for their ritual
The spiritual cleansing of Jesus’ blood
superseded ritual washings.
Jesus has fulfilled the rituals and replaced
them with something much better—himself.
How appropriate,
for Jesus filled the rituals completely,
rendering them obsolete. In the messianic age,
no space is left for ritual washings.
Truly, truly, I say to you,
whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do;
and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father.
Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do,
that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
If you ask me anything in my name,
I will do it. These words of Jesus,
as perplexing as they are at one level,
are powerfully inspiring and encouraging when you ponder them
in their context.
“As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.”
And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them,
“Receive the Holy Spirit.
If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them;
if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.”
(John 20:21–23)
So in John 14:12 Jesus is saying that his disciples will not only
continue his works,
but will do greater ones because he goes to the Father.
And on the way to the Father, he goes to the cross and lays down his life for the sheep
(John 10:15; 1:29),
rises from the dead and ascends to God,
from where he sends the Holy Spirit so the disciples
can do
the works they are called to do.
And in John 20:21–23
he is saying that his disciples are to continue his work
by receiving the Holy Spirit and,
in that power,
imparting the forgiveness of sins in the name of Jesus
on the basis of
Jesus death and resurrection.
Is there, in the connection between John 14:12 and John 20:21–23, a pointer to what Jesus means by the greater works they are all going to do? My suggestion is this:
what’s new and greater is that never before in the
history of the world had anyone ever been
forgiven by faith in the already crucified,
already risen,
already reigning, already indwelling Christ
All salvation up until now had been by anticipation,
by promise of the coming Redeemer.
But now — now that Jesus has gone to the Father,
now that he had been crucified, buried, raised, exalted,
and sent in the person of the Holy Spirit --
the great purchase of forgiveness
by substitution was finished once for all.
So I think Jesus would have said,
"Even when I have forgiven sinners during my earthly life,
I have forgiven them in anticipation of that.
But you will forgive them in my name on the
finished basis of that.
The Spirit in you will be the Spirit of the
crucified and risen Christ
The message you preach will be the message
of not of a promised ransom but a paid ransom, a
complete payment, a finished propitiation.”
What are the “greater works” that you will do — all of you?
You will receive the Holy Spirit as the Spirit
of the crucified and risen Christ.
Before the resurrection of Jesus,
nobody in the history of the world had ever done that, not even Jesus.
And in the power of that absolutely
new
experience — the indwelling
of
the crucified and risen Christ —
your works of love and
your message of life in union with Christ,
will point people
to the glory of the risen Son of God,
and you
will be the instrument of their forgiveness
on
the basis of the finished work of Christ
(John 20:23).
This will be new.
This will be greater than Jesus’s earthly miracles
because this is what he came to accomplish
by his death and resurrection.
John 2 - Turning Water Into Wine
The Gospel of John tells an interesting story near the beginning of Jesus’ ministry:
He went to a wedding and turned water into wine.
Several aspects of this story make it unusual:
- It seems like a minor miracle, more like a magician’s trick than the work of a Messiah. It prevented a little embarrassment, but didn’t really address human suffering the way that Jesus’ healings did.
- It was a private miracle — done without the knowledge of the main beneficiary — and yet it was a sign that revealed Jesus’ glory (John 2:11).
- The literary function is puzzling. John knew of many more miracles than he had room to write about, and yet he chose this one to begin his book. How does it help achieve John’s purpose — to help us believe that Jesus is the Christ? (John 20:30-31). How does it show that he is the Messiah, rather than a magician (as the Jewish Talmud later claimed him to be)?
A wedding in Cana
We can start by examining the story in closer detail. It begins with a wedding in Cana,
a small village in Galilee. The location does not seem to be important —
what is important is that it was a wedding.
Jesus did his first messianic sign at a wedding festival.
Weddings were the biggest and most important celebrations among the Jewish people — the weeklong party signaled the social status of the new family in the community. Weddings were such joyous occasions that when people wanted to describe the blessings of the messianic age, they often used a wedding banquet as a metaphor. Jesus used the image of a wedding banquet to describe the kingdom of God in some of his parables.
Jesus often used miracles in the physical world
to demonstrate spiritual truths.
He healed people to show that
he had the authority to forgive sin.
He cursed a fig tree as a sign of coming judgment on the temple.
He healed on the Sabbath to show his authority over the Sabbath.
He raised people from the dead to show that he is the
resurrection and the life.
He fed thousands to show that he is the bread of life.
And here, he provided abundant blessings for a wedding
to show that
he is the one who will provide
the messianic banquet of the kingdom of God.
When the wine was gone, Mary told Jesus about it,
and he said,
“Why do you involve me?”
In other words, what does that have to do with me?
"My time has not yet come.”
And yet, even though it was not yet time, Jesus did something.
