The Blood and a Clear Conscience

Jesus was examined by God and he was found to be sinless—or with out spot or sinful nature. How is that possible? He was not born broken and sinful. He was the first sinless man. He was born through the incarnation, through the immaculate conception. He is born through the womb of Mary by the word of God and without spot. He lived without sin for thirty-three years. So often we bypass this deep and moving truth. Take a moment and reflect on the fact that God became man. 

“The nativity mystery “conceived from the Holy Spirit and born from the Virgin Mary”, means, that God became human, truly human out of his own grace. The miracle of the existence of Jesus , his “climbing down of God” is: Holy Spirit and Virgin Mary! Here is a human being, the Virgin Mary, and as he comes from God, Jesus comes also from this human being. Born of the Virgin Mary means a human origin for God. Jesus Christ is not only truly God, he is human like every one of us. He is human without limitation. He is not only similar to us, he is like us.” – Karl Barth, Dogmatics in Outline 

“… without the incarnation, Christianity isn’t even a very good story, and most sadly, it means nothing. “Be nice to one another” is not a message that can give my life meaning, assure me of love beyond brokenness, and break open the dark doors of death with the key of hope. The incarnation is an essential part of Jesus-shaped spirituality.” – Michael Spencer, Mere Churchianity: Finding Your Way Back to Jesus-Shaped Spirituality 

When Jesus presented himself to God, he was holy. He was the first man to ever do that. When he offered his blood, this was the perfect sacrifice for the sins of a fallen world. 

But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. (Ephesians 2:13) 

But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin. (1 John 1:7) 

And if you call on the Father, who without partiality judges according to each one’s work, conduct yourselves throughout the time of your stay here in fear; knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. He indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you who through Him believe in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God. (1 Peter 1:17-21) 

We must get this: when God forgives us our sins, it is an internal, transformational, work of the Holy Spirit, and God lifts out of us the weight of sinfulness. Paul understood the power of the blood. He was a mass murderer, but he had the blood. He didn’t have nightmares about murdering families. He didn’t stay up at night feeling guilty about feeding Christians to lions or burning them at the stake or stoning them to death. Once he was forgiven, his conscience was cleansed from the iniquity of his past. 

There is so much power in the blood of Jesus that he can and will cleanse us from the crap in our past. No matter how horrific your former life, no matter how dramatic your life has been, no matter how much pain you have caused others, there is nothing that you have been through that the blood of Jesus can’t wash away the pain, the trauma, the guilt. The most powerful thing that ever happened on the planet was when he hung on a tree and his blood dripped down Golgotha and that blood touched a cursed earth, it broke the curse of sin, the curse of pain. It broke every assignment of the devil. 

It had to happen. It doesn’t matter whether you understand or not. There had to be a sacrifice equivalent to the penalty. Blood was always the price. 

Christ came as the lamb of God and shed his blood and created something new, something better. Every sin ever committed is covered by the blood of Jesus. Every sin the world committed was put on Christ. “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” (2 Corinthians 5:21) “All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” (Isaiah 53:6) 

Our society is being crushed under the weight of their sins. The burdens of this world are crushing those around us. We can see this in the rise of psychotropic drugs, alcoholism and drug use—particularly marijuana. All of these are coping mechanisms meant to dull the senses and make it easier for us to deal with life. 

“And if you call on the Father, who without partiality judges according to each one’s work, conduct yourselves throughout the time of your stay here in fear; knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.” (1 Peter 1:17-19) One drop of blood redeems us. The blood that he shed has our salvation, our redemption in it. Our forgiveness, freedom, deliverance and healing is in the blood. His blood conquers it. No demon can stand up to his blood. No disease or sin can overcome it. No torment of mind or body or soul can quench it. We’ve been delivered. He went to heaven as our high priest. And we are trying to imagine how it was that God looked at his son and saw the blood and saw the life. Life is in the blood. The Father said he did it. 

It’s all about what he did. The Old Testament was about our works. Our attempts to cure our diseases. It mirrors our lives today: we are trying to work out our salvation without God. We try to overcome sin through being good or ignoring that it exists. But our attempts to be free, our attempts to live a worthy life are failing. The only way to be truly free is through the blood of Christ.

John, to the seven churches which are in Asia: Grace to you and peace from Him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven Spirits who are before His throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler over the kings of the earth. To Him 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. Behold, He is coming with clouds, and every eye will see Him, even they who pierced Him. And all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of Him. Even so, Amen. “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End,” says the Lord, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.” (Revelation 1:4-8) 

The blood of Jesus is the greatest sign of His love for us, his acceptance of us, his kindness towards us. Here is the key: God accepts you so he can change you. God accepts you as you are and his love then changes us. We have it backwards so often: we try to clean up and then come to God. God just wants us to come and he will clean us up. The devil is a master strategists. He uses condemnation to beat us and drive us away from God. But the Holy Spirit uses love and woos us back home.