The Power of the Blood of Christ

This article is part of the "Vitalize" pack
Reuben A. Torrey:
"How to Obtain Fulness of Power For Christian life?"

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The power belongs to God
(Psalm 62:11).

Therefore, it is at man’s disposal. (1Cor 3:22-23) But there is one thing that separates man from God: That is sin. We read in Isaiah 59:1-2:

Behold, the Lord’s hand Is not so short that it cannot save; Nor is His ear so dull that it cannot hear. But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, And your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear.

Before we can know God’s power in our lives and service, sin must be removed from between God and us. It is the blood that removes sin (Hebrews 9:26). We must know the power of the blood if we are to know the power of God. Our knowing experientially the power of the Word, the power of the Holy Spirit, and the power of prayer is dependent upon our knowing the power of the blood of Christ. Let us see what the blood of Christ has power to do.
1. First, the blood of Christ is a propitiation for sin. In Romans 3:25 we read,

Whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed.

In the earlier verses of this chapter Paul has proven all men to be sinners, so that every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God. But God is holy, and God hates sin. God’s hatred of sin is no play hatred. It is real, it is living, it is active. It must show itself somehow. God’s wrath at sin must strike somewhere. What hope then is there for any of us? For we all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. In verse 25, God gives us His own answer to this tremendously important question. There is hope for us because God Himself has provided a propitiation (payment) — the shed blood of Christ. God has set forth Christ publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. The wrath God has for sin fell on Christ instead of us.
The prophet Isaiah got a glimpse of this great truth several hundred years before the birth of Christ. Isaiah writes in Isaiah 53:6

All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way; But the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him.

^{Francisco de Zurbaran: Agnus Dei 1635-1640}

The first power of Christ’s blood is a propitiation for sin, affording a mark for and satisfying God’s holy wrath at sin. He is our Passover (1 Corinthians 5:7), and when God sees His blood, He will pass over and spare us even though we are sinners. (See Exodus 12:13, 23.)
This propitiation is chiefly for the believer, a propitiation ... through faith. All of God’s wrath at the believer’s sins is fully appeased or satisfied in the blood of Christ. What a wonderfully comforting thought it is, when we think how often and how much we have sinned, and then think how infinitely holy God is, how He hates sin, and that His wrath has already been fully appeased through the shed blood of His own Son, the propitiation which He Himself provided!
The blood of Christ in a certain measure avails to all, unbelievers as well as for believers, for the vilest sinner and the most stubborn unbeliever and blasphemer. In 1 John 2:2 we read, He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.
By the shed blood of Christ a basis is provided upon which God can deal in mercy with the world. All of God’s dealings in mercy with man are on the grounds of the shed blood of Christ. God’s dealings with those who ridicule the doctrine of the atonement, God’s dealings with Voltaire, Tom Paine, and Colonel Ingersol, are all on the grounds of that shed blood. All of God’s dealings in mercy with any man since the fall of Adam are on the grounds of that shed blood. If it had not been for the shed blood, God could never have dealt in mercy with a sinner but would have immediately cut him off in his sin.
If anyone asks, “How then could God have dealt in mercy with sinners before Christ came and died?” - the answer is simple. By faith, just as today (Genesis 15:6). Jesus is the Lamb that has been slain from the foundation of the world (Revelation 13:8).
From the moment sin entered the world, God had His eyes upon that sacrifice which He Himself had prepared from the foundation of the world.... It is the power of the blood which has secured for men all the merciful things God has done for them since sin entered the world.
2. In Ephesians 1:7 we read:

We have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses.

Through the blood of Christ we have our redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Forgiveness of sin is not something the believer in Christ is to look for in the future; it is something he already has. We have, says Paul, the forgiveness of our trespasses. We do not have to do something to secure the forgiveness of sin. It is something which the blood of Christ has already secured, and which our faith simply appropriates and enjoys. Forgiveness has already been secured for every believer in Christ by the power of the blood.

You have heard of the old woman who lay dying. Her pastor heard of it and visited her.
“They tell me,” he said, “that you are dying.”
“yes,” she replied.
“And have you made your peace with God?”
“No,” came the answer.
“And you are not afraid to meet God without making your peace with Him?”
“Not at all,” was the answer that startled the pastor.
The pastor became earnest. “Woman, do you realize that you only have a short time to live and that you must soon meet a holy God?”
“Yes, I realize it perfectly.”
“And you are not afraid?”
“Not at all.”
“And you have not made your peace with God?”
“No.”
“What do you mean?” cried the astonished pastor.
A smile passed over the features of the dying woman. “I have not made my peace with God because I do not need to. Christ made peace more than eighteen hundred years ago by the blood of His cross (Colossians 1:20), and I am simply resting in the peace He made.”

Oh, blessed is the one who has learned to rest in the peace Christ made, who counts his sins forgiven because Christ’s blood was shed and God says so!

