Blood of Jesus the Only Cure

What Is Man?

Ken

Why has God gone through so much trouble for us? In our vanity, we like to think of ourselves highly; but, look around, are there not more than a few, who have done more impressively than ourselves? “For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith” (Romans 12:3 NKJV).

Humans, as remarkable as they are, one would think, cannot be as fascinating as the vastness and scope of the material universe, which God created, in its microcosm and macrocosm. And yet, “what is man that You are mindful of him, And the son of man that You visit him?” (Psalm 8:4). Lucifer, as the apex of God’s moral creation, became perplexed, when he pondered how the Son was eternally begotten of the Father. “I will declare the decree: The LORD has said to Me, You are My Son, Today I have begotten You” (2:7). Aren’t sons inferior to their fathers? “Jesus said to him, Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, Show us the Father?” (John 14:9). So, how could the Eternally Begotten Son of God be equal to the Father? And, how could that Son expect his (Lucifer’s) worship? Even further, how could he (Lucifer) prospectively degrade himself to serve yet-to-be-created humans, who would be “a little lower than the angels” (Psalm 8:5; Hebrews 2:7, 9)? “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).

Did it not consternate Lucifer to learn of the Almighty’s plan for angels to be used to minister as servants to the lowliest of humans? “For He shall give His angels charge over you, To keep you in all your ways. In their hands they shall bear you up, Lest you dash your foot against a stone” (Psalm 91:11-12). It must have been so, since he cited that very Scripture back to Jesus, when he was tempting the Son of God in the wilderness. “And said to Him, If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. For it is written: He shall give His angels charge over you, and, In their hands they shall bear you up, Lest you dash your foot against a stone” (Matthew 4:6).

It appears this very thought may have been more than Lucifer could tolerate. “For you have said in your heart: I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High” (Isaiah 14:13-14).

Could this have been the Original Sin of Lucifer before Eve then Adam committed the First Human Transgression? Any wonder the devil hates us so? “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world” (1Peter 5:8-9). And, notice how he appealed to Eve’s sense of wondering why the Almighty would forbid eating only of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (Genesis 2:17). The Serpent desired that she would succumb exactly as he had failed. After all, the epitome of sin is seeking what God informed us wasn’t ours to possess, nor loving Yahweh for choosing it so, nor trusting the LORD for limiting us so. Lucifer wanted God’s position; but, it is impossible for the creature to become the Creator. Eve wanted to know what God knew about good and evil; but, it is impossible for the creature to handle knowledge too high for them. Neither did they trust Yahweh enough for limiting them nor loved Him enough for choosing it to be so.

“LORD, my heart is not haughty, Nor my eyes lofty. Neither do I concern myself with great matters, Nor with things too profound for me” (Psalm 131:1).

Never did God owe anyone the opportunity to repent; not you, nor I, nor Lucifer. If God owed anyone a Second Chance, then Salvation would be a strict matter of justice, and not the Unmerited Favor of a gift. “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8).

As an archangel, Lucifer was a “covering cherub” (Ezekiel 28:16), yet he was tasked to be among the “ministering spirits sent forth to minister for those who will inherit salvation” (Hebrews 1:14). With no second chance to reconsider, he refused. His disdain and dread of the Blood of Jesus lies in his contempt of Jesus taking the form of a man, then substituting Himself as a sacrifice for sinful humanity. Flesh and blood were always the intention of the Godhead manifesting Jesus as the Eternally Begotten Son of God. This was unacceptable to Lucifer. Our second chance opportunity to repent is the very point of agitation for Satan, where “God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment” (2Peter 2:4).

What is Man?

  1. Humanity was created for God’s own ends. “The LORD has made all for Himself, Yes, even the wicked for the day of doom” (Proverbs 16:4).
  2. God does not become more profitable because of anything humanity can do for Him. “Can a man be profitable to God, Though he who is wise may be profitable to himself?” (Job 22:2).
  3. Humans are not worthy of God’s honor. “What is man, that You should exalt him, That You should set Your heart on him?” (Job 7:17).
  4. Humankind are God’s creation to be commanded. “I have made the earth, And created man on it. I—My hands—stretched out the heavens, And all their host I have commanded” (Isaiah 45:12).
  5. Jesus the Messiah is our Creator. “For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him” (Colossians 1:16). The Spirit of Yahweh is our Creator, since it takes faith to be saved and to receive the revelation of the Divinity of the Spirit and Son as our Triune Creator. “The Spirit of God has made me, And the breath of the Almighty gives me life” (Job 33:4).
  6. Though the material universe was created ex nihilo (out of nothing), which is miraculous, Adam was created directly from dirt, also a miracle. “And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being” (Genesis 2:7).
  7. God created us in His likeness, more specifically, He created us with the moral capacity to choose to reflect Him, or to reject Himself, a capacity difficult to imagine. “Then God said, Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth” (Genesis 1:26).

God created the first human, whom we know as Adam, which is also the same Hebrew word for man (1:26). Therefore, God named the human he created Adam, expecting Adam’s obedience (Isaiah 45:12), just as parents expect obedience from their offspring (Ephesians 6:1), whom they name. Adam expected obedience from his wife, whom he named  (Genesis 3:20), just as obedience is expected by husbands of their wives (Ephesians 5:22; Colossians 3:18), who receive their married name from their husbands.

Father, we take great delight in looking to You as our Father. We acknowledge You as so much greater and higher than us that none is higher than You. May Your purposes be performed in us and through us. May we be privileged to understand somewhat of Your plan that we may cooperate with Your plans and prophecies. May the Son of Man return soon as KING of Kings and LORD of Lords. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen and amen.

How Does the Blood of Jesus Accomplish That?

Ken

“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” (1John 1:7 NKJV). 

What is the Significance of the Blood of Jesus Christ? 

  1. We have been purchased by the Blood of Christ. “Therefore take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood” (Acts 20:28).  
  2. Since we have been purchased by the Blood of Christ, we are not our own to do as we please with our lives, but we must always consult God concerning what must best be done to promote His glory. “For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s” (1Corinthians 6:20). 
  3. Based upon God purchasing us, even our OT counterparts, the nation of Israel, were taught a heavenly mindedness for themselves and an otherworldly mindedness for the world that observed them. “Fear and dread will fall on them; By the greatness of Your arm They will be as still as a stone, Till Your people pass over, O LORD, Till the people pass over Whom You have purchased” (Exodus 15:16). 
  4. Our entire conduct has been redirected from aimlessness to focused upon Christ’s “holiness, without which no one will see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14) through the Blood of Christ. “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” (1Peter 1:18-19).  
  5. Through the Blood of Christ, we have been elevated to be called “children of God” (John 1:12), though we have become bonded to God like a servant or slave, as Jesus did. “But made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross” (Philippians 2:7-8). 

The Blood of Jesus Speaks 

“To Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel” (Hebrews 12:24). 

When Cain slew his brother Abel, God said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother? He said, I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper? And He said, What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground. So now you are cursed from the earth, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand” (Genesis 4:9-11). 

  1. According to these passages from Genesis 4:9-11 and Hebrews 12:24, blood speaks to the Almighty, since He is God and accordingly, He has pronounced sentence from the Courts of Heaven as Judge of All the Earth (Genesis 18:25) because of the significance of the vitality of that blood. 
  2. Blood is indispensable for physical, human life, but it also teaches us of the essential bond between the Father and His Only Begotten Son, who “became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14), “for the life of the flesh is in the blood” (Leviticus 17:11). 
  3. Supernaturally, “in Him we have redemption through His blood” (Ephesians 1:7), because God has chosen this to best represent our means of achieving a restored relationship with Him. 
  4. Consequently, the Blood of Christ represents the breaking of our adversary the devil’s claim over us, who became our lord, when we rebelled against God. “Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness?” (Romans 6:16). 
  5. Again, this begs the question, Why did faithful Abel offer, and God received of him, a blood sacrifice, which was a “more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts; and through it he being dead still speaks” (Hebrews 11:4)? Was it “not without blood” (9:7) because only by death and the shedding of blood could freedom from the self-life be obtained (from Andrew Murray’s “The Power of the Blood of Jesus”)? Notice also Abel’s pleasing act of faith in shedding the blood in sacrifice “still speaks” (11:4) because blood speaks and cries out to God, even when human mouths are silent. 
  6. “When I see the blood, I will pass over you” (Exodus 12:13) illustrated to Israel and us the necessity of the death and shedding of the blood of a substitute, the Paschal lamb, for their Passover deliverance, and by way of extension, our deliverance through the death of Christ the Lamb of God, “who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). 
  7. All the great scenes of Scripture find some kind of connection to the Blood of Christ. It is just that we have so trivialized their significance in the repeated telling of the Scriptural narrative that its familiarity has bred a kind of contempt, which the adversary exploits for the purpose of robbing God’s people of their zeal for Christ and the truth. “But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1Corinthians 2:14). “They are of the world. Therefore they speak as of the world, and the world hears them” (1John 4:5). “We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one” (5:19). 

Conclusion 

“There Is Power in the Blood” (1899) is a hymn sung for over 100 years from camp meetings to Nashville. Since we live in Laodicean times, both hot and cold conduct predominate in the Church. We know the language without consistently experiencing the power — “having a form of godliness but denying its power” (2Timothy 3:5). 

Sin is the fundamental problem of the universe, and the Blood of Jesus is the only cure. 

Angels fell from heaven without redemption. Man transgressed, and animal sacrifices were required and given to cover sin and avert God’s wrath; however, not until the Blood of the Messiah was shed could sin be cleansed, erased, or annihilated. “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” (1John 1:7). 

Father, we die for lack of appreciation of the efficacy of the Blood of Jesus. Revive us. Awaken us. Open our eyes and teach us that we have possessed the cure all along. Cause Your Spirit to illuminate our understanding. Take away from us the seeking of any and every thing as the cure for what ails us, other than the Blood of Jesus. Build Your Kingdom. Rapture Your Church. Lord Jesus, return quickly. In Your Name, we pray. Amen and amen. 

NOTE: I introduced thoughts on the Blood of Jesus in my previous blog entry, Most Valuable Resource.