The Power of the Blood
Bible Study Time 6-11-06
Here we see that in John’s later years he could see that the blood of the Lord Jesus had opened the door of salvation not only to the Jew but to the whole world.
In I John 4, John said:
I John 4:10 (NKJ)
10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
Again, we see John teaching that it’s the blood of Jesus Christ that God accepts as a payment for sin.
At the end of the Acts-period, God temporarily set aside Israel’s hope for the New Covenant Kingdom. At that time, Paul was instructed to reveal the details of the Church which is the Body of Christ, and if the blood of Jesus Christ is the prominent feature of the New Covenant, then certainly it is even more prominent in the revelation concerning the Church which is the Body of Christ.
In Paul’s letters to the Church, he emphasized time and time again the importance of the blood of Christ. Ephesians 1:7 says:
Ephesians 1:7 (NKJ)
7 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace
Ephesians 2:13 says:
Ephesians 2:13 (NKJ)
13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
In Colossians 1:13, we read:
Colossians 1:13-14 (NKJ)
13 He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love,
14 in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.
And then in Colossians 1:19, we read:
Colossians 1:19-20 (NKJ)
19 For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell,
20 and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross.
The blood of Jesus Christ is the only means of salvation for any person of any time period. All those who come to God for salvation must meet God at the mercyseat and have the blood of Jesus Christ applied to their hearts as the perfect payment for sin.
If you don’t know Christ today, you can be saved through the power of the blood of Jesus Christ. All you have to do is believe that Jesus Christ died for your sins, that He was buried and that He rose again the third day according to the scriptures. This is the gospel by which we are saved.
Thank you for listening this morning to another session of Bible Study Time. It’s been a pleasure studying with you, and I’ll look forward to being with you again next week.
Write me at: jimjoan77@juno.com
Church links:
Bible Study Time 6-11-06
During the Last Supper, the Lord Jesus gave his disciples the cup of wine and said, “This is My blood of the New Covenant which is shed for many for the remission of sins.” According to Luke 22, the Lord went on to say:
Luke 22:29-30 (NKJ)
29 "And I bestow upon you a kingdom, just as My Father bestowed one upon Me,
30 "that you may eat and drink at My table in My kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel."
The New Covenant stands in contrast to the First Covenant which was the Law of Moses. The Law of Moses was based in the blood of bulls and goats, and it’s kingdom was the kingdom of David and Solomon. The High Priest had to go into the Holy of Holies once each year with the blood of an animal sacrifice to make atonement for the sins of the people. This covenant did allow for the acceptance of Gentiles but only if they were willing to accept the Jewish religion and live as a Jew. This kingdom was doomed to fail for it had no power to change the hearts of the people.
The Lord Jesus said that the New Covenant would usher in the glorious kingdom of heaven which was to be a kingdom of love, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. It would be world-wide, it would last forever, and it would be based in the blood of Jesus Christ. But, as far as the salvation of the Gentiles was concerned, the Apostles assumed that the New Covenant would be the same as the first, that Gentiles would be accepted only if they converted to the Jewish religion and lived as a Jew.
No one knew in the early years after the cross that the New Covenant would open up a whole new world of opportunity for the Gentiles. That would remain a secret until after the calling of the Apostle Paul. Shortly after God saved Paul on the road to Damascus, God told Ananias that Paul was a chosen vessel to bear the name of the Lord before Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel.
When Paul did go out preaching to the Gentiles, he knew that he was functioning as a minister of the New Covenant. He said in II Corinthians, Chapter 3:
2 Corinthians 3:6 (NKJ)
6 (God has) made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
In Galatians, Chapter 4, Paul said that Ishmael and Isaac represent Israel’s two covenants. He said that Ishmael represents the slavery of the Law, while Isaac represents the liberty of the New Covenant. He reminded the Galatians that God said to cast out the bondwoman with her son. Paul was very pleased to be a minister of the New Covenant.
Therefore, Paul was a minister of the New Covenant just as the other Apostles were, but Paul’s message was very different in several important ways from the other Apostles. In Galatians, Chapter 1, Paul said:
Galatians 1:11,12,15-20 (NKJ)
11 But I make known to you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man.
12 For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through the revelation of Jesus Christ.
15 . . . when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb and called me through His grace,
16 to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately confer with flesh and blood,
17 nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me; but I went to Arabia, and returned again to Damascus.
18 Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter, and remained with him fifteen days.
19 But I saw none of the other apostles except James, the Lord's brother.
20 (Now concerning the things which I write to you, indeed, before God, I do not lie.)
Paul said, I know that my ministry is different from the other apostles, but I want you to know that the things I teach were given to me by Jesus Christ, Himself. I didn’t learn them from other men. Well, what was it that made Paul’s ministry so different from the other Apostles?
