Top Hymn

Appearing in every Evangelical hymnal published in 2024, a hymn says:

Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!

Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine!

Heir of salvation, purchase of God,

born of his Spirit, washed in his blood.

Perfect communion, perfect delight,

visions of rapture now burst on my sight.

Angels descending bring from above

echoes of mercy, whispers of love.

Do you want confidence to approach God? Do you want the assurance that you're going to be heard and that angels will descend the stairway of Heaven to bring to you God's mercy and love? Let's go back to Hebrews 10:22 to find out what it takes to obtain this so-called "blessed assurance."

Obtaining this confidence is not exactly the way the hymn says we do it--so let's perfect our knowledge of God's will by drawing a fine line between music and Scripture. Here's what the Scriptures say:

Let us draw near [to God] with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water (Hebrews 10:22; NASB).

Review: Sprinkled Blood

The hymn says "washed in his blood" but the Bible says we're sprinkled with Christ's blood, not washed in it. It says that we are washed in water. There's an important nuance here which we don't want to miss.

Over the past few lessons, we’ve examined the application of Christ’s blood to our lives. We have established many principles and it’s encouraging to recall what we have learned so far because Jesus has a ministry and you either benefit from it or you don't.

The day will come when all people will wish they had benefited more! They will wish they had applied these principles to their lives!

1. Blood alone

Only blood—and no other substance on Earth such as gold, oil, precious stones—establishes the legal basis for God’s forgiveness.

… without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness (Hebrews 9:22).

2. Blood speaks

The blood of Jesus speaks. And what does it say? It points out to whom the atonement applies. In other words, it says "God's forgiveness is on this person."

But you have come to… Jesus the Mediator of a New Covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel (Hebrews 12:22-24).

3. Baptism and blood

Our hearts get sprinkled with Christ’s blood during baptism. Yes--the moment of your baptism is that important! It is the moment Jesus' death counts for you. It's an official register of Calvary's blood onto your Heavenly account.

… having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water (Hebrews 10:22; NASB).

4. Clean conscience

Jesus’ blood cleanses our consciences from sin. It's a detergent for the soul. Jesus' blood purges us, and the purpose of that cleansing is to qualify us to serve God. His blood makes us useful.

How much more then [more than the Old Testament Temple sacrifices of bulls, rams, and sheep], will the blood of Christ... cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the Living God! (Hebrews 9:8-14)

5. The chosen few

Not everybody gets forgiveness. God has chosen only some people to experience this sprinkling. Only the chosen few get the privilege of being sprinkled with the blood of Jesus.

… God’s elect… who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father… to be obedient to Jesus Christ and sprinkled with his blood (1 Peter 1:2).

Additional Principles

Do these sound familiar? Yes. That's because we've already reviewed these five principles in previous lessons. So let's do something new and establish three additional principles regarding the blood of Christ:

1. It's visible in the cup.

2. It does not expire.

3. It's the key to victory.

1. In the cup

You can see the blood of our Lord in the Lord’s Supper. It is found in a very specific place--in the cup. If you drink the way you should, having confessed any sins you're aware of, the blood confirms your privileged position in the New Covenant.

For this is my blood of the Covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins (Matthew 26:28; ESV).

This cup is the New Covenant in my blood (Luke 22:20).

2. Fresh blood

The blood of Jesus is not just blood shed 2000 years ago. It never gets old. It has no expiration date. It has not dried up. To this day, the blood of Jesus is still the means by which God cleanses us from sin.

But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin (1 John 1:7; ESV).

3. A weapon

Through Jesus’ blood we become victorious over our worst enemy: the Antichrist! So Jesus' blood has become a weapon for us. It makes us invincible because with it we have no fear of death.

And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death (Revelation 12:11; ESV).

So, as the song says, there is power in the blood of Jesus! It brings us victory over sin, guilt, death, and even the Antichrist.

There is indeed “wonder working power in the precious blood of the Lamb.” But most Christians are confused about how to know that it counts for them. How can I be sure that the blood of Jesus has been applied specifically to my sins?

Owning It

How can you be sure that you own the blood of Jesus? You must own it for yourself, but how can you be certain that God’s promise of remission of sins applies to you personally? Full assurance--the confidence that we are right with God--is possible only if you're certain that Christ's blood has been applied to your life.

Let us draw near [to God] with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water (Hebrews 10:22; NASB).

According to this verse, we get assurance and gain confidence to approach God in prayer through baptism. Only after baptism does a person know that God accepts them and that we’re not under his judgment. Baptism is the action we take so that Christ's blood might be applied to our lives.

Baptism cleanses us of an evil conscience. It is a washing of the body from spiritual impurities. It is, as Hebrews says, a washing in pure water.

The Purpose of Baptism

We get baptized so that we might confidently draw near to God. Baptism is our preparation for drawing near to God the same way taking a bath is a person’s preparation for a job interview, a wedding, or a holiday.

Joseph's Baptism

Didn’t Joseph bathe before he met Pharaoh? The servants of Pharaoh took Joseph out of jail and bathed him. Only after his bath and a change of clothes did they take him before Pharaoh.

… Pharaoh sent for Joseph, and he was quickly brought from the dungeon. When he had shaved and changed his clothes, he came before Pharaoh (Genesis 41:14).

Esther's Baptism

Esther’s story is similar to Joseph's because she also approached a king, King Xerxes. But Esther bathed for a year! She prepared herself with two 6-month body treatments. She got more than baths. To meet her king, Esther subjected herself to baths, oils, lotions, and perfumes—and all these represent what it takes for the Church to be prepared to meet God.

Before a young woman’s turn came to go in to King Xerxes, she had to complete twelve months of beauty treatments prescribed for the women, six months with oil of myrrh and six with perfumes and cosmetics (Esther 2:12).

Joseph stood with confidence before Pharaoh. Esther stood with confidence before Xerxes. And we, the Church, must stand confidently before God. We cannot approach him unsure, insecure, or doubtful.

So, if you want confidence in prayer and you want to feel assured that you’re in good standing with God, like every other member of the Church, you must wash yourself in baptism. When you do, you have fully identified yourself with Christ. You have been properly joined to him and in his name you may ask whatever you want of God.

... my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name (John 16:23).

Being in Christ

Through baptism we are in Christ, and God will hear us if we approach him through Jesus’ mediation. There is One Mediator between God and man (1 Timothy 2:5). After baptism, our trust rests in Jesus’ life, not our life. Once we are baptized, we have died to the old self. Our confidence in the blood of Jesus becomes official. We are legally committed to God through the New Covenant in Christ, our High Priest.

A person who has been baptized has renounced self-confidence. Someone who has been baptized has placed their faith in Jesus’ righteousness, having discovered that their own righteousness is defective, insufficient, and corrupt. They do not do things in their own name anymore. They act, speak, and approach God in Jesus' name.

Not Poetic, Not Metaphorical

When the author of Hebrews writes of having our bodies washed with pure water, he’s not using a figure of speech. The expression our bodies is too concrete to be a metaphor.

Let us draw near [to God] with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water (Hebrews 10:22; NASB).

Are you among those poor interpreters of the Bible who thinks that the word bodies is a metaphor?

The test of whether a word is metaphorical is to ask: What does the metaphor stand for? Of course, there’s no good answer to that question if we ask about a metaphor for bodies in the context of Hebrews 10. The apostle is clearly talking about how we get physically immersed in water. He's not talking about heavenly bodies like stars or planets. He is talking about physical baptism--getting dunked in water.

We deduce two hard facts from our core passage today—two undeniable truths:

• sin contaminates the body

• baptism washes the body

We've already examined how baptism washes the body, so let's define how sin contaminates the body.

Sin Contaminates the Body

That sin contaminates the body can be supported by many verses. Not only Hebrews 10 speaks of cleansing the body from sin. Jesus said to gouge out your eye or cut off your hand if either one causes you to sin. That means that sin happens in the body, polluting it.

Then we have this verse:

… on some [whom you are evangelizing] have mercy with fear, hating even the garment polluted by the flesh (Jude 23; NASB).

This verse teaches that people’s bodies can be so corrupted by evil and sin that their very clothes become polluted. We have to be very careful we not get too close to sexually immoral people—people who dress provocatively, flirtatious people, homosexuals, fornicators, prostitutes, transgender people, and fans of pornography.

Not only their bodies, but the very clothes these sinners wear have become tainted with sin. Steer clear of them. Do not get close to their unclean garments.

Sin Against the Body

Here’s another verse that proves that our bodies become contaminated by sin:

Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? …Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body (1 Corinthians 6:15, 18).

You must be pure, innocent, and avoid contamination like a young princess.

But does sin actually contaminate a person's body? Absolutely yes. In particular, sexual sin makes your body dirty--even venereal diseases are evidence of that. AIDS, gonorrhea, syphilis, herpes, and others are punishments for dirty sexual behavior (with rare exceptions).

That's what Paul meant when he wrote:

God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another.

Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error (Romans 1:26-27).

And since the body, soul, and spirit are inextricably intertwined (1 Thessalonians 5:23), like a rope with three cords (Ecclesiastes 4:12), and because our bodies must be resurrected—they must be prepared for the resurrection by cleansing.

Now you know why having our bodies washed with pure water is so important! Each of us will keep our body forever. We must be baptized during this life.

So be baptized in the name of Jesus in this life before your time is up. Be sprinkled with the blood of Jesus and washed in water, and you'll have confidence to approach God. We need so desperately to be close to God!