After watching Jackson run his track events this weekend, he and I headed over to Atlanta to see Bon Iver in concert and we also decided to hit up Six Flags. We’re exhausted, but we had a great time! Love hanging out with my amusement park partner and fellow music aficionado!
Major League Baseball kicks off the 2022 season tomorrow. After the offseason lockout by the owners threatened to truncate this season — even if the prospect of a cancelled season always felt like a hollow threat — I suppose the MLB owners and the player’s union are expecting longtime fans like me to simply be thankful that our beloved game has returned, albeit a week later than scheduled. Sure, I’m glad there’s going to be MLB baseball this spring. In 2020, I learned how much I appreciate baseball as a seven-month entertainment option. Those mind-numbing days of lockdown were made even more interminably boring without my favorite sport as a distraction.
But, I’m sorry: the lockout has seriously cooled my jets for the major league version of our game. Thanks to COVID, inflation, Russia invading Ukraine and the local-level crises my friends and church members are facing, I’m having a harder time overlooking the optical problem of billionaire owners locking out their millionaire employees. I know the situation is a bit more complex than this generalization — and, to be fair, I sided with the players from the beginning of this spat — but still. For the past ten days, it seems as if everyone has been offering up their opinion on Will Smith and Chris Rock and “the slap heard ’round the world.” And with the world on fire, I just can’t muster up the energy to care about some contrived Hollywood “controversy.” And that’s pretty much how I feel about baseball right now, too.
Some of the game’s other issues are well documented. MLB has tried to do a better job of marketing some of the more exciting younger players in the game, but the league still has a long way to go on this front. Game length is another huge problem. Most postseason games end so late that the youngest generations never have the opportunity to watch the most meaningful games of the year. And then there’s the aesthetic of the big league game: home runs, walks, and strikeouts. It seems that the game is more and more a game of “three true outcomes.”
Of course, the game continues to thrive at the amateur level. Go watch your local high school or college team play and you’re liable to see baseball played as it once was: stolen bases, hit and run plays, sacrifice bunts. My son’s high school coach preaches the philosophy of “Get ’em over; get ’em in” baseball. Pitchers (like my son) are taught to hit their spots and pitch to contact. Sure, there are still plenty of strikeouts, but the game moves at an enjoyable pace because there’s consistent action on the basepaths and in the field. Batters put the ball in play. Fielders are engaged because they expect the ball to be hit. From a viewing perspective, it’s a much more enjoyable game. And, I might add, at a fraction of the cost of an MLB ticket.
But perhaps the most notable problem with the MLB game today has nothing to do with what takes place between the lines. Instead, it’s an ownership problem. Half the teams in the league aren’t even trying to win right now. Hope springs eternal? Not for fans in Cincinnati or Baltimore.
According to spotrac, four teams will boast 2022 payrolls under $40 million (Baltimore, Oakland, Pittsburgh, Cleveland). For some perspective, those teams are spending less on their Opening Day 26-man roster than the Mets will pay Max Scherzer, whose $43 million salary is the highest in the league. I’m not saying these teams should have been bidding on Scherzer’s services this offseason. But it’s clear that these teams aren’t even attempting to field competitive teams this season. Instead, their ownership groups are content to let the team operate as an investment, knowing that revenue sharing and ticket sales and concessions will still allow these terrible teams to turn a profit.
I’m as much of a capitalism as much as any American, but this is a huge problem for a game predicated on competition. The disparity between those trying to win and those who aren’t has never been greater. The Dodgers will operate with a payroll that is double the league average while the A’s and O’s are operating at $100 million BELOW league average. If the new playoff format had been used for the 2021 season, the Reds would have been a playoff team. Yet, their M.O. this offseason was to shed payroll as quickly as possible.
There will be some fun teams to watch this year. The Dodgers juggernaut should continue to roll. The Blue Jays look to be the most formidable team in the American League. The Braves lineup is as deep as ever and that bullpen is sick. The White Sox are built to win now, if they can withstand the loss of Lance Lynn for a month. I don’t know if the Angels will contend, but it will be fun to see if Shohei Ohtani can replicate what he did last season. I’m not a believer in the Mets or the Phillies, but at least they’re trying. Same for San Diego and Houston. But overall, it’s bad for the game when so many teams are clearly not even trying to be competitive.
For half the league, the only thing that springs eternal seems to be ownership greed.
