Washing Away Our Sins
God speaks clearly and plainly on the subject of salvation and the forgiveness of our sins and the effect of the
shed blood of Jesus. We all need to consider the Bible teaching on what we must
do to receive these blessings.
The Bible teaches that the blood of Christ washes away our sins. When Jesus instituted the Lord’s
Supper, he taught, “For this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many unto remission of sins (Matt
26:27-28).” Paul added, “In whom we have our redemption through his blood, the forgiveness
of our trespasses (Eph. 1:7).” John tells in the Revelation that the saints who overcame “washed
their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb (Rev. 7:14).” Without the blood of Christ,
we cannot have the remission of sins and the forgiveness of our trespasses.
The
Bible teaches that it is in baptism that our sins are washed away. Ananius told Saul of Tarsus, “And
now why do you tarry? Arise, and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on his name (Acts 22:16).”
This passage teaches that our sins are washed away in baptism. It is in baptism that sins are washed
away. What washes away our sins is baptism. John wrote, “Unto him that loved us, and washed us from
our sins in his own blood (Rev 1:5).” The blood of Christ is what washes away our sins.
In baptism is when our sins are washed away.
Paul teaches these truths in Rom.
3:3-4 and Col. 2:11-12. Paul said, “Know you not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized
into his death (Rom. 6:3)?” In verse 4, he said that we are raised to walk in newness of life.
Our sins are gone, left in death, and cleansed by the blood, which Jesus shed in his death. The
Bible does not mention any other way to reach the blood of Christ except to be baptized into his death where his blood was
shed: “But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water (John 19:34).”
When we believe in Christ, repent of our sins, confess his name before men, we are then ready to be baptized into the
death of Christ where we encounter the blood of Christ and his blood cleanses us of all sin.
Paul teaches in Col. 2:12 and Rom 6:5 that our newness of life and our resurrection depend on baptism into Christ’s
death where his blood washes away our sins: Those saved were “buried with him in baptism, wherein
you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead (Col. 2:12).”
