The blood of Christ was shed not merely for us to see, but primarily for God the Father to see. When Jesus ascended to heaven after His resurrection, He presented His blood before the Father as an eternal, once-for-all atonement for our sins—past, present, and future. This perfect sacrifice can purify our conscience from “dead works”— futile attempts to earn God’s favour through our own efforts. This is ours when we come to God receiving a full acceptance on the basis of this atonement due to Christ’s shed blood. Because Christ’s atonement is complete, we need only to be reconciled to God by receiving this once and for all forgiveness of sins.  Thereafter if we sin, we need only to confess to God those new sins and rest in the assurance that we are cleansed from them by the faithfulness of God to honour the full effectiveness of that finished atonement.

Automatically Generated Transcript

[00:00:00] Perhaps the event that’s stuck in my mind that really shook me up a lot more than I was willing at first to admit was walking on the farm out into the barn and there had been a cow that was sick and they called for the vet but what I didn’t know, I think the vet was also the local butcher and they quickly decided to kill the beast and to carve it up for meat and I walked in, they were slicing off big slices of blooded meat and they said, oh Jim, they knew who I was the visiting evangelist that was staying there, it was my home base, Michelle and I were living there and they said, would you like a slice of meat and they began to saw off this bloody big slice of meat I have trouble eating offerings of meat ever since, I like meat, sometimes I can get to eat it but that blood, because it was oozing out of the sight of the cow as they were hacking through it was a shocking hit to me and demonstration to me of the life is in the blood, without the blood the animal is dead

[00:01:28] or soon will be, I didn’t know whether that one was dead yet or not it was something that stuck with me for a long long time sometimes we as Christians have other reasons for not like talking about blood and that can filter into how we express the gospel because it is a bit of a hallmark of the style of Christianity that accepts the scriptures as the word of God to talk a lot about the blood of Christ and indeed the central message that we have to communicate is a message about the death of Christ for our sins but it is worded in the scriptures as his shedding his blood and some people say it is just a metaphor for death to have your blood shed means you have been killed which is true that we do use a metaphor like that and old Macbeth’s wife was she the one who was trying to wash the blood of her hands

[00:02:40] because it was a symbol of the murder she committed and certainly there is some connection between the blood of Jesus and our salvation therefore some Christians try to reword the gospel and leave out the message of blood there is something we can learn though here today about the purpose of Christ’s blood being shed and what I want you to go away from here understanding is the blood was not just for us to see the blood was for the father to see, the blood was for God the father to see we have a scripture passage here coming from the Old Testament about the pre present days we are living in the last days but the previous to last was the Old Testament time And in that time they used to have tabernacles where God would be seen to be present with his people and eventually a temple.

[00:03:54] And in the action of both the tabernacles and the temple there would be sacrifices in which involved the shedding of blood. And they used to collect up the blood of those dead animals. I wouldn’t want that job, I’m glad the ministry is not the same today. But they’d have to collect up that blood and sprinkle it in different places in the tabernacle or in the centre of the temple when that came. And there’s something very interesting to learn. The Lord spoke to Moses after the death of the two sons of Aaron, now Aaron’s brother. Aaron was involved in being high priest and all those things. The two sons tried to take on board that they could step into the act and God killed him.

[00:04:48] And the Lord spoke to Moses after the death of the two sons, two of his nephews, when they drew before the Lord and they died because they weren’t meant to go and get in there at all. And the Lord said to Moses, tell Aaron your brother not to come at any time, that’s even not Aaron, the Father, the high priest, not to come any time into the holy place inside the veil, before the mercy seat, that special spot where the Ark of the covenant was and where there was sometimes a light that shone to show the presence of God. Not to come into the holy place inside the veil, before the mercy seat that is on the Ark so that he may not die, even Aaron’s going to drop dead if he goes in at the wrong time, for I will appear in the cloud over the mercy seat. If we look at verse 17, or that same

[00:05:51] chapter 16, and the rationale for the strict rules in the Old Covenant days about who could get near to the mercy seat, especially when somebody had to sprinkle blood in there, the blood of the offerings. No one may be in the tent of meeting, that was the tabernacle bit-time. From the time he enters, he being the high priest or whoever it is, is going to carry the blood in. The blood was collected at the place of the sacrifice but that was in a different spot in the whole arrangement. The blood will be collected from where the offering of the sacrifice was done and carried into the Holy Place. No one may be in the tent of meeting from the time he, the high priest, enters to make a tournament in the Holy Place until he comes out and has made a tournament for himself and for his house and for all the assembly of Israel. He had to go around sprinkling blood everywhere. But that Holy Place was made sacred by taking the

[00:07:05] sacrificial blood into there and no man was allowed to be present except for the one carrying it in. We learn from that from the Old Testament that there were two aspects of the atonement made by the sacrificial death of the sacrifices. One was the death, the other was the taking of the blood into the sacred place. Now what’s interesting as Leviticus talks about this, there’s something going on about the preciousness of the blood and the holiness of the sacrifice being respected. Let’s go to another spot in the scriptures in Isaiah 53. A very famous Isaiah passage, a passage which is about the coming Messiah and how he would give his life for the sins of the people. But in the description of what makes his life given effective, we’re reading, yet it was the will of the Lord to, the older versions read, bruise him. I once learned this passage off by heart, including all the semicolons and all the rest, but this is a more

[00:08:37] recent translation, crush him. It was the will of the Lord to crush him or bruise him when he has put him to grief. It is the Father who’s let the Son, in our case, be put to grief. When his soul makes an offering for guilt and you don’t know whether his soul is the father’s soul or the son’s soul, when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his of spring, the result of it. He shall prolong his days, this I think is the Son. He shall prolong his days and the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. But it’s the Lord, Father, who saw the Son, and arranged for him to be bruised, crushed. This verse 10 is talking about the facts that the death is signified by the blood of Christ was the Father had to see it. And when our salvation was wrought by Jesus coming into the world, him living out the old covenant requirements of the law, perfect, and then taking this perfect person that he was and having his blood shed

[00:10:09] by a cruel death, that the Father allowed to happen, and indeed we learn as Andrew led us through about the time these last four Sundays of what happened when Jesus was on the cross. And the anguish that he suffered because his Father, as it were, turned his back on him, the separation that came between the Son and the Father, which had never been in existence from eternity past, was a terrible price the Son paid, so much so that after the three hours of darkness of him suffering our sins – listen he didn’t just suffer a punishment for our sins, put your hand out and get a caning or something – he didn’t just suffer the punishment for our sins, it was that, yes, but in the suffering for our sins he suffered our sins and the Bible says he was made to be sinned, this holy soul who’d always ever

[00:11:12] been right and good and proper and true, this eternal Son of the Father who’d always been the love, the one, the Father love, this one, the Father call, His precious One when He suffered our sins and the Father turned his back and he cried out and said, my God, my God why have You forsaken me? That’s the cry, by the way, you hear, of humanity because he’s the god-man. My god. He addresses Father God, both his father from eternity but also his father, because he’s

[00:11:47] a human. And he’s taken on humanity’s sins and he suffers them, and he suffers the big cut apart from the father and cries out and says, my god, my god, how you have forsaken me. But that’s not the finish of the punishment. For this precious one, Jesus died, and where he went to from then, including down to Hades for a little bit, which is the place of the dead, and then up to glory, and when he went into heaven, do you know what the scriptures tell us? He carried. He carried. Forgive my voice, it’s a bit squeaky today.

