The Blood and Our Testimony, Part 3

And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb… (Rev. 12:11)

When John the Apostle wrote about the blood of the Lamb, he did so to show us its power by referencing the miraculous deliverance from the angel of death in Egypt thousands of years before Christ. The Israelites had been slaves in Egypt for 400 years when God decided He would set them free. Through Moses, God sent the ten plagues. The last plague was the angel of death, sent to destroy the firstborn of every family in Egypt. The only way to avoid the angel of death was to spread the blood of a lamb on the doorposts of the house.

And they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses where they eat it. … For the Lord will pass through to strike the Egyptians; and when He sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over the door and not allow the destroyer to come into your houses to strike you. … (Ex. 12:7, 23)

Those that obeyed God, whether Jew or Egyptian, escaped the plague. Because so many Egyptians died, Pharaoh set Israel free from their slavery. The blood of the lamb won their freedom. It will win our freedom today. 

The moment a person comes under the blood of Jesus by accepting Him as their Lord and Savior, Satan loses all rights to own their lives and ruin them with guilt, shame, and condemnation. Why? Because in “Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace” (Ephesians 1:7). Our sins were forgiven on the cross of Jesus Christ. We receive salvation and forgiveness when we accept what Jesus did: dying the sinner’s death and shedding His blood for us. Redemption means our sins are cast into the depths of the sea, never to be remembered.

He will again have compassion on us, 

And will subdue our iniquities. 

You will cast all our sins Into the depths of the sea. (Micah 7:19)

As far as the east is from the west, 

So far has He removed our transgressions from us (Ps. 103:12).

The things that separate us from God and from our true identity are gone forever. Jesus took away the barriers.

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. (Eph. 2:8-10)

 We can now use the talents and gifts He gave us. We can walk in the calling of God using the fullness of our capabilities because of what He has done. That is the gospel. The gospel is not scaring people into acceptance of Jesus, it is telling them that all of the things keeping them from becoming everything they have ever dreamed of growing has been torn down by the blood of Jesus. If they come home, accept Christ, they will find that the blood of Jesus has the power to destroy the guilt, shame, and condemnation destroying their lives. They will discover that “Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler over the kings of the earth. … who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and has made us kings and priests to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.” (Revelation 1:5-6) And “Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel.” (Hebrews 12:24)  They will be able to say things like Paul the Apostle, who after he killed people in defense of his religion, could by that he had defrauded none, hurt no one, treated everyone well—his past was wiped away, and his future was restored by Jesus. Forgiveness of sin is a restoration of our innocence in the spiritual realm.

Once a person becomes a child of God, when their past is brought up, they can cast the memory down by the blood of Jesus. We are loved and washed clean. God saved us for something great: to live as his children and change the world for the better. God doesn’t just save us from something, He keeps us for something. He didn’t save Israel from Egypt, He saved them for the promised land. Our promised land is a restored, God-designed destiny, full of love, peace, and joy. When we realize this, we will be able to sing with those in heaven: 

“You are worthy to take the scroll, 

And to open its seals; 

For You were slain, 

And have redeemed us to God by Your blood 

Out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, 

And have made us kings and priests to our God; 

And we shall reign on the earth” (Revelation 5:9-10).