The first thing that set Paul’s ministry apart was his ministry to the Gentiles. God told Paul that under the New Covenant Gentiles could be saved without having to submit to the Law of Moses. He was the only Apostle who taught that Gentiles could be saved by simple faith in Christ apart from the Law.
The Old Testament scriptures often spoke of the salvation of the Gentiles. In Romans 15, Paul quoted four different Old Testament passages to show that the salvation of the Gentiles was a matter of prophecy. He said in verse 8:
Romans 15:8-12 (NKJ)
8 Now I say that Jesus Christ has become a servant to the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made to the fathers,
9 and that the Gentiles might glorify God for His mercy, as it is written: "For this reason I will confess to You among the Gentiles, and sing to Your name."
10 And again he says: "Rejoice, O Gentiles, with His people!"
11 And again: "Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles! Laud Him, all you peoples!"
12 And again, Isaiah says: "There shall be a root of Jesse; and He who shall rise to reign over the Gentiles, in Him the Gentiles shall hope."
With these prophecies in mind, why was it such a shock to the Jews when God started saving the Gentiles? The reason is that the Jews always saw these verses through the filter of the First Covenant. They just thought that in the kingdom many, many Gentiles would convert to Judaism and come to God through the Law.
But God gave Paul a vision for what the New Covenant Kingdom was really going to be. Paul could see that the spiritual power of the New Covenant was going to reach out the Gentiles of the world without the stranglehold of the Law, and Paul said this message was not given to him by any man, but it was given to him by the Lord.
So Paul went out preaching to the Gentiles that they could be saved through faith in Christ without the Law, but there was something else that was uniquely different about Paul’s New Covenant ministry and that is that Paul was the first of the Apostles to emphasize not only faith in the person of Christ but faith in the work of Christ as well. Paul told the Corinthians:
1 Corinthians 15:3-4 (NKJ)
3 . . . I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,
4 and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures,
Paul said, this gospel which I preach is the gospel by which you are saved. Therefore, he said, hold fast to the word which I preach.
Many people today think that people have always been saved by believing that Christ died for our sins, but that’s not the case. The gospel that Christ died for our sins was never taught until it was taught by the Apostle Paul. The Lord Jesus certainly never told anyone that they could be saved by believing in His death, burial and resurrection. In Peter’s early ministry, he never told anyone that they could be saved by believing in the finished work of Christ upon the cross. In Acts, Chapter 2, on the day of Pentecost, Peter stood before the Jews in Jerusalem and said:
Acts 2:22-24 (NKJ)
22 "Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a Man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves also know--
23 "Him, being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death;
24 "whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be held by it.
Peter said, you killed the Messiah but do not despair. God has raised Him from the dead. He reminded them of David’s prediction that the Christ would suffer and die and be raised from the dead. Now verse 29 of Acts 2 says:
Acts 2:29-32 (NKJ)
29 "Men and brethren, let me speak freely to you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his tomb is with us to this day.
30 "Therefore, being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of his body, according to the flesh, He would raise up the Christ to sit on his throne,
31 "he, foreseeing this, spoke concerning the resurrection of the Christ, that His soul was not left in Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption.
32 "This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses.
Peter told these Jews that they could be saved if they would just believe that Jesus was who He said He was. They had to believe that Jesus was the Christ. This was a beautiful message which was inspired by the Holy Spirit of God. I doubt that Peter even knew about Joel, Chapter 2, or Psalms, Chapter 16, before he started speaking, but he quoted them by the power of the Holy Spirit.
This message was given by the Holy Spirit, but there was not a word about Jesus Christ dying for our sins. Peter and the other original Apostles had no understanding of the fact that the shed blood of Jesus Christ was the means by which men could be reconciled to God.
The message of reconciliation through the blood of Christ was hinted at and pictured in many ways in the Old Testament scriptures, but no one understood it until it as revealed to the Apostle Paul. Paul said, the gospel I preach is not according to man, but it came through the revelation of Jesus Christ. In Romans 3, Paul said that we are :
Romans 3:24-26 (NKJ)
24 . . . justified freely by (God’s) grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,
25 whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood . . .
26 . . . that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
Here, Paul is not only teaching the importance of who Jesus was, but he is teaching the importance of what Jesus accomplished for us on the cross of Calvary. The word propitiation is the word for the mercyseat which is the blood sprinkled lid of the ark of the covenant in the Holy of Holies. It’s where all of God’s righteous and all of God’s love come together to offer forgiveness on the basis of an appropriate sacrifice for sin.
In Paul’s early ministry, as a minister of the New Covenant, the gospel of the Apostle Paul was that the blood of Jesus Christ was the means by which man could be reconciled to God through faith. It was not until after Paul taught this message that the other Apostles began to teach the same thing. John said in I John 2:
I John 2:2 (NKJ)
2 (Jesus) Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.
