8. Pure and Clean: Washed by the Blood
- Pure and Clean: Washed by the Blood.
“According to the law of Moses, nearly everything was purified with blood. For without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness.” (Hebrews 9:22).
There’s Power In The Blood By Lari White
Unlikely Cleansing Agent. At first glance, blood is hardly a likely washing detergent to remove stains. Actually, one of the properties of blood is that it causes permanent stains, a opposed to removes them. The spiritual reality, though, is that blood is designed by God to be a universal solvent, the Lord’s spot remover of our sin-tainted souls. Blood is the only substance that cleanses us from the effects of sin. Blood is the only spiritual detergent powerful enough to make us pure and clean. Blood means the presence of life, which in God’s scheme of things is more powerful than death. So blood purifies, it cleans the spiritual slate in each of us, enabling us to start over as we dwell inside Christ and His righteousness. Only His pure blood is able to restore our innocence.
Oh The Blood Of Jesus | The Altar Music | Official Music Video (youtube.com)
The Miracle of Blood. The tangible reality of human blood suggests the sanctity of blood in the spiritual world. We depend on human blood for our physical survival, and we depend on Christ’s blood for our spiritual survival. Human blood is a glorious, miraculous fact of physical life: Blood is the fluid in our body that transports live-giving oxygen and nutrition to our lungs and body tissues; it promotes clotting and thus prevents tragic blood loss; it carries disease-fighting antibodies and develops our immune system; it carries away waste products to the kidneys and liver and so is vital to cleansing our body and blood; it brings chemical hormones to give directions to our body; it regulates our body temperature. Human blood takes only 30 seconds to travel from the heart through the body and back to the heart. The average adult human body contains about 1.3 gallons of blood, roughly 8% of our body weight. The average adult heart pumps 1.5 million barrels of blood through a circulatory system of over 100,000 miles of blood vessels. If we stretched one person’s blood vessels end-to-end, it would circle the earth two and a half times over!
the blood lyric video-Naomi Raine ft. Dante Bowe (youtube.com)
“If we keep living in the pure light as He is in the light, we share fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, His Son, continually cleanses us from all sin.” (1 John 1:7).
Perhaps the most astounding aspect of human blood is that simple human blood cannot be replicated by genius scientists in the lab. With all our advances in creating artificial knees and shoulders, inventing artificial intelligence that can operate at lightning speed to direct robots and computers… Even with human brilliance on display everywhere these days, the researchers and designers are nonetheless unable to replicate a simple ounce of blood. The human blood sample created by God turns out to be beyond the reach of human genius. Human blood literally cannot be produced or replicated in a lab. There is no such thing as artificial blood as good as the original. It appears that Creator God has reserved the makings of blood to Himself. Blood is sacred and deserves our ultimate respect. But God says to all of us, “Hands off, lab technicians! Blood is my special creation, and I will not allow mere man to recreate this mystery of Mine. Blood is too precious to leave in the hands of man. I will keep this recipe a secret, for if you were allowed to solve the mystery of blood, then life itself is in danger of being replicated by mankind. In case you haven’t noticed, life is in the blood.”
The Blood (Lyric Video) // Emmy Rose (youtube.com)
Blood is sacred, says the Lord. Blood is holy, set apart from other aspects of creation. In the eyes of God, blood represents life. Life itself depends on blood. In fact, “the life of the flesh is in the blood.” (Lev. 17:11). Blood is a life principle flowing into the very structure of created life. Since the Fall in the Garden, the world has had a disastrous problem: sin. The result of sin is death. And the result of blood is life. So it naturally follows that blood is somehow the remedy for sin. Blood has to be involved if forgiveness is to happen, if life proves victorious over death. In God’s plan of redemption, His universal solvent is blood, it dissolves the presence and authority of sin.
Pre-History of Blood. “The precious blood of Christ, who like a spotless and unblemished lamb was sacrificed for us, a part of God’s plan. For Christ was chosen and destined for this before the foundation of the earth was laid!” (1 Peter 1:18-20). The history of blood in the Bible actually begins with a pre-history, a beginning that occurred even before creation. Creator God knew before the first official day that a sacrifice would have to be made in order to restore what was inevitable… a broken relationship between Creator and created. God loved creation so much that He was planning our redemption before there was even the first sin. God had a divine plan in place before He invented blood, and sure enough, blood was at the center of His plan. Innocent blood would have to be spilled for the guilty. God put into place His destiny for Christ, who “was slaughtered before the world was founded.’” (Rev. 13:8). Of course, we are confronted here with a deep, impenetrable mystery: that Jesus was somehow slain outside of time. When God put this plan into play before the foundation of the world, He said it’s as good as done. So, incomprehensibly, the Cross is an eternal event. The Cross has been somehow in the continuous present before there was even the presence of time itself.
