So if you have a Bible, please open with me. As we go through 1 John, from time to time we'll settle on just one verse, other times a whole paragraph. And this morning, we will settle on one phrase here in chapter 1, verse 7. The whole verse reads, But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us from all sin. This morning we're going to look at those very holy words, the blood of Jesus Christ. This is a very serious subject, a very holy subject. Just uttering those words, reading them, we're drawn to holy ground. It's ignored by many. Some preachers won't preach on it because they know some people feel squeamish when you talk about blood. There are many errors, even superstitions, as people misunderstand. And what does the Bible say about blood in general and the blood of Jesus in particular? Other people, sad to say, misuse this in a very flippant way. But we should deal with it with a holy reverence. Let me give this caution. If you ever travel to the United Kingdom and go to England or Scotland, as I did when I lived over there, you will hear some people misuse the term bloody. And Americans don't realize what they mean by that. No Christian over there uses that term like they do. Over there, it is a very profane, sacrilegious term. You'd never hear the Queen say it, but no Bible-believing Christian would ever say that over there. So if you see it on TV or in a movie, don't use it like they do over there. It's sacrilegious. When we talk about the blood of Jesus, we should think about it in an extremely holy, reverential way. Unfortunately, many people have lost this reverence. Now, as you know, I'm not a Roman Catholic, but when I read Roman Catholic books on this subject, I have to tip my hat to them and say at least the Roman Catholic Church officially holds this subject in high reverence. And I have to say, oh, that more Protestants did as well. In the past, more Christians did. It's a popular subject in the Bible, but in many hymns we've already sung one. We'll sing two more. Listen to some of these hymns. There is power in the blood. Or you washed in the blood. There is a fountain filled with blood. Nothing but the blood. And many, many other references. I was amazed in preparing this lesson, how many times the blood of Christ shows up in many of the great hymns. And of course, it's over and over in Scripture. Maybe you've wondered, Why is this subject so important and demands our reverence and our proper understanding? For example, you may have wondered, why is it that at communion we drink something that resembles blood? Couldn't Jesus have ordained it with, say, bread and water or milk? No. This is meant to remind us on a regular basis of the Holy Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Curiously, I think there are two verses in the Old Testament that refer to wine as the blood of grapes, which is an interesting way of putting it. Just like the juice inside of a grape has to be squeezed out to make wine, the Lord Jesus Christ was crushed on the cross, His blood was shed, for our redemption. The subject has fascinated me for many years, and I have read in this last week, I have reread about 20 books, many articles, including two doctoral dissertations just simply on the subject of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. W.A. Criswell, that famous Baptist back in Texas, who is now with the Lord, wrote a very popular book called The Scarlet Thread Running Through the Bible. Christians have often used that analogy, that this is a theme that is, as it were, woven from Genesis to Revelation. So this morning we're going to do a serious and reverential study of what the Bible says about the holy, precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. As your preacher, I want to go on record as saying, I believe in the blood of Jesus Christ. First, let's look and see what the Bible says about blood in general and then specifically the blood of Jesus and why it's important in the atonement and our salvation. Well, as you know, three quarters of the Bible is written in Hebrew, one quarter in Greek. In the Hebrew, the word is dom, and it's found approximately 350 times. In Greek, the word is haima. It's found about 100 times. Haima, from which we get words like hematology, hemophilia. And so the word is there. Sometimes the word is used in a figurative sense, but most times it's used in a very literal sense. Of the blood of animals, or the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. In the Old Testament, Dom, the Hebrew word, is used mainly in two ways. Number one, when it's talking about shedding blood in murder to kill someone. And sometimes it's figurative because the person might be strangled or poisoned where he does not literally shed his blood. But the term shed blood means to murder someone. And then secondly, the more prevalent use is in the many, many sacrifices in the temple. Now, let me show you one of the key places in the Bible. So with your Bible, turn with me to Leviticus chapter 17. These are a few verses that are very critical to understand the significance of blood in general, blood in the sacrifices and then how that relates to the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ and the great sacrifice. Turn to Leviticus chapter 17. Starting at verse 10. And whatever man of the house of Israel or of the strangers who dwell among you who eats any blood, I will set my face against that person who eats blood and will cut him off from among his people." Now look