Redeemed By the Blood – 9 Verses that Celebrate Jesus

We are redeemed! Am I right? We have so much to celebrate in our home this Easter season! Sure, the past few years have been difficult. There has been a lot of pain and a lot of sadness. Hearts have been broken, relationships badly damaged. But when we reflect on the redemptive work that God has done in our family, how can we do anything but rejoice? He has breathed new life into places long dead.  We are believing Him to continue that work and see it through to the day when He returns and completes what He has started in us.

*Want to know what I’m talking about? Check out our story here.

As we head into the Easter season, and I reflect on His work, I’m so humbled by my Lord and Savior!  He is so faithful and good to me. I am nothing – a wretched sinner. My heart apart from Him is black as night. Yet He saw fit to call me out of that sorrowful state and offer redemption through the blood of Christ. He set me free and made me new. I have been redeemed by the blood! Since that day, He has loved me and cared for me and given me grace upon grace. 

Praise the Lord,  He has done the same for all five of us!  Our entire family is united in the salvation that comes through Christ alone.  He has offered it to you too, and it is my prayer that you, precious reader, have experienced His saving grace. If not, I ask that you read on as we look together at 9 passages that explain Christ’s redemptive work, and consider the gift you’re being offered as we celebrate Jesus together.

*For more on how to be saved according to the Bible, check this post out.

Verse One – 1 Peter 1:18-20: God Paid a Ransom to Save You

For you know that God paid a ransom to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors. And it was not paid with mere gold or silver, which lose their value. It was the precious blood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God. God chose Him as your ransom long before the world began, but now in these last days He has been revealed for your sake.

We are all born into sin.  No one has to teach us how to be selfish or unkind.  We just are.  Our sin separates us from God, who is perfect and holy, and can not abide with sin.

There’s nothing any of us can do to atone for our sin either. We can’t repair that broken relationship on our own. We can’t earn right standing with God.

But long before He made the world, God put into motion a plan that would offer us a way back to Him. (Because He loves us so much!) All throughout history people waited expectantly for that Savior, until finally He was revealed in Jesus Christ. He came to this earth as a human baby, lived a perfect (sinless) life, and then willingly offered that life as a ransom for us.

It was the only commodity worthy enough to cover our very great sin debt. No gold, or silver, or precious stones could do it. Only the blood of one who was perfect – sinless and spotless, could cover our sin.

Thanks to the Bible, we now have the privilege of knowing and understanding God’s wonderful plan of salvation revealed in Jesus Christ.

Verse Two – Hebrews 9: 11-15: Redeemed by the Blood of Christ

So Christ has now become the High Priest over all the good things that have come. He has entered that greater, more perfect Tabernacle in heaven, which was not made by human hands and is not part of this created world. With His own blood – not the blood of goats and calves – He entered the Most Holy Place once for all time and secured our redemption forever. 

Under the old system, the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer could cleanse people’s bodies from ceremonial impurity.  Just think how much more the blood of Christ will purify our consciences from sinful deeds so that we can worship the living God.

For by the power of the eternal Spirit, Christ offered Himself to God as a perfect sacrifice for our sins.  That is why He is the One who mediates a new covenant between God and people, so that all who are called can receive the eternal inheritance God has promised them.  For Christ died to set them free from the penalty of the sins they had committed under that first covenant.

Praise God, we no longer are bound by the first covenant.  We don’t have to make trips to the temple and sacrifice an animal to cleanse us from our sins.  Christ made that sacrifice once for all with His own precious blood. 

He did away with the old system when He entered that Heavenly Tabernacle and secured our redemption forever and became our eternal Great High Priest.  The curtain here on earth was torn in two – forever symbolizing that “It is finished!”  Forever setting us free from the penalty of our sins, offering us the chance to be reddemed by the blood of Christ. 

Why? So that we can worship the LIVING GOD!

* For more on the New Covenant relationship we experience with God as part of the New Testament Church, check out this post.

Verse Three – Romans 3:23-26: Declared Righteous by Believing in Jesus

For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. Yet God freely and graciously declares that we are righteous. He did this through Christ Jesus when He freed us from the penalty for our sins. For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin.  People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed His life, shedding His blood.

This sacrifice shows that God was being fair when He held back and did not punish those who sinned in times past, for He was looking ahead and including them in what He would do in this present time.  God did this to demonstrate His righteousness, for He Himself is fair and just, and He declares sinners to be right in His sight when they believe in Jesus.

Our part is so simple.  We must simply believe: Believe in the work Jesus did on the cross.  Believe that we are sinners in need of a Savior. That we can’t save ourselves. That we can’t be good enough, and we can’t earn our way back. Believe that the only thing we can do is put our faith in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and we will be saved!

*Click the image to download a printable version of the graphic below.
Maybe give it to someone as you share with them the gospel message!

Verse Four – 2 Peter 3:9: God is Patient

The Lord isn’t really being slow about His promise, as some people think. No, He is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent.

Just as God’s people waited thousands of years for Him to reveal the Messiah, we too are waiting for the final fulfillment of His promises when Christ returns.  It’s easy to become impatient as we wait to realize, not just this grand promise, but even the smaller, more personal promises in our daily lives.  We can begin to doubt.  How humbling it is when we realize that it is only out of His great love that He waits.

He wants to give us all time.  Time to repent.  Time to come to Him! I don’t know about you, but I am so thankful He waited for me.  That He waited for my love.  That He waited for our three precious children!  I can’t know who else He’s waiting for, but I’m sure I’ll be glad He did! Is it you dear sister? Is He waiting for you? He does not want you to be destroyed – and that is what will happen to anyone who ultimately rejects Him. Don’t put it off another day.

*Here’s an interesting take on the application of this promise from Courage. Hope. Love.: What to Do when You’re Weary Waiting for God.

Verse Five – Romans 8:18-21: Waiting to be Set Free

Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory He will reveal to us later.  For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who His children really are.  Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse.  But with eager hope, the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay.

It’s not just humans that suffer from the consequences of sin! All of creation is fallen.  The whole world is waiting to be redeemed when Christ returns.  Waiting with “eager hope” to be set free. Surely this is a truth that proves the Bible’s message.

We don’t have to look very far to see pain, suffering and death. It’s everywhere. We begin to die the day we’re born, and the same is true for every living thing under the sun! Yet, isn’t there an inner longing inborn into each of us that hopes for something more? Don’t we instinctually know there is freedom from all this somewhere out there?

The beautiful truth is that those of us who belong to Christ KNOW there is. We are waiting with complete confidence and the security that comes in knowing whatever we have to endure in this life will be totally worth it when we reach that promised eternity with Him in heaven.Do you know that peace and confidence? You can!

Verse Six – Colossians 1:19-22: Reconciled through Christ

For God in all His fullness was pleased to live in Christ, and through Him God reconciled everything to Himself. He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of Christ’s blood on the cross.  This includes you who were once far away from God. You were His enemies, separated from Him by your evil thoughts and actions. 

Yet now He has reconciled you to Himself through the death of Christ in His physical body.  As a result, He has brought you into His own presence, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before Him without a single fault.

The blood of Christ, which He shed for us on the cross was enough. It was sufficient to redeem us all.  To reconcile every fallen piece of creation to Himself and restore that perfect relationship He designed from the beginning.  Once we are covered by the blood of the sinless, spotless Lamb of God we can come into the presence of Almighty God and stand before Him completely clean!

Can you even fathom that? Standing before the Lord God Almighty without a single fault? To be at peace with Him for all eternity? Never again having to wrestle with the secret, shameful ugliness we all know resides deep within, because we know, it’s forgiven!

Sisters, these verses do not say that Christ will reconcile us, or that He will bring us into His own presence, holy and blameless. No. It says he HAS – it’s already done! If we’ve accepted the free gift of His salvation, then we are already there – standing before Him without a single fault. As He said on the cross – it is finished!

Verse Seven – 1 Corinthians 1:30-31: United with Christ

God has united you with Christ Jesus. For our benefit God made Him to be wisdom itself.  Christ made us right with God; He made us pure and holy, and He freed us from sin.  Therefore, as the Scriptures say, “If you want to boast, boast only about the Lord.”

There is only one appropriate response to what Christ did for us: Humility.  It’s not through anything we have done, so there’s no place for pride.  It is not by our works that we are saved. May we all fall on our faces in humble gratitude before our Lord and thank Him for calling us, for redeeming us, for making us pure and holy and free!

Verse Eight – 2 Corinthians 5:17-21: Made New in Christ

This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person.  The old life is gone; a new life has begun! And all this is a gift from God, who brought us back to Himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to Him.  For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them.  And He gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. 

So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making His appeal through us.  We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!” For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sins, so that we could be made right with God through Christ.

What amazing victory is ours if we belong to Christ!  He has made us brand new.  A new creation!  Whatever mess we’ve made, whatever shame we carry is part of the old life.  We can put it behind us knowing that a new life has begun. If you’ve never done it before, dear sister, I pray you do it right this very minute.

* Wondering what it actually means to be a new creation in Christ? Here’s a post that talks a lot more about that!

Confess your sins to Him. Ask for His forgiveness. Ask to be covered in the cleansing power of His blood, and ask God to become the ruler of your life for all eternity. God will never count your sin against you again!  Praise God!!!

As we recognize this amazing gift that God has given us, our response should be an unquenchable desire to share that mighty miracle with others.  To become ambassadors for Christ, pleading with those who are still lost to that life of sin to turn and come back to God!  It is never too late.  No one who is still living is ever beyond His reach.  May we each reach as many as possible for Him!

Verse Nine – Titus 2:14: Free and Committed

He gave His life to free us from every kind of sin, to cleanse us, and to make us His very own people, totally committed to doing good deeds.

Jesus Christ gave his life so that we could be clean. We are free!  Let’s never again live our lives as the slaves to sin that we once were!  Instead let’s live our lives in the freedom that is ours, as His very own people.  Let’s be totally committed to doing the good that He has called us to do.  We are the redeemed of the Lord!  Let’s praise Him and then, let’s go make disciples!