The Precious Blood Of Christ

If you want to follow me in your Bible, I'm going to read from verse 18. 1 Peter 1:18-21, Peter says, "For as much as you know that we were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold from our vain conversation or manner of living received by tradition from our fathers, but we were redeemed," verse 19, "With a precious blood of Christ as of the a without blemish and without spot, who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifested in this last time for you, who by Him," that is Christ, "Do believe in God that raised Him up from the dead and gave Him glory that your faith and your hope might be in God." I want to focus on a statement found in verse 19, it's so marvelous, "The precious blood of Christ."

What did Peter mean when he used that phrase, "The precious blood of Christ"? Whenever the Bible uses the reference to the blood of Jesus Christ, it's speaking more than just his actual physical blood that was shed on the cross, it's a phrase that's intended to convey the idea of the whole substitutionary atonement of Christ on the cross. It's a reference to Jesus' crucifixion, that Jesus actually came for that very purpose, to suffer and die, as a substitution in our place, that our sins might be forgiven. I want to give you four reasons the blood of Jesus Christ is precious, if you're writing down these notes. Number one, the blood of Christ is precious because it justifies us. It justifies us. These are the words of the cross, it justifies us. This picture is out of guilt of sin, and we are being acquitted of our sin.

In Job 9:2, Job said, "How can a man be right before God?" That's really the greatest question, "How can I, a sinner, be right before a holy righteous God?" The answer is given by Paul throughout the New Testament so clearly, and especially in Romans 3. Actually, the whole book of Romans is written for this one theme to unfold the doctrine of justification by faith, "By grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. How can a man or a woman be righteous before God? The answer is by faith in Jesus Christ." Paul makes it clear in Romans 3, "Not by law," he says in Romans 3:20, "There's no deeds of the law that can justify the sinner. It's by faith," Romans 3:28, "Therefore, we conclude that a man is justified by faith without works of the law."

Then Romans 5:1, "Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God to our Lord, Jesus Christ." We're also justified by God's grace. Romans 3:24, Paul says, "Being justified freely by his grace," and now here in our text of 1 Peter 1:19, "We're justified by the blood of Jesus Christ." Amen. Romans 5:9, Paul says, "Much more than being now justified by His blood." We just sang, "What can wash away my sin?" The answer, nothing but the blood of Jesus. What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Precious is the flow that makes me white as snow. No other fount, I know. Nothing but the blood of Jesus Christ, it justifies us. Now, my definition of justification, this is a word you need to understand to understand the cross of Christ, is that God justifies the believing sinner based on the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross.

We are declared righteous. God declares righteous a believing sinner, does it on the basis of the finished work of Jesus Christ who died for us on the cross. Paul goes on to say, in Romans 5, that being justified by faith, we have these things. Peace with God, we have the access to God, and thirdly, we have the hope and the glory of God. If you're a believer today, you've been declared righteous by acquittal. It's your standing, your position in Christ. When we drink the cup and we eat the bread and we celebrate Christ's death today, remember that that precious blood of Christ justifies the unjust or the unrighteous. Here's the second thing that we see about the blood of Christ, and that is the blood of Christ redeems us. The precious blood of Jesus Christ justifies us and the precious blood of Jesus Christ redeems us.
This is a picture of our being slaves to sin, and Jesus comes to redeem us. Now, I think that one of the greatest titles for Jesus Christ and all the Bible is "Redeemer." That's why he came, to buy us back to God and to redeem us by his blood. It's the very purpose for which Jesus came, it's the very theme of all of scripture. Someone said, "Cut the Bible anywhere, red it bleeds with redemptive truth." All the way from Genesis to the last verse of the last book of the Bible, Revelation, you see the line of the blood of Jesus Christ. Jesus said, this is why he came in Matthew 20:28. He said, "Even as the son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister," and he said, "To give his life as a ransom for many." Here's Jesus himself telling us why he came and he says, "I came to not be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give my life as a ransom for many."

Now, what does the word "Redemption" mean, or to be redeemed? It means three basic things. It means to be buying out for a price, to take out of the market, and to lose and to set free. There's a picture of a slave market, and when you would buy a slave, you would go into the market, you would purchase the slave, you could take the slave out of the market, and then you, being the owner of that slave, could set them free as the picture of redemption, "By paying a price, to buy out of the market, and to lose and set free." Jesus came from Heaven, died on the cross to buy us out of the slavery of sin, to deliver us from the power of sin and the penalty of sin one day from the very presence of sin altogether, and to lose us and to set us free.

