Devotions - Read Online

Thursday | 17 January 2019

Coming back from the death of sin

We learn from the book of Hebrews that Jesus, our great Shepherd, was being brought back from the death of sin through the sprinkling of His blood – the blood of the Everlasting Covenant. Heb 13:20. This sprinkling occurred over six wounding events on His journey from Gethsemane until His redemptive work was finished on the cross. By the time that Jesus declared, ‘It is finished!’, while hanging on the cross, He had fully come back from the death of sin and had established the New Covenant by the shedding of His blood. Luk 22:20. In this way, Jesus Christ manifested resurrection life (Gr. exanastasis) while He was still alive in His mortal body. Php 3:11. Importantly, the seventh wound, which was the piercing of Christ’s heart, opened the door of access to the New Covenant for us. All could now enter, receive the divine nature and become sons of God through faith.

We could ask the question, ‘When did Jesus die for our sin?’ The apostle Paul stated, ‘For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.’ Rom 6:10. We note that the death that Jesus died was not our kind of physical death. As the apostle was showing here, His death was when He was ‘cut off’ from God in Gethsemane. Jesus was living by resurrection life (exanastasis) as He was coming back from the death of sin. This was the life that He lived to God. These two realities - the death that He died and the life that He lives - were operative from Gethsemane until He declared, ‘It is finished!'

The blood of Christ that proceeded to flow from His body during each wounding event progressively brought Him back from the dead as it multiplied the resurrection life of God in His mortal body. Likewise, we too are coming back from the death of our sins and are living by resurrection life with Christ, by His blood.