Precious as the Blood by Robert Peck

Part 3 in the series “Precious is the Blood”

1 Corinthians 6:20 tells us, “For you were bought at a price…”

The Greek word translated bought actually means “to be in the market place.” But we weren’t in the market because we were doing the shopping; we were in the market because we were the merchandise. We were on the auction block as slaves – slaves of sin.

John 8:34 Jesus answered them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin.

When Adam sinned, he became a slave of sin, and all who are born of him are born into slavery together with him. If you don’t think you’re a slave of sin, just try stopping. You are either a slave of sin who cannot serve righteousness, or you are purchased out of slavery and are free to serve righteousness (Romans 6:20-22).

Now we know what we have been purchased from, but what is this “price” that Paul refers to as the price with which we have been bought?

1 Peter 1:18-19 knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.

God put a price on our heads, and that price was the precious blood of Christ.

We have learned that the life of a person or thing is in the blood thereof and that the eternal, limitless, divine life and nature of God was in the blood of Jesus Christ. Therefore, our purchase price was not just blood, not just a human life, but the life of God that was in the precious blood of Christ. God paid for us with His own life, essence, and nature that was in the blood of Christ. We were purchased with the most precious substance to ever exist in physical form.

In theory, under the principle of substitution and identification, God could have gotten a sinless man to die as the substitute for all who had sinned. By identification with that sinless man, our sins could be paid for, but we would still just be mere mortal men.

God could have sent an angel to live in sinless flesh and be our substitute. By identification with that angel, we would have been forgiven and elevated into the angelic class of the life that was in that blood.

But instead, God became a man himself, gave His own divine life in the blood of Christ as a sacrifice and purchase price for us, and through our identification with Christ, we are not only forgiven and set free from slavery to sin, but elevated into the God class, made one with Christ, seated with him in heavenly places, and made partakers together with him in the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4).

Our Creator loved us so much that He was unwilling to merely redeem us from sin, death, and destruction. He loved us so much that He purchased us with the most precious substance to ever exist in the physical realm – human blood infused with the divine life – and He did so for the purpose of elevating us to His own level, to the divine class, so we could have union, communion, and eternal fellowship with Him.

The reality of this should forever dispel every thought of inferiority.

Consider this: you have the value of the price that was paid for you.

Do you think God overpaid for you? He doesn’t. He wants you to have exactly the value that has been placed on you by the price He paid for you.

When someone digs up some rusty old relic, it might not look impressive, and we might not value it very highly. However, when it goes up for auction and a collector bids a million dollars for it, it suddenly becomes worth a million dollars. All the books that record the value of art and antiques now show that item as valued at the price that was paid for it.

And now, if you are in Christ, you have the value of the price that was paid for you. You have been valued at the price of the divine nature and eternal life in the blood of Jesus Christ. You have the value of the most precious purchase price that could possibly be paid.

We don’t get to determine our own value. Our only choice is to either reject being purchased by the blood of Jesus or consent to having the value that God has placed on us by purchasing us with the blood of Jesus.

It is not prideful to acknowledge the value that has been placed on us. To the contrary, it would be an insult against God for us to value ourselves any less than the price He has paid for us. True humility requires submitting ourselves to God, consenting to being purchased with the price He has paid, and agreeing with Him that we have the value that He says we have.

We are as precious as the price God paid for us. We are “Precious as the Blood of Jesus Christ.”

Robert Peck lives in Spokane Valley, Washington. As a Christian man who finds himself compelled to take a stand in the civil arena, Bob has served in political campaigns, promoted Constitutional education in the community, provided technical assistance to various Constitutional causes, and also manages to write the occasional article. He is an elder in ZChurch and a tech leader on the ZTeam.