Crucified Hearts

Worship without blood is worship without God; it is worship offered to the self.

Worship without belief in and trust in the merits of Christ’s blood is why the worship of those who have not accepted him as the Messiah, as their personal Messiah, the only Anointed One of God, the only Savior of their sin, is an act of empty vanity. God does not accept such worship or hear their empty, self-centred prayers. No blood, no blessing.

“….without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins. Hebrews 9:22

This is the teaching of Israel’s Old Covenant worship services in the sanctuary, services designed and ordained by God as types of the sacrifice of Christ in the New Covenant. The Book of Hebrews explains this connection of the covenants and the meaning of the blood as our access to God.

In that service, the incense rising to heaven that was a type of offered prayers was first moistened with the blood of the sacrificed animal. Otherwise, no grace was extended to the one praying.

Our prayer, our thanksgiving, our praise, our service to God are unacceptable to him if not offered through the merits of Christ blood. Many know this as a theory, but in practice refuse to acknowledge their part in shedding his blood, let alone making it the only ground of their acceptance with God. To do so undercuts the self-righteous boasting of their good works as the foundation for the favor of others. The favor of God they assume they have earned, his blessing, is only a means to the more immediate end of being honored and respected for their personal achievements, for that is their “goodness” in life.

The cross of Christ is our only means of grace, our only means of acceptance and freedom of condemnation for our sinfulness. And for his blood to be shed means there is blood on our hands. When we come in repentance and faith, each day, we come to the Crucified One as those who nailed him to his Tree. Worship without blood is worship without God.

Here is the root of our enmity toward God and the demanding spirit that pervades religious communities today. The cross does not accept, does not permit, boasting in our good works. Pride is not allowed at the cross and the cross is our only access to God.

If self will not be crucified with Christ it is condemned to suffer the just death it deserves for it’s defiance of the righteousness of God. The cross can only be counted for us, for our justification and peace, if we count it as our death to sin.

Therefore, we must, to have life, say with the apostle Paul, “For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.” Galatians 2:19-21

Would you know the reason for powerless, loveless, demanding, defiling religion today? It stands barren before God because is comes without blood. The mere religionists want a dry-eyed, dignified, upstanding worship that is admired by all, but their end will be with “weeping and gnashing of teeth” when Jesus says, “Depart from me, you lawless ones. I don’t know you”.

Yet there is hope! The Good News is this: The blood that condemns our sin is the blood that washes that sin away. If by faith we are crucified with Christ we shall also rise with him from our graves.

Because, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

~ Romans 8:1-4

“For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

~ Romans 6:5-11

“Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.” Heb. 10:19-22

“The religious services, the prayers, the praise, the penitent confession of sin ascend from true believers as incense to the heavenly sanctuary, but passing through the corrupt channels of humanity, they are so defiled that unless purified by blood, they can never be of value with God. They ascend not in spotless purity, and unless the Intercessor, who is at God’s right hand, presents and purifies all by His righteousness, it is not acceptable to God. All incense from earthly tabernacles must be moist with the cleansing drops of the blood of Christ. He holds before the Father the censer of His own merits, in which there is no taint of earthly corruption. He gathers into this censer the prayers, the praise, and the confessions of His people, and with these He puts His own spotless righteousness. Then, perfumed with the merits of Christ’s propitiation, the incense comes up before God wholly and entirely acceptable. Then gracious answers are returned.

Oh, that all may see that everything in obedience, in penitence, in praise and thanksgiving, must be placed upon the glowing fire of the righteousness of Christ. The fragrance of this righteousness ascends like a cloud around the mercy.”

– Ellen White, 1 Selected Messages, p. 344