Luke 22:29-30 (NKJ)
29 "And I bestow upon you a kingdom, just as My Father bestowed one upon Me,
30 "that you may eat and drink at My table in My kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel."
The New Covenant stands in contrast to the First Covenant which was the Law of Moses. The Law of Moses was based in the blood of bulls and goats, and it’s kingdom was the kingdom of David and Solomon. The High Priest had to go into the Holy of Holies once each year with the blood of an animal sacrifice to make atonement for the sins of the people. This covenant did allow for the acceptance of Gentiles but only if they were willing to accept the Jewish religion and live as a Jew. This kingdom was doomed to fail for it had no power to change the hearts of the people.
The Lord Jesus said that the New Covenant would usher in the glorious kingdom of heaven which was to be a kingdom of love, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. It would be world-wide, it would last forever, and it would be based in the blood of Jesus Christ. But, as far as the salvation of the Gentiles was concerned, the Apostles assumed that the New Covenant would be the same as the first, that Gentiles would be accepted only if they converted to the Jewish religion and lived as a Jew.
No one knew in the early years after the cross that the New Covenant would open up a whole new world of opportunity for the Gentiles. That would remain a secret until after the calling of the Apostle Paul. Shortly after God saved Paul on the road to Damascus, God told Ananias that Paul was a chosen vessel to bear the name of the Lord before Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel.
When Paul did go out preaching to the Gentiles, he knew that he was functioning as a minister of the New Covenant. He said in II Corinthians, Chapter 3:
2 Corinthians 3:6 (NKJ)
6 (God has) made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
In Galatians, Chapter 4, Paul said that Ishmael and Isaac represent Israel’s two covenants. He said that Ishmael represents the slavery of the Law, while Isaac represents the liberty of the New Covenant. He reminded the Galatians that God said to cast out the bondwoman with her son. Paul was very pleased to be a minister of the New Covenant.
Therefore, Paul was a minister of the New Covenant just as the other Apostles were, but Paul’s message was very different in several important ways from the other Apostles. In Galatians, Chapter 1, Paul said:
Galatians 1:11,12,15-20 (NKJ)
11 But I make known to you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man.
12 For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through the revelation of Jesus Christ.
15 . . . when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb and called me through His grace,
16 to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately confer with flesh and blood,
17 nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me; but I went to Arabia, and returned again to Damascus.
18 Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter, and remained with him fifteen days.
19 But I saw none of the other apostles except James, the Lord's brother.
20 (Now concerning the things which I write to you, indeed, before God, I do not lie.)
Paul said, I know that my ministry is different from the other apostles, but I want you to know that the things I teach were given to me by Jesus Christ, Himself. I didn’t learn them from other men. Well, what was it that made Paul’s ministry so different from the other Apostles?
The first thing that set Paul’s ministry apart was his ministry to the Gentiles. God told Paul that under the New Covenant Gentiles could be saved without having to submit to the Law of Moses. He was the only Apostle who taught that Gentiles could be saved by simple faith in Christ apart from the Law.
The Old Testament scriptures often spoke of the salvation of the Gentiles. In Romans 15, Paul quoted four different Old Testament passages to show that the salvation of the Gentiles was a matter of prophecy. He said in verse 8:
Romans 15:8-12 (NKJ)
8 Now I say that Jesus Christ has become a servant to the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made to the fathers,
9 and that the Gentiles might glorify God for His mercy, as it is written: "For this reason I will confess to You among the Gentiles, and sing to Your name."
10 And again he says: "Rejoice, O Gentiles, with His people!"
11 And again: "Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles! Laud Him, all you peoples!"
12 And again, Isaiah says: "There shall be a root of Jesse; and He who shall rise to reign over the Gentiles, in Him the Gentiles shall hope."
With these prophecies in mind, why was it such a shock to the Jews when God started saving the Gentiles? The reason is that the Jews always saw these verses through the filter of the First Covenant. They just thought that in the kingdom many, many Gentiles would convert to Judaism and come to God through the Law.
But God gave Paul a vision for what the New Covenant Kingdom was really going to be. Paul could see that the spiritual power of the New Covenant was going to reach out the Gentiles of the world without the stranglehold of the Law, and Paul said this message was not given to him by any man, but it was given to him by the Lord.
So Paul went out preaching to the Gentiles that they could be saved through faith in Christ without the Law, but there was something else that was uniquely different about Paul’s New Covenant ministry and that is that Paul was the first of the Apostles to emphasize not only faith in the person of Christ but faith in the work of Christ as well. Paul told the Corinthians:
1 Corinthians 15:3-4 (NKJ)
3 . . . I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,
4 and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures,
Paul said, this gospel which I preach is the gospel by which you are saved. Therefore, he said, hold fast to the word which I preach.
