Solus Christus | The Blood of Jesus Christ
By our earthly standards, it would not make any sense for the sovereignty of a king or ruler to be strengthen through their sacrifice. Yet, the pinnacle of Jesus’ divine rescue mission of mankind rested fully on the cross. Everything before pointed to the sacrifice of one greater than us all and everything afterward would be radically changed and altered. The Old sacrifices of the temple system could only temporarily serve to purify the people of their sins on the day of atonement, the one day a year when the High Priest would enter the Holy of Holies on behalf of the people. Yet, the next year would come around and the need for additional sacrifices would be needed. If anything, the act of continual acts of purification and sacrifices were an act of faith of the people to display their devotion and trust in God. Yet, Jesus Christ taking on the form of flesh would come to fulfill the requirements of the Old Covenant and institute the New Covenant through his sacrifice on the cross.
Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man. He serves as our prophet, priest, and King. While these are all things that Christ is in His nature, the work of Christ reveals His identity. Thus, we must look at the work of Christ to understand who He is and His purpose in coming. While the miracles, signs, and teachings of Christ are of supreme importance, the work of Jesus Christ on the cross remains the masterpiece of Jesus’ work. It is fair to say Jesus understood His mission long before He arrived as the God made flesh. Furthermore, we know the mental anguish that Christ endured in the events leading up to the cross. Jesus’ self sacrifice on the cross served as the payment for the sins of mankind as our penal substitution displaying the nature of Christ as fully God and fully man. Furthermore, Christ and Christ alone the all sufficient sacrifice as our perfect Prophet, Priest, and King.
Penal Substitution as Fully God and Fully Man
God is a Holy and Righteous God and no one can approach God unless they have been made righteous. Darkness is unable to persist in the presence of light. Sin is unable to persist in the presence of Holiness. When we first introduced sin into the fabric of creation, the foundations of the world cracked under the corrosive nature. Furthermore, each and every one of us has felt the effects of sin and rebellion against God. That sin comes at a price. “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:23, ESV). For God to maintain His nature as being a sovereign and righteous God, sin must be dealt with fully, pouring out His wrath to shed blood. Sin is no mere simple act that people do. At it’s core it represents a rebellion against a perfect and good God that must be put down. In the Old Covenant, God allowed for the sins to be placed on a spotless and blameless animal, with their blood serving in the place of another. Yet, for all the sacrifices offered, from the corruption of creation, could anyone rightfully claim absolute purity? The sacrifice of sin, needing to be continually done, would not be sufficient to fully atone for the people.
Jesus Christ provided the sufficient sacrifice as the penal substitution of our sins because of His nature as fully God and fully man, maintaining both justice and grace. Being fully God, justice must be maintained. God will not be unrighteous nor can imperfection be contained by perfection. Thus, Jesus Christ, being fully God would be the only eligible candidate who could serve as the perfect sacrifice for the sake of people. The blood of bulls and sheep did not sufficiently pay for the sins of man. Furthermore, if man tried, the cost needed would be everything they could offer, ending in their death. Since Jesus Christ is fully God, coming from above to earth, rather than originating on earth, original sin and the effects of sins corruption had no effect on Him. Yet, Jesus is also fully man. He and He alone would be eligible to shed blood on our behalf. God would not be far off but would be in our midst as one of us. Our sins could be applied to Jesus and nailed to the cross. Mankind can surely died and Jesus would die for the love of His people so that we would not need to know death ourselves. His blood shed on the cross as both fully God and fully man acted as the substitution for our sins. Our actions led to the necessity that blood would need to be shed. By the grace of Jesus Christ, that blood would be His own for all who put their hope and trust in Him.
Some would argue that God should simply cease to hold the sins of mankind against them rather than require blood to be shed. Yet, to do so God would need to abrogate and give up part of His divine nature. God is just. Furthermore, sin is more than a bad thing we do but a slight against a Holy God and a deviation from the created order that God set in motion from the beginning. Sin must be fully and sufficiently dealt with in order for God to be Holy. Asking God to simply overlook the unholiness of mankind and the depravity of our sin would be asking God to deny His nature and permit unholiness to taint the perfection of heaven. Furthermore, it implies that God owes us this by the merit of our very existence. We demand that God would do our will when we should be seeking the will of God in our lives.
Sufficiency of Jesus Christ
Jesus Christ is the only man whose death could sufficiently pay the cost of our sins. As our prophet, He brought the people of God into alignment with the will and purpose of God by atoning for their sins. Only instead of bringing the word, He embodied the word and renewed our relationship with God by the shedding of His blood. As our priest, He offered an atoning sacrifice for the sins of the people. Yet, that sacrifice was Himself in all perfection and glory stemming from the great love that God has for His people. As our perfect King, he reigns victorious over our enemies and those who would seek our destruction. But instead of merely resigning to a geographical area, Jesus defeated death and its grasp on our life. No other person could do the things Jesus Christ did with the effectiveness He did it, while still maintaining both justice and grace. The Old Covenant would be fulfilled and the New Covenant where we put our faith in the blood of Jesus Christ shed on the cross, believing that His work counted for me in my place would be instituted on the cross.
The New Covenant is founded on the blood of Jesus Christ as the final penal substitution for the sins of mankind. One of the remarkable differences between the Old and New Covenant comes from how little is required of mankind. “But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.” (Hebrews 9:11-12, ESV) Mankind does not produce their own salvation rather Jesus Christ produces our salvation on our behalf by shedding His blood as the satisfying payment (propitiation) of our sins. Where the Old Covenant relied on mankind’s ability to temporarily satisfy the wrath of God, the New Covenant has our High Priest, fully understanding the plight and pain and mankind, advocating to God the Father on our behalf. We are saved by the grace of God who came to us rather than require that we come to Him. Coming to God becomes the reward for putting our faith in Jesus Christ instead of the toil in attempting to purify ourselves. No other religion claims this type of access to God and self-sacrificial love so that mankind could be made pure rather than needing to purify themselves. Our God, through the work of Jesus Christ on the cross, loves His creation dearly and paves a path to be with Him, starting in heaven and coming down to earth.
