Even though He died for you, His death will do nothing whatsoever for you unless you allow it to by faith.