I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
Paul, Galatians 2:20
Paul speaks of being crucified with Christ. This happens when we identify with the death of Jesus in baptism. We learn this from Romans 6:3, Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? But there’s more than that. In baptism, not only do we identify with the death of Jesus; we also identify with His resurrected life. Life in the flesh is now lived by faith — trusting in Jesus, the Son of God who loved you and gave Himself for you. Life on the other side of baptism is the life of a new creation. It is a cross-shaped life — lived sacrificially to the point that it’s no longer you or me but Jesus who is living in us.
Does Jesus live in you?
All of this is Paul’s way of expanding on what Jesus originally said: Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Me.
A couple of years ago I was invited to speak at a church in another town. They put us up in a hotel on Saturday night and the lady behind the counter who was checking us in asked, “Are you here on business?” I said, “Well, I guess you could say that. I’m a preacher and I’m going to be preaching at so-and-so church tomorrow. You ought to come and join us.” And she said, “Well, I might do that. What are you going to be talking about?” Well, they had assigned me some verses out of 1 Corinthians where Paul talks about the power of the cross, so I said, “I’ll be talking about the cross.” And she laughed and said, “Well, that ought to be easy!”
And she’s right. It is so easy to talk about the cross — especially on a Sunday morning in church with good people. Talking about the cross is pretty easy because there are plenty of verses to read and study. We’ve spent several months working through some of those verses here on my blog. But it’s so much more difficult to do what Jesus tells us to do — to live out the cross. To deny ourselves and to follow Him.
But that’s the ultimate aim of all this “cross talk.” We’re not simply talking about the cross as some kind of abstract “atonement theory.” All of this talk about the cross is supposed to change the way we live. Jesus says the cross is to be a daily part of your life. Take up your cross daily. That makes the cross the most practical thing in the world.
What does this look like in the flesh? There are so many examples:
It looks like driving a friend to their chemo treatment.
It looks like doing the hard work of apologizing to someone when you know you’re in the wrong.
It looks like bringing your tools over to your neighbor’s house to help him with a project.
It looks like embracing a member of the homeless community at 2820 or a soup kitchen.
It looks like bearing the fruit of the Spirit while driving — driving with a spirit of patience, kindness, and self-control.
It looks like parenting — basically everything a good parent does for a child from providing for them to feeding them and changing their diapers when they’re little to disciplining and mentoring them as they grow older. Parenting a child is one of the most selfless, sacrificial things anyone can ever do.
It looks like the caregiver who is by the bedside all hours of the night, sleeping in a chair just in case their loved one needs something.
It looks like friendship — being there when your friend receives the worst news of her life.
It looks like taking your whole family on a mission trip or to serve across town.
It looks like a simple text message checking in on your friend who is dealing with depression and anxiety.
It looks like a group of Christians who give financially and come together to assemble buckets to help people of Ukraine.
It looks like inviting a friend to come to church or join you for Bible study.
You could probably think of dozens of other ways to take up your cross daily — because many of you are doing this already. And that’s the point. The cross is the most practical thing in the world because Jesus calls us to live cross-shaped lives.
And the greatest example of this is Jesus, the One we remember and call our Lord and Savior.
The cross is not only the way to salvation. It is also a way of life.
And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.”
Jesus, Luke 9:23-24
Following Jesus begins with denying yourself.
This strikes us as immediately counter-cultural because we live in a world that seems to always be inviting us to indulge ourselves. From Nike’s “Just Do It” to Burger King’s “Have It Your Way,” we hear messages of self-indulgence all the time. And these messages are successful because by nature, we are selfish creatures. We want what we want when we want it and how we want it. We don’t need much encouragement when it comes to self-indulgence.
But Jesus teaches that self-indulgence is dangerous. In fact, Jesus knows that selfishness is the greatest deterrent to the will of God. You can draw a straight line from that selfishness to sin. And that would be the straightest line in the world.
Just think about it. How many of the sins in your life are the direct result of selfishness? Can you think back to a time when something in your life was ruined by your selfishness? Maybe it was a relationship; maybe it was your reputation. Or how many times have you been burned by the selfishness of someone else?
One of my oldest and best friends is a guy I’ve known since elementary school. He’s going through a divorce right now. He and his wife have been married for a long time and they have several children. She came home one day a few months ago and said, “You know, I am tired of being a wife and a mother. It’s time for me to start living for myself.” Their divorce isn’t even finalized yet and she already has a boyfriend and she has all these plans for a life with him. She says, “I just want to be happy. And he makes me happy.” And she honestly can’t figure out why her children won’t talk to her anymore.
