THE ATONING BLOOD
THE atonement of Jesus Christ is magnified above all else in the Word of God. It is God’s redemptive plan for the world, and is prefigured, in type and prophecy, from the Garden of Eden to the Cross.
“Without shedding of blood is no remission” (Hebrews 9:22).
“It is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul” (Leviticus 17:11).
“These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (Revelation 7:14).
The blood of animals was shed when God slew the first animals to cloth Adam and Eve after they had disobeyed Him. Noah offered sacrifices when he came out of the ark after the flood. Abraham was known for the many sacrifices he made unto the Lord, as were his descendants, Isaac and Jacob, “heirs together with him of the promise” that through their seed would all the nations of the earth be blessed. That was the promise that Jesus would come to make atonement for sin.
When the Israelites were released from Egyptian bondage, it was the blood of the Passover lamb on the side posts and lintels of the doors of their houses that exempted them from the Death Angel when the eldest in every Egyptian home was slain. God had said, “When I see the blood, I will pass over you” (Exodus 12:13).
The many thousands of animals slain during the years of the Tabernacle worship all prefigured the time when Jesus, as the Lamb of God, would shed His Blood to redeem mankind. There is no salvation from sin outside the Blood of Jesus. No one who rejects the Blood of Jesus can find favor with God. The Blood is God’s only remedy for sin.
Power in the Blood
The real Calvary Gospel of Christ has never lost its power. “The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin” (I John 1:7). His Blood can make the vilest sinner clean.
“There is a fountain filled with Blood
Drawn from Immanuel’s veins;
And sinners, plunged beneath that flood,
Lose all their guilty stains.”
“All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23), so all need the Blood. Isaiah wrote: “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6).
God does not tolerate sin in the slightest degree. The edict went forth in the beginning, “The soul that sinneth, it shall die” (Ezekiel 18:20). “And without shedding of blood is no remission” (Hebrews 9:22). It was necessary for Christ to die in our stead in order to satisfy divine justice and to pardon the sinner. The Blood was shed for the whole round world, that “whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3: 16).
“The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). God’s law is unchangeable. His judgments are sure. It was only because Jesus was willing to die in the sinner’s stead, that there is hope for all who repent. It was sin that nailed Him to the Cross. God would never have given His only Son to die such a horrible death if it had not been necessary to make atonement. No other blood was pure enough. This was the price it took to pay the debt we owed, the price of our redemption.
Divine Mercy
If you expect to go to Heaven you must repent and forsake your sins. Through the Blood of Jesus, all your sins can be washed away. God’s condemnation will never be lifted until you ask Jesus to blot out all your sins. The way of the Cross leads to victory over sin.
Our sins which Jesus bore for us on the Cross separated Him from God. God cannot look upon sin. In His agony, Jesus cried out: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Then He bowed His head and said, “It is finished.” The world could now go free.
You will never be able to stand before God uncondemned until you ask Him to wash away your sins with the precious Blood of Jesus. We are saved by “the Blood of the Crucified One,” all our committed sins are forgiven. And because Jesus “suffered without the gate,” shed His Blood there, we can be sanctified wholly (Hebrews 13:12). Sanctification takes out the root of sin, destroys the carnal nature, that “bent to sinning,” with which we were born as a result of Adam’s fall.
The sacrifice for sin was for all time. “By his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us” (Hebrews 9:12). Jesus today is our High Priest making intercession before the Father for us with His own Blood. As we plead the Blood of Jesus over our lives, God can lift every burden and heal all our diseases. We can sing:
“I’m under the Blood, the precious Blood,
Under the cleansing, healing Flood.
Keep me, Savior, from day to day
Under the precious Blo