[00:12:39] What did he carry? Let’s go to another reading, Hebrews 9. This is a beautiful passage. The book of Hebrews, if you’ve never studied it in depth, take a few years to do so. It’s so rich and deep. When Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that are to come, or have come – well, they have come once he had died and risen again – when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tabernacle or tent, because a tabernacle is always a transitory arrangement. It’s always a capacity of someone being with you for a while, and in the Old Testament

[00:13:40] days, God had at first a tabernacle that moved around with the children of Israel and always was kept in the centre. They had special rules when they were going to break – what do you call it – when you cut down the tents, when you get up and get ready to walk away, that all the different tribes had to be in certain spots that surrounded the tabernacle where God’s glory shone. They’d all get up in a moment and they’d walk off keeping that tabernacle in the centre. The purpose of a tabernacle is for God to be in the centre, but it is a temporary arrangement. Sometimes it would be called a booth, and to celebrate what had happened with God doing that in the Old Testament times, there was a moment in their religion, the Jewish religion, of everybody going out in their backyards and living in what they call booths or tabernacles,

[00:14:38] temporary tents. So it’s something that is speaking about the presence of God with you, but also a temporary sense, because what happened in the Old Testament was just the old covenant, which later replaced by the new, would be something where God’s special presence was heaven. This passage is talking about that he entered verse 12, once for all, into the holy place in glory in heaven. This is after Jesus’ ascension. Not by means of the blood of goats and calves, but by means of his own blood. Jesus entered heaven with his own blood. I don’t know whether he had to carry a basin of it or whether or not configuratively because

[00:15:26] he shed it in the end of heaven to present the results of such to the Father. He presented heaven, and by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption, not just to one in time. But Jesus went to glory because of his shed blood, to present that shed blood – figuratively, maybe – but because it was shed to present that to the Father for there to be an eternal redemption, for if the blood of bulls and goats and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh in a physical way. How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” It’s describing the conversion process of a person becoming a Christian.

[00:16:33] You get forgiven because of what Jesus did and it’s a once and for all, once never to need to be repeated, taking of Jesus of his blood before the Father, his blood was shed for the Father to see and for there to be an atonement for your sin that is once and for all. It doesn’t mean that you’ll always be perfect but it means the atonement has been completed forever. You have been atoned for. There is no more guilt to have. Sometimes in our dealing with people, you meet folk who can’t somehow realise and believe that they’re forgiven. They think they’ve done some things so bad that they will never get past it. They’ve never seen this verse properly. For if they understood that Jesus the Son took his blood and he took it into glory before the Father and that he made an eternal sacrifice once and for all for sin, then those people that can’t feel forgiven can breathe easy

[00:17:49] because when you see and you know that Jesus shed his blood for your sins and the Father accepted it, you are atoned even of all of your ups and downs, even of all your frailties, even though we still struggle with sin. I’ve got a series of messages I’m working up to give in our morning services and I’ll give you a hint that next week is about the emphasis on the difference between, I’ve mentioned this before, but the difference between that Jesus died for our sins to be cleansed, for our sins, plural, to be atoned. But Jesus is also the answer for our sin. Not just the blood, but Jesus’ person is the answer to help you to learn not to sin. Some Christians take ten, twenty years to gradually learn to trust the person of Jesus for their spiritual power. You trust his death for your total forgiveness, but you trust his person to be the life that will give you the power over

[00:19:20] sin singular. But your conscience is purified from dead works to serve the living God. You know, to understand this passage you’ve got to do a bit of homework to work out what our dead works. There’s a lot of difference of opinion as people make just assumptions without ever investigating. Some people think that dead works is something done not honestly where you pretend to do a few good things and hope it and put you in good light with God. So your conscience has made them not really good things that are going to get you anywhere with God. That’s not what the term means. That’s what some people have jumped to their own personal conclusion. Certainly if you do things to try and please God and you’re not got proper motives, they’re idiotic, stupid works which are only going to condemn you. But the term has got a scriptural basis to it. And the scriptural basis elsewhere in the scriptures is in Proverbs chapter 14 verse 12. And this verse is actually

[00:20:33] one verse that’s repeated. You know, it’s given twice in the scriptures. Whenever God repeats himself I think you’d better listen. There is a way that seems right to a man, to a human. There’s something that we pick up as the right way. But its end is the way to death. That’s what a dead works is. When you get about doing something to put yourself in with God good, you’re doing a dead work. Dead work because your problem is far deeper and bigger than anything you might imagine the little helping the poor lady next door or looking after the little child or being a good example to others at school. They’re good works. But if they’re done out of a human nature that is yet to be atoned, pick up that word atonement, then they’re dead. They just lead to your destruction and your judgment. Because our sin is more multi-branchard or many more connections than we understand. Those connections go back to the beginning of the human race where we the human race sinned and from that

