The
Power of the Blood
Recently
I have taken on the task of teaching a Point Group for our Church. The subject I have chosen is “The Power of
the Blood.” Now you might wonder what
blood I’m talking about, why I would want to talk about blood, how much can
there be to understand about blood? It
seems like a strange subject for me to take on – considering that I do not like
the sight of blood. You can ask my
husband, my kids, anyone that has ever been around me when someone is bleeding
– I DO NOT LIKE blood. Makes me sick to
my stomach. So why in the world would I
teach on blood? Am I going to medical
school? Haha, that’s laughable.
No,
the Blood I’m talking about is glorious!
It is blood such as has never been seen before. It is all powerful, ever living,
undefeatable. You may have guessed by
now – I am talking about the precious Blood of Jesus. Yes – the only Blood that will live forever. You
see, man cannot live without blood. When
the blood leaves the body – man dies. It
goes back to an inert substance – and the body dies. Leviticus 17:11 states “For the life of the
flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an
atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the
soul.” Life is in the blood. So the fountain of youth is really in the
blood. If you want to live forever, you
have to tap into a blood that will never die.
We’ll talk more about that later.
We see in Leviticus that the only atonement for man’s soul is through blood. In
the Old Testament God instituted the “rule” that sin cannot be covered except
by blood. We first see this displayed
after Adam and Eve sinned. Here we see
that sin has left man “naked” before God.
The glory of God, which Adam and Eve were clothed in, had departed. They were afraid to come into God’s presence
and so they made clothes of fig leaves for themselves and they hid. When God came down to talk with them that day
they had to admit to him that they had sinned.
How did God fix that? He made clothes
for them out of an animal skin. It
doesn’t take a lightening fast brain to understand that some animal had to
die. I highly doubt it unzipped it’s
coat (as you might see on a cartoon) and stepped out of it. No, it had to die. There was a substitution taking place for
Adam and Eve to be clothed (to have their sin covered.) The life of the animal was given so that Adam
and Eve could continue to live. Remember
– the life of the flesh is in the blood.
Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin - Hebrews
9:22. We see, first and foremost, that God requires blood to be shed for man’s
sin. God allowed an animal to substitute
its life for the life of Adam and Eve, and for a time their sin was covered.
All
through the Old Testament we see this happening over and over. When man sinned, there was a system in place
whereby his sins could be remitted. The
dictionary defines remitted as “cancel or refrain from exacting or inflicting a
debt or punishment.” The debt or
punishment for sin was death. God
allowed man to substitute an animal for his life, thereby taking the
punishment, or paying the debt that was due.
From Genesis to Revelation, we see that blood is always shed as payment
for sin. Seems
kind of hopeless when you read the Old Testament. It was a vicious cycle. Every day there was a daily sacrifice
performed by the priests at the Tabernacle, morning and evening, then there
were special days where sacrifices were offered, and once a year the Day of
Atonement. They lived in a perpetual
state of shedding of blood. Imagine the
volume of blood that was shed throughout a year – they could not escape
thoughts of the blood. Hundreds, maybe
thousands, of animals dying every year to cover mankind’s sin. There is about 10 gallons of blood in a cow. Now just imagine in a year’s time, there were
about 1,246 animal sacrifices. There
were daily sacrifices, Sabbath sacrifices, Passover week, Feast of Pentecost, Feast
of trumpets, Day of Atonement, just to mention a few. According to one source I read it amounted to
114 Bulls, 37 rams, 1063 lambs, 32 goats every year. That is a lot of blood. You were never really
free of a sin consciousness – you lived from year to year – hoping the High
Priest’s offering would be acceptable to God and your sin would be covered for
another year. Why? Because the blood was not eternal, it was not
equal to the blood of man, it could only cover – not remove. The Old Testament – if you really read it
with the blood in mind, is a very bloody book.
Blood is everywhere. Clearly, blood is very important to God.
In
order to understand the blood, we must learn to think like God thinks. I think
we have established that there is no remission for sins without the blood, but
what else do we need to know about the blood?
What else does it accomplish?
