Thread: "...knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot" (1 Pet. 1:18�19).
"...knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot" (1 Pet. 1:18�19).
Posted : 10 Oct, 2011 06:54 AM
Devotional
What a powerful motive this truth supplies to a daily and unreserved consecration of yourself to the Lord! If, under the old economy, the utensil or the garment touched with blood was sacred and solemn, how much more the soul washed in the heart's blood of Christ!
When, in the heat of battle and in the agony of thirst, David longed for water from the well of Bethlehem and some of his attendants procured it for him at the risk of their lives, the God-fearing monarch refused to taste it because it was the price of blood. Instead, he "poured it out to the LORD" (2 Sam. 23:16).
Christian soldier! It was not at the risk of his life, but more, it was by the sacrifice of his life that your Lord and Savior procured your redemption. It was by the sacrifice of his life that your Lord and Savior brought the waters of salvation, all living and sparkling from the throne of God, to your lips. You are the price of blood! "You were bought with a price" (1 Cor. 6:20). O then, will you not glorify God in your soul, body, and substance, which are his? Will you not pour it all out before the Lord�presenting it as a living sacrifice upon the altar flowing with the life-blood of God's own Son (Rom. 12:1)?
If there is a vital�and therefore a deathless�principle in the atoning blood of Jesus, then it will avail to the salvation of the foremost sinner to the latest period of time. Ages have rolled by since it was shed. Millions have gone to heaven in virtue of its merits. And yet it still avails!
O lowly penitent, listen to these glad tidings. Approach the blood of Jesus, simply believing in its divine appointment and sovereign efficacy, and the pardon it conveys and the peace it gives will be yours. Behold the sacred stream. It is as vital, as efficacious, and as free as when, eighteen hundred years ago, all nature was convulsed at the sight of this blood starting from the pierced heart of its Incarnate Creator. It is as vital, as efficacious, and as free as when the dying criminal bathed in it as was saved!
Even more, if the virtue of the Savior's blood before it was shed extended back to the time of Adam and of Abel, for he was "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world" (Rev. 13:8), surely since it has actually been offered, it will continue its virtue through all time to the remotest age of the world, and to the last sinner who may believe. If Jesus is "a priest forever" (Heb. 7:17), then the virtue of his sacrifice must abide forever, for he cannot officiate as a priest without a sacrifice. And as his gospel is to be preached to all nations, even to the end of the world, so the saving efficacy of his blood, upon which the gospel depends for its power and its success, must be as lasting as time.
