Ceremony & Communion

Suggested Further Reading

The Sabbath causes much confusion. God commanded it but do we, under the New Covenant, need to keep it? And if so, in what form?
The Sabbath
The True Sabbath
On The Rest
Ten Commandments - Remember The Sabbath
A Day of Rest

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Ceremony, Communion and the Sabbath

The Old Testament required God's priests to observe many ritual practices. All of these things pointed to the sacrifical work of Jesus. Jesus fulfilled all these symbols of the Law of God.

But within Christianity many symbolic observances are still practiced. Water baptism as an "outward symbolism of an inward reality" is a chief example along with consuming physical communion bread and wine, foot washing, the wearing of special robes and the keeping of special days. Should we be doing such things when Christ came and obtained for us "a new and living way?" And what of the symbols of the Old Testament. Have they just disappeared and become irrelevant or have they been transformed into spiritual realities?

This is important information for anyone who desires the freedom and liberty that Jesus promised us.

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Gospel Tract #

The Blood of Christ

John D. Clark, Sr.

"How much more shall the blood of Christ purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?"

Heb 9:14

The life of the body is in the blood (Lev. 17:11). Where blood ceases to flow in the body, death is certain. So, because the life of the body of Christ is in the holy Spirit (Jn. 6:63; Rom. 8:10), the Spirit is referred to as the blood of Christ. Where the Spirit ceases to flow, spiritual death is certain.

The Law's most dreadful punishment was reserved for the gravest offenses, including the drinking of any kind of blood (Lev. 17:10). However, in John 6, Jesus told a crowd of followers that unless they drank his blood, they had no hope of eternal life. This statement confused all who heard it, and as a result, "many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him" (Jn. 6:66). They did this despite Jesus' attempt to explain that he was speaking of the Spirit. "The words I speak to you," he told them, "they are spirit and they are life" (Jn. 6:63).

Hebrews 9:22 tells us, "without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin." So, it was necessary that Jesus die, that his natural blood be shed, so that his life - the spiritual blood that we must drink - could be given to us. After drinking of the Spirit, Peter preached his first sermon as a new creature in Christ, and said, "[God] has shed forth this, that you now see and hear!" (Acts 2:33). Just as surely as Jesus' natural blood was poured out on Calvary, his spiritual blood was poured out on the day of Pentecost.

The true blood of Christ is still flowing and cleansing souls from sin. Jesus' natural blood, precious as it was, never touched a soul. Jesus was one of us, in every way except for sin, and the blood that ran in his natural veins was natural blood. If Jesus' natural blood washed sins away, then only those who lived at that time could have been cleansed from sin because we have no access to his physical blood. The Roman soldiers who crucified the Lord surely were spattered with Jesus' natural blood during the crucifixion process, yet no one believes that those soldiers were sanctified by it. They probably went home and washed it off, and they should have. It did not make them new creatures; it made them dirty. For spiritual cleansing, they needed to be in the upper room on Pentecost morning, awaiting the arrival of the true blood of Christ from heaven. The blood that sprang from Jesus' natural body never cleansed anyone from sin. Only the blood that flows from his glorified body can do that.

The Spirit and the Blood

  1. We are justified, sanctified, and washed from sin by the blood of Christ (Rom. 5:9; Heb. 10:29; Rev. 1:5). At the same time, we are justified, sanctified, and washed from sin by the Spirit of God (1Cor. 6:11). Obviously, we are not justified, sanctified, and washed from sin twice - once by the blood and later by the Spirit.
  2. Paul taught that the resurrection from the dead is accomplished by God's Spirit (Rom. 1:4; 8:11), but in Hebrews 13:20, the resurrection is said to be by "the blood of the everlasting covenant."
  3. We all know that anything washed in blood turns red; however, saints in Revelation 7:14 "washed their robes and made them WHITE in the blood of the Lamb."
  4. By that same blood we are brought near to God (Eph. 2:13), but Paul himself restates it five verses later by saying, "by one Spirit we have access to the Father."

As a result of ignorance of this truth concerning the blood of Christ, many believe that the blood of Christ washed their sins away before they received, or were baptized with, the holy Spirit. But sin cannot be washed away before one receives the Spirit, because the Spirit is the blood that washes sin away. Paul's sins, for example, were washed away only when Paul received the Spirit (Acts 9:17-18; 22:12-16). He, like the disciples on the day of Pentecost, was forgiven, washed from sins, and justified with God, when he received the Spirit, the true blood of Christ.