First we must understand the make-up of Jesus’ blood. The virgin birth of Jesus is absolutely crucial
to the story of redemption. Throughout
the Old Testament we see that the blood of bulls and goats was inferior. It could not remove Man’s sin, nor was it
permanent. It was a vicious cycle – to
be repeated every day, every year – never ending. Adam’s blood became tainted when he sinned –
therefore it was no longer pure. Jesus
did not carry man’s tainted blood. He
carried the pure blood of God – untainted by sin. Holy blood, the life of the flesh is in the
blood. Therefore, Jesus carried the life
of God in his blood. Pure, eternal
blood. The only blood that could take
away the penalty of sin, which is death.
Jesus
came to this earth to become the PERFECT LAMB – the only acceptable sacrifice
to a Holy God. He lived a sinless life
so he became the spotless lamb. When he
was crucified and shed his blood, God’s penalty for sin had been paid. Now, when we receive the gift of salvation
from the Father, we become one with Jesus.
He said I am the vine, you are the branches. The sap that runs through the vine is the sap
that runs through the branches. At the
new birth you were recreated – not restored, or refreshed – you were RECREATED! You are now a new creation – II Corinthians 5:17 says “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: the old
has gone, the new is here. The amplified
says “Therefore, if anyone is [ingrafted] in Christ [the Messiah] he is a new
creation (a new creature altogether); the old [previous moral and spiritual
condition] has passed away. Behold, the
fresh and new has come!” The idea of
ingrafting is like a vine and a twig – when the twig is inserted into the vine
it begins to receive the life of the vine.
When we are ingrafted into Christ – through the new birth – we begin to
receive the life of the vine. The Blood of
Jesus, which is represented in communion when we drink the fruit of the vine,
begins to flow through us. It is
important that we understand this so we can begin to appropriate all the
virtues of that precious Blood in our own bodies. Everything we receive from God is by faith –
so we must build our faith in regard to the Blood to fully receive all the
benefits it provides.
In the natural body blood is the thing that makes us live. Without blood we can’t live. We see that in Leviticus 17:11 where it says
all life is in the blood. It is also our
defender against sickness and disease.
It carries a substance called antibodies. I looked up an article about antibodies to
see what it said – to paraphrase “Antibodies (also
called immunoglobulins) are specialized proteins that travel through
the bloodstream and are found in bodily fluids. They are used
by the immune system to identify and defend against foreign intruders to the
body.” Now let’s take that over into the
spiritual realm.
I was praying one night and the Lord showed me something about
Jesus’ blood. His blood contains
antibodies for EVERY sickness and EVERY disease ever known to mankind. When he was on the cross every sickness,
every disease, every sin, every sorrow was laid on him. (Isaiah 53:4) The Bible also tells us that he has defeated death and
has the keys to hell and death. (Revelation 1:18) The antibodies are in the blood,
and we have the blood of Jesus running through our veins. He has already
defeated EVERY sickness and every disease – named and un-named. When you
were born again and made a new creation you received the Blood of Jesus.
When you meditate on His Blood and speak about His Blood, give honor to His
Blood, you are drinking His Blood – as it says in the Bible – when we take
communion we are eating His flesh and drinking His Blood. Reading the
Word is “eating” his flesh because He is the bread of life, and the juice
represents His Blood. We appropriate it, like everything else, by faith. In
John 6:53 Jesus said “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Blood,
you have no life in you."
His
Blood contains all the antibodies for every sickness and disease because he
defeated them – just like our natural bodies defeat sicknesses and then we have
a natural immunity built up against that germ. His Blood is identifying and defending against ALL foreign
intruders to your body! His Blood has
all the antibodies you will ever need.
We HAVE A SUPERNATURAL IMMUNITY flowing through our veins because the
Blood of Jesus is flowing through our veins.
If we will appropriate it by faith – we can defeat every sickness and
disease, every sin and every sorrow that comes against us. We need to rise up, NOW, and begin to declare
the power of the Jesus’ Blood over our lives and that of our families.
The
enemy IS defeated and Jesus IS Lord!