Many people today think that people have always been saved by believing that Christ died for our sins, but that’s not the case. The gospel that Christ died for our sins was never taught until it was taught by the Apostle Paul. The Lord Jesus certainly never told anyone that they could be saved by believing in His death, burial and resurrection. In Peter’s early ministry, he never told anyone that they could be saved by believing in the finished work of Christ upon the cross. In Acts, Chapter 2, on the day of Pentecost, Peter stood before the Jews in Jerusalem and said:
Acts 2:22-24 (NKJ)
22 "Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a Man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves also know--
23 "Him, being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death;
24 "whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be held by it.
Peter said, you killed the Messiah but do not despair. God has raised Him from the dead. He reminded them of David’s prediction that the Christ would suffer and die and be raised from the dead. Now verse 29 of Acts 2 says:
Acts 2:29-32 (NKJ)
29 "Men and brethren, let me speak freely to you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his tomb is with us to this day.
30 "Therefore, being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of his body, according to the flesh, He would raise up the Christ to sit on his throne,
31 "he, foreseeing this, spoke concerning the resurrection of the Christ, that His soul was not left in Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption.
32 "This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses.
Peter told these Jews that they could be saved if they would just believe that Jesus was who He said He was. They had to believe that Jesus was the Christ. This was a beautiful message which was inspired by the Holy Spirit of God. I doubt that Peter even knew about Joel, Chapter 2, or Psalms, Chapter 16, before he started speaking, but he quoted them by the power of the Holy Spirit.
This message was given by the Holy Spirit, but there was not a word about Jesus Christ dying for our sins. Peter and the other original Apostles had no understanding of the fact that the shed blood of Jesus Christ was the means by which men could be reconciled to God.
The message of reconciliation through the blood of Christ was hinted at and pictured in many ways in the Old Testament scriptures, but no one understood it until it as revealed to the Apostle Paul. Paul said, the gospel I preach is not according to man, but it came through the revelation of Jesus Christ. In Romans 3, Paul said that we are :
Romans 3:24-26 (NKJ)
24 . . . justified freely by (God’s) grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,
25 whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood . . .
26 . . . that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
Here, Paul is not only teaching the importance of who Jesus was, but he is teaching the importance of what Jesus accomplished for us on the cross of Calvary. The word propitiation is the word for the mercyseat which is the blood sprinkled lid of the ark of the covenant in the Holy of Holies. It’s where all of God’s righteous and all of God’s love come together to offer forgiveness on the basis of an appropriate sacrifice for sin.
In Paul’s early ministry, as a minister of the New Covenant, the gospel of the Apostle Paul was that the blood of Jesus Christ was the means by which man could be reconciled to God through faith. It was not until after Paul taught this message that the other Apostles began to teach the same thing. John said in I John 2:
I John 2:2 (NKJ)
2 (Jesus) Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.
Here we see that in John’s later years he could see that the blood of the Lord Jesus had opened the door of salvation not only to the Jew but to the whole world.
In I John 4, John said:
I John 4:10 (NKJ)
10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
Again, we see John teaching that it’s the blood of Jesus Christ that God accepts as a payment for sin.
At the end of the Acts-period, God temporarily set aside Israel’s hope for the New Covenant Kingdom. At that time, Paul was instructed to reveal the details of the Church which is the Body of Christ, and if the blood of Jesus Christ is the prominent feature of the New Covenant, then certainly it is even more prominent in the revelation concerning the Church which is the Body of Christ.
In Paul’s letters to the Church, he emphasized time and time again the importance of the blood of Christ. Ephesians 1:7 says:
Ephesians 1:7 (NKJ)
7 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace
Ephesians 2:13 says:
Ephesians 2:13 (NKJ)
13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
In Colossians 1:13, we read:
Colossians 1:13-14 (NKJ)
13 He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love,
14 in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.
And then in Colossians 1:19, we read:
Colossians 1:19-20 (NKJ)
19 For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell,
20 and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross.
The blood of Jesus Christ is the only means of salvation for any person of any time period. All those who come to God for salvation must meet God at the mercyseat and have the blood of Jesus Christ applied to their hearts as the perfect payment for sin.
If you don’t know Christ today, you can be saved through the power of the blood of Jesus Christ. All you have to do is believe that Jesus Christ died for your sins, that He was buried and that He rose again the third day according to the scriptures. This is the gospel by which we are saved.
Thank you for listening this morning to another session of Bible Study Time. It’s been a pleasure studying with you, and I’ll look forward to being with you again next week.
Write me at: jimjoan77@juno.com
Church links:
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