(Pt.6)
10 “And if any native Israelite or foreigner living among you eats or drinks blood in any form, I will turn against that person and cut him off from the community of your people, 11 for the life of the body is in its blood. I have given you the blood on the altar to purify you, making you right with the Lord. It is the blood, given in exchange for a life, that makes purification possible. 12 That is why I have said to the people of Israel, ‘You must never eat or drink blood—neither you nor the foreigners living among you.’-Leviticus 17:10-12
In these last days, God is not looking for an embalmed church, He is coming back for a blood-bought, blood washed church that has embraced the crimson stained cross of Christ. The blood has been a central theme to our salvation since creation when God sacrificed an animal to provide coverings for Adam and Eve’s nakedness.
God would later declare through Moses the significance of the blood when he recorded in vs. 11 that the life of the body is in the blood. Every covenant God made with mankind He did using blood. The covenant with Abraham (Genesis 15) required a blood sacrifice. He required the blood of a Passover lamb when He established a covenant with Israel. Later, Jesus would inform His disciples at a Passover celebration that His blood would initiate a new, better, lasting covenant with His people:
“After supper he took another cup of wine and said, “This cup is the new covenant between God and his people—an agreement confirmed with my blood, which is poured out as a sacrifice for you.”-Luke 22:20
Blood has long been at the center of God’s salvation message. You can sanitize the aesthetics of your church from the blood, you can sanitize your worship set of the blood, and you can even sanitize your sermon from it; but you cannot sanitize the gospel of it. The gospel of Jesus Christ is clear that we are blood washed and blood bought:
18 For you know that God paid a ransom to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors. And it was not paid with mere gold or silver, which lose their value. 19 It was the precious blood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God.”- 1 Peter 1:18-19
“You were bought with a price [you were actually purchased with the precious blood of Jesus and made His own]. So then, honor and glorify God with your body.”-1 Corinthians 6:20 (AMP)
He purchased our redemption with His blood, because only His blood could wipe out the debt you and I owed. Only His blood could wash us clean!
“Then one of the twenty-four elders asked me, “Who are these who are clothed in white? Where did they come from?” 14 And I said to him, “Sir, you are the one who knows.” Then he said to me, “These are the ones who died in the great tribulation. They have washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb and made them white.”-Revelation 7:13-14
“Just think how much more the blood of Christ will purify our consciences from sinful deeds so that we can worship the living God. For by the power of the eternal Spirit, Christ offered himself to God as a perfect sacrifice for our sins.”-Hebrews 9:14
Truth is, some of us need to revisit Golgatha again and to stop looking at Calvary as a tourist destination, but be reminded that it was a crime scene. The cross that stood high on that hill bore your sins and the blood that pooled around the foot of the cross was shed for your redemption. You were blood bought and blood washed! Never forget.
Scott Burr
Dayspring Community Church
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