ASSURANCE OF SALVATION

THE BLOOD OF CHRIST

In 1Peter 1:18 & 19 we read – ‘For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed … but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect …’

The salvation God has given us in Christ when we were still sinners, is given to us freely, as sheer gift (‘by grace’), without any cost required from us. And that is wonderful, glorious news.

But, because of our sinful hearts, this gospel, this good news, has the potential to produce in us two ungodly responses: (1) that we do not value the death of Christ highly enough, we do not realise what a precious and powerful thing it is, we do not grasp what God has actually accomplished by it; and so we lack assurance of salvation. (2) that we see the sure forgiveness granted through the blood of Christ as an excuse, a licence, to continue to sin; and so we ignore, overlook, forget, who it is who saved us, how he saved us and why he saved us. (We will look at this second response in a future meditation.)

Both of these responses are an insult to Jesus Christ – they are evidence of a diminished understanding of who Jesus really is and what Jesus really did.

Let us never forget who it is who died on the cross. The old adage ‘familiarity breeds contempt’ applies here – with many who identify as Christians becoming so familiar with the concept that 'Jesus Christ died for our sins’ that we have lost touch with the power and the preciousness of his name and his blood.

Jesus Christ is our Creator, to whom all things owe their existence (John 1:3). He is the Lord of glory (1Corinthians 2:8). He is the Mighty God, the Wonderful Counsellor, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6), the King of kings, the Lord of lords (Revelation 19:16). He is the great I AM – the one and only God, eternally existing, ever-present, never changing (John 8:58). The Alpha and Omega. The Beginning and the End. The First and the Last (Revelation 22:13). The Source and the Goal of all things (Colossians 1:16).

He shared the glory of God the Father before time began (John 17:5). He was loved by God the Father before the creation of the world (John 17:24b). He is precious to God (1Peter 2:4, 6).
Leaving aside his rightful glory he came to earth as one of us – fully and truly human, though still fully and truly God. He lived a perfect, sinless, human life. He experienced all the pressures that we experience (Hebrews 2:9 – 18). And as a human, he died – putting himself in our place under the judgement of God.

‘He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree’ – 1Peter 2:24.
‘Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring us to God’ – 1Peter 3:18.

Peter calls the blood of Christ ‘precious blood’. It is precious because of whose blood it is. It is precious because of what it cost Jesus Christ – what he suffered in the whole saga of incarnation, of living our human life, of bearing our sin and guilt, in experiencing the wrath of God and separation from God that our sin attracts. It is precious because of what God accomplished through it.

And here we face a very important question: Would God the Father send his precious, beloved Son to experience a horrific, substitutionary, sin-bearing death to pay the ransom for a redemption/salvation that can be lost in the blink of an eye? Is the blood of Christ through which we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins (Ephesians 1:7) so weak that we can undo that redemption/salvation by our weakness and our failures. Are our failures more powerful than God’s power? (Remember, the gospel is ‘the power of God for the salvation of all who believe’ – Romans 1:16.)

This precious blood of this incarnate, precious, Son of God does not accomplish a mediocre salvation. It does not accomplish a fragile salvation. The preciousness of this blood, and the preciousness of this Christ, mean that the salvation we have in him is of the highest quality, also precious – a well-planned, comprehensive, unequalled, imperishable, permanent salvation. A salvation that cannot be lost.

To fear that salvation can be lost is to diminish the preciousness and the power of Christ and of his blood. It is to treat both Christ and his blood with contempt. Salvation that is potentially temporary is no salvation at all. Salvation that can be lost makes the blood of Christ powerless, and the cross pointless.

Let us not be guilty of such an insult to Christ and his blood.