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The Blood of Jesus
The blood that Jesus shed for the sins of mankind is such an awesome expression of God’s love for us, as mentioned by Jesus in John 3:16. We know that our righteousness was not good enough through the works of either the law or of ourselves to save us from the penalty of sin. And of course God, knowing that this was so, sent His Son to die for us and to cleanse us of our sins.
1 Peter 1:2 “Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied.” We are the elect of God “through sanctification”. His blood sanctified us, making us the elect of God. His Church and His way of salvation was foreordained, not the individual. The individual still has to make the choice to become one of His elect and to come under the blood of Jesus and into obedience to Christ. God made a way for all men to be saved through the blood of Jesus, and not just a few who were predestined to be God’s elect. Although the blood of Jesus is so powerful, we need to be careful not to make it something that it is not. The Calvinists, in their doctrine of Eternal Security and election, teach that because He only died once, we only need to repent once to be saved eternally. They assume that to believe otherwise would lessen the power of His blood to the blood of animals, in which these sacrifices had to be made more than once. After all, Jesus was the “one –time” sacrifice for the sins of man.Hebrews 10:10“By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” It is certainly true that Jesus only needed to die once for all sin forever. But there has always been a condition to receiving this sprinkling of blood and forgiveness in our lives. As covered already, that condition is that we confess our sins. We still have to bring ourselves before God whenever we sin, with the sacrifice that will be accepted by God. Of course, the only acceptable sacrifice is Jesus and his shed blood. The only way of forgiveness was through the blood. Hebrews >9:22 “…and without shedding of blood is no remission”. When we sin we must be washed in the blood through repentance. John said in 1 John 1:6-10 “If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.”
Here is a statement given to Christians, that if we who are already saved by the blood of Christ will confess our sins, we will be washed in the blood and be forgiven. All we have to do is truly repent and we will be forgiven. That is awesome saving grace! The Calvinists want to take it a step further and say that if we sin, we are still under the blood of Jesus and therefore cannot lose our salvation. If we are going to do this with the scriptures then why not take it even a step further and say that all men throughout the world are automatically saved. After all the Bible does say in 1 John 2:2 “And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.” Of course he died for all mankind, but they are not automatically saved without repentance. And how can we expect any different, when God clearly says that we must confess and repent of sin, in order to receive forgiveness. The Bible says that God is no respecter of persons. He will treat all with the same judgment. The only hope for man to escape judgment for sin is to be complete washed clean of any presence of sin through the blood of Christ. If a Christian returns to sin, they will be judged just the same as any sinner who partakes of sin. The wages of sin is still death! Whenever we pray, we have the opportunity to repent. God is not looking for total perfection, but pure and willing hearts that will strive for perfection, while being sinless. His grace will always lead us to the altar of repentance and forgiveness so that we will not be in bondage to sin and death. His promises are to keep us in His righteousness, love and grace forever, if we continue in Him. He gave the Holy Spirit as a helper for us to live a life we couldn’t do through our own old nature. Through Him, we are no longer Totally Depraved, but have the God given ability to overcome sin, if we so choose. But we must choose to change and repent whenever the Spirit deals with an area of our lives that is not right. He died once for all, so we can repent whenever we sin, coming boldly unto the throne of grace. Hebrews 4:16“Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.” Hebrews 9:13-14“For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” This is given not only in a past tense, but also in a present and future tense. Because He is eternal, He will always be there to forgive us and cleanse us of sin. But again, it is not automatic. Those who call themselves Christians, but live in sin, make a mockery of God’s grace and of the blood of Jesus. Although Calvinists accuse Arminians of lessoning the power of the blood of Jesus by believing a Christian can lose their salvation, it is actually they who are guilty of the very same thing they accuse Arminians of. It is they who lower the sacrifice of Jesus to that of animal sacrifices in the Old Testament. They do so by saying that our sins are not taken away, but only covered by the blood of Jesus. Calvinism teaches that we cannot overcome sin in this life. If this is true, then the blood of Jesus is not as powerful as we have believed! But the Bible clearly says that Jesus is “the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world” John 1:29. >If our sins are taken away then we will certainly live a life that is separate from sin, because our sins have been washed away by His blood. The blood of Jesus is powerful! It will cleanse, purify, and do marvelous things for a person. But it will not masquerade a person to be something that they are not, by covering sin in order to make them appear righteous. This is far from Biblical teaching and is dangerous heresy. If we are washed in the blood, then the natural result of being washed is to come out clean: free from sin.
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Calvinism