By His Blood

…being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed…. 

Romans 3:24-25 

Paul is not ashamed of the blood of Christ. He sets it at the heart of his thesis statement. The blood of the lamb has always been part of the redemption story. Abel sacrificed the lamb in the first of the sacrifices of the Old Testament. It was the symbol of the blood of the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world. On the night of the Passover in Egypt, it was the blood that made the difference between life and death. God said, ‘when I see the blood, I will pass over you.’ Thus, the blood has been integral to redemption from the earliest days. All these sacrifices of blood pointed to Christ and His blood. They were the types of His reality. Therefore, as those who have received redemption by His blood, we are not ashamed to speak of it. This is the blood of the everlasting covenant. We will still be speaking of it in the eternal kingdom, ‘and they sang a new song, saying: You are worthy to take the scroll, and to open its seals; for You were slain, and have redeemed us to God by Your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and have made us kings and priests to our God; and we shall reign on the earth.’ Unpleasantly in our day, some have become embarrassed by what they refer to as a ‘slaughterhouse religion.’ If God and His messengers have emphasized the blood of Christ all the way along the line, we have every reason to continue to emphasize it. It’s the blood of Christ that cleanses us from all sin. 

“Dear dying Lamb, Your precious blood shall 
never lose its power,  
and all the ransomed church of God 
be saved to sin no more.” 

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning