The Blood I Sing About: The Ruin from My Sin and the Rescue from My Saviour

“There is a fountain filled with blood / Drawn from Immanuel’s veins; / And sinners plunged beneath that flood / Lose all their guilty stains.” (William Cowper)

“This is all my hope and peace: / Nothing but the blood of Jesus. / This is all my righteousness: / Nothing but the blood of Jesus.” (Robert Lowry)

“My hope is built on nothing less/ Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.” (Edward Mote)

“Oh, to see the pain written on Your face
Bearing the awesome weight of sin;
Every bitter thought, every evil deed
Crowning Your blood-stained brow.
This the power of the cross:
Christ became sin for us. Took the blame, bore the wrath;
We stand forgiven at the cross.”
(Keith Getty and Stuart Townend)

As our pastor pointed out Sunday, many solid hymns have as their theme a core piece of Christianity that is also alarming: blood. Certainly we are not singing about blood in general, glorying in mere physicality or the macabre. For those who may wonder why we would sing about blood, it is a valid question with a critical answer. For those who may have become numb to the necessary but truly wonderful truth, do what Christ admonished us to do regularly—remember.

Because God is holy, he cannot tolerate sin; when he created humanity, he promised that sin would result in death (Gen 2:16–17; Ez 18:4; Rom 3:23). Hand in glove with humanity’s first sin was God’s promise that one day he would send a deliverer to crush Satan and the power of sin (Gen 3:15). The Old Testament account follows mankind multiplying and evil spreading—even of those closest to God—as well as the resulting separation from God. God established a way for his people to respond to their sin. He specified precisely what type of animal death was necessary for what sort of sin. No sin was without consequence, even if it was unintentional; all sin required a death and the shedding of blood (Lev 5). Additionally, God required the High Priest to enter into the holy of holies once a year to make a sacrifice first for himself and then for the sins of the people (Lev 16; Heb 9:6–7). This was the only way for God’s people to be right with him, and the sacrifices continued as unendingly as man’s sin. After thousands of years of sacrifices, Jesus ended the sacrificial system by his own death with his own blood, becoming both perfect sacrifice and perfect high priest. His sacrifice was once for all, and he entered into heaven itself to sit at the right hand of God and advocate and intercede for believers (Heb 10:10–12).

Consider the mess, the expense, the shame, and the trouble of those thousands of years of sacrifices. The sacrificial system highlights the devastating ruin of sin. To overlook the requirements for sin is to miss the blazing holiness of God and to continue to live apart from him (Ex 20:20). When even unintentional sins required the death of an animal, there is no place for minimizing sin. God demands holiness in every situation and at the utmost testing. Humanity cannot fulfill that; Jesus did. Our only confidence is to trust in Jesus to represent us before the Father and rest in his forgiveness. Remembering His death in our place must motivate our gratefulness and intention to live in a way to please him. However, Jesus did not stay dead; He rose again, crushing sin and death (1 Corinthians 15:54–57). For believers, the Holy Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in us, giving us new and living hearts, spiritual vitality where we had been dead (Romans 8:11). To doubt the Spirit’s ability to transform us is to devalue the radical power that brought Christ back to life, conquering sin and death forever.

Ye who think of sin but lightly,
Nor suppose the evil great,
Here may view its nature rightly,
Here its guilt may estimate.
Mark the Sacrifice appointed!
See who bears the awful load!
‘Tis the Word, the Lord’s Anointed,
Son of Man, and Son of God.
(Thomas Kelly)

While some minimize the degree of their sin, others minimize the effectiveness of Christ’s sacrifice. Sin is devastating, and the consequences of our sin, both to ourselves and others, can be horrifying and ongoing. Forgiveness, however, is not a feeling; folly alone presumes to demand more than God. To look at the perfect sacrifice of Jesus–who lived a perfect life, fulfilled all the promises of God, died in our place, rose again, and sits at the right hand of the Father, demonstrating that the work of redemption is forever finished–and imply that more must be done is evil unbelief, not humility.

The proper understanding of sin is to know simultaneously the devastating ravages of my personal sin and the forever perfection of Christ’s atoning work. This alone drives the believer to humble gratitude for Christ’s sacrifice and the lifelong effort to live for him, as we are “bought with a price and must glorify God in our body and our spirit, which are God’s” (1 Cor 6:19–20).

Here we have a firm foundation;
Here’s the refuge of the lost:
Christ, the Rock of our salvation:
His the name of which we boast.
Lamb of God, for sinners wounded!
Sacrifice to cancel guilt!
None shall ever be confounded
Who on Him their hope have built.
(Thomas Kelly)