at this verse, very significant. For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls. For it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul. Skip down to verse 14. For it is the life of all flesh, its blood sustains its life. Now, this is very important to realize, and this mystified people for centuries. What does it mean the life of the flesh is in the blood? Well, in recent centuries, doctors have studied blood in the body, and they've discovered what God said centuries earlier, namely this. Blood is essential for human life and even for animal life. It courses throughout the body, bringing life and developing life. The blood carries nutrients all through the body and it collects waste. The average person has five to seven quarts of blood and we know that there are different types of blood and there are different diseases in the blood, such as leukemia or hemophilia. And the blood contains plasma, hemoglobin, red and white blood cells and other things. The heart pumps it out and brings it back through arteries and veins. And every human being and animal has blood. It is vital for life. That's why we talk about such and such being the lifeblood of something. The life of the human flesh and of animals is in the blood. And God frequently forbade the eating or drinking of blood, as he says here. He says, I didn't give blood to be drunk like any other thing, like milk, for example. It's for another purpose, to produce life and then also to make atonement. By the way, that principle has been misunderstood by groups such as the Jehovah's Witnesses and others that say, therefore, we should not have blood transfusions. No, I think the Bible allows for blood transfusions, but not for the eating or drinking of blood, which was something that pagans did in their religious rites. God said, no, you don't drink it. You use it in sacrifices. Now, God created blood in animals as a source of life. So that when certain animals would be offered in sacrifice in the temple, that would be a perfect picture of what the Lord Jesus Christ would do when he came is the great sacrifice he suffered. He bled and he died for our sins. Turn with me next to that section that we read earlier in Hebrews chapter nine. There's many, many places in the Bible, but we can only refer to a handful of them this morning. Some I will quote, some I will ask you to turn to. Leviticus probably tells us more about blood in the old, and Hebrews tells us more about blood in the new. We've read Hebrews 9, verses 11 to 22, and it's talking about the blood of these different animals that were sacrificed in the Old Testament. And then it bleeds up to the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. You don't have to read very far in the Bible before you find out God required atonement by sacrifice involving blood in order for a person to be forgiven. You find it very early on and you find it regularly throughout scripture. For example, after Adam and Eve sinned, God provided skins of an animal to cover them, probably of a lamb. But think about that. When the lamb was killed, it bled so that Adam and Eve could be covered and be forgiven. Then we find Abel bringing a lamb that he slew to offer as a sacrifice, and God accepted it. The dead animal with its blood. As soon as Noah got off the ark with his family, he had animal sacrifices. And once again, the shedding of blood. Then you fast forward to Abraham, the father of the Jewish race, several times offering sacrifices of animals with shed blood. You find it repeatedly in the Bible. But you particularly find it back there in Leviticus, where God laid down specific stipulations on how to build the tabernacle, which would later become the temple. And in the heart of that, there would be an altar for sacrifices. And God says different kinds of sacrifices. and that animals would be slain and the blood would be used in those sacrifices. Very important in those ceremonies. Now, there are two of them that stood out. The first one was the Passover. Now, you remember the story where God delivered his people out of Egypt. But what finally did it when Pharaoh said, I will let your people go is when God said, I'm going to send the death angel over all of Egypt. And the death angel will kill the firstborn in every family unless the Jews do something. God said to the Jews, take a lamb, slay the lamb, collect its blood and put some of the blood on the doorposts of your dwelling. And when that death angel comes by, he says, I will see the blood and I will pass over and nobody dies. That's why it's called Passover. The second great ceremony involving a blood and sacrifice was on the day of atonement, usually in this month of what we would call September, that they would have that one great sacrifice in the very heart of the temple and that only one man could go in there once a year, the high priest, and would bring the sacrificial lamb And he would slay it and offer the dead animal with the blood unto the Lord on the day of atonement. And so this went over and over again for hundreds and hundreds of years with the Passover, the day of atonement. And besides, there would be many other sacrifices throughout the year by the high priest and many others. The Bible is filled with atonement and sacrifice and blood. Now, I'll spare some of the details, but on that regular basis, those priests offering hundreds and hundreds of lambs, goats, bulls, it was like a slaughterhouse. There'd be blood running everywhere. It was a very messy