John signals here that what Jesus is doing is somehow
ahead of its time.
The messianic banquet is not yet here, and yet Jesus did something.
The messianic age was beginning, long before it would
arrive in its fullness.
Mary expected him to do something,
for she told the servants to do whatever Jesus said.
Ceremonial water turned into wine
Now, it so happened that six stone water containers stood nearby, and they were not regular water jars, John tells us —
they were the kind the Jews used for ceremonial washing.
(For ceremonial cleansing, the Jews preferred water from
stone containers rather than clay pots.)
They held more than 20 gallons of water each --
far too heavy for picking up and pouring.
That’s a lot of water, just for ceremonial washing.
This must have been at the largest estate in Cana.
This seems to be a significant part of the story --
that Jesus was going to
transform some water used in Jewish ceremonies.
Jesus is saying, he is the one who cleanses and baptizes
only he has the authority
This symbolized a transformation in Judaism, even
the fulfillment of ceremonial washings.
Imagine what would happen if guests wanted to wash their hands again —
they would go to the water pots and find every
one of them filled with wine!
There would be no water
for their ritual
The spiritual cleansing of Jesus’ blood
superseded ritual washings.
Jesus has fulfilled the rituals and replaced
them with something much better—himself.
The servants filled the containers to the brim,
John tells us (v. 7).
How appropriate,
for Jesus filled the rituals completely,
rendering them obsolete. In the messianic age,
no space is left for ritual washings.
The servants drew some wine out and took it to the master of ceremonies, who then told the bridegroom, “Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink;
but you have saved the best till now”
Why do you suppose that John records these words? Was it advice for future banquets?
Was it merely to show that Jesus makes good wine?
No, I think it is reported because it has
symbolic significance
The Jews were like people who had been drinking wine
(performing ritual washings)
so long that they could not recognize when
something better came along.
When Mary said,
“They have no more wine”
it symbolized
the fact that the Jews had
no spiritual meaning left
in their ceremonies.
Jesus was bringing something
new and something better
Cleansing the templeIn keeping with this theme,
John next tells us that Jesus drove merchants
out of the temple courts
Commentators write pages about whether this temple-cleansing
was the same as the one the other Gospels report at the
end of Jesus’ ministry, or whether it was an additional one
at the beginning
In either case, John reports it here because of the
significance that it symbolizes.
John again puts the story in the context of Judaism:
“It was almost time for the Jewish Passover”
And Jesus found people selling animals and changing money —
animals for sin offerings fellowship offerings, and other sacrifices,
and money that could be used to pay the temple taxes. So Jesus made a
simple whip and drove them all out.
It is surprising that one man could drive all the merchants out. (Where are the temple police when you need them?) I suspect that the merchants knew that they should not be there, and I suspect that a lot of the common people didn’t want them there either — Jesus was simply expressing what the people already felt, and the merchants knew they were outnumbered. Josephus describes other occasions when the Jewish leaders tried to change the way things were done in the temple, and the people raised such an outcry that they had to stop.
Jesus did not object to people selling animals for sacrifice, or changing money for temple offerings. He said nothing about how much they were charging.
His complaint was simply their location: They were turning the house of God
into a house of merchandise
So the Jewish leaders didn’t arrest Jesus — they knew the people supported what he had done — but they did ask him what gave him the right to do this (v. 18). And Jesus said nothing about the inadequacies of the temple, but shifted the subject to something new:
"Destroy this temple,
and I will
raise it again in three days”
Jesus was talking about his own body, but the Jewish leaders
did not know that.
They no doubt considered it a ridiculous answer, but still they
did not arrest him.
Jesus’ resurrection shows that he had
the authority to cleanse the temple,
and his words foreshadowed its destruction. When the leaders
killed Jesus, they were also destroying the temple,
for the death of Jesus brought all the sacrifices to obsolescence.
And in three days Jesus was raised, and he built a
new temple— his church.
And many people believed in Jesus, John tells us,
because they saw his miraculous signs
. (John 4:54 reports the “second” miraculous sign; this makes me think that
the temple cleansing has been reported out of sequence because it is an
advance indication of what the ministry of Jesus is about.)
Jesus was going to bring about
the end of the temple sacrificial system
and the end of the rituals of cleansing —
and the Jewish leaders were unwittingly going to help him by
attempting to destroy the body of Jesus.
But in three days
everything would be changed from water to wine —
from lifeless ritual to the best
spiritual drink of all
Bringing it closer to home.. What do these two episodes have to teach us today?
First, Christians might well wonder if certain of our traditions have outlived their usefulness
and blinded us to
new developments in what Christ wants us to do.
It might be the holidays that we keep, or the way in which we keep them.
It might be the way that churches are organized and governed.
It might be unnecessary restrictions on who can do what.It might be attitudes toward evