Be Thankful

Those who have a bent toward the literal interpretation of the Scripture find themselves in a bit of a quandary in more than one place.  One of the those places is found early in the first few verses of I Peter where the Apostle writes about believers being sprinkled with the blood of Jesus Christ.  "To the exiles...who have been chosen...to be obedient to Jesus Christ and to be sprinkled with His blood."  (I Peter 1:3)  What is obvious it the impossibility of these believers being literally sprinkled with the blood of Jesus decades after the cross.

 

Instead, the Apostle Peter is using symbolic language to speak of the means by which these believers have been set apart as the people of God.  Though the language is symbolic, it refers to an actual event in the God-humanity narrative and that event is the cross.  In Hebrews 10:10 the Words says, "we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all."  One of the major themes of I Peter is a call to holy living.  All of us can quote that verse which says, "You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people."  (I Peter 2:9)  This set apart, or holy status, is not accomplished through our determined religious living, but through the shed blood of Jesus on the cross.  Without the blood of Christ, holiness becomes a fantasy.  It is in the shedding of the holy blood, the sprinkling of the holy blood for the sake of everyone named sinner that enables sinful folks like you and me to live holy lives before God.

 

To see the shed blood is to see something which justifies us causing us to stand before God as righteous instead of sinful.  To see the shed blood is to see something which has the power to cleanse us of all our sin.  And, to see the shed blood is to see something which makes it possible for us to be sanctified, or set apart for holy purposes by a merciful heavenly Father.  Sometime in this day, remember to be thankful.