[00:22:02] moment on as a race of people had death coming on us. That’s where death entered the human race. Where we became offside from God and could never get onside with God unless that sin of the human race overall as well as your sins in particular were atoned for. And the idea of atonement is the one that you want to burn up on because it’s more than just some or other God having a reason to let you off. Atonement is where his holy character which cannot go on accepting the presence of sin is allowed so to do because the due punishment has been fully paid. And that’s when we listen to Andrew about the fact that it’s been paid for and we are forgiven. Atonement has come once and for all the Bible tells us by Christ’s death. And when you see that Jesus and his death is the answer to your sins, I’m getting into next week a little bit, but when you see that Jesus and his death is the atonement for your sins, you don’t need to do anything else but simply say to God

[00:23:32] please forgive me for those sins I might have now committed this week. And he will because he’ll be just to forgive you your sins and cleanse you from all unrighteousness because the atonement had already been made. The blood was for God to see and Jesus carried his blood. I don’t know whether that’s metaphoric or it’s the realization of the application thereof or what. But Jesus went to heaven and presented to the Father all that’s necessary for your forever atonement, for the sins you’ve done before the sins of the past, the sins you didn’t know you did, the sins you’re yet to do but you can’t stop doing, you’re already atoned. And all you need to do is, as 1 John 1.9 says, confess your sins and because God is righteous and true He’ll forgive you of sin because the price was paid, paid in full by Jesus on the cross when He shed His blood for the Father to see. Let’s move on a little bit in those Bible verses. I think I had Hebrews 9, 16 to 14. Did we have

[00:24:54] that up before? Hebrews 9. Put it up again because it goes a bit further than what I read. But look there, much more with the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God. Purify your conscience from dead works. Dead works is when you don’t trust in the finished work of Christ and you think you can add something to make it better with you and God. Give up trying to add anything to Jesus’ precious blood. Somewhere in the passage it actually refers to Christ’s precious blood. How is it precious? Because of the total obedience that one had and the complete acceptance as sufficient His shed blood was to atone for your sins. You don’t ever go about trying to add anything to what atoned for your sins because that would be to give dead works. Dead works can be, as I’m describing it, because of the lack of a necessity for you to add to what Jesus did, can also be that if you’re not trusting

[00:26:23] and what Jesus did that you are headed to a judgement and the works you’re doing that’s only going to land you is judged as inadequate and sinful and damned. But if you trust in the death of Jesus once and for all to purify your conscience then you no more have to do dead works. I want to tell you that for me I was always, I don’t know, maybe I was spoiled, my older siblings keep saying I was because I was the youngest and different reasons they had for so thinking. But it’s true, even when I was at school I used to be a bit of a scallywag and get into trouble but I never felt bad about it. I even got caned for some one occasion. But I know I always was happy with myself because I knew I was accepted. And when you have that sense of total assurance that God has accepted you, that’s what it means to be atoned for the day of atonement when Jesus died. He sent us as forever acceptable.

[00:27:40] We may know we fall back into sins and that they may injure us in our walk with God. We only have to confess them and He takes us back. Since my conversion to Christ as a little boy, a bigger boy of nine, I’ve never had a doubt. The funny thing was that when I was at school I used to do lots of pranks on the teachers. I got into trouble, I had the record of the most detentions for a year, but I still had the purity of my soul of being right with God. I had to clear up some of my behaviour, but that’s a different matter. No dead works. Just living in the light of the precious blood of Jesus has been presented to the Father and purified our conscience, not only from the fact of the other sins we might have been committing, but from the dead works you don’t even have to get into doing things to keep God on your side. You don’t have to do work around the church just to be a person that can lift your head up when you go on Sunday. Drop all that. Just smile in the presence of the Saviour who loves you because your conscience has been made pure by a once and forever sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ.