Wonder Working Power
Wonder Working Power
by Lonnie Lane
One of the things that blesses me the most about being part of a house church is when, as we talk, we discover that the Lord has been talking all week to each of us about the same thing. It happened again this past week. It seems the Lord had all of us thinking about, praying about, or reading about the Blood of Yeshua. As we each contributed our part it brought a rich and powerful multi-faceted revelation of what the Blood of Yeshua has provided for us.
As we talked while munching popcorn and sipping tea, Sandy told us how she has been taking communion every day for the past month, while meditating on and memorizing one verse about the Blood every day. She shared in a conversational manner a number of verses pertaining to what the Blood has bought for us, to which we added some other verses. As I think of it even now, I can hear Paul saying those things to a group of people meeting in a home in Ephesus or Philippi or Galatia, sharing his revelation, not as Scripture verses to be memorized but conversationally, just as we were discussing these same things as we talked about Yeshua:
“It’s through Him that we have the redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our sins ….God demonstrated His love for us Himself because although we were still sinners, Messiah Yeshua died on our behalf…. Then because we’ve been made righteous by His blood, we’ll be saved by Him from the wrath of God…. Yes, because while we were enemies of God, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son…So we’ll be saved all the more since we’ve been reconciled through His Life….Wow, and it pleased Abba to have to have all the fullness of God dwell in Yeshua and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself…. And He made peace through the blood of His cross through Him, whether they’re the things on the earth or the things in heaven…. So, we’ve been redeemed, not with things like silver or gold which are really futile to live for, but which we’ve inherited as a life-style handed down from our fathers… because we’re redeemed by the precious blood of Messiah,…(all together now!) the unblemished spotless Lamb of God!! (Eph 1:7, Rom 5:8-10; Col 1:19-20; 1 Peter 1:18-19. PNT greatly paraphrased.)
I felt so strengthened by the Truth of these verses. Scott remembered that he too had taken communion every day for a month a while ago but had gotten away from it. “What did it do for you?” we asked him. It had served to focus him on what Yeshua had done for him personally while giving him a closer sense of the Lord’s presence daily. Most of us have done this in our private devotions in the past at one time. Considering this discussion an invitation from the Lord, I have again determined to take time each day to “commune” with Him in “remembrance” of His atoning redemptive freeing liberating blood-shedding death for me and for His people.
A recent conversation with a fairly young Jewish believer brought up the truth that Yeshua died not only for our sins but also for those who have, in our estimation, sinned against us. That helped him release some hurts he’d experienced to the Lord. In our discussion, we affirmed that it is just as important to meditate on the fact that His Blood paid the unfathomably high price for those who may have sinned against us just as He did for our own sins. None of us is less in need of forgiveness.
That brought up the issue of honor. If Yeshua so honored each of us as to shed His blood for us we must extend that same honor to one another. Maybe that has something to do with “preferring one another above ourselves.” When it comes down to the foundational fact of His Blood purchasing our transfer out of the domain of the accuser and into the Kingdom of the beloved and redeemed, we dare not dishonor His Blood by holding one another in less esteem than Yeshua has. What an awesome thing our King has done for us!
We began to see a greater picture of what the Blood of Yeshua means as each of us contributed a different piece of the puzzle. The first time blood is found in the Bible it is found hidden in a definition of the name “Adam” which has to do with having “blood in the face” or “ruddy” or red like the earth out of which Adam was formed. (One of us just happened to have discovered that esoteric fact this past week.) Consider that an anemic or sickly person is pale in coloring rather than having a healthy “ruddy” appearance, which gives us the idea of what is meant by “blood in the face.”
Curious about this word “ruddy” we looked it up in a Concordance which we often do when we want a wider understanding of what the Hebrew or Greek word means. We found that this word “ruddy” appears only four times in the Old Covenant Scriptures (1 Sam 16:12; 17:42; Song 5:10; Lam 4:7) other than as it applies to Adam as God created him (perfect!). It is said twice of David (a man after God’s own heart or one beloved of God), or in the Song of Solomon where the Shulamite woman is describing the one she loves who is a type of Messiah: “My beloved is white (pure) and ruddy, Chief (or distinguished) among ten thousand.”
The only other reference is where the Nazarites (also a type of Messiah) were “more ruddy in body than rubies.” It would seem that we uncovered an insight into God’s own heart, that the four whom the Holy Spirit identifies as being “ruddy,” in Scripture are all types of the Messiah, and who somehow manifest a particular quality of blood (ruddiness) within themselves in a way that God Himself cherishes.
Knowing that blood plays a major part of sacrifice, we went to Leviticus 17 which says,
“For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul…for it is the life of all flesh; its blood sustains its life…for the life of all flesh is its blood.” (:11, 14).
Three times He says the life is in the blood. When God says something three times, it’s meant to get our attention. Know this is important. When we looked up “life” we found that the word for “life” is “nephesh” which can also mean “soul.” Leviticus 17:11 says blood makes atonement for our souls. So we can also read it to mean, “For the soul of the flesh is in the blood for it is the soul (in the blood) that makes atonement for the soul.” The principle of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth seems to apply here in a sense. Yeshua gave up His soul on behalf of our souls. A Soul for a soul, or really many souls. It also tells us that it was the soul of those four “ruddy” men that God loved, no doubt because their souls were one with God as Adam would have been before the Fall.
The first actual mention of blood was when Cain killed Abel and Abel’s blood cried out to God from the ground. Blood talks? It has consciousness? And a sense of justice? Is that why Abel’s blood could cry out to God from the ground, we wondered. Because his soul was in his blood? His blood seemed to have a consciousness even outside his body? This opened up a whole new dimension to our dialogue.
A paper recently sent to Sid told of studies that reveal that blood and organs of our body seem to carry memory. Perhaps you’ve heard stories of people who have received blood transfusions or transplants who have experienced memories that were not theirs but those of the donor. No wonder God doesn’t want us eating blood. Some primitive cultures believe that drinking blood brings strength to them and it is often connected with cultic or satanic practices having to do with witchcraft and spirits. If fresh blood does indeed have memory it may be more than just physical properties they are imbibing!
If the blood of Abel cried out, what did it cry out for exactly? Lydia had just read a book about The Blood this past week that said, Abel’s blood cried out for vengeance, the martyr’s blood cried out for justice, but the Blood of Yeshua cries out for mercy. Somehow, as little as I know about Abel, he just doesn’t seem like a ‘vengeance’ kind of guy to me. I’d be more inclined to think his blood would cry out for justice. Since house church leaves lots of room for discussion and examining things, it was fun to see that we actually had some sense of the person of Abel as if we knew him.
Someone else brought up the fact that Paul in 1 John in the middle of discussing loving one another says that the murder of Abel by Cain was a matter of righteousness. Was Abel a loving man as well as a righteous man as Paul asserts? I look forward to meeting him one day in heaven to find out. I’d like to ask him some questions, like how did he know that his animal sacrifice, which implies the shedding of blood, would be pleasing to God while Cain evidently missed that point?
As our discussion drew to a close, it seemed fitting to respond to the Lord in worship. We ended the evening with a joyful rendition of “There is power, power, wonder-working power, in the Blood of the Lamb.” A tambourine materialized. We actually remembered one of the verses, not just the chorus. We agreed we sounded somewhat like a Salvation Army street-corner band, but a good time was had by all.
Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.