“What does that mean?” a friend asked me. “What power does the blood of the Lamb have?”
-To even begin to answer her, I had to dial it back to God and to His love for man, symbolized by Adam in the book of Genesis, the first book in the Christian bible.
God created man in his image; in the divine image he created him; male and female he created them…God looked at everything he had made, and he found it very good. [Genesis 1:27, 31]
-So we begin there. God loved Adam. He took care of Adam. He gave Adam every seed-bearing plant all over the earth and every tree that has seed-bearing fruit on it to be his food. [Genesis 1:29]
-Then God specifically warned Adam against idolatry. “You are free to eat from any of the trees of the garden except the tree of knowledge of good and bad. From that tree you shall not eat; the moment you eat from it you are surely doomed die.” [Genesis 2:16-17]
-We all know the story. After Eve was made, she was tricked by the devil, ate from the tree of knowledge of good and bad, and then gave Adam the same fruit to eat. He ate it. Spiritually speaking, both Adam and Eve fell.
-They were then kicked out of Eden. Scripture says The Lord God therefore banished him from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he had been taken. [Genesis 3:23]
-The schism had spiritual consequences for the entire race of man. It meant that man could no longer be in God’s close presence as Adam was with God in Eden. Man experienced God behind a veil now. He could not just walk with God as Adam did with God in Eden.
-And man was prone to sin. The first human murder occurred just years after Adam and Eve was exiled from Eden. Adam and Eve’s son Cain killed his brother, Abel. Scripture says Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him. [Genesis 4:8].
-Sin was coursing through the blood of man now. It was in his thoughts and his ways. The more man sinned, the further away he strayed from God. And the more he sinned, the worse he sinned.
-There is hope when we get to Abram and his wife, Sarai. This is where God begins to create His own people and their religion, Judaism. God chooses Abram and makes a covenant with him. “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you. All the communities of the earth shall find blessing in you.” [Genesis 12:2-3]
-Eventually, Abram’s name is changed to Abraham. Sarai’s name is changed to Sarah. We know the story from there. They become the parents of Isaac who becomes the father of 12 children. Those 12 children become the 12 tribes of Israel.
-Hundreds of years pass. More sin. More idolatry. Even though they are God’s own people who are supposed to be practicing God’s religion, Judaism, the Israelites fall into idolatry. They worship everything. They worship all the gods of the time and provoke God’s anger time and time again.
-It’s the power of that original sin of Adam that is still flowing through the race of man. Scripture says just as through one person sin entered the world, and through sin, death, and thus death came to all, inasmuch as all sinned. [Romans 5: 12].
God wants His people close to Him, but He can’t bring them close because of their sin. Scripture says Sons have I raised and reared, but they have disowned me! [Isaiah 1:2].
He needs to heal the divide. He needs to break that bondage to sin so that man come be spiritually reunited to Him. Whom shall I send? scripture says. Who will go for us? [Isaiah 6:8]
-The practice of the early Judaism was just not enough to bridge the divide. Scripture says The multitude of your sacrifices—what are they to me?” says the Lord. “I have more than enough of burnt offerings, of rams and the fat of fattened animals; I have no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats. [Isaiah 1:11]
-God had to do something greater, something that would allow man to spiritually reunite with Him, something that would offer a total expiation of man’s sins and allow man to eventually experience eternity in heaven. Scripture says for there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all people. [1 Timothy 2:5-6]
-So God did it. He gave His Son as the mediator between mankind and God. Scripture says “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.” [John 3:16-17]
-We know that Son to be Jesus Christ, born of Mary and Holy Spirit. Scripture says “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father, and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever, and of this kingdom there will be no end.” [Luke 1:30-34]
We all know the story from there. Jesus was both God and man. He lived 33 years on earth, healing, teaching, and loving before He was condemned to die on a cross.
-His death and the blood He shed served as the sufficient bridge between man and God. Scripture quotes Jesus from the cross saying “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do. ” [Luke 23:34]
-This means that if you fall, if you sin, you can repent. And if you repent in the name of God, He will heal you. He will wipe away the guilt of that sin so that you can experience union with God again. And ultimately, you will experience the final union with God in heaven. Scripture says even when we were dead in our transgressions, [God] brought us to life with Christ (by grace you have been saved), raised us up with him, and seated us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. [Ephesians 2:5-7]
That is why there is wonder-working power in the blood of the Lamb.
Copyright 2020. Michelle St. Claire. All Rights Reserved.