THE BLOOD THAT WASHES!

Blood that Washes!

by D.G. Miles McKee

“Unto Him that loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood...” -Revelation 1:5

Currently we seem to hear less and less about believers having been washed in the blood of Christ! We are told that such language is outmoded and meaningless in today’s culture.

But is it?

I don’t believe so! Let’s look for a moment then at what it means to be washed in the blood.

It means that we are totally identified with Jesus in His death. The blood of Christ cleanses us, not because it is a ‘heavenly detergent,' but by totally immersing and identifying us in and with the death of our Substitute. To be washed in the blood means that legally we have been crucified with Christ. His death was our death; His punishment ours. We are now cleansed by His blood ... which is another way of saying that we have been made partakers of the death of Christ.

Because the blood has been applied to us, we are legally counted as those who have paid the penalty of the broken law. We were once covered entirely with guilt and under sentence of death, but our Substitute, the Lord Jesus, shed His blood and washed us clean.

In God’s eyes, that blood represents both Christ’s death and ours. Jesus died as our Substitute. The blood is shed for us and in that way death, which is the law's penalty, is reckoned legally to us.  Legally we have died. This is good news! We have been crucified with Christ and as a result, our guilt has passed away. We are cleansed; we are washed in His blood.

This is good news from the good news. This is good news that tells us, not what we have to do, to be saved, but tells us what Christ Jesus has fully done to actually and effectively save us. Let’s be clear on this; only that which God has done for us on our behalf can deliver us.

Deliver us from what?

From the wrath of God for starters! But there’s more! In this life, it is only as we grasp that Christ’s blood has cleansed, covered and paid for us that the troubled conscience can come to peace. There is no other way to be freed from guilt than by applying, by faith, that which the blood has accomplished.

Every question that a guilty conscience can put, is fully answered by the blood. When our conscience condemns us and tells us that God is angry because we have sinned, it is then that we need to preach the gospel to ourselves. We need to say, “Self, the blood of Christ has cleansed and washed you. God does not condemn you today because He has already condemned Jesus at the cross 2,000 years ago!”

That Christ Jesus poured out His blood as the sinner’s substitute is God's declaration that He loves us and loves us righteously. In the gospel, righteousness and peace have kissed (Psalm 85:10); our sin is condemned and judged in the person of our substitute, the Lord Jesus. The shed blood of Christ is shed instead of ours and God willingly accepts this substitution because He is satisfied with Christ alone.

Although there are those who; while professing to be Christian, slight and scorn it, God is well satisfied with the blood. Believers, therefore, dare not minimize its importance. God is unchangeable when it comes to the importance of the blood for the honour of His Son is bound up in the same. The blood of the gospel is God’s own blood (Acts 20:28); the shed blood was the blood of the God/Man. It was the blood of Him Who was and is the brightness of Yahweh’s glory, and the express image of His person (Hebrews 1:3). How then is it possible that God can overlook any affront or indifference to the blood? He cannot! If we reject the blood, we reject Christ. If we reject Christ, we reject God Himself.

And that’s the Gospel Truth!