In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace (Ephesians 1:7).

3. There is a third passage very similar to this that brings out the cleansing power of Christ’s blood. It is 1 John 1:7.

But if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.

This brings out the completeness of the forgiveness we get through the blood. The blood of Christ has power to cleanse the believer from all sin. It continually cleanses, is cleansing, keeping him clean every day, hour, and minute. The cleansing here is from the guilt of sin. When cleansing is mentioned in the Bible in connection with the blood, it is always cleansing from guilt. Cleansing from the power of sin and the presence of sin is by the Word of God, the Holy Spirit, and the living and indwelling Christ, not the crucified Christ.

Christ on the cross saves from the guilt of sin;
Christ on the throne saves from the power of sin;
and Christ coming again will save from the presence of sin.

But the blood of Christ cleanses from all the guilt of sin when one is walking in the light, submitting to the light, and walking in Christ who is the Light. The blood of Christ cleanses him from all sin. His past may be as bad as a past can be. There may have been countless enormous sins, but they are all, every one, the greatest and the smallest, washed away. His record is absolutely white in God’s sight, as white as the record of Jesus Christ Himself.

Though your sins are as scarlet, They will be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, They will be like wool (Isaiah 1:18).

The blood of Christ has power to wash the blackest record white. Some of us may have had a black past, but in truth, we all have; for if we could see our past as God sees it before it is washed, the record of the best of us would be black, black, black. But if we are walking in the Light, submitting to the truth of God, believing in the Light - in Christ, then our record today is as white as Christ’s garments were when the disciples saw Him on the Mount of Transfiguration (Matthew 17:2; Mark 9:3; Luke 9:29). Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? (Romans 8:33). Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1).
4. Again, in Romans 5:9 we read, Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him.
The blood of Christ has power to justify. Every believer in Christ is already justified in Christ’s blood.
Justified means more than forgiven and cleansed. Forgiveness, as glorious as it is, is a negative thing. It means merely that our sins are put away and we are regarded as if we had not sinned. But justification is positive. It means that we are regarded as positively righteous; that positive and perfect righteousness, even the perfect righteousness of Christ, is put to our account.
It is a good thing to be stripped of vile and filthy rags, but it is far better to be clothed with garments of glory and beauty. In forgiveness we are stripped of the vile and stinking rags of our sins; in justification we are clothed with the glory and beauty of Christ. It is the power of the blood which secures this. In shedding His blood as a penalty for sin, Christ took our place, and when we believe in Him, we step into His place.

He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him (2 Corinthians 5:21).

5. Now let us look at Hebrews 9:14.

How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?

The blood of Christ has power to cleanse the conscience from dead works to serve the living God. Do you understand what that means? It is a glorious truth and I will try to make it clear.
When a man is wakened to the fact that he is a sinner and that God is holy, he feels that he must do something to please God and atone for his sins. He must “do penance,” or “keep Lent,” or give away money, or do something else to atone for his sins. Now all these self-efforts to please God and atone for sins are dead works. They can never accomplish what they aim at and can never bring peace.
How many weary years Martin Luther sought peace in this way and did not find it. But when we see the power of the blood, how it has already perfectly atoned for sin, how it has already washed away our sins and justified us before God, how we are already pleasing and acceptable in God’s sight by reason of that shed blood, then our consciences are relieved not only from the burden of guilt, but also from the burden of these self-efforts; and we are now at liberty to serve the living God, not in the slavery of fear, but in the liberty of the freedom and joy of those who know they are accepted and beloved sons. It is the blood which delivers us from the awful bondage of thinking we must do something to atone for sins and please God. The blood shows us that it is already done.

A friend of mine once said to another who was seeking peace by doing, “You have a religion of two letters. My religion is a religion of four letters.”
“How is that?” asked the other.
“Your religion is do. My religion is done. You are trying to rest in what you do. I am resting in what Christ has done.”

There are many Christians today who have not permitted the blood of Christ to cleanse their consciences from dead works. They are constantly feeling they must do something to atone for sin. Oh, my friend, look at what God looks at — the blood, and see that it is all done, already done! God is satisfied, sin is atoned for, you are justified. Now don’t do dead works to commend yourself to God; but realizing that you are already commended by the blood, serve Him in the freedom of gratitude and love, and not in the bondage of fear.
There are three classes of men. First, those who are not burdened by sin but love it. That is totally bad. Second, those who are burdened by sin and seek to get rid of it by self-effort. That is better, but there is still something infinitely better. Third, those who see the hideousness of sin and were burdened by it, but who have been brought to see the power of the blood, settling sin forever, putting it away (Hebrews 9:26), and so are no longer burdened but now work not to commend themselves to God, but out of joyous gratitude to Him who perfectly justifies the ungodly through the shed blood.
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Reuben A. Torrey:
"How to Obtain Fulness of Power For Christian life?"