What Jesus Teaches About the Atonement

The Efficacy of the Blood

Roy Blizzard III © 2014

 

1 Peter 1:18-19

 

Many preachers of God’s word today unfortunately deny the atoning power of the Blood. Some churches have fallen to the lowest levels by removing songs about the blood from their hymnals that speak of the Blood. Many theological schools have removed teaching about the Blood Atonement from their curriculums. People say that the idea of Blood is nauseating, that their God is not that kind of a God, that He is a God of Love not a spiller of Blood. However, what does the Bible have to say about Blood, specifically a Blood Atonement?

 

Does the Blood of Jesus cleanse us from sin today as in the days of old? What is the efficacy of Jesus’ precious Blood? A missionary once told us that he saw very little difference between the unchurched and those in church. I will have to agree with him to a large degree, for unless the Blood is applied, there can be NO regeneration and without regeneration the sinful man remains…unchanged!

 

Now let me speak to you a moment about atonement. When I talk to people about the nature of an atonement the first question I have to ask is what can atone for you? Can a pigeon or a chicken sacrifice atone for you? How about a bull or a sheep? Can they atone for you? Can doing good works atone for you? What is it that can atone for you? The only thing that can atone for you is the sacrifice of something that is of a higher nature or kind that you!

WE were the crowning point of God’s creation were we not? Wasn’t all created and in place before we were created so that all would be available for us to utilize and benefit from? Therefore what was created upon the earth that was of a higher nature than us? NOTHING! Some people here may say, “Well, what about Angels.” Well, what about them? They are not of the same “Nature” as man. Even the Bible speaks of this when it says in Psalms 8:5-8, For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour. ⁶ Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet: ⁷ All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field; ⁸ The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas. Just a note here; when it says “lower” it means of realm. The angels are of the Heavenly realm, man was created on the earthly realm.

So the fact is that only something of a Greater Nature than you could ever hope to atone for you! So, what is this? An alien? A crystal? Some mystic guru on top of a remote mountain? Superman? What or Who is able to do such a work as atone for you?

I do not believe that the man lives who can give a reason for a hope beyond the grave, except through the Blood of Jesus, who purchased with His own Blood our salvation, having died upon a tree. “And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission.” Hebrews 9:22

For the primitive man down through the ages, all tribes and faces have looked upon blood as an atonement. Whether their sacrifices were availing or not is beside the point. All men have known that there was some sort of power in the blood and they were trying to utilize that power for their own gain. They offered sacrifices because of something within them that seemed to innately know, some inborn Divine spark, if you will, that needed to find expression. They knew that some type of wrong must be corrected and that a
Blood sacrifice was what it took to correct it.

So thus if divine and most precious, this Blood Sacrifice, but it was purloined by the ungodly for earthly means, it is reasonable and logical that the greatest and only complete plan of redemption found expression and perfected within the remedial system through the Blood of Jesus.

Let’s trace some of the high points of the Blood or the “scarlet thread” if you will as it runs through God’s Word ending in the only Blood sacrifice to perfectly atone once and for all. The first record is in the Garden of Eden, but it is a subtle view, a “covering for sin”. Genesis 3:21, “Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them”. A type of the innocent, slain for the benefit of the guilty; a type of the Messiah, the savior, as a covering for our sins. How terrible would it have been had not the Lord God in His mercy helped these two to at least make a covering for their sinful state. God, in His infinite wisdom, had even created a plan for redemption and the plan made it possible for man to be rescued by a second Adam. 1 Corinthians 15:45, “And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.”

Sacrifices were continually being made. Noah built an altar and made a sacrifice after the flood. Abraham built an altar and sacrificed a ram provided by God as a substitute for Abraham’s own flesh and Blood. Here we see how God was trying to teach man that we can’t win favor from God and gain atonement by the sacrificing of that which is our own flesh and blood, but only by what God himself provides for our benefit. God provides to us a substitute. God so loved Abraham that He spared his son. God is no respecter of persons, and He loved us so much that He provided His only son to die in our stead upon the tree of Calvary.

