Encouragement in Difficult Days (Part 3)
By Phil Haines
The Gospel is altogether glorious and wonderful! The Bible teaches us that God; Father, Son and Holy Spirit have put in place everything that is required to save humankind. The writers of the New Testament remind us often of this magnificent truth.
Peter begins his letter in this way to encourage the saints in the various churches to whom he is writing. The Apostle places a firm foundation under the feet of these Christians, so that they may be able to meet the trials that they will inevitably face as Christians in a pagan world. In the first post, we reflected on the election of a people by the Father, and in the second, the work of sanctification by the Holy Spirit for obedience to Jesus Christ. In this post, we focus upon the wonderful work accomplished by our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.
To those who are elect exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, 2 according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood
All those who are saved have been sprinkled with the blood of the Saviour. The terminology that Peter uses is of interest here. ‘Sprinkled’ or ‘sprinkling’ is only found in two books of the New Testament: Hebrews and 1 Peter. However, these words have a rich and significant heritage in the Old Testament cultic context.
In Leviticus chapter 16, Moses writes about the Day of Atonement. This was the high day of the year, the most solemn day of the Israelite calendar. It was the one day of the year when the High Priest went into the Holy of Holies, into the inner sanctuary of the Tabernacle, into the very presence of God. In the Holy of Holies the mercy seat was found as well as the Ark of the Covenant. This was not a place a man stepped into lightly. Only the High Priest could come into this place once a year and only after he had offered sacrifice for himself.
When the High Priest came into the Holy of Holies, he had to take some of the blood of the bull and sprinkle it on the Mercy Seat seven times. He also had to take the blood of the goat and do likewise, sprinkling it on the Mercy Seat seven times. Now, ‘Mercy Seat’ translated in Hebrew means literally, “place of propitiation”. So, here we are to understand that the Mercy Seat is the place where God’s wrath is dealt with, the place where God’s mercy is shown so wonderfully. In this yearly ritual, the sins and offenses of all the people against God for the previous year are dealt with. The life of the animal, evidenced in the blood, is offered in the place of the sinner, a life for a life as it were. The blood as an offering stands between God, and His law and the sinner dealing with God’s righteous anger against the sinner. I would suggest that the Apostle Peter and the writer to the Hebrews had more in mind than the Day of Atonement when they used the term ‘sprinkled’. In fact, they conflated the whole Old Covenant sacrificial system into Christ’s sacrifice in order to show that our Saviour’s finished work gloriously surpasses them all. Our Lord’s sacrifice replaces the Day of Atonement, all the Festival sacrifices, the sin offerings, the burnt offerings, the peace offerings, the cereal offerings and so on. The Lord Jesus Christ has become the Passover Lamb and his blood is the blood of the New Covenant.
The Apostle Peter writes about the vital significance of the blood of Christ in verses 18-20 of chapter 1: You were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. With the blood and the life of God the Son, Incarnate believers have been bought, ransomed from slavery to sin and given new freedom in Christ.
Peter continues in chapter 2:24: 24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. The sins of all his people in every age, Jesus took unto himself, they were laid on His precious shoulders. He died to heal us from the deadly wound of sin on account of which, death came into the world, and with death, alienation and separation from God. But, the Lord Jesus Christ has healed that fatal wound and those who believe in him and in his once-for-all sacrifice on Calvary’s tree now know freedom from sin and death.
The writer to the Hebrews compares and contrasts Christ’s sacrifice in chapter 9 of his letter: 13 For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, 14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.
The point that the writer to the Hebrews is making here in contrasting the OT sacrifices with the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ is clear: The OT sacrifices brought the worshipper back into formal communion with God, an external purification; but if the conscience of the worshipper was still pricked, then his inward sense of guilt would keep him at a distance from God. The sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ was so much greater, so much better, it accomplished so much more. The Lord Jesus offered up Himself through the Holy Spirit to God the Father as an offering to deal with the sins and the guilt of His people, thus procuring their justification and assuring their sanctification, dealing with sin and guilt.
“How much more”, is seen in the fact that not only are we made ceremonially clean, that is we can have formal communion with God, but also, our consciences are cleansed through the work of Jesus Christ, so that we have peace with God and worship Him in Spirit and in truth and come before His mercy seat and pray to Him.
Unlike the Old Covenant sacrificial system, this sacrifice was also once-for-all. Nothing more needs to be done! Our Lord has secured an eternal redemption for his people, for he entered into the Heavenly Place and presented His blood as the offering for their sins and thus he brought many sons to glory! He has appeared once and has dealt with sin. The next time He appears will be to usher in his kingdom and bring his final salvation to all who believed in him.
The congregations who received this letter would have understood the significance of what Peter wrote and they would have been greatly encouraged. They were reminded that their sins had been dealt with once and for all. They were sprinkled with the blood of the Lamb of God, so now they had peace with God and that peace was an everlasting peace and theirs was an eternal joy in knowing that they had been saved by the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ for them on the cross.
The same truth belongs to us and what a wonderful message for us in the context of our experiences in 2020. Whether we know joy, sorrow, grief, suffering, separation, loneliness, isolation, the Lord, through his word says to you, his precious child: you are called and elect of your Heavenly Father, you are sanctified by the Comforter, the Holy Spirit for obedience to Jesus Christ, and you are sprinkled with the blood of your Saviour. You have been redeemed and saved, washed in the blood of Christ, and your sins have been atoned for. You have a mediator who stands between you and God, his holy law and its just requirements. You have a mediator who intercedes on your behalf and through faith in the shed blood of Jesus Christ, you have peace with God. On account of Christ’s finished work, you now look forward to an inheritance which is imperishable, undefiled and unfading. You have that glorious hope before you, and it is yours, and nothing can take it away.
This is the great and glorious gospel of salvation, it is the power of God to salvation, it is the overwhelming demonstration of God’s love for us. In this we rejoice!
Phil is the Minister of Ely Presbyterian Church (Reformed), in Cardiff
http://www.epcreformed.org
