Hebrews 9:11-12 “But Christ came as High Priest of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation. (12) Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.”
So what happened to Jesus’ blood that had been in His natural body before He was raised from the dead? When Jesus ascended from the lower parts of the earth to enter into His body, two things happened. Firstly, as we have already discussed, His body was instantly transformed into the spiritual body that He now has. But the second thing that happened is that God removed the blood of Jesus from His body to be held in a heavenly golden bowl, just as the incense in heaven is held in golden bowls (Revelation 5:8). The type and shadow of this event under the Old Covenant is recorded for us in the instructions God gave the Jews when dealing with the blood of the Passover lamb, for God instructed them to drain the blood of the animal into a basin (Exodus 12:22). So why was it necessary for the blood of Jesus to be separated from His resurrected body? The Old Covenant points us to the reason why, for under it the High Priest was required to take the blood of the animal that was sacrificed, into the Most Holy Place to offer it on the Mercy Seat as an atoning sacrifice for the sins of the children of Israel. And so as the above quoted passage of scripture declares to us, under the New Covenant the Lord Jesus Himself entered the Most Holy Place in the tabernacle of heaven carrying His own blood, which represented His life (Leviticus 17:11), to offer it to God the Father as the atoning sacrifice for the sins of the world. Jesus could do that because His blood contained the sin of the world. And so this is the reason why Jesus has no blood in His spiritual body, for His blood has been offered to God to obtain eternal redemption for mankind. Because Jesus had paid the price for the sins of the world His blood offering was accepted by God the Father, and Jesus could now use His blood to wash away the sins of all those who would choose to believe in Him.
1 Peter 1:18-19 “knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, (19) but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.”
Because of the suffering that the Son of God went through in order to save mankind from their sins, heaven views the shed blood of Christ as being very precious, which is confirmed to us in the above quoted passage of scripture. And so because the blood of Christ which represents His life is precious, God did not allow one drop to go unaccounted for. Indeed, all of His blood was presented before the Father as an eternal reminder of the sacrifice made by His Son.
His blood cleanses our sin
Revelation 1:4-5 “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, (5) 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.”
We have already seen that Jesus bore the sins of the whole world in His body, and that He paid the price for the sins of the world. We have also seen that Jesus offered His blood as the atoning sacrifice for the sins of the world and that God has accepted His sacrifice, thus making salvation through the shed blood of Christ available to the whole world. Nevertheless not everyone has or will benefit from the shed blood of Christ. So why is that? The answer is because it is only those who are washed in His blood that experience the benefit of the shed blood of Christ. And so although the blood of Christ atones for the sin of the world, not everyone is washed from their sins in His blood, for it is only those who believe in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour that experience the cleansing power of His blood. The above quoted passage of scripture confirms to us the truth that it is only the Lord’s saints that are washed from their sins in His blood. In other words, unbelievers cannot be washed from their sins because they do not have access to the shed blood of Christ.
2 Peter 1:9 “For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins.”
In the above quoted passage of scripture the apostle Peter speaks about saints who have forgotten that they were cleansed from their old sins. It is when the saints are born-again that they are at that point cleansed from their old sins, i.e. all sins committed before they come into the kingdom of God. And so we see very clearly, that although all sins have already been paid for, that it is only those who believe in Jesus that experience the benefit of having their sins washed in the blood of the Lamb. So how does the blood of Christ wash us from our sins? It is when we confess our sins, that the blood of Christ which has already paid for those same sins, is then applied to the saint for the cleansing of those sins. In other words, it is only sins confessed and repented of that are cleansed, for the scripture declares that if we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). Confessing Jesus as Lord and Saviour is also an act of repentance, i.e. repentance from one’s sins, which is why all believers are cleansed from their old sins when they come into the kingdom of God.
Hebrews 10:26-29 “For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, (27) but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries. (28) Anyone who has rejected Moses' law dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. (29) Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace?”
There are certain sins that our Lord Jesus did not die for. The sins that God never placed upon His Son were the two eternal sins of denying Jesus Christ as Lord and of blaspheming against the Holy Spirit. And so no one can be cleansed from those sins because there is no blood sacrifice available for those sins, thus making these two sins eternal. It is only the sins that Christ died for that can be washed with His blood. In the above quoted passage of scripture the Holy Spirit speaks about there no longer being a sacrifice for certain sins. The context of this passage is referring to the eternal sin that some commit, when they deny Jesus as their Lord and Saviour and walk away from Him. By doing so, these individuals treat the blood of Christ through which they were once cleansed as a common thing, and there is therefore no more recourse for them but rather eternal damnation, for there is no other blood sacrifice available to them.
Michael E.B. Maher
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