Selfishness will undermine the will of God every time. From the Garden of Eden right up to the present moment, selfishness is opposed to the will of God. I’m guessing that’s why Satan is able to use it so effectively in our lives. He knows that if he can get us to think and act selfishly, he wins.
But the way of Jesus is so beautiful because He advocates a different way of life, a selfless way of life. He says if you want to find life — real, eternal, everlasting life; the kind of life that only Jesus can provide — then it begins with denying yourself. Not with indulging yourself but denying yourself. So we’re dealing with two different worldviews: the worldview of self-indulgence pushed by Satan and the worldview of self-denial promoted and practiced by Jesus.
And that’s where the cross comes in. There’s nothing selfish about the cross. Can you imagine Jesus saying something like, “You know, I’m tired of being a Savior. It’s time for me to start living for myself.” No! Instead, Jesus says: Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me.
In that same teaching, Jesus goes on to say, What good is it if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul in the process? What have you really gained? Maybe some fleeting pleasure along the way, sure; but at what cost? That’s what the devil won’t tell you. He’ll cover up the price tag, try to hide it from you. But self-indulgence always comes at a cost.
Your soul is the only eternal thing you possess. It is the only thing of eternal value that you currently possess. Why would you trade it for something earthly and temporary and sinful? That’s a really bad trade, worse than Esau giving up his birthright for a bowl of soup. But that’s what happens when we subscribe to the worldview of self-indulgence.
This is why Jesus emphasizes the importance of self-denial. He says the way to save your life is to lose it. Again, that’s what the cross is all about: dying to self so that Jesus can live in you.
In Romans 4, Paul talks about how Abraham’s faith was credited to him as righteousness. This is a fascinating word and the concept it describes is a key feature of God’s Good News.
The Greek word translated as “credited” is logizomai, which was a common economic term in the Greek world. It was typically used to convey the meaning of “calculate” or “count” or, in some cases, “to impute.” Basically, it means to put something in someone’s account. Just as Sunny’s grandparents credited our account to cover our debt, so did God credit Abraham with righteousness through his trusting faith.
And Paul isn’t simply concerned with proving Abraham’s imputed righteousness. No, Paul’s greater concern is that we understand God’s interaction with Abraham as a template for His own gracious action toward us. We no longer come up short because of our sin. Instead, we have God crediting our account with His own righteousness in place of our unrighteousness.
And this is definitely Good News.
But there’s something else I find interesting about this word. Logizomai comes from the root word logos, which means “word.” You might be familiar with this term from the prologue to John’s Gospel as the writer applies the term to Jesus. But when Paul uses the verb form, he expresses something along the lines of “Abraham’s faith was worded to him as righteousness.” Paul literally says that God “words” Abraham into righteousness. Perhaps a smoother translation in English would be to say that God “speaks” Abraham into righteousness.
And again, Paul’s point isn’t to simply demonstrate an arbitrary point about Abraham. No, Paul sees this as a key piece of what God is doing on behalf of all who trust in Him. God similarly “words” us into righteousness, speaking righteousness in place of our unrighteousness. Just as in the beginning when God created simply by saying, “Let there be,” so now God speaks a new creation into existence by “wording” us as righteous.
Abraham was not righteous based on his works. In fact, though he is called the father of faith, he also had his moments of unrighteousness just like anybody else. He lies about Sarah, telling people that she was his sister rather than his wife — and he does this on more than one occasion in the book of Genesis! He also tries to take matters into his own hands by taking Hagar as his wife, as if God needs help in fulfilling His covenant promises. These examples show that sin cuts through each of us, even someone as faithful as Abraham.
But God makes a new declaration. He says, Let there be a new Abraham, a righteous Abraham in place of the unrighteous one. He “words” Abraham anew.
And the glorious Good News — the best news of all — is that God continues to do the same thing today. When we turn to God in trusting faith — when we trust in the sufficient work of Jesus on the cross to save us completely from our sin — God says Let there be all over again. We become a new creation.
That leads us to a final word from Romans 4 — the word “justification.” This notion of being justified calls to mind a courtroom scene and this is where God’s “wording” us as righteous takes on even greater meaning.
The Old Testament prophets spoke frequently about “the day of the Lord,” a future day of God’s judgment. On this day, the prophets declared, the entire world would be called to account. The Day of the Lord was envisioned as a trial scene with God — the ultimate judge — rendering the final verdict. On our own, we stand guilty because our sin condemns us. And we have all sinned before God, whether we acknowledge it or not. As the Word of God says, None is righteous; no not one (Romans 3:10, quoting Psalm 14). And so the verdict spoken by our sin is one of condemnation. “Guilty!”