Oh The Cross (Live) – UPPERROOM (youtube.com)
The Blood of the Sacrifice. “Under the old system, the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer could cleanse people’s bodies from ceremonial impurity. Just think how much more the blood of Christ will purify our consciences from sinful deeds so that we can worship the living God. For by the power of the eternal Spirit, Christ offered Himself to God as a perfect sacrifice for our sins.” (Hebrews 9:13-14). God designed a blood sacrifice system in the Old Covenant that atoned for, that covered over, the sins of the Chosen People. As a God of justice and righteousness, He demanded a punishment for sin, and the blood of an animal sacrifice was put in place to satisfy that demand. Pure blood from unblemished and utterly innocent animals. Innocent blood was the only answer to the guilt of sin. But this sacrificial system was not meant to be permanently in place. It was ultimately an incomplete system in many ways. It required ongoing sacrifices; it was only a temporary atonement until the person sinned again; it was merely for external purposes, making the person ceremonially clean; it didn’t necessarily change the heart of the person making the offering. So the Mosaic system was adequate and God-ordained for a time. But it was only a shadow, a hint of a better system coming along in God’s perfect timing. It was a necessary beginning to what turned out to be a perfect end. In the Old Covenant, the Mosaic sacrifice was necessary but insufficient. The best was yet to come in the fullness of time.
CLEANSED / NOTHING BUT THE BLOOD / PRAISE BREAK (feat Charity Gayle) (youtube.com)
Blood and the Hyssop. “Everything happened as the Holy Writings said it would happen. And Jesus said, ‘I am thirsty.’ A jar of wine vinegar was nearby, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus’ lips. When he had received the drink, Jesus shouted, “It is finished!” With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.” (John 19:28-30).
The Flowering Hyssop Plant. The biblical hyssop shrub, in Hebrew “Ezov,” is a small, evergreen flowery bush that grows wild in the Mediterranean region. Its many little woody twigs made for a natural sprinkler. Hyssop is an aromatic herb in the mint family, and is edible, often used as a garnish for desserts and salads, as well as a healing balm for coughs, earaches and asthma. As an antioxidant plant, there are numerous health properties to the hyssop plant. The hyssop produces beautiful blooms of violet, white, blue and red.
Shane & Shane: There Is A Fountain (Full of Love) (youtube.com)
Deliverance and Cleansing. John probably mentioned the flowering hyssop plant at the scene of the Cross in particular because of its historic significance in the Hebrew Scriptures and its prophetic importance regarding the Messiah. John was trying to make the point that hyssop had a bloody history of being used in deliverance and in purification. Both are spiritually connected to the momentous events happening on the Cross of Christ.
Passover. We were first introduced to the hyssop plant during the Passover event in Egypt. The Hebrew slaves were instructed by Yahweh to use the flowering hyssop as a paintbrush, splashing the paschal lamb’s blood across their doorposts. “Then Moses called all the elders of Israel and said to them, ‘Go and select lambs for yourselves, and kill the Passover lamb... Take a bunch of hyssop and dip it in the blood that is in your basin, and touch the lintel and the two doorposts with the blood… For the Lord will pass through to strike the Egyptians, and when He sees the blood on your doorposts, Yahweh will pass over the door and not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you.” (Exodus 12:21-24).
Charles Jenkins & Fellowship Chicago – War (Live) (youtube.com)
Purification. Hyssop was later used in the Tabernacle’s rites of purification, especially with the lepers and the ceremony with the red heifer. “According to the law of Moses, nearly everything was purified with blood. For without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness.” (Hebrews 9:22). There appeared to be no logical reason for the red heifer ritual as God explained it (Numbers 19). A perfect, unblemished red heifer, one who hasn’t been yoked, was to be taken outside the camp and slaughtered. This heifer has to be completely red, and it had to be a young female cow that had not borne a calf. After the butchering of the heifer, the attending priest was required to sprinkle some of the cow’s blood seven times directly in front of the Tabernacle. The dead heifer was then to be completely burned, including its hide, its flesh, everything. Into this fire the priest was to place some cedar wood, a branch of hyssop, and a scarlet woolen thread. Both the man who burned the heifer and the eye-witness priest were then required to clean their clothes, take a bath, and be considered unclean till the evening. The priest was then instructed to gather the ashes and make a thin paste as they mixed the ashes with clean “living” water from a nearby stream. This mixture is called the “water of purification” by the Lord. “It is for purifying from sin,” says Yahweh (Nu. 19:9). If someone is deemed unclean, then a branch of hyssop is dipped into the watered-down paste and is applied to the person’s tent, his vessels, and his body. The mixture of ash and water will purify the unclean person in the sight of God.
Symbol in David’s Psalm. The remorseful and repentant David, soon after his adultery with Bathsheba and murder of her husband, used hyssop as a symbol of purification in Psalm 51: “Purify me (literally, un-sin me) with hyssop until I am perfectly clean! … Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow… Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” (vs. 7, 10).
Glory Be to Jesus – Christian Song with Lyrics (youtube.com)
Jesus, the True Passover Lamb. Scripture was fulfilled throughout Christ’s agonizing experience on the Cross. Psalm 22, for example, is often called the “Psalm of the Cross” because of the uncanny prophecies that were made that make no sense unless one considers Christ on the Cross. His physical suffering alone is accurately reported in this Psalm: “I’m poured out like water, completely exhausted; every joint of my body has slipped out of joint; my heart is like wax, my courage has vanished, melting away within me; my strength is dried up like the broken fragments of a sunbaked piece of clay pottery; I am thirsty to the point of my dry tongue sticking to the roof of my mouth; they have pierced my hands and my feet; I look so emaciated that I can count all my bones.“ Continuing from that, the specific prophecy of Psalm 69:21 is messianic and clearly fulfilled in Christ’s statement about His acute thirst on the Cross and the immediate limited remedy: “… and they gave me soured wine to drink.” Sour wine was a cheap liquid refreshment used by the Roman soldiers on duty who had no access to clean water, and so drank this fluid, diluted with water and no actual alcohol in it, and was considered the same as vinegar. In this scene, the soldiers had a jar of the vinegar nearby for their use, heard Jesus croak out his thirst, and offered to Jesus on the Cross a sponge placed on a flowering hyssop branch that was soaked with the vinegar. Jesus sipped from the sponge after they had raised it to His lips. Jesus was thus able to shout, “It is finished!” so everyone within listening distance could easily hear it.
The Blood Medley | Jesus Image (youtube.com)
Jesus, the Red Heifer. Jesus was the perfect sacrifice hinted at in the animal sacrifice. He fulfilled all the requirements of the Old Covenant system… an unblemished, pure, innocent victim offering blood for atonement. Jesus completed the sacrificial system, so only one sacrifice, His, was needed. His blood brought forgiveness of all sins, by all people, for all time. At a superficial glance, it looks like God is out for blood. But God “doesn’t want blood, He wants life.” Only Jesus Christ, the Son of God, can offer his blood for eternal life, “the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world” (John 1:29). In Jewish tradition, the discovery of an unblemished red heifer signals the coming of the Messiah. Truer words were never spoken. Jesus is the Red Heifer. The Messiah has come.
When I Survey the Wondrous Cross – Lor
“Truly, by the watering of our Savior’s blood, made with the hyssop of the Cross, we have been restored to a white incomparably better than that possessed by the snows of innocence.” (Father Francis De Sales, 1567-1622).
So the flowering hyssop has quite the story to tell as a key role in the Passover, the deliverance of the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt, the cleansing of lepers, the purification ritual with the red heifer, the purging of the guilty conscience, and the Cross of Christ that confirmed Him as the long-awaited Messiah.
“May the kindness of God’s grace and peace overflow to you from Him who is, and who was, and who is coming… To Him who loves us and has washed us from our sins by His own blood and made us a kingdom of priests to serve His God and Father – to Him be glory and dominion throughout the eternity of eternities! Amen!” (Revelation 1:5).
I Am Redeemed, Jessy Dixon.. (youtube.com)