SOME ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF JESUS Tomorrow:
"And, having made peace through the blood of His cross, by Him to reconcile all things unto Himself; by Him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven. And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath He reconciled, in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in His sight." (Colossians 1:20-22)
Devotion 7 of 31
" . . . through the blood of His cross . . . " Nearly all versions read the same: "the blood of His cross." The NIV and NIB read, "through His blood, shed on the cross."
The required peace was not made by Jesus being born, but by Him dying. It was not the result of His life on earth, but His death upon the cross. This peace was not forged by the many miracles of Jesus, the display of compassion upon the multitudes, or the gracious words that He spoke. Even though no one else could have done the works He manifested, the peace that was "made" by Jesus did not come through them. No other person ever spoke like Jesus, yet His teaching ministry was not the means of making the required peace. Further, the peace had to be "made" before it could be given – and Jesus alone could make it.
THE BLOOD
Under the Law the Lord established the significance of blood. "For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul" (Lev 17:11). Because of the sanctity of the blood, and in anticipation of the sacrifice of Christ, the Law forbade men to eat blood. "For it is the life of all flesh; the blood of it is for the life thereof: therefore I said unto the children of Israel, Ye shall eat the blood of no manner of flesh: for the life of all flesh is the blood thereof: whosoever eateth it shall be cut off" (Lev 17:14).
In this text "the blood" encapsulates the voluntary and very literal death of the Lord Jesus. This was the laying down of His life, which the Father commanded Him to do (John 10:17-18). It was a substitutionary death, with its merits being realized by those whose own death counted for nothing. This death resulted in the ultimate atonement for the soul, being prefigured in the sacrifices offered under the Law (Lev 17:11). It was required because sin took life from man, both in the natural and in the spiritual. In order for life to be restored to man, it must be taken from another, whose life was thoroughly acceptable to God – without sin or any form of defilement.
Currently there is some corrupt teaching about Christ's blood that is being communicated through various media. The teaching is that Jesus shed His blood seven different places, and that they all have a direct bearing on the affectation of salvation. This is an utterly false and reprehensible doctrine. The blood that relates to redemption is associated with the cross of Christ: "the blood of His cross." When Jesus sweat as it were great drops of blood (Lk 22:44), that blood had no redeeming efficacy. When Jesus was beaten, the blood that flowed from those wounds is not the blood that saves the soul. When a crown of thorns was made and pressed down upon His brow, any blood that flowed from its piercing is not the blood by which we are saved. Any blood that came forth from Jesus prior to His crucifixion is not the blood that is associated with salvation, and it is nowhere so declared. It is the "blood of His cross" that is related to the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
This is the "blood" associated with faith (Rom 3:25). We are justified by this blood (Rom 5:9). Redemption is through this blood (Eph 1:7; Col 1:14; 1 Pet 1:19). We are "made nigh" by this blood (Eph 2:13). This is the blood that purges the conscience (Heb 9:14). It is the blood by which we enter into the holiest place (Heb 10:19). This is the "blood of sprinkling" by which we are made acceptable to God (1 Pet 1:2). It is the blood that "cleanseth from all sin" (1 John 1:7).
The reason this blood is associated with the cross of Christ is because that is where He "bore our sins in His body" – "on the tree" (1 Pet 2:24). That is where Jesus "was made to be sin for us" (2 Cor 5:21), and where He was "made a curse" (Gal 3:13). Men are reconciled unto God "in one body by the cross" (Eph 2:16). The death of Jesus is referred to as "the death of the cross" (Phil 2:8). When the Spirit speaks of the endurance by which Christ saved us, He does not refer to His earthly ministry, or his trials before Caiaphas, Pilate, ore Herod. He does not refer to His agony in the garden, or the scourging He endured prior to the cross. He rather refers to Jesus "enduring the cross, despising the shame" (Heb 12:2).
Our text refers to the cross on which Jesus died as "HIS cross." It belonged to Him by appointment. It was His by choice. And, it was His because He finished the foundational work for redemption on it. The tomb in which Jesus was buried is never called "His tomb." The Garden in which He agonized is not called "His Garden." But the cross is called "His cross" because of what was accomplished there by Him. Our text affirms that the peace that those who are justified by faith have was forged on that cross. Praise the Lord!
PRAYER POINT: Father, in the name of Jesus, I thank You for the cross of Christ, and all that was accomplished there.