The Precious Blood of Christ
To sustain your physical life, you need certain basic items such as water, oxygen, food, clothing, and shelter. In addition, your body requires a certain amount of protein, vitamins, and minerals. Without all these, your physical life would die, or at least suffer greatly.
It is the same with your spiritual life. Your spiritual life, just like your physical life, requires certain basic elements.
These are essential. Without them, you will find it difficult to survive as a Christian in a world that does not know Christ.
One of these basic elements is the blood of Christ.
Why do you need the blood of Christ? Because, essentially, fallen man has three basic problems. Even as a Christian, you still carry around the fallen human life. So day after day, you may still be plagued with these three problems.
These three problems involve three parties: God, yourself, and Satan. Toward God, you often sense separation. Within yourself, you often sense guilt. And from Satan, you often sense accusation. These three--separation from God, feelings of guilt, and accusation from Satan--can be three big problems in your Christian life. How can these be overcome? Only by the blood of Christ.
Separation from God
When Adam sinned in the garden of Eden, he immediately hid from God. Before Adam sinned, he enjoyed God and was in His presence all the time. Yet after he sinned, he hid. Sin always results in separation from God.
Even as a Christian you may experience this. After committing some little sin, you sense a great gulf between you and God. Because God is righteous, He cannot tolerate sins This is what the prophet Isaiah said: "No, Jehovah's hand is not so short that it cannot save; / Nor is His ear so heavy that it cannot hear. / But your iniquities have become a separation / Between you and your God, / And your sins have hidden His face / From you so that He does not hear" (Isa. 59.1-2).
After Adam sinned, God did not say, "Adam, what have you done?" Rather, God said, "Adam, where are you?" In other words, God is not as much concerned with what sins you may commit, as He is with the fact that your sins separate you from Him. God loves you, but He abhors your sins. As long as your sins remain, God must stay away. In this condition, you feel far from God. For God to come, sins must go.
There is only one thing in the entire universe that can take away sins--the precious blood of Christ. No amount of prayer, no amount of weeping, no ritual, no penance, no promise to do better, no guilty feeling, no period of waiting- no, nothing but the precious blood of Christ-can remove sins.
Hebrews 9:22 says that "without shedding of blood is no forgiveness."
This is illustrated in Exodus. Some of the children of Israel may have been as sinful as the Egyptians. Yet when God sent His angel to slay all the firstborn children in the land of Egypt, He did not say, "When I see your good behavior, I will pass over you." God did not require that the children of Israel pray, do penance, or promise to behave. No, God commanded them to slay the Passover lamb and to sprinkle its blood on their doorposts. He said, "When I see the blood, I will pass over you" (Exo. 12:13). God never looked to see what kind of people were in the house; when He saw the blood, He simply passed over.
That Passover lamb was a picture of Christ. When John the Baptist first saw the Lord he proclaimed, "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!" (John1:29). Jesus is the Lamb of God. By His precious blood all your sins have been taken away.
What then should you do when you have sinned and feel far from God? You should simply confess that sin to God and believe that the blood of Jesus has taken that sin away. First John 1:9 says, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness." When you confess your sins, immediately all distance between you and God is gone.
Don't worry about any feeling or lack of feeling at this point. The blood of Christ is primarily for God's satisfaction, not for yours. Remember, God said, "When I (not you) see the blood..."
On the night of the Passover, the children of Israel were within the house while the blood of the lamb was with-out. Within the house, they could not see the blood; nevertheless, they had peace through knowing that God was satisfied with that blood.
Once a year, on the day of atonement, the high priest went alone into the Holy of Holies to sprinkle the blood on the expiation cover of the ark (Lev. 16:11-17). No one was allowed to watch. This is a shadow of Christ who, after His resurrection, went into the heavenly tabernacle and sprinkled His own blood before God as the propitiation for your sins (Heb. 9:12).
No one today can look into heaven and see that blood. Yet it is there. It is there speaking for you (Heb. 12:24) and satisfying God on your behalf. Even though you cannot see the blood, you can believe in its effectiveness. This blood solves your problem toward God.
If God esteems the blood of Christ sufficient to remove your sins, can you do the same? Or do you require some good feeling besides? Can your requirement be higher than God's?
No, you must simply confess, "O God, thank You that the blood of Christ has taken away all my sins. If You are happy with the blood, then I am happy also."
Guilt in Your Conscience
Man's second crucial problem is with himself. Within him, in his conscience, there is a heavy load of guilt. How many young people today are burdened by guilt! Guilt is a big problem to man.
Sins offend God on the one hand and defile us on the other. What is guilt? Guilt is the stain of sins on your con-science. When you are young, your conscience is only stained a little. But as you grow older, these stains accumulate. Like a window which is never washed, the conscience grows darker and darker until eventually little light can penetrate.
No detergent, no chemical, no acid can wash the stain of guilt from your conscience. Not even a nuclear bomb can dislodge this stain; no, your conscience demands something more powerful than that. Your conscience needs the precious blood of Christ.
Hebrews 9:14 says, "How much more will the blood of Christ.. purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God?" The blood of Christ is powerful enough to purge, or cleanse, your conscience from every guilty stain.
How does the blood of Christ purge guilt from your conscience? Suppose you receive a traffic ticket for parking on the sidewalk. You have three problems: first, you broke the law; second, you owe the government a fine; and third, you have a copy of the traffic ticket to remind you of the fine. Now suppose you are penniless and find it impossible to pay the fine. You cannot just throw away the ticket, because the police hold a copy, and they will prosecute you if you do not pay. You have a real problem.
This is a picture of what happens whenever you sin.
First, you have broken God's law; that is, you have done something that offends God. Second, you owe God's law something.
Romans 6:23 says that the wages of sin is death. This is a rather stiff fine, impossible for you to pay. And third, you have guilt in your conscience, like the traffic ticket in your pocket, as a nagging reminder of your offense.
Now here is the good news. When Jesus Christ died on the cross, His death fully met all the requirements of God's law for you. In other words, your debt of sin has been paid. Praise the Lord! Jesus Christ, through His death on the cross, paid it all!
So now, the first two problems have been solved: God is no longer offended, and the debt of sin has been fully paid. But what about your conscience? The stain of guilt, like the traffic ticket, remains as a record of your sin.
This is where the blood of Christ cleanses your conscience.
Because Christ's death has paid the debt of sin, His blood may now wipe out the record of that debt. Just as when the fine is paid, the traffic ticket may be torn up and thrown away, so also any guilt on your conscience may be wiped out.
This is so easy to experience. Whenever you sin and sense guilt within, you may simply open to God and pray something like this: "O God, forgive me for what I did today. Thank You, Lord, on the cross You died for me and paid for this sin that I have committed. Lord, I believe that this sin has been forgiven by You. Right now I claim Your precious blood to cleanse my conscience from any stain of guilt." Remember 1 John 1:9:
"If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness." And as Psalm 103:12 says, "As far as the east is from the west, / So far has He removed our transgressions from us." Who can say how far east is from west? In the same way, when you confess your sins, God removes them infinitely far away from you.
They are not associated with you anymore. Because of this, you may have rest in your conscience.
When God forgives, He forgets. Do not think that after God has forgiven your sins, He may one day come back and remind you of them again. No, when it comes to your forgiven sins, God has a very short memory. Sometimes you may have a better memory than God. Can God really forget? This is what Jeremiah 31:34 says: "I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more." If God forgets your sins, you may forget them also. Don't remind God of something He has already forgotten.
Christ died nearly two thousand years ago. His blood has already been shed and is available twenty-four hours a day to cleanse your conscience. Whenever you sin, there is no need to wait. Waiting does not improve the power of the blood. The blood is all-powerful. Wherever you are, any time of day, if you sense guilt in your conscience, just claim the precious blood.
"Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven;. / Blessed is the man to whom / Jehovah does not impute iniquity" (Psa.32:1-2). Through the precious blood of Christ, the problem of guilt is solved.