It’s all in the blood of Jesus! The redemption of man is all in the precious blood of Jesus. Because He was God, Jesus fully paid the price for all our sins when He shed His precious blood.

Salvation, healing, deliverance, provision, protection (Ps. 91), and victory over the devil (Rev. 12:11) are all in the precious blood of Jesus.

The Baptism in the Holy Spirit is in the Blood of Jesus

Even the baptism in the Holy Spirit is provided through the shed blood of Jesus. This is implied in John 7:39:

…this spake He of the Spirit, which they that believe on Him should receive: for the Holy Ghost [i.e., the baptism in the Holy Spirit] was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified…

Furthermore, Jesus said in John 16:7:

…It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send Him unto you.

We can understand what these statements mean when we realize that Jesus “departed” and returned to “glory” at the Father’s right hand by way of the death of the cross.

On what ground could the Holy Spirit take up His residence in a fallen and sinful man, unless that man had first been legally cleansed by the blood of Jesus? Sinful man is under the curse of God, and part of that curse involves alienation from the Spirit of God. But because Jesus paid the penalty for our sins when He died on the cross, we have therefore been restored to fellowship with God, and His Spirit can come and take up residence in our bodies. This is stated by Paul in Galatians:

Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law…that we might receive the promise of the Spirit² through faith. (Gal. 3:13-14)

This was foreshadowed in the Old Testament types. The oil (symbolical of the Holy Spirit, 1 John 2:20, 27) was always placed upon the blood:

And the priest shall take some of the blood of the trespass offering, and the priest shall put it upon the tip of the right ear of him that is to be cleansed, and upon the thumb of his right hand, and upon the great toe of his right foot: And the priest shall take some of the log of oil, and…put [it] upon the tip of the right ear of him that is to be cleansed, and upon the thumb of his right hand, and upon the great toe of his right foot, upon the blood of the trespass offering: (Lev. 14:14-17)

The blood of Jesus has to be applied before His Spirit can be received. We could not receive the blessing from God of the baptism in the Holy Spirit until the curse of God upon our sin had been poured out and His justice fully satisfied. It was the death of Jesus which appeased the anger of God, and opened up the treasures of grace and blessing which because of our sins had otherwise been shut up from us.

The Rock (Christ) had to be smitten before the Water (the Holy Spirit) could be poured forth unto God’s people. Thus Paul declares that God has poured out the Holy Spirit “on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour” (Tit. 3:5-6).

Household Salvation is in the Blood of Jesus

Household salvation is also in the blood of Jesus, if we believe it and appropriate it. In Acts 16, the Philippian jailer asked Paul and Silas the question:

…Sirs, what must I do to be saved? (Acts 16:30)

Their reply was:

…Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house. (Acts 16:31)

This was a wonderful promise of household salvation.

In the great Passover deliverance of the people of Israel from Egypt, God’s people were instructed to take

…a lamb for an house: (Ex. 12:3)

As the blood was applied to the door of the house by faith, it protected the whole household. Even so, the blood of Jesus when applied by faith can also effect household deliverance and salvation for us.

This is also seen in the case of Rahab who, in return for hiding Joshua’s men who had come to spy on Jericho, was given a similar promise of protection by them:

And it shall be, that whosoever shall go out of the doors of thy house into the street, his blood shall be upon his head, and we will be guiltless: and whosoever shall be with thee in the house, his blood shall be on our head, if any hand be upon him. (Josh. 2:19)

These examples illustrate a principal of household judgment or blessing which is found all through Scripture. Just as the Bible contains many promises of judgment on the families and offspring of the wicked,

But as for you, your carcases, they shall fall in this wilderness. And your children shall wander in the wilderness forty years, and bear your whoredoms… (Num. 14:32-33)

…the seed of the wicked shall be cut off. (Ps. 37:28)

even so, all through Scripture there are many promises of deliverance and blessing made to the children and families of the righteous:

And I, behold, I establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you; (Gen. 9:9)

I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread. He is ever merciful, and lendeth; and his seed is blessed. (Ps. 37:25-26)

The children of thy servants shall continue, and their seed shall be established before thee. (Ps. 102:28)

But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear Him, and His righteousness [i.e., His faithfulness to keep His promise of blessing] unto children’s children; To such as keep His covenant, and to those that remember His commandments to do them. (Ps. 103:17-18)

…I will pour my Spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring: (Is. 44:3)

The Love of the Father is Revealed in the Blood of Jesus

The cross of Christ was the provision of God’s great love and pity:

He hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is His mercy toward them that fear Him. As far as the east is from the west, so far hath He removed our transgressions from us. Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him. (Ps. 103:10-13)

The cross of Christ was the expression of the love of both the Father and the Son. If not for His love and mercy, God could justly have eternally damned all humanity the moment Adam sinned. But God is not only dealing with men on the basis of pure justice but also on the basis of love, of His infinite love.

What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? (Rom. 8:31-32)

The shed blood of Jesus is the greatest conceivable demonstration of the love of God to His people. The supreme character of the demonstration lies in the fact of the extreme costliness of the sacrifice God gave. It is this costliness that Paul has in mind in Romans 8:32. The costliness of His sacrifice assures us of the greatness of God’s love toward us and guarantees the bestowal of all other free gifts to us. What could be refused after this Gift of gifts?

When you see how precious the blood of Jesus is, you will have a revelation of the loving provision of your heavenly Father. Anything whatsoever that God gives you now, whether it be healing, material provision, deliverance, peace of mind, or even all things, is far, far less in value than what He has already given you because He loves you – the precious life of His Son. Jesus is, indeed, the “unspeakable Gift” of God to men. He Himself is the measure of the love of God that is for you and upon you forever.

In God’s infinite love He gave us Himself. If you really loved someone you might give them some of your money, some of your possessions, or some of your time; but in God’s great love He gave us Himself:

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. (John 15:13)

And that is the God who is the Sovereign Lord of the universe, who “doeth according to His will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth” (Dan. 4:35)! That is the God who has to humble Himself to look at the things that are in heaven and in the earth (Ps. 113:4-6)!

The Son of God who has to humble Himself immeasurably to even look for a moment upon sinful men, went much further and left the glory of the throne of heaven for a season, and took upon Himself flesh and dwelt among men – and then died for us – on a cross!

The love of God is revealed in the awfulness of the suffering Jesus endured. Let us look for a moment at His suffering but as we do so let us remove our shoes from our feet for the ground on which we walk is holy. We shall consider Jesus’ scourging and crucifixion, and as we do this, look to His love. Look to His great love which was expressed in the enduring of such awful sufferings for you.

The Scourging

I shall quote extensively from Geikie’s Life of Christ:

Victims condemned to the cross first underwent the hideous torture of the scourge, and this was, immediately, inflicted on Jesus.…

Roman citizens were still exempted, by various laws, from this agonizing and painful punishment, which was employed sometimes to elicit confessions, sometimes as a substitute for execution, and, at others, as the first step in capital sentences.…Jesus was now seized by some of the soldiers standing near, and after being stripped to the waist, was bound in a stooping posture, His hands behind His back, to a post, or block, near the tribunal. He was then beaten at the pleasure of the soldiers, with knots of rope, or plaited leather thongs, armed at the ends with acorn-shaped drops of lead, or small, sharp-pointed bones.¹⁶ In many cases not only was the back of the person scourged cut open in all directions; even the eyes, the face, and the breast, were torn, and the teeth not seldom knocked out.…

Under the fury of the countless stripes, the victims sometimes sank – amidst screams, convulsive leaps, and distortions – into a senseless heap; sometimes died on the spot; sometimes were taken away an unrecognizable mass of bleeding flesh, to find deliverance in death, from the inflammation and fever, sickness and shame.

The scourging of Jesus was of the severest [nature]; for the soldiers...only too gladly vented on any Jew the grudge they bore the nation, and they would, doubtless, try if they could not force out the confession which His silence had denied to the governor. Besides, He was to be crucified, and the harder the scourging the less life would there be left, to detain them afterwards on guard at the cross. What He must have endured is pictured to us by Eusebius in the epistle of the Church in Smyrna. “All around were horrified to see them [the martyrs],” says he, “so torn with scourges that their very veins were laid bare, and the inner muscles and sinews, and even the very bowels, exposed.”

In Looking Unto Jesus, Isaac Ambrose wrote:

The soldiers, with violence and unrelenting hands, executed their commissions; they tore His tender flesh,¹⁷ till the pillar and pavement were purpled with a shower of blood; and…‘They plowed with their whips upon His back, and made long furrows; and after that, they turned His back upon the pillar, and whipped His belly and His breast, till there were no part free from His face unto His foot.’ A scourging able to kill any man, and would have killed Him, but that He was preserved by the Godhead to endure and to suffer a more shameful death.…

After His sore whipping His blood congealed, and by that means stuck to His scarlet mantle, so that [later] in pulling off the robe, and putting on His own raiment, there could not but be a renewing of His wounds.

In addition to the scourging, the physical and mental abuse meted out by the Jews and the Romans, as well as the lack of food, water, and sleep, also contributed to Jesus’ weakened state. Moreover, during a traumatic and sleepless night, He had been forced to walk more than 2½ miles to and from the sites of the various trials. Therefore, even before the actual crucifixion, Jesus’ physical condition was very serious.

The Crucifixion

Death by the cross was the most terrible and the most dreaded and shameful punishment of antiquity. Although the Romans did not invent crucifixion,¹⁸ they perfected it as a form of torture and capital punishment that was designed to produce a slow, cruel death with maximum pain and suffering. As a method of execution it was usually reserved only for slaves, foreigners, revolutionaries and the vilest of criminals.

The cross used at Calvary consisted of a strong post, which was carried beforehand to the place of execution, and of two cross pieces, borne to the spot by the victim, and afterwards nailed to the uprights so that they slanted forward, and let the sufferer lean on his stretched-out hands, and thus relieve the pressure of his body downwards. A stout rough wooden pin, in the middle of the upright post, supplied a seat of fitting agony, for the weight of the body would otherwise have torn it from the cross.…

Jesus and His fellow-sufferers...were now stripped,¹⁹ as they had been before they were scourged – a linen cloth at most being left round their loins. The centre cross was set apart for our Lord, and He was either laid on it as it lay on the ground, or lifted and tied to it as it stood upright, His arms stretched along the two cross beams, and His body resting on the projecting pin of rough wood, misnamed a seat. The most dreadful part then followed; for, though even the Egyptians only tied the victims to the cross, the Romans and Carthaginians added to the torture, by driving a huge nail through the palm of each hand, into the wood.²⁰ The legs were next bent up till the soles of the feet lay flat on the upright beam, and then they, too, were fastened, either, separately, by two great iron nails, or over each other, by one.

A single touch of humanity was permitted during these preparations²¹ – the offer of a draught of the common sour wine drunk by the soldiers, mingled with some stupefying bitter drug, usually myrrh.…But Jesus would take nothing to cloud His faculties, even though it might mitigate His pain. The cross was now lifted up and planted in the ground, with a rough shock of undescribable agony.…

Meanwhile the fierce heat of a Syrian noon beat down on the cross. The suffering in crucifixion, from which death at last resulted, rose partly from the constrained and fixed position of the body and of the outstretched arms, which caused acute pain from every twitch or motion of the back, lacerated by the knout,²² and of the hands and feet, pierced by the nails. These latter were, moreover, driven through parts where many sensitive nerves and sinews come together, and some of these were mutilated, others violently crushed down.²³ Inflammation of the wounds in both hands and feet speedily set in, and erelong rose also in other places, where the circulation was checked by the tension of the parts. Intolerable thirst and ever-increasing pain resulted. The blood, which could no longer reach the extremities, rose to the head, swelled the veins and arteries in it unnaturally, and caused the most agonizing tortures in the brain. As, besides, it could no longer move freely from the lungs, the heart grew more and more oppressed, and all the veins were distended. Had the wounds bled freely, it would have been a great relief; but there was very little bleeding. The weight of the body itself, resting on the wooden pin of the upright beam; the burning heat of the sun scorching the veins, and the hot wind drying up the moisture of the body, made each moment more terrible than the preceding. The numbness and stiffness of the more distant muscles brought on painful convulsions, and this, slowly extending, sometimes through two or three days, at last reached the vital parts, and released the sufferer by death.…²⁴

There were taunts and bitter gibes from the mob and the soldiers, and triumphant sneers at His having met the fate He deserved; even the chief priests, and Rabbis and elders, indeed, among their own knots and groups, degraded themselves to the level of the rabble in their unmanly taunts.…²⁵

It was not uncommon for insects to light upon or burrow into the open wounds or the eyes, ears and nose of the dying and helpless victim, and birds of prey would tear at the body too.

The major effect of crucifixion, beyond the excruciating pain, was an extreme interference with the normal breathing of the victim. The weight of the body, pulling down on the out-stretched arms and shoulders, would hinder breathing. For the victim to breath properly required lifting the body by pushing up on the feet and by flexing the elbows and shoulders. However, this would place the entire weight of the body on the ankles and would produce searing pain. Furthermore, flexing the elbows would twist the wrists about the iron nails and cause fiery pain along the damaged nerves. Lifting of the body would also painfully scrape the scourged back against the rough wooden cross. Muscle cramps in the outstretched and uplifted arms would add to the discomfort. Consequently, each breath would become more and more agonizing and exhausting. Jesus’ death by crucifixion was excruciating.²⁶

A Revelation of Love

Why did Jesus submit Himself to such suffering, and to such an awful death? Because He loved us! Because He loved you!

That is the love of God for us, and that is the degree of love that assures us of our salvation, our inheritance and our eternal security. There is probably no greater song of praise for the love of God than that found in Romans 8:

What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? (Rom. 8:31)

What a wonderful revelation of the heart of God! God is for us. And if God is for us, who then can be against us?

He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? (Rom. 8:32)

If God, in His love for us, did not spare even His own precious Son for our sake, what then could hinder Him from freely giving us all things – all things!

Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. (Rom. 8:33-34)

In these two verses, the phrase “it is” is not in the original Greek text. The true sense of the text is, “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? God that justifieth?” In other words: would God do it? God who justifieth? God sent His Son to the cross to die a terrible bloody death in order that He might justify us! Is He then going to turn around and lay things to our charge?

That doesn’t mean He won’t chasten us as our loving heavenly Father, but this has reference to judicial judgment. There is no judicial condemnation to the elect – absolutely none.

The next phrase should also be read as a question: “Christ that died?” In other words: Christ died for you – to take condemnation away from you. That’s why He died. He died to remove the condemnation. Is He then going to turn around and put it back on you? God that justifieth? Christ who died? Who is he that condemns? Who is he that is keeping you down? Who is he that’s holding you back? Who is it? It’s not God! He’s for you!

God is for you. And look at the extent of His positive attitude toward you. Look at just how much “for you” He is. Here is the measure in verse 32:

He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? (Rom. 8:32)

There are some things we would like to happen. And we would be prepared to pay a small cost that those things would happen. But if the cost got too great we might decide that we don’t want the thing to happen that badly.

There is a measure of cost we are prepared to pay depending on the measure of our desire for the thing to happen. The greater our desire for something, the greater the price we are willing to pay to achieve it.

Now, God’s desire was that we not be condemned, that we be justified, that we be saved, that we be restored to a place of fellowship with Him. That was His desire. And just how much did He desire that? What was the measure of His desire for fellowship with us? Here it is in verse 32: “He that spared not the most precious thing in the universe...”

Because of His love for you, God gave the most precious thing that could ever possibly exist in this material realm – the physical life, the shed blood, of His holy precious Son. There is nothing greater God could have given. There is nothing more God could have done. That is the measure of God’s love for you! It is more than just the proof of His love – it’s the expression of the measure of His love. That is how much He is for you. That’s the extent of it.

What greater thing could God do, than what He’s already done? What greater expression of His love could there possibly be than to give the life of His Son? What greater expression of His desire for fellowship with His people could there possibly be than what God did at the cross?

Let me put it another way. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6:20, “Ye are bought with a price.” God has bought us. Paul says in Ephesians 1:18 that we are “His inheritance.” We belong to God. He actually paid a price and purchased us. And the price God paid to purchase us was the most precious thing in the entire universe – the physical life of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, why would God pay such a price for something He doesn’t desire? Why would God go to such lengths and pay such a price, for something He doesn’t care that much about – for something He doesn’t desire very much?

God is for us. The depth of Jesus’ agony on the cross is the measure of the love of God for us – the eternal love that assures us of our salvation, our inheritance and our eternal security. Paul goes on:

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom. 8:35-39)

If you could measure the preciousness of the blood of Jesus, you could measure the love that provided that blood. Eternity will not fathom the depths of that love, nor exhaust its praise.

Top