Communion — A Portrait of the Blood

We've been in a study going through the book of Leviticus.

It is the favorite book of everybody who's a Christian.

It's a difficult book to read, but we're very thankful for it.

What are some of the central themes of Leviticus?

Repentance, holiness, the law.

What happened when they violated the law?

They had to offer sacrifices. And so the central theme, one of the central themes is the blood.

And Leviticus chapter 17, verse 11 says this, For the life of a creature is

Leviticus 17:11

in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourself on the altar.

Now, the word atonement means forgiveness and welcoming back.

But I've often heard people refer to that as,

if you break that down into at-one-ment, by offering the blood of the lambs

or the Lamb of God, Jesus,

by offering that, we have gained one-ment with God again. We have gained unity.

So atonement offers us one-ment with God. So it is the blood that makes atonement

or at-one-ment for one's life.

Without blood, there cannot be life in the physical body.

That is just as true in the Bible. Blood flows through the Bible from front

to back, just as it does through our veins.

The blood of Christ keeps Christianity alive. In the Genesis account,

we find Abel and Cain offering sacrifices to God.

Cain brought some of the fruit, some of the fruit of his gardening to the Lord.

But Abel brought the blood of a lamb to God as a sacrifice, and God received that as an offering.

Somebody once said, if you cut the Bible anywhere, it will bleed.

Blood is spoken of 427 times in the Bible, so apparently it's important.

So it's easy to see this is not a minor theme.

Blood's gory. Yep, that's true. Most of us don't like it when we get a bloody

nose or we fall and cut ourselves or our child falls and cuts themselves.

But it's not a minor theme in the scripture.

Without the blood, the gospel is completely dead. There's no purpose for the

New Testament at all without the blood of Christ.

And we are deprived of eternal life. It is only by the blood of Jesus Christ that we're saved.

Jesus said, for this is my blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many

for the remission of their sin. This is the remembrance of what we do.

Communion is a portrait of his blood. Paul added, and almost all things are

by the law purged with blood and without the shedding of blood is no remission.

He also explained, we have redemption through the blood, even the forgiveness of sin.

Peter added, we are not redeemed with silver and gold.

You can't buy your way into heaven. We are only received into heaven and only

redeemed by the precious blood of Jesus Christ.

Then John agreed with Peter and Paul and wrote, the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses

us from all unrighteousness, and we are forgiven. The early church understood the blood.

The 22 sermons recorded by the four preachers in the book of Acts all give the

same message, the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

In fact, Peter said, it is by this Christ that you are saved.

It is by the blood of this Christ and the resurrection of this Christ,

whom you put to death, that you are saved.

They understood that Christ's death and the provision of covering by the blood

was the essential ingredient of the good news of Jesus Christ.

And so this morning, I want us to look at a portrait of Christ's blood.

The first thing we want to see about this is Christ's blood is perfect.

So if you're writing notes on the back of your bulletin where it says sermon notes,

it has you spaces for three notes, write down four, five, and six,

because there are going to be six in this message, and you'll just have to tarry

with me for an hour. No, I'm kidding.

So the first thing is Christ's blood is perfect.

The virgin birth of Christ established the righteousness of Christ.

Judas cried out, I have betrayed innocent blood when he betrayed Jesus and sold him to the priests.

Paul explained, for he, God, has made him, Jesus, to be sin for us who knew

no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

Pilate said, I find in him no fault at all.

Jesus himself said, which of you can prove me of sin?

So he was spoken of as holy, blameless, undefiled, separate from sinners,

and made higher than the heavens.

What kind of lambs were offered in the sacrifice of the Old Testament?

Unblemished, pure lambs. They had to be of the first order and unblemished,

and that's what this scripture says here.

And then in 1 Peter 2, verse 22, it says, again, who did no sin,

1 Peter 2:22

neither was found guile in his mouth.

John added in 1 John 3, 5, in him there is no sin.

So it's a pretty good theme that Jesus was this unblemished,

never sinned, pure Lamb of God.

A natural father would have imparted the sin nature of Adam to Christ,

and his death would not have provided redemption.

But the fact that the virgin birth was conceived by the Holy Spirit is absolutely

essential to the salvation of our souls.

The Father was our Father, the Holy Spirit.

The Bible clearly teaches that Jesus was born of a virgin and did not have original sin.

Matthew quotes Isaiah, the prophet, saying, Behold, a virgin will be with child,

and she will bring forth a son.

And by the way, that's the next one, Nathan and Megan. You can have a son.

