How Much More?

This has been a great study... the parallels between the ashes of the sin offering and the blood of Jesus Christ.

"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, 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." - Hebrews 9:13-14 ESV

"Whoever in the open field touches someone who was killed with a sword or who died naturally, or touches a human bone or a grave, shall be unclean seven days. For the unclean they shall take some ashes of the burnt sin offering, and fresh water shall be added in a vessel. Then a clean person shall take hyssop and dip it in the water and sprinkle it on the tent and on all the furnishings and on the persons who were there and on whoever touched the bone, or the slain or the dead or the grave. And the clean person shall sprinkle it on the unclean on the third day and on the seventh day. Thus on the seventh day he shall cleanse him, and he shall wash his clothes and bathe himself in water, and at evening he shall be clean." - Numbers 19:16-19 ESV

Those ashes were the inflammable residue of the sin offering. It was what could not be taken away... even by fire. Those ashes mixed in water and applied cleanses a person legally and physically.

Jesus' blood is alive. His life could not be taken from Him. He did not die from His wounds. He gave His life and His blood is living blood.

If dead ashes could cleanse the body 'how much more' can living eternal blood cleanse our conscience from 'dead works'?

Jesus blood washed us once at our salvation then again and again in our mind to stop us from 'working' for God's approval. We are made clean because we come in contact with the cleansing agent. We don't earn it.

1 John 1:8-9 ESV - "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

A Hebrew person could stumble into a grave yard and be made unclean through no fault of their own. They would need to have that water sprinkled on them again and again.

We have a once and for all eternal sacrifice that is living and has become a remedy for our mind, heart and soul. That blood 'experienced' our sin when all of the sins of the human race were placed on Jesus.

Hebrews 12:24 ESV - "...and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel."

Abels blood cried for vengeance but Jesus' blood enables forgiveness. It makes a claim that sin has been paid for and proclaims freedom.

How much more? Yes, so much more!

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