But this is precisely where we meet the Good News of Jesus. In an audacious and unexpected move, Jesus takes on our sin and our unrighteousness so that we might be worded anew. 2 Corinthians 5:21, God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. In the cross, God is wording us into something new! Whereas our actions declare, “Guilty!” the cross is a bold statement of what is possible: “No! Not guilty! Now Abraham is righteous because of his trusting faith. Now Jason — through he is thoroughly unrighteous — is declared to be righteous in the eyes of God, the Judge!” We need not fear the day of the Lord anymore, not if we have put our trust in the work of Jesus, the Messiah.
As we’ve said for weeks now, it all hinges on putting our trust in the work of Jesus on the cross.
Have you put your trust in Jesus?
Have you repented of your sin and confessed your need for what only Jesus can do?
In order for Sunny’s grandparents to credit our account with what we needed, we first had to confess that need. We had to let them know that we couldn’t pay that bill and open ourselves up to their help. I’ll admit, that was a bit humbling. But this is the way of the Kingdom, is it not? Doesn’t Jesus say, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven? We had to trust that there was someone else who could deliver us from the burden of our debt.
Likewise, Jesus stands ready to deliver us from the debt of our sin. But there is a crucial move that begins this whole process — and it is a move that begins with us. It is the move of repentance and confession.
Trusting in Jesus requires repentance: a turning away from the dead end of sin and a turning back toward God.
Trusting in Jesus requires confession: confessing our inability to save ourselves and our great need for God.
Would you turn to Him in repentance today?
Would you confess your sins before God and ask for His forgiveness?
Would you confess the lordship of Jesus and enter into the waters of baptism to receive the gift of eternal life? Would you come to the table to receive bread and wine, body and blood?
Would you ask Him to “word” you anew, to declare you to be righteous because of the redeeming work of His Son?
The Good News of Jesus is that He justifies those who trust Him enough to repent in faith.
In the name of Jesus Christ, the Sovereign Lord who makes all things new, he who has ears, let him hear.
When Sunny and I were first married, we had a bill that came due that was beyond our ability to pay. I was fresh out of college, working as a youth minister for a church in east Tennessee and Sunny had just finished her student teaching and she was trying to find a full-time teaching job. So money was a little tight. But this bill came in and we simply couldn’t pay it. If you’ve ever been there before, you know the kind of insecure feeling that comes when you can’t pay your bills.
Luckily, we were able to lean on Sunny’s grandparents. They loaned us a little money and we were able to take care of the bill. And a few months later, we were able to pay them back.
That’s a pretty simple story. Nothing particularly extraordinary about it. But in so many ways, it helps us understand the cross of Christ. As we’ve said repeatedly throughout this series, we find ourselves deeply in debt because of our sin. The Bible says there is a wage associated with sin; the payout is death (Romans 6:23). We simply cannot pay off the debt we’ve incurred. But through the cross, God makes a transaction on our behalf. He credits something to our account, just as Sunny’s grandparents graciously covered our debt so many years ago.
But there is a significant difference in my story and the Gospel story. Whereas we eventually paid back Sunny’s grandparents for their generosity, there’s no paying back God for the cost of our salvation. No matter how hard we try, we can never pay back what we owe.
God knows this — and yet, He chooses to pay the price anyway.
This is our focus this week as we continue our series on the cross. For the past few months, we have been looking at what Jesus did for us on the cross. And now we pivot toward what happens when we trust in this work. The Scriptures have much to say about this.
There is a bold proclamation we find throughout the Bible: God justifies us by grace through faith.
Romans 3:28, For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. It is our faith in God that leads to right-standing before God, not our works according to the law. If you can work hard enough to pay something back, it’s not grace. A loan, yes; but not grace.
Ephesians 2:8, For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God. The grace of God is freely given, not earned.
But the real question is how? How does all of this work?
In Romans 4, Paul gives an explanation:
What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather, discovered in this matter? If, in fact, Abraham was justified by works, he had something to boast about — but not before God. What does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”
Now when a man works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation. However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness. David says the same thing when he speaks of the blessedness of the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works:
“Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him.”
Is this blessedness only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? We have been saying that Abraham’s faith was credited to him as righteousness.
Romans 4:1-9
This is one of the most significant explanations of the gospel that you find in the New Testament. Paul began his letter to the Christians in Rome by stating: For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith,” (Romans 1:17, quoting Habakkuk 2:4). He says that the gospel is about God declaring us to be righteous not because of our works but because of our faith. And in Romans 4, Paul explains this concept more fully.