Now, what are we redeemed from? First of all, we're redeemed, as I said, from the penalty and the power of sin, but notice in verse 18 of this text to Peter, that, "We're not redeemed with our vain conversation, we're not redeemed with silver and gold received by tradition from our fathers, but we're redeemed with the precious blood of Christ." What we're redeemed from is our empty manner of life. When you become a Christian and God saves you by His grace, He saves you from an empty vain existence on Earth. Not only gives you eternal life, but eternal life starts the moment you believe in Jesus Christ. You don't have to wait until you go to Heaven to get eternal life. Amen? You have at the moment you are born again of the Holy Spirit. He delivers us from our empty lives and then Galatians 3:13, he delivers us from the law's curse.

Paul says, "Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law being made a curse for us, for it is written, 'Cursed is everyone that hangs on a tree.'" The law brought sin, the law brought condemnation and death upon our sin. Jesus came to deliver us from the curse of the law and to set us free. Then one day, this is the one I am excited about, He will actually redeem our physical bodies. In Romans 8, it says, "The whole creation groans and travails and pain together until now, and not only they, but we ourselves waiting who have the first fruits of the spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption with the redemption of our bodies."

One day, our bodies will be redeemed, so we're redeemed body, soul, and spirit. What a glorious day that will be, when we get that new body. Amen? What is the price of our redemption? Here it is in our text. Go back to verse 19, "It's the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot." Now, the word "Precious" means valuable. Nothing more valuable than who Jesus was when He died, the very Son of God. The second person of the Godhead left heaven, came down to Earth, and took on humanity in the womb of the Virgin Mary, lived a sinless life, and then died a voluntary, vicarious, victorious, substitutionary death upon the cross for man, the creature's sin. Jesus' blood is precious, it's very valuable and costly. When you realize who Jesus is, you understand how precious the blood of Christ is.

Notice it describes him as a lamb without blemish, without spot. All the lambs in the Old Testament that were slain, where only pictures or prefigure a type of the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, who had come to die for our sins to redeem us. Remember when John the Baptist saw Jesus at the Jordan River? He pointed at John and said, "Behold, the Lamb of God, who," what? "Carries away the sin of the world." Jesus came to take our sin. Amen? To carry it away, how marvelous. Now, the words "Blemish" and "Spot" mean that the lamb could have no inherited defect at birth and could have no acquired defect in life, so it had to be a perfect lamb. You couldn't go into your flock and say, "Look at that one, it's all messed up. Can't see, can't hear. It's crippled, let's use that for the sacrifice. That'd be a good one."

No, it had to be without blemish, it couldn't have inherited any defect, it had to be without spots. What a picture that is of Jesus Christ. Born of a virgin, the God-man lived a sinless life, gave his life on the cross for our sins, because he was the perfect substitute for our sins, the Lamb of God. Now notice verse 20, Christ's redemptive death was foreordained. I love that in verse 20, "Who verily," referring to Christ, "Or truly was foreordained before when the foundation of the world." The cross of Jesus Christ was not an afterthought and God's infinite wisdom from eternity past, He knew He would create man, He knew man would fall, He knew that He would send His son to redeem him, and the greater glory that God gets after the fall of man and the curses, they brought God redeeming man back to himself.

We, in a sense, are his by creation and then, in the fall, we're his by redemption. We belong to him, He's redeemed his by his blood. In Isaiah 53:10, the scripture says, "Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him," referring to Christ, "He hath put on Him grief when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin." God the Father put the sin of the world on God the Son, and he took our sin, who knew no sin, that we, through faith in Jesus Christ, might become the righteousness of God in Him. God actually imputes his righteousness to us as He takes our sin and He carries it away as the Lamb of God. By means of the incarnation, becoming man and God, He became the perfect lamb, the perfect bridge builder for our sin. Here's the third reason the blood of Christ is precious.

Number three, the blood of Christ reconciles us back to God. Number one, we are sinners who are justified. Number two, we are guilty, so we have to be redeemed or we're slaves, the sin must be redeemed. Number third, the blood of Christ reconciles us, we're separated because of our sin. We must be brought back to God. Now, when the Bible teaches the cross of Christ is the way God reconciles us, it's important to understand it's always God reconciling us unto Himself. We can't reconcile ourselves to God by our good deeds or our righteous words, we can't earn favor with God, but God takes the initiative, god takes the action. Always in the Bible, it's God who is doing the work of reconciling us to Himself. What He does through the cross, He destroys the enmity that exists, so that we're able to be reconciled to God. Remember when Adam and Eve sinned in the garden of Eden? By the way, I actually believe that there were first two people created by God, Adam and Eve, and we all go back to those two individuals.

I don't believe that we evolved over billions of years and came from apes, we were made in the image and likeness of God, but when they fell and disobeyed God, they had to be driven from the garden of Eden and they couldn't have fellowship with God unless there was the death and the bloodshed, so God killed an animal, covered their nakedness with the skins, but God also prophesied that the woman's seed would bruise the head of the serpent. It was the first Messianic prophecy. All the way back, shortly after the fall of Adam and Eve, God said, "I will send the promised deliverer and He will destroy the power of Satan." God had a plan and a purpose for [inaudible 00:15:00] to redeem us and to reconcile us back to God. Isaiah 59:2, "But our iniquities have separated us between you and me," God says, "And your sins have hidden His face from you, that He will not hear you."

Our iniquities separate us from God and our sins cause God to hide his face from us. At the cross, 2 Corinthians 5:19, God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself. Colossians 1:20, "Having made peace to the blood of His cross by Him to reconcile all things unto Himself." We were estranged from God, enemies of God, and God sent His son to die on the cross to reconcile us back to God. The Bible says, "Be reconciled. You can come back to God by faith in Jesus Christ." Here's the fourth and last reason the blood of Christ is precious. The blood of Christ is precious because it cleanses us. This is a picture of the stain of sin. Now, isn't it interesting, that this is such a paradox?

The blood of Christ, instead of staining us, washes out our stain of sin. The blood of Christ cleanses us. This is a picture of our sin being like a stain, and we need to be washed. Jesus gave His blood to pardon the guilty, to free the slaves, to reconcile his enemies, and to wash away the stain of sin. Remember when David fell and committed sin by adultery with Bathsheba and murdered her husband, Uriah? When David finally repented of the sin and turned back to God, he cried in the Psalm of Repentance 51:2, he said, "Wash me thoroughly from my iniquities and cleanse me from my sin." When you trust Jesus as your savior, you are washed in the blood of Jesus Christ and forgiven of all of your sins. Then he cried again in Psalm 51:7, "Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow."

Then in 1 John 1:7, "The blood of Jesus Christ, God's son," what? "Cleanses us from all sin." I remember when I trusted Christ as my Lord and Savior, and I remember so vividly to this day that I felt washed and clean. I not only felt a weight lift off my shoulders, a guilt of sin taken away, but I felt washed and clean inside. That's the part of the new covenant that God said. He said, "I will write my laws upon your heart." He takes out our heart of stone and He gives us a new heart and He washes us. It's called "The washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit." My question to you this day is, have you been washed in the blood? Now, I know that that song is taken out of a lot of hymnals today and a lot of people don't want to sing it anymore, but it's biblical.

Have you been washed in the blood of Jesus Christ? It's the only thing that can save you from sin, that can reconcile you, that can pardon you, justify you. So marvelous, we then need to trust Christ today. In Revelation 1:5, "Unto Him that loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood." As we celebrate communion this Good Friday, remember that God has justified you, that God has redeemed you, that God has reconciled you, and praise be the Lord, He has cleansed us. Amen? From all our sins. Not because we deserve it, Bible says, "By grace, you have been saved through faith." It's not yourself, it's a gift of God, right? Not of works, lest any man should boast. God wants to offer you that gift of salvation. If you haven't trusted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, that's the thing you need to do.

Communion cannot save you. It's a picture, it's a type of the death of Jesus Christ. His body in the bread and His blood in the cup. We're doing it in remembrance of Him, looking back at the cross. We look back at the cross and we're thankful for what God has done to forgive us, to justify us, and we look Sunday at the empty tomb, amen, and we look forward with hope beyond the grave. Christ has risen. Because He lives, we can be forgiven and have eternal life. Now, I want you to look at one more point in this text. It says, "By whom," verse 21, "Whom do believe in God that raised Him from the dead," that's His resurrection.

We have His crucifixion in verse 19, we have his incarnation in verse 20, we have his resurrection and exaltation in verse 21, "Gave Him glory that your notice this faith and hope might be in," who? "In God." In verse 21, you have the word "Believe," "Faith," and "Hope." What a great combination of words. If you put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ, if your hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness, then you have hope beyond the grave, you have the forgiveness of sins, life everlasting through the free gift of salvation that Jesus brings when He died on the cross. Let's pray.