Fifth Sunday After Pentecost-The Most Precious Blood

The month of July is dedicated to the Most Precious Blood of our Redeemer. Because of this, the Church gives supreme homage o the Sacred Blood. As we adore the Sacred Heart, because it is the Heart of Jesus, who is God, we also adore His Most Precious Blood poured out for us on the cross of Calvary for our sins. We have all sinned, our blood is tainted by sin and evil. Only the pure, precious, sinless, holy blood of Jesus can be accepted as a perfect and holy sacrifice for our sins. All the animal sacrifices before in the Old Testament were just a foreshadowing to the ultimate sacrifice of the lamb of God, Jesus Christ. Every single person on the planet needs the blood of Jesus, for the forgiveness of sins. Apart from the blood of Jesus, you cannot have a relationship with God. Without the blood of Jesus, you will die in your sins.

That is why, the Priest, just before receiving the precious blood in the chalice will pray, “The Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ preserve my soul unto life everlasting.” Then after communion, He will hold out the Chalice to the server, if one is present, and the server will pour wine into it for the first ablution, or the cleansing of the fingers, and pray “May Thy Body, O Lord, which I have received, and Thy Blood which I have drunk, cleave to my bowels; and grant that no stain of sin may remain in me, who have been fed with this pure and holy Sacrament.”

Understand this, God designed our salvation in such away that the guilt of our sins could not be removed by Him in any other way than by the payment of the full penalty for our sins through the shed blood. Because as Hebrews 9:22 says,"Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness/remission"

When Christ shed His most precious blood on the cross of Calvary, it purchased the pardon of every sin ever committed by anyone.

But that pardon becomes ours only when we receive it. Through Christ's precious blood we now have the forgiveness of all our sins of the past, if we sincerely turn from our sins (repent), trust in Him as our Lord and Saviour, and receive the forgiveness that he offers through the baptismal waters.

The blood of Christ also justifies us as (Romans 5:9) says,

“Christ died for us; much more therefore, being now justified by his blood, shall we be saved from wrath through him”.

This is more than just being forgiven. It is our soul made righteous or just, just as though we had never sinned in our entire lives. God's promise is that "He will not remember our sins no more" (Hebrews 8:12). That means that He looks at us just as if we had never sinned. That is the meaning of being justified. Such is the power of Christ's precious blood. Many believers live in perpetual condemnation concerning their past lives, because Satan has hid from them the fact that God has justified them through Christ's blood.

Through the blood of Jesus we are redeemed

1 Peter 1:18 says, “Knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things as gold or silver, from your vain conversation of the tradition of your fathers: But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb unspotted and undefiled.”

That means that we have been purchased from the slave-market of sin. The blood that Christ shed on Calvary was the ransom price that He paid to meet the demands of God's holy Law, so that we might be free, and not slaves any longer. We are born to be free. We need not be slaves any longer to Satan or men or to condemnation or guilt or fear or sin.

Through the most precious blood of Jesus Christ, we are also brought into God's presence (Ephesians 2:13).

But now in Christ Jesus, you, who some time were afar off, are made nigh by the blood of Christ.

God dwells in light that no man can approach. The only way to come into His presence is through the most precious blood - till the end of our lives. However saintly we may become, our access to God's presence will always be through the blood of Christ. Many believers tend to forget this, once they get victory over conscious sin, and end up as Pharisees.

Through the blood shed on Calvary's cross, Christ has made peace with God (Colossians 1:20).

And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.

God is not an Enemy to us now. This is a fact that needs to be established in our minds firmly. Many believers live with the feeling that God is constantly unhappy with them and is always frowning at them. This is Satan's lie, designed to bring believers into condemnation and to hinder their spiritual growth. Through the blood of Christ, we have become friends of God. Unless we believe this, we will never make any spiritual progress.

The blood of Christ also cleanses us continually from all sin, when we walk in the light (1 John 1:7).

But if we walk in the light, as he also is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.

To walk in the light is to walk in victory over all conscious sin. Our Baptism, the sacraments of confession, the Eucharist, etc., gives us the graces to do just that. But even when we live in victory over conscious sin, there is still plenty of unconscious sin in all of us. That is why John goes on to say, "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves" (verse 8).

It is not because we have a flesh, that we sin unconsciously, but because we have lived in conscious selfishness for many years, both prior to, and subsequent to our conversion. Jesus had the same flesh as we have. But because He never lived in selfishness at any time, He never sinned unconsciously even once. There was no sin at all in Him (1 John 3:5).

Our unconscious sins (which constitute perhaps about 90% of our total sins initially) are continually cleansed by Christ's blood, so that we can have constant, and unbroken fellowship with the Father.

Through the most precious blood of Jesus, we also overcome Satan and his accusations (Revelation 12:10-11).

Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: because the accuser of our brethren is cast forth, who accused them before our God day and night.

And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of the testimony, and they loved not their lives unto death.

Satan accuses us to God, to other men and to ourselves constantly. But we can overcome his accusations by confessing ("the word of our testimony") that we have been forgiven, justified, redeemed, brought near to God, brought to peace with God and cleansed by the most precious blood of Christ. Satan can have no power over us any longer.

We need the blood of Christ to cleanse us DAILY, for all of us sin unconsciously daily, and many believers sin consciously as well.