Last week we looked at the blood as it pertains to making a Covenant. God made a Covenant with Abraham, and blood played a significant role in making the Covenant.
When God made the New Covenant for us, He required the same thing. A Covenant could not be made without giving a life and shedding blood. When John saw Jesus coming to be baptized, he declared prophetically that Jesus was the Lamb of God – John 1:36.
The night that Jesus shared the last supper with the disciples, He confirmed the reason why He came. This is the blood of the New Covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins – Matt 26:28.
Heb. 8:6 But now hath he obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises.
Jesus confirms that He would give his life and shed His blood to ratify the New Covenant. We must ask ourselves: Why a New Covenant?
In the Old Covenant, people had to sacrifice often to shed blood to cover their sins. When God would see the blood, he would pass over and not punish them for their iniquity. We know the pattern for that in the story of Israel’s deliverance from Egypt. God set a standard and an expectation for Israel when He delivered them. It also shows us what the blood was able to do.
On the night that God would deliver them, they had to kill a lamb without blemish and apply the lamb’s blood to the doorpost of their homes. Then they had to bring the whole family into the house. That night God would visit Egypt and strike all the firstborn of Egypt in the final judgment plaque – Ex 12. Blood had to be shed, and a firstborn had to die.
Not only was Jesus the Lamb of God, but he was also the firstborn from the dead – Col 1:18. God provided the Lamb in our redemption, but His firstborn will die and be resurrected from the dead. Judgment will fall on the enemy of God, but the Lamb will live again. This foreshadows the power of the blood of Jesus. Not only will it protect, but it will redeem. Something the blood of animals could never do. The best that animal sacrifices could do was to remind God of our sins.
Heb 10:1-4 For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered? Because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins. But in those sacrifices, there is a remembrance again made of sins every year. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.
The Blood of Jesus removes our sins so that there is no remembrance of our sins for God. Once and for all time, God dealt with our sin issue. He is not covering it up anymore. He is removing it!
Heb 10:10-18 By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins: But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God; From henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool. For by one offering, he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified. Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us: for after that he had said before, This is the Covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them; And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin.
No more sacrifice for sin. No more does sin remind God. With one sacrifice, God perfected those that accepted the blood sacrifice of Jesus. This is the power of the New Covenant.
This is the very thing that gives us the power to overcome the enemy. Revelations say that we overcome him(enemy) by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony – Rev 12:11.
Would you be free from the burden of sin? There is power in the blood, power in the blood. Would you over evil a victory win? There is wonderful power in the blood.