God called Abraham to walk by faith. Abraham is known as the father of faith because God called him to leave the land of his forefathers and to journey to an unknown land. And Abraham trusted God, trusted in the promises God made to him. But he set out not really knowing where he was going. And that’s what makes Abraham the “father of faith” for us. God calls each of us to follow His lead, to trust Him to guide us along the path. But many times, like Abraham, we don’t know exactly where that path might be leading us.
Can you imagine the day Abraham came home and told Sarah what God had been saying to him?
Abraham: “Honey, I think we need to move.”
Sarah: “Move? Move where?”
Abraham: “I don’t really know yet. God just told me we need to move.”
Sarah: “God told you we need to move?”
Abraham: “That’s right. A voice came to me and said He was God and He said we need to leave our families behind and that He would show us where to go.”
Sarah: “So … you’re hearing voices?”
Abraham: “Yes. Well, one voice.”
Sarah: “And this voice says we need to leave our families behind and move somewhere else, but He didn’t tell you where we need to go?”
Abraham: “That’s right.”
Sarah: “You’ll do anything to keep from being around my mother, won’t you?”
You know, Abraham and Sarah weren’t characters in some story. They were real people with real families living in a real place. So think about how that conversation went down. God places a call on Abraham’s life — a pretty radical call, if you ask me — and Abraham responds in faith. Abraham trusts God.
And that trust is demonstrated in action.
I’m afraid the word “faith” doesn’t carry the same weight for us today as it did in biblical times. We often equate “faith” with “belief.” And beliefs are understood as something internal; a set of principles to which I have mentally assented, something I’ve studied and determined to be true.
But biblical faith takes this a step further. Biblical faith certainly involves the element of belief as we understand it, but it also joins that belief with concrete action. That’s why the word trust is so important. Not only did Abraham believe God — internally, with his mind and with his heart — but that belief manifests itself in a radical act of trust when he actually starts following God. Abraham trusted God when he packed up all his earthly possessions and set out for who-knows-where. That’s an incredible act of trust — to trust God enough to obey Him.
The mother of one of Joshua’s teammates took some pictures of the team in our early season games. Here are a few of my favorites of Joshua on the mound:
Deep in thought about that next pitchA little bit of a smirk
Here are seven principles about the blood of Jesus taken from the New Testament. Look at all that was accomplished either by or through the blood of Jesus:
We have redemption through the blood of Jesus. Ephesians 1:7, In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins …
We are justified by the blood of Jesus. Romans 5:9, Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him!
We are cleansed by the blood of Jesus. 1 John 1:7, … the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.
We are sanctified / made holy through the blood of Jesus. Hebrews 13:12, And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood.
We are brought home by the blood of Jesus. Ephesians 2:13, But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
We have access to God by the blood of Jesus. Hebrews 10:19, Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus …
We have peace through the blood of Jesus. Colossians 1:20, … by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
The blood of Jesus is key to our understanding of the Good News. Only the blood of Christ could accomplish all of this. From redemption to justification to purification to sanctification to reconciliation to new creation — all the major themes of the New Testament come back to the blood of Jesus. Without a doubt, the blood of Jesus is central to Gospel teaching.
The blood of Jesus is also central to Gospel practice. When Jesus institutes the Lord’s Supper, He centers its meaning around the shedding of His blood (Matt. 26:28), which helps us understand His death as a sacrifice. Sacrificial in His life; Sacrificial in His death. Christian baptism is also connected to the blood of Jesus. Just as the blood of the covenant was poured out for the forgiveness of sins, so too is baptism for the forgiveness of sins (Acts 2:38). It is the shed blood of Christ at work in baptism and communion to redeem us, to justify us, and to sanctify us.
It should come as no surprise, then, that the blood of Jesus is central to Christian worship. Think of all the great hymns that refer to the blood of Jesus:
What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
Have you been to Jesus for the cleansing pow’r? Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?
My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’s blood and righteousness.
There is power, power, wonder working power in the blood of the Lamb.
Christian teaching and worship and practice down through the ages affirm this central truth that we’re driving home here: there is simply no substitute for the blood of Jesus. It is powerful to cleanse us from ALL sin.
