This is Mahalia Jackson, one of my all time favorite gospel singers and a great old song about the blood of Jesus.
It is my passion that our church@brookside is based clearly on the foundation of the Gospel. I realize that may seem like a no brainer...but after 30 years in church planting and experiencing every imaginable kind of church plant (just within the orthodox evangelical community) I am convinced that there is far too little understanding of the Gospel and far too little preaching of the Cross. At this point in my life I am not at all concerned with doing something "big" or"creative" of coming up with the next reproducable model of church growth.
Just google "church growth" and you get a billion books (and those are just ones from my pal Ed
Stetzer...I am grinning Ed). -Not that there's anything wrong with that-
I just want to be certain that what we are planting here in Brookside is an authintic church founded on the truth and power of the cross.
As I was quoted in one of Stetzer's better books (Planting Missional Churches pp.278) thanks, Ed
"Here's the deal: The cross is enough. It is enough to save, to heal, to give hope, to give peace, to give joy, to overcome discouragement. I tell my guys (my church planters) that you don't have to teach your people everything, but they do need to know, to believe and to live as though the cross is enough. Get to the cross in every message. It is not only about salvation, it is about life, struggle, victory and sacrifice; and it is missing in most church planter preaching".
On Sunday, Feb. 21 I brought a message to our people from Hebrews (kind of the deep end of the pool theologically) that focused on the blood and death of Christ. Much of this message I gleaned from John MacArthur and of course directly from of the amazing writings of Spurgeon on this subject.
Here is the message:
Here are the notes:
Hebrews 12:24 - 25
As I was quoted in one of Stetzer's better books (Planting Missional Churches pp.278) thanks, Ed
"Here's the deal: The cross is enough. It is enough to save, to heal, to give hope, to give peace, to give joy, to overcome discouragement. I tell my guys (my church planters) that you don't have to teach your people everything, but they do need to know, to believe and to live as though the cross is enough. Get to the cross in every message. It is not only about salvation, it is about life, struggle, victory and sacrifice; and it is missing in most church planter preaching".
On Sunday, Feb. 21 I brought a message to our people from Hebrews (kind of the deep end of the pool theologically) that focused on the blood and death of Christ. Much of this message I gleaned from John MacArthur and of course directly from of the amazing writings of Spurgeon on this subject.
Here is the message:
Here are the notes:
Hebrews 12:24 - 25
and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.
See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven. ESV
See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven. ESV
What is this "blood of sprinkling?" In a few words, "the blood of sprinkling" represents the pains, the sufferings, the humiliation, and the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, which he endured on the behalf of guilty man. When we speak of the blood, we wish not to be understood as referring solely or mainly to the literal material blood which flowed from the wounds of Jesus. We believe in the literal fact of his shedding his blood; but when we speak of his cross and blood we mean those sufferings and that death of our Lord Jesus Christ by which he magnified the law of God;
We mean what Isaiah intended when he said, "He shall make his soul an offering for sin;" we mean all the grief’s which Jesus vicariously endured on our behalf at Gethsemane, and Golgotha, and specially his yielding up his life upon the tree of scorn and doom. "The chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed." "Without shedding of blood there is no remission;" and the shedding of blood intended is the death of Jesus, the Son of God.
To redeem our souls cost our Lord an exceeding sorrowfulness "even unto death;" it cost him the bloody sweat, the heart broken with reproach, and specially the agony of being forsaken of his Father, till he cried, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Our Mediator endured death under the worst possible aspects, bereft of those supports which are in all other cases of godly men afforded by the goodness and faithfulness of God. His was not merely a natural death, but a death aggravated by supernatural circumstance, which infinitely intensified its woe. This is what we mean by the blood of Christ, his sufferings, and his death.
Our Lord is the representative of all who were in him; and so, when the time came, he took the place, bore the sin, and suffered the penalty of those whom the Father gave him from before the foundations of the world. He is as much the representative man as the first Adam was the representative man; and as in Adam the sin was committed which ruined us, so in the second Adam the atonement was made which saves us. "As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." - C.H. Spurgeon
But the text does not merely speak of the blood shed, but of "the blood of sprinkling." To understand the explanation of this sprinkling we look to the types of the Old Testament. In the Old Testament the blood of sprinkling meant several things;
The sprinkled blood signified the confirmation or ratification of a covenant.
Ex 12:12-13 “For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord. 13 The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.”
The sprinkling of the blood meant purification.
As recorded In Numbers 19, if a person had been defiled, he could not come into the sanctuary of God without being sprinkled with blood. There were the ashes of a red heifer laid up, and these were mixed with blood and water; and by their being sprinkled on the unclean, his ceremonial defilement was removed
The sprinkling also was used for sanctification.
Lev 14:14 “The priest shall then take some of the blood of the guilt offering, and the priest shall put it on the lobe of the right ear of the one to be cleansed, and on the thumb of his right hand and on the big toe of his right foot.”
Before a man entered upon the priesthood the blood was put upon his right ear, and on the great toe of his right foot, and on the thumb of his right hand, signifying that all his powers were thus consecrated to God. The ordination ceremony included the sprinkling of blood upon the altar round about. Even thus hath the Lord Jesus redeemed us unto God by his death, and the sprinkling of his blood hath made us kings and priests unto God for ever.
The sprinkling was used for acceptation and access.
Lev: 16 11 “Aaron shall present the bull as a sin offering for himself, and shall make atonement for himself and for his house. He shall kill the bull as a sin offering for himself. 12 And he shall take a censer full of coals of fire from the altar before the Lord, and two handfuls of sweet incense beaten small, and he shall bring it inside the veil 13 and put the incense on the fire before the Lord, that the cloud of the incense may cover the mercy seat that is over the testimony, so that he does not die. 14 And he shall take some of the blood of the bull and sprinkle it with his finger on the front of the mercy seat on the east side, and in front of the mercy seat he shall sprinkle some of the blood with his finger seven times.
15 “Then he shall kill the goat of the sin offering that is for the people and bring its blood inside the veil and do with its blood as he did with the blood of the bull, sprinkling it over the mercy seat and in front of the mercy seat. 16 Thus he shall make atonement for the Holy Place, because of the uncleanness of the people of Israel and because of their transgressions, all their sins. And so he shall do for the tent of meeting, which dwells with them in the midst of their uncleanness.”
When the high priest went into the most holy place once a year, it was not without blood, which he sprinkled upon the Ark of the Covenant, and upon the mercy-seat, which was on the top thereof. All approaches to God were made by blood. There was no hope of a man drawing near to God, even in symbol, apart from the sprinkling of the blood. And now to-day our only way to God is by the precious sacrifice of Christ; the only hope for the success of our prayers, the acceptance of our praises, or the reception of our holy works, is through the ever-abiding merit of the atoning sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Holy Ghost bids us enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus; there is no other way.
The death and blood of Jesus provides to the regenerate believer confirmation of covenant, purification, sanctification, assurance and access!
Why the blood? It is because of the brutally ugliness of sin -the sacrifice was brutal and bloody because the sin was brutal and horrific.
It is by his death we are free, not his blood in the sense that the fluid holds a power. It is his death, his absorption of God’s wrath that accomplishes the salvation to those who are to be redeemed. The Scripture will speak of the death of Christ and blood as in a sense interchangeable. By his death/blood are salvation is accomplished. He had to die to save us and he had to shed his blood in fulfillment of prophecy to vividly portray the horrific nature of sin and its penalty.
Is 53:4-6
4 Surely he has borne our grief’s and carried our sorrows;yet we esteemed him stricken,smitten by God, and afflicted.5 But he was wounded for our transgressions;he was crushed for our iniquities;upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,and with his stripes we are healed.6 All we like sheep have gone astray;we have turned—every one—to his own way;and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
Salvation comes as we realize the horrific nature of our sin as it offends a Holy, Holy, and Holy God and as we repent of that sin and place our trust in the sufficient sacrifice accomplished on the cross by our resurrected Lord.
This is the theology of Substitutionary Atonement. It is not popular in many places (even churches) today, but it is foundational to a correct doctrine of salvation. It is foundational to all that we teach at the church@brookside.
It is by his death we are free, not his blood in the sense that the fluid holds a power. It is his death, his absorption of God’s wrath that accomplishes the salvation to those who are to be redeemed. The Scripture will speak of the death of Christ and blood as in a sense interchangeable. By his death/blood are salvation is accomplished. He had to die to save us and he had to shed his blood in fulfillment of prophecy to vividly portray the horrific nature of sin and its penalty.
Is 53:4-6
4 Surely he has borne our grief’s and carried our sorrows;yet we esteemed him stricken,smitten by God, and afflicted.5 But he was wounded for our transgressions;he was crushed for our iniquities;upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,and with his stripes we are healed.6 All we like sheep have gone astray;we have turned—every one—to his own way;and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
Salvation comes as we realize the horrific nature of our sin as it offends a Holy, Holy, and Holy God and as we repent of that sin and place our trust in the sufficient sacrifice accomplished on the cross by our resurrected Lord.
This is the theology of Substitutionary Atonement. It is not popular in many places (even churches) today, but it is foundational to a correct doctrine of salvation. It is foundational to all that we teach at the church@brookside.