Just saying behold a virgin shall be with child and shall bring forth a son

and they will call him Emmanuel which means God is with us.

Jeremiah the prophet had spoken years before on this he said the Lord hath created

new thing upon the earth a woman shall compass a man it certainly was a new

thing for a woman without a man to give birth to a child.

The Adamic nature is passed to the offspring by the bloodline of the man.

There were no impurities in the blood of Christ.

Everything about Christ was perfect, including his blood.

It's interesting. I've seen notes, and I don't know if it's true.

It was on Google, so everything on Google is true.

But no it's on the internet but i've understood

that when they've tested the shroud of turin which

is the shroud that supposedly covered jesus's face

when they tested that and they found the place that they believe that he was

buried they've tested the dna of that and they found that according to the internet

again it's i've got to be true but they found that jesus's DNA only had X chromosomes.

It only had one X chromosome. There was not an XY.

There was not an XX. It was just an X, which would be the female chromosome. It's interesting.

So that tells us that God, the Holy Spirit, came upon Mary to give birth, if that's true.

Now, I wasn't there at the time, so I don't know.

Anyway, the second thing we see is that Christ's blood is pure.

When Dr. Curtis Hudson was struggling with cancer on a number of occasions,

he went through a treatment called chelation, and many of you have heard of this.

Chelation is similar to dialysis in that the blood is removed from the body

and sent through a machine that cleans the impurities out of that blood and

then pumps the blood back into the person's body.

Treatment prolonged his life for a good long time. after his blood had been purged of germs,

disease, and bad cell, it was then able to work against the enemy of cancer

that was trying to bring war against his system.

The writer of Hebrews states this, For if the blood of bulls and of goats and

the ashes of an ephor sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies to the purifying of the flesh,

how much more shall the blood of Jesus.

Who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God,

purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God.

When Christ's blood was poured out for us, His blood comes as far as a symbolic and spiritual sense.

His blood begins to cleanse us and purify us from those impurities.

Removes the sin as far from us as the east is from the west,

and it begins to transform us into the image of Christ.

When the pure blood of the Savior is applied to us, was applied to the sinner, it provides cleansing.

John exclaimed, the blood of Jesus Christ, his son, cleanses us from all unrighteousness.

Peter Wright wrote, for as much as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible

things, but with the precious blood of Christ,

as of the lamb without blemish and without spot, you are perfectly pure and

the blood of Christ is purifying.

The third thing we see is that Christ's blood is perpetual. the animal sacrifices

of the Old Testament were continuous year after year.

The blood of bulls and goats provided forgiveness and pardon temporarily only

because it pointed to the sacrifice of Jesus that would come and the blood that

would be shed for all mankind.

In the days of the Old Testament, they had to sacrifice the animals repeated.

Well, not the same one, but they'd have to sacrifice animals repeatedly to cover the sin for them.

And as you remember, we talked about when one would bring an animal in to be

sacrificed to pay the price or cover the penalty of their sin,

that person would lay their hand on the.

Lamb or goat's head while the priest would.

Sacrifices him saying, my life is redeemed by the blood of this lamb.

We have laid ourselves on that lamb.

Similar to that, when we accept the blood of Christ, we are laying our hands

and saying, Jesus, you have taken the sinner of the world away from us.

The writer of Hebrews speaks of Jesus as one unlike the other high priests.

He does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins and

then for the sins of the people.

He sacrificed for their sins once for all what he offered himself.

In the Old Testament, as we've read, the priest would have to go before the

Holy of Holies, the altar, and sacrifice an animal to purify him of their sins,

before he could offer a sacrifice for the rest of the people.

Because if the priest was not pure, Or how would he be able to sacrifice for the others?

But in this case, Jesus didn't have to sacrifice for his own sins because he

had no sin, so he could present himself as an offering and a sacrifice for us.

Again, Paul tells us that it was neither by the blood of goats and calves,

but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place,

having obtained eternal redemption for us.

The death of Christ set into motion a continuous cleansing for us who trust in him.

That's what we observe when we celebrate the Lord's Supper.

We observe the fact that Christ has done this once and for all.

It is the body and the blood of Lord Jesus Christ which was broken and shed

for us that redeems us from all of those unrighteousness.

We're given the gift of eternal life that Jesus purchased with his blood.

And thanks be to God, we were washed once and for all forever.

Our belief in the Son of God is all that it takes to settle it forever.

Fourth, we see the blood is powerful. Christ's blood is powerful.

There's a songwriter wrote these words.