Abraham loved God enough to obey at all costs. Do you think God wants us to obey Him to this extreme? You may say, NO, NO! This is not required. You bring what you want, like Cain, and offer what you think you can afford as an expression of your appreciation for your salvation. Look. Look at Abraham. He was binding his only son. Look at him taking him to his cheat and hugging him and kissing him in absolute love but in absolute love for his God. Do you love God to this extent?

Because of obedience we see God’s love and mercy and provisions revealed. We can hear the voice, “Abraham, Abraham, spare thy son!” There was no voice at Calvary calling for man to Spare God’s son. There were only the voices of those crying, “Crucify Him! Crucify him!” Jesus gave His life for us freely, the innocent for the guilty, the just for the unjust.

Look at what happened in Egypt. In Exodus 12:13, “And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are: and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt.” God didn’t say to them nor does He say to us, “When I see your deeds, your weeping, and hear your prayers, groanings and pleadings then you will be atoned.” It is now as it was then, “When I see the Blood…”

In the wilderness when God had given them Judaism, we read in Exodus 29:16, “And thou shalt slay the ram, and thou shalt take his blood, and sprinkle it round about upon the altar.” What a mess, some would say. Others would wonder what the meaning could be. Listen folks, there is no way of approaching the altar of God without coming through the Blood. “…all around…” none shall enter, even Aaron the priest, all would need to cross over the Blood.

Exodus 30:10, “And Aaron shall make an atonement upon the horns of it once in a year with the blood of the sin offering of atonements…”.

Leviticus 17:11, “For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.”

Taking the doctrine of Blood from the church leaves a lifeless body just a truly as if I drained all the Blood from your body. You can’t exist without Blood in your body. Blood is life giving. Blood is given for victories in battle. Blood is everywhere! It is God’s life giving plan. I didn’t institute it, but thank God I see its importance and can utilize it and it covers my body with its cleansing power!

Consider Isaiah 53 and the Lamb of God. Shouldn’t we listen to His voice? “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up. That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.” John 3:14-15

The stage is set and the plan of redemption has been conceived that the atonement must be made by the Son of God. Other methods have failed. The Law was only an instrument to open up and lay bare the wounds of sin. The Law did nothing but make humanity conscious of sin and point to the Atoner. There was no real healing for if there was then all people who merely read the Bible would be made whole. There was no perfection to be found and no permanence or else there was no need for yearly atonements. There was no cure for sin until Jesus was lifted high upon the cross between the Heaven and the earth.

Mark 14:224, “And he said unto them, This is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many.” This is a Re-newed covenant, not a new one. This is a re-establishment of the Covenant between God and Man in the Garden; one that began in Blood and has ended with Blood. The entire Word of God is full of it and did not abolish it but has made it a complete sacrifice the atonement for sin. When believer’s gather together on the Lord’s day to keep their appointment with God at his table they are acknowledging the shedding of Blood; His blood for the remission of their sins. We do this at His command and remember not just His sufferings, for He willingly gave His life for ours, but that the greatness of the institution that is the perfect remedial system of redemptive power has been accomplished.

Does this matter to you? Why do you partake of the communion of the Blood has no efficacy? When you accept the greatest of atonement, salvation is yours, eternal life is brought to you and you will not stop until you have obeyed His every command. Through His Blood there is peace given to you for your past covering all of your sins.

To refuse this teaching of the Blood Covenant will bring condemnation and unless repented of it will bring damnation. To refuse this great fact of atonement is to say as did others in another generation, “His blood be on us, and on our children..” Matthew 27:25 We care nothing about His sacrifices or His teachings or about God and His plans for our lives. Give us Barabbas or any other man or plan than Jesus the Messiah.

You know, I don’t think that it is true that, “one drop of the Blood of Jesus is sufficient to cleanse the world of its sin.” No my friends, if this were true it would not have been necessary for Jesus to lay down His life. It required every drop, every drop of His life’s Blood to take away the sins of the world. Every drop of the life giving Blood of Jesus, the only begotten of God.

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