As most of you probably know, we have a baseball player at our house. Baseball season is a lot of fun, but it brings with it a tedious chore: washing the baseball pants. Over the years, Sunny has learned all the tricks to get these pants clean: we’ve used OxiClean; we’ve used this soap called Felz-Naptha. My buddy tells me that he just lays his sons pants out on the driveway and he blasts them with his pressure washer! If you have a baseball or softball player in your family, you know the drill.
Joshua has one pair of pants that he’s worn for a few years. And no matter how hard we try, these pants just won’t come clean. Too much sliding around in this Alabama clay, I guess. Some of that dirt just isn’t coming out.
One thing I’ve never tried — I’ve never tried washing his pants in blood. It never occurred to me to do that because it’s counter-intuitive. Blood doesn’t clean things. In fact, there have been plenty of times when it’s just the opposite, times when we’re trying to get blood to come out of these pants, right there along with the dirt.
But this is the message we have believed — that the blood of Jesus is the most powerful cleansing agent in the world. It goes down deep to get out even the worst stain of all — the stain of sin. You probably know this, but let me made the point anyway: sin is a stain that won’t come out no matter how hard we scrub. Its stain runs too deep. But the good news is that the blood of Jesus cleanses us completely. Though your sins are like scarlet, says the Lord, they shall be white as snow.
There is simply no substitute for the blood of Jesus.
In November 2004, Loyola University Medical Center in Chicago joined several other hospitals around the country experimenting with the use of a synthetic blood substitute called Polyheme. Loyola made the decision to equip some of their ambulances with this blood substitute, which was a big deal because ambulances usually do not carry human blood since it requires refrigeration. Ordinarily, patients would receive a saline solution IV in the ambulance to hold them over until they arrived at the hospital. The idea was that Polyheme could be used with patients of any blood type in the hopes that it would save the lives of trauma patients before they got to the hospital.
But clinical trials would later show that patients who received this experimental blood substitute actually fared worse than those who received the standard saline IV. Ultimately, Polyheme failed to gain FDA approval. In the final verdict, Polyheme was deemed an inadequate substitute for real human blood.
The Scriptures declare that there is no substitute for the blood of Jesus Christ. As we continue our series on the cross today, we focus in on the power of Christ’s blood shed for us, which is an idea that dominates the New Testament.
Did you know that references to the blood of Jesus in the New Testament are three times as frequent as references to the death of Jesus? That’s a fascinating statistic. The writers of the New Testament are constantly pointing us to the importance of the blood of Jesus.
Why is that the case? Well, the writers of the New Testament aren’t trying to be grotesque by talking so much about blood. And they weren’t simply using a metaphor that could easily be replaced with another. No, the Holy Spirit inspired them to teach about the salvation that only comes through the blood of Christ — because there is just no other substitute for it. In the words of the old hymn, nothing but the blood of Jesus can save us.
The modern church would do well to remember this truth. In many churches today, you don’t hear much about the blood of Jesus. And there are probably plenty of well-intentioned reasons for this. But if we’re going to stay true to the content of the New Testament, you simply cannot avoid the blood of Jesus. The New Testament writers have a lot to say about it.
Of course, these New Testament references to the blood of Jesus often hearken back to the sacrificial system we read about in the Old Testament. The Jewish sacrificial system prepared the people to understand what the writer of Hebrews says so succinctly:
Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.
Hebrews 9:22
A great deal of what the Hebrew writer describes is found in the Old Testament book of Leviticus. If you started a daily Bible reading program in January, then you’ve probably hit Leviticus by now. Leviticus describes the requirements for those Old Testament sacrifices and a lot of it seems really tedious to us. But this might help you as you read. In the book of Leviticus, the gap between God’s holiness and our sinfulness is so great that the sacrificial offering has to be made on a regular basis. That’s what these sacrifices were all about: temporarily bridging that gap. Through these sacrifices, God has graciously provided the means for the continual restoration of the people, in spite of their sinfulness.
Here is one passage that essentially summarizes the entirety of the book of Leviticus:
For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life.
Leviticus 17:11
I like the way Fleming Rutledge puts it: “The OT sacrificial system has a gentleness about it that is hard for us to see from our distance, but perhaps we can grasp the general idea of God’s patience and kindness in giving his perpetually wayward people the means to stand before him.”
All of those laws in Leviticus that deal with the offerings were designed to point beyond themselves, to teach us that atonement for sin costs something. These laws were not capable of providing ultimate forgiveness; as it says in Hebrews 10:4, For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. No, these laws were simply signs pointing to a deeper reality — pointing us to Jesus. It’s as if the entire Old Testament was pointing to what God would do through the cross of Christ.
already & not yet 