Maybe they sound familiar to you. Would you be free from the burden of sin?

There's power in the blood, power in the blood. Would you or evil a victory win?

There's wonderful power in the blood.

There's power, power, wonder-working power in the blood of the lamb.

There's power, power, wonder-working power in the precious blood of the lamb.

Now, I read those words, and I know what's happening.

Every one of you has that tune going in your head.

And so when you go from here, when you go home, and during this week,

that song is going to come into mind.

There is power, power, wonder-working power in the blood of the Lamb.

There is power, power, wonder-working power in the precious blood of the Lamb.

So if we started out, would you be free from your burden of sin?

And if I just drop it there, you will not be able to finish that song today.

You'll be doing that all week long. Just kind of a psychological thing.

So be thinking of that song as you go. John wrote these words,

thou hast redeemed us to God by his blood.

It took a lot of power to redeem us.

False religion has always denied the blood and the power of Christ.

Mary Baker Eddy of the Christian Science Movement wrote this,

The material blood of Jesus is no more efficacious to cleanse us from sin when

it was shed upon the cursed tree than when it was flowing through his veins.

She was lost. R.B. Time, a false Bible teacher in Texas, declared the red liquid

that ran through the veins and arteries of Jesus's mortal body is not related to our salvation.

Of course, those teachers, and many like them, are dead and gone.

But our Jesus still lives, thanks be to God.

And we are understanding that that blood of Christ has been shed for us and for all mankind.

Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

No one comes to the Father except through me. Fifth, Christ's blood is permanent.

A woman came into a painter's studio to have her portrait made.

She announced that she would like to acquire the painter's service to make a

portrait of her that could hang in the halls of her mansion for all to remember her by.

As she sat for the painter to begin, she said, my good man, however you do it, do me justice.

The painter replied, my dear madam, you don't need justice. You need mercy.

A quit is a heavy word. It means to clear off a debt, to relieve of a charge or a crime.

It has a far-reaching meaning extending from the past all the way to the future.

You'll remember the O.J.

Simpson, that O.J. Simpson was acquitted of murder of his wife and her friend,

and it can never come back on him now in the court of law.

Not even new evidence can be presented

to convict him because he has been acquitted in the court of law.

People can argue for a long time on whether justice was done in that case,

and we will never be in complete agreement.

But you know, we have been acquitted too.

We do not deserve mercy. We deserve to receive justice.

And we have received just, if we had received justice, we would all be destroyed.

But Christ came to bring mercy and grace, not justice.

And we were acquitted for our unrighteousness.

We need that mercy and acquittal. to be permanent, sins forgiven and forgotten.

His mercies are new every morning, the scriptures tells us.

Not only our past sin was covered, but also our present and future sins are

put under the blood when we put our faith in Christ and confess ourselves to

him and accept that forgiveness.

Jesus's blood cleanses us from all past sin.

Isaiah said this in Isaiah 44, 22, I have blotted out as a thick cloud your sin.

And as a cloud, your sins return unto me and I have redeemed you.

I have removed those from you.

So Jesus's blood covers our present sin, but the sins of omission and the sins

of commission, or commission,

excuse me, whether it is that which we ought to be doing or that which we have

done that we ought not to have been doing. Jesus' blood has covered all those sins.

And finally, Christ's blood is protective. In Exodus chapter 12,

Exodus 12 · chapter mention

the blood was sprinkled on the doorposts of the Jewish home,

as we talked about in a previous message.

The blood was sprinkled on the doorpost and the lintel, the cross piece and

the vertical pieces of the door, as the angel of death passed over,

those who were in the house, the angel of death saw that blood on the doorpost

and lintel. What does that look like, folks?

The blood of Christ is spread on the doorpost and the lintel of our hearts,

and we are redeemed, and we are saved, and Christ's blood protects us.

It is during the Last Supper with his disciples that Jesus presented the ultimate

example of his love for them,

telling them and us that it was the blood that was ushering in a new arrangement,

a new covenant, a new agreement with God's people, a covenant that God would

live in their hearts and lives.

No longer did we have to go and sit under the high priest teachings and have

him do the sacrifices day after day after day for us because the high priest

has become our sacrifice.

Heavenly Father, as we are reminded that the blood has been shed for all of

us, not blood once every month or every year,

but the blood was shed once for all, the blood of Christ, the pure,

undefiled Lamb of God.

And so, Father, we thank you for your Son's life, his death,

and his resurrection, and for the blood of Christ, which cleanses us from all

unrighteousness in Jesus' name.