business. Why? This was God's way of saying sin needs atonement. Sin is a messy business. Only blood can handle atonement. Animal blood was insufficient. That's what the writer of Hebrews is telling us that all those bulls and goats and lambs that didn't ultimately affect atonement for us. It was meant to be for another reason. And think about it, you know, not long ago, I was reading John Calvin on this. And he said something that was rather startling, he says, if you think that God's wrath was satisfied by looking at a dead animal, What kind of a God are you serving? A dead animal with blood falling off the end of the altar? And God says, I will accept that and I'll forgive people. He says, no, that would be an insult to God to say just those animals and their blood paid God off. He says, no, no, no. You missed the whole point of the bloody sacrifices. And that's why God gave us the book of Hebrews. And that's why it says turn over to Hebrews chapter 10, verse four. It says it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats or lambs or any other animal could take away sins. Animal blood cannot do it, nor can even human blood, not our blood. But yet God required it. So why did God give all these animal sacrifices that he himself ordained? Why? Well, that's what Hebrews is all about. The sacrifices with blood involving death were meant to be a picture of the great sacrifice that God would accept. And therefore, we could be forgiven by that sacrifice, not by those. Those were meant to be a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, I think that some in the Old Testament got the picture. They thought this is what's going to happen when Messiah comes. He is going to be the great sacrifice and he will suffer and bleed and die for us. Other ones missed it. And in the time of Jesus, many of the rabbis and priests thought, well, it's these animals we sacrifice and that's what God accepts. By the way, that puts our Jewish friends today in a very unusual situation. Because if they want to be true to, say, the Talmud that says that the animal blood brought about atonement, we don't need anything else, I'd ask them, well, where's your blood and atonement today? The temple was destroyed in 70 A.D. and there has not been a Jewish sacrifice of an animal by a priest with blood in almost 2,000 years. Where's your atonement if you say it has to be in the animals? You know what they generally answer? They say, well, God being merciful has given us a substitute. Good works. And that's the heart of modern Jewish religion. But unfortunately, a lot of Christian religion says, that's right, my good works, the things that I do, God will accept that to undo my sins. It's never been God's way in the Old Testament, in the New Testament or in history since the Bible. God says that one sacrifice the Lord Jesus Christ did, that's the one by which God can forgive us all of our sins. Their blood was a picture of the true blood of the Lord Jesus Christ that would serve as the ultimate atonement, not the animals. Just try to count up all the thousands, millions of animals that had been sacrificed in Old Testament days, and none of them could actually satisfy God's wrath. That's what it says in Hebrews. Isaac Watts wrote a hymn and included these words on this very thing. Maybe you've sung them. Not all the blood of beasts on Jewish altars slain could give the guilty conscience peace or wash away the stain. But Christ, the heavenly lamb, takes all our sins away, a sacrifice of noble name and richer blood than they. This is what the Bible is saying in the book of Hebrews, that those animals didn't finally accomplish it. They were pictures of Jesus. He is the ultimate high priest. He brings the ultimate sacrifice, not an animal, himself, not the blood of a bull or a goat or a lamb, his own blood. And that was the sacrifice that God demanded and God accepted. Hallelujah. Now, we also learn this from the Bible that Blood was involved in the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ, and this was pictured on those altars when those animals would be slain. There would be at least three main aspects that God demanded in the atonement. Number one, suffering. Boy, when those animals were slain, they went through much pain. Well, we find Jesus, the ultimate sacrifice, suffered. First Peter 2.18 says Christ also suffered for us. But then those animals had to die on the altar. The Bible says, Romans 5, 8, Christ died for us. But the third element was every bit as important as the other two. Their sacrifices had to bleed. Sometimes the altar would be covered with blood. Sometimes it would be gathered in a basin. Sometimes it would be sprinkled in a certain way. In the same way when Jesus was on the altar of the cross, He bled in various ways, his feet, his hands, his heart, his brow. He bled in various ways. So it was suffering, bleeding and dying. All three of those were absolutely necessary. Now, I'm going to read this out and I want you to ponder this. It was not just suffering and death without blood. It was not blood and suffering without death. And it wasn't blood and death without suffering. It had to be all free. God demanded it. God provided it. And God accepted it through the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. For example, it couldn't be simply blood and suffering without death. Otherwise, Jesus could have simply gone to the cross, cut his hand and suffered. And that would have been enough without dying, though he had to die as well as suffer. and shed his blood. Together, those elements constitute the atonement. And sometimes the word there is translated blood sacrifice. Now, let me give you a couple of verses you may want to write down in case you're taking notes. Romans 325 talks about propitiation in Jesus's blood. What does that word mean? Propitiation means The sacrifice that appeases God, that God is angry, now God is satisfied. God would be satisfied with nothing less than the atonement of our Lord Jesus Christ, and there it involves his blood. Secondly, Ephesians 1.7 says we have redemption in his blood. And the word there, redemption, means a ransom price, something that buys something back. In Corinthians, we are told we have been purchased with a price. We do not belong to ourselves. What's the price? The price God demanded was atonement, and Christ provided it in his suffering and in his bleeding. We were redeemed by the blood of Christ. As I say, God demanded it and God provided it. And nobody could give it by themselves. Not by animals, not by angels, and not by humans. We couldn't do it by ourselves. Pagans tried to pay off their gods even with human sacrifices. But there's only one human that could ever be sufficient, the human that was also God, because God demanded human suffering, bleeding and dying. But none was pure enough or perfect enough. God became a man. So the infinite value of God was in Jesus, who is the God man. But we cannot do this by ourselves, not our suffering. can pay God off. Not our dying could ever ransom us, not our bleeding or not all the blood and all the blood banks around the world could pay off one sin. But Jesus in his holy blood paid off all of our sins for us. Now, here's the question that we're answering this morning. Why blood? Couldn't Jesus have died without shedding blood? No, he couldn't. It's absolutely necessary because blood is essential to life. That's why it says in Leviticus, God put blood in animals and in humans as the source of life. So when Jesus died, he gave up his life. It was necessary that he did this in a very picturesque way by shedding his holy blood. Now, let me put it like this. Leviticus says the life of the flesh is in the blood. Without blood, the flesh will die. Just like in James 2, it says the body without the soul is dead, the flesh without the blood is dead. Therefore, when Jesus died, he did this in a very literal, picturesque way, very painful way. He died by shedding his blood, his holy blood. The shedding of blood is the means by which one passes from life to death. Some people will bleed to death. Some of those animals were bled to death on the altars back in the Old Testament temple. Our blood and our death is not acceptable to God. But the blood and death of Jesus was acceptable. God provided it and God acceptable accepted it. So blood was essential. But then someone might say, Well, why not other blood, the blood of animals, which is what the Jews thought? And many Jews today might still think that there is a difference between animal blood and human blood. That's obvious, but also the special qualities of the blood of the Lord Jesus. Turn with me next to First Peter, chapter one, where God explains this to us. Peter, being a Jew under the inspiration of God, writes words explaining the death of the Lord Jesus and the necessity of his blood. Look at chapter one, verse 18, knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things like silver or gold. I might even add corruptible things like the blood of animals in the tabernacle from your aimless conduct, received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. Notice that precious blood was that word precious means it means valuable. It's kind of like a play on word in English, precious, priceless, infinite value in the whole history of humanity. Some blood has been more valuable than others, but none has been as valuable as the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. As some blood types are rare, therefore, it's worth more. And I read about one man that makes a living simply by selling his blood. It is so rare with certain antibodies in it. That's all he makes like fifty thousand dollars a year. But even his blood is corruptible. It can contain impurities in it, but not the Lord Jesus, the precious blood of Christ. Look very closely, dear friends, at those holy words, the precious blood of Christ. Something of vastly more valuable than silver or gold or than the blood of animals or the blood of all human beings combined. It has a value and a worth in it that far surpasses anything and everything else combined. Drop for drop, the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ is more valuable than anything the universe has ever seen. I have preached on this twice in this church under the name The Most Valuable Thing in the Universe. Martin Luther put it like this. Just one drop of this innocent blood would have been more than enough for the sin of the whole world. Another writer said, one drop is worth more to God than the whole universe. One Puritan I read said, if one person could somehow destroy the universe and murder every single angel and decimate the whole human race, as great a sin as that, Even that could be forgiven by the value of one drop of the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Why then is it so valuable and so essential to the atonement? Two reasons. Number one, because of who it belonged to. The Lord Jesus Christ was not just another man. He was not just another Jewish rabbi. He's not just another person like we are. He is God in the flesh, the God-man. Therefore, because it's His blood, it carries the infinite value of God. Not just of humanity, but of God. Secondly, look back at the verse. As of a lamb without blemish and without spot, The blood of the Lord Jesus was the blood of a perfect, sinless human being. So it's got value because he's God, but also because it's human. It had no sin. It had no effects of sin. You mean we've got the effects of sin in our body and in our blood? We sure do. Total depravity means sin affects everything about us. Our minds, our conscience, our hearts, our bodies. Our blood. That's why there's disease in the blood and there's death in the body. But not the Lord Jesus being born of a virgin. He had no human father. He received humanity from his mother, but he received no sin because God was his father. He had no effects of sin in his body. His blood was 100 percent perfectly pure without any effects of sin whatsoever. Therefore, it was without spot or blemish. Now, can you see why the Bible says the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ was so pure and holy and therefore acceptable to God? And therefore, also, nothing else that could be offered to God could ever equal what the Lord Jesus Christ gave in his own blood. Nothing else could suffice. But the blood of Jesus Christ did. Now, that's the first stage of salvation, the provision in the atonement of Jesus. Remember those three things, his suffering, his bleeding, his dying. That's the provision. And when Jesus did that, he said it is finished and he died. But then there's the second stage, the application of that, and that also has several aspects. Now, remember, I mentioned the Passover. Again, that's a perfect picture of what I'm about to describe. The Bible lays this down. Back here in Egypt, the Jews were to slay the lamb and collect the blood, but that wasn't the end of that. If the death angel went by and saw the blood in the animal, people would still die. The blood had to be applied to the doorposts. And God says, when I see the blood there, then I will pass over. You see where I'm going with this? The first stage in our atonement was at the cross. Jesus died. He shed his blood on the cross. It has to be applied not just to the cross. It has to be applied to our hearts by faith. God applies it to us. And he says, when I see the blood from the cross applied to our hearts, then he forgives us. The death angel passes over us. We are saved. The blood wasn't just sufficient to be on the cross, it has to be on our hearts as well. And when it's applied to our hearts, the Bible says, then we are saved. To be precise, we are justified, we are pardoned, we are forgiven. Listen to this, Romans 5, 8. We are justified by his blood. We are forgiven every single sin that we have ever committed. First John 1 7, the blood of Jesus Christ, his son cleanses us from all sin. Now, there is the next picture of the application of the blood to our hearts. The blood of Jesus Christ washes away our sins. This is a picture found several times in the Bible. Revelation 7 14. These are they who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the lamb. Revelation 1 5 to him who loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood. What can wash away our sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Now, we need to think about this in the picture of it. You know, as a bachelor, I do my own laundry. And some of you ladies that do laundry know what I'm about to say, there's some stains are awfully hard to get out paint, ink. I have never found something hard to get out in blood. I have had to throw out certain shirts, for example. I'll spare you the details, but when I go hunting back in Texas, sometimes I have to throw those garments away. There's no way I can wash them all out with any detergent or cleanser. Bloodstains are very hard to remove. In the same way, friends, our sins have made our human garments, as it were, our soul, filthy, and there's nothing we can do to wash it away, not our tears. Well, unfortunately, some people think baptism. No! Tears, baptism, good works, nothing can wash it away. So the question is, what can wash away our sins? You know, I said that at the nursing home once, preaching, and I asked the question, I said, what can wash away our sins? And a little old lady at the back put up her hand and said, nothing but the blood of Jesus. I wanted to go over there and hug her and says, dear, you're right. Nothing but the blood of Jesus can wash away. But you notice the irony. The blood of Jesus washes away the blood of our sins and we are White as snow. The Bible says, come together and let us reason together, says the Lord, though your sins be as scarlet, blood red, they shall be white as snow. All of them washed in the blood of Jesus. Now, this isn't done literally. The blood of Jesus is not literally put on us because his blood is in his body up in heaven. It's not put on us in a literal way, but in a figurative way. And the figure is this. He shed it literally on the cross. God accepted the blood of the atonement. And the virtue of that is applied to us by God legally. It is applied to us. And God says, I am applying what Jesus did to this sinner. That sinner believes. Therefore, I am now legally, justly forgiving him all of his sins. We are now washed. We are justified. We are saved. Our sins are erased, it's like our record is clean, our files are deleted. Thomas Goodman, the great Puritan, put it like this. The Lord Jesus Christ drowned our sins in the red sea of his blood. Now, we find this figure used various ways in the Bible. When Jesus instituted the very first Last Supper, He provided wine or juice, and he says, this is the new covenant in my blood. The covenant, as it were, is sealed in his blood. It's written in blood. It's like a blood oath that Jesus signed. And now we are saved by virtue of his blood. Another picture the Bible uses is that because we have an evil heart, we need to get a new heart. We've got evil blood. We need a blood transfusion, not literally a blood transfusion. Go to the doctor and get drained. No, no. The blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, as it were, his life is now put into us. We are saved. We are cleansed. We are sanctified the virtue of the value of the Lord Jesus Christ. One last analogy Spurgeon used. He said this. The blood of Christ is a blessed Sin killer. I like that. It's like our hearts, our lives, our blood contains sin, which is death and will take us to hell. But the blood of the Lord Jesus has life in it to kill the effects of sin. Well, brethren, that's basically what the Bible says, but there have been misunderstandings. Let me very briefly correct some of the popular misunderstandings that you may have heard, and then we'll conclude the message by applying it to us today. Let me briefly mention some of these without elaborating. There are those of a rather liberal perspective that don't like this subject. And I've read their books where they say all this business about blood is glory. It just seems to have evolved out of pagan cultures that were superstitious. And the Jews kind of brought it with them. And that's where it is. And even the New Testament wasn't completely filled with wasn't completely cleansed of that. So what we need to do is just simply do away with that. They say we don't need all this. blood and we don't need to talk about this. And if they were to hear this morning's message, they would say, I disagree. They would say that slaughterhouse religion and I don't want any of it. Maybe you've heard that that viewpoint. Well, that's sacrilegious, it's blasphemous and a thousand other evil things, because God ordained this and God's book repeatedly teaches blood atonement by Jesus. Take it away. There's no atonement. Hebrews 922, without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness. This isn't borrowed from pagans that didn't know any better. There were counterfeits that were trying to appease their gods with all sorts of blood. So when God sent the true blood atonement, they could say, yes, there's some sort of blood that has to be done. We've been doing it the wrong way. Then they would see God's way is the right way. So this era laughs at the blood of Jesus Christ. I can guarantee you there's no laughing in heaven and there's no laughing in hell either. The devil and the demons tremble at the subject of the blood of Christ because it brought about their defeat. Number two, again, there are those that or not only liberal, but even some well-meaning evangelicals will say this quote. There was nothing special or different in Christ's blood. It was just human blood. Well, I've read some well-meaning evangelicals that say this, but they miss certain things. Number one, yes, Jesus did take on human blood. Hebrews 2 says he took on flesh and blood just like ours. He had a human body with fingerprints. It had DNA. He had a certain hair color and eye color. He stood so tall. And he had a certain blood type, I'm sure. Human blood that had corpuscles and white and red blood cells. You notice we said earlier, there were certain things not in his blood, the effects of sin. Not only that, this was the blood of the God man. Therefore, it is precious and it is incorruptible as opposed to any other kinds of sin. It had no death in it. Therefore, it is pure and holy from the God man. So this error can also be dismissed. Now, the third error is a little unusual, but perhaps you've heard it in evangelical circles. It's been popularized by a medical doctor that became a well-known preacher. His name was Ammar Dahan. And years ago, we wrote a book called The Chemistry of the Blood, and his theory is this. This is the third era. Christ had the literal blood of God, not human blood. You say, come again? He says, yes. Everything else about Jesus's body was human, but not his blood. That was the blood of God. He appeals to Acts 20, 28, the blood of God. And he says it's because a baby will inherit blood from its father, not from its mother. God was his father. Therefore, he got divine blood. No, he misses a point. I read another article by a medical doctor said, well, that's right. We don't inherit the blood from our mother, but we don't get it from our father either. In the reproductive process, in the embryo, the baby then produces its own blood. That's why a baby can have a different blood type from father or mother. But they miss another point. The blood of God, God literally having physical blood. Jesus himself said God is spirit. He does not have a body. He does not have blood. He did not have bones. God is spirit. Jesus, the God man, had holy blood and he had deity that gave worth to it. But the blood was still human blood, but it was pure blood. I guess I'd be prepared to say it had the effects of deity, but it was not the blood of God per se. It was the blood of the God. Well, another one of the puritans, Stephen Charnock, said Christ received human blood from Mary, but its value from the deity of his father. So we can set aside that error. Number four. Again, you'll hear this sometimes in evangelical circles, blood was not essential to the atonement. God could have accepted anything else because God set the price for atonement. So blood wasn't essential. That was a popular view 800 years ago in the Middle Ages, and fortunately in the Catholic Church condemned it. But there were those that said, well, God just kind of at random said, well, OK, how about these animals? And then how about Jesus? And one of them even said God could have even accepted a pig instead of a lamb or instead of Jesus. Imagine that. No. Why was blood essential? Well, that's why I elaborated this earlier. But to cut to the chase, Hebrews 9.22 tells us very explicitly without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin. There had to be blood in the death and the suffering in order to appease God and to grant forgiveness. How else do I know? Remember when Jesus was in Gethsemane? Already beginning to struggle and already beginning to bleed from the corpuscles up here. His blood vessels breaking and he was bleeding in his sweat. And he said, if there's any other way, there was no other way. Therefore, there had to be suffering, bleeding and dying. Otherwise, atonement would have been provided in any other way. God demanded, provided and accepted the blood of Jesus along with his suffering. and die. Error number five is a little bit closer to the truth as well. When Jesus bled and died, he bled to death on the cross. I've read quite a few books and articles, even by doctors trying to wonder how did Jesus physically die? And some have said he bled to death. Others say it was a stroke, heart attack and various other ones. And they're really all wrong because the Bible tells us the answer. Jesus died voluntarily by giving up his spirit. There were accompanying physiological phenomena such as bleeding, but he did not bleed to death. Number six is similar to that error that says, well, when Jesus bled, he gave up every single drop of his blood on the cross. Well, the Bible doesn't say that, and we shouldn't make the Bible say what we think it might say. It doesn't say he bled to death and it doesn't say he shed all of his blood. That would have been virtually impossible to get all the blood out. But the Bible doesn't say that. It says that he did bleed, but it doesn't say he bled everything. Number seven, I almost hesitate to say, but I say it because a number of the books that I read, usually by Pentecostals, will bring up this rather weird notion. But I've read even non-Pentecostals that say this, and even Roman Catholics that say, quote, The blood of Jesus was collected by Jesus or an angel in a golden cup and brought up to heaven and put on an altar up there. I don't know if you all have ever heard that, but it's weird, bizarre. But they misunderstand things in the Bible. It couldn't have been Jesus because he died on the cross. An angel? No. The blood of Jesus was presented on an altar, but not in heaven on earth. The cross was the altar. So it wasn't collected and brought up there and it's not still sitting up there. Jesus said it is finished. Enough said about that strange theory. Another one that Donald Gray Barnhouse and some others have suggested, number eight, Christ's resurrected body had no blood because they said the blood was poured out and that's the atonement. So there is no need for blood. No, no. If it had no blood, then it's still dead, because the life of the flesh is in the blood. He's still alive. Therefore, he still has blood. It's not in a cup in heaven. It's still in his body in heaven. Error number nine is another one that I found in several of these books, and maybe you've heard it. It's usually promoted by Pentecostals, and it's usually got from people like Maxwell White and even Benny Hinn wrote a book on this subject. And the error is this. Well, Jesus shed his blood, but we can plead the blood, we can sprinkle the blood on people, we can draw a bloodline and that keeps demons away. I don't know if y'all have ever heard this idea, but I've heard it. But it's not in the Bible anywhere. It's more sounds like superstition of a witch doctor with bones and feathers. There's nothing in the Bible that says we can somewhat literally take the blood of Jesus and sprinkle it or draw a bloodline. No, it doesn't say anything like that. The Old Testament priests did that because they had a little blood, which was a picture. But there's nothing in the Bible that says we can do anything like that. We can, however, pray that God blesses a person, protects him or saves him in Jesus' name, perhaps by virtue of his atonement. But let's not go any further with that. What about pleading the blood? I guess the furthest I'm prepared to go with that is that line of a famous hymn that says, just as I am without one plea, but that thy blood was shed for me. But that's not us literally applying the blood of Jesus in a literal way that if we do something like this, God is putting the blood behind those motions. No, no, that's not taught by the word of God. Enough of that. The last one is, unfortunately, the most common one of all. And you'll find it in Catholicism and even some other churches, and that's this, that Christ's physical blood is literally present at communion. Now, some of you all come from a Catholic background. You know what this is. It's called transubstantiation, that when the priest says certain words and has a holy gesture and lifts up the cup, The wine literally becomes the blood of Jesus. It just doesn't look like it, so you are literally drinking blood. And they say, without that you cannot be saved, and that's why the Mass is so important. Lutheran view comes close to that. It's called consummation, but it's not quite the same thing. Well, I won't go into the details of this, but the Bible does not teach that the wine becomes blood. The wine is still wine, because even after Jesus ordained it, He referred to it as the fruit of the vine. And he wasn't going to drink his own blood and ask other people to do it. The Bible forbids the drinking of blood, remember? And lastly, on that same point, the Catholic Church even claims to have some of the original blood of Jesus from the cross and little glass vials in certain cathedrals in Europe. Let's set aside all that nonsense. All of that, I think, has been cooked up by people that don't know what they're talking about. What does the Bible say? Let's get some quick lessons for us this morning. Back to the truth. The first one is ignore those errors. Stick with what the Bible says. Study it. I have only touched on some of the high points of the blood of Jesus as it refers to the atonement. There's also verses that talk about how the blood of Jesus and the atonement is sufficient to cleanse our consciences. It's applied in sanctification. So, brethren, Study the subject and ignore the errors. Secondly, this whole wonderful subject has a direct application to those that are not yet believers. Maybe you've never heard a sermon like this, and maybe you've read the Bible and say, man, it sure talks a lot about blood. Maybe you feel a little squeamish as you hear a message like this. Well, you're not going to be able to read very far in the Bible without reading this sort of subject. Why does God put this in it? So that you can be drawn to it, not repelled by it. Come to the Lord Jesus Christ. Believe what God says about who Jesus is and why it was necessary that He bled together with suffering and dying. Believe that He is the holy God-man that suffered and bled and died for you, and that there is no other hope. That's why we sing, nothing but the blood can wash away my sins. 1 John 1.7, the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sins. This is something the unbeliever needs to grasp. The atonement of Jesus in his death and his blood works. It does save us from our sins. There is no other hope anywhere else. It will wash away all of our sins. Zechariah 13.1 predicted this. In that day, a fountain shall be opened for sin and for uncleanness. But there's a A proviso to this. Hebrews tells us that it will wash us, it'll save us. It's been, God has accepted it. But then it gives a very dire warning in this very point in Hebrews chapter 10, I think it's verse 29, which says there are people that will reject this. Even people that say they're Christians and they say, I don't want any of this anymore. And the writer gives him a stern warning and says, if you reject this, if you reject Jesus, if you reject the blood of His atonement, he says, it's as if you are walking on His very blood, grinding it into the dirt. And that is a high sacrilege to God. That's why it's very crucial to count the cost that if you believe in Jesus and his blood and his sacrifice, you will be saved. But if you reject it after hearing the importance of this, God will be highly offended as if you yourself are walking on the holy blood of Jesus. Very serious. Our third and last application this morning is this. We that are believers need to be taught about this, not just to avoid the errors, but to see the profundity and importance of this holy subject. Ponder it. Appreciate it. Meditate on it week by week at communion. When we pass the plate, don't just drink it real quickly. Ponder it. What it stands for. You see, when you look into the cup and you see it, that's kind of like believers in the Old Testament looking at the blood on the altar as a picture of what Jesus would do. We look at what a picture of what Jesus did do. Meditate upon it. And also realize that the blood in the atonement of Jesus was the display of the love of God. You could poetically say that every drop of that holy blood was saying to us, God loves you. Spurgeon said the blood of Christ is the ruby gem of the ring of love. And when we ponder that, that God loved us so much to give the blood of his own son as a sacrifice, that should move us to love Jesus even more. The Catholic Church has an interesting organization been around for a long time. It's called the Society of the Precious Blood. They've written some good things on this subject, but also some very unbiblical things. But I like the term the Society of the Precious Blood. Brothers and sisters, if we believe in Jesus and he's washed us, we are the Society of the Precious Blood. of Jesus. Let us praise God for this precious soul cleansing blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let us pray. Father, how we thank you. That you sent your son, not an angel. Not just another man. You sent your very own son to become a man, and at the right time, he shed his blood for us. Words can never express the profundity of that. And Father, we find ourselves at a loss for words. How can we ever say thank you enough? Touch our hearts with this holy subject now, Father. as we sing and come to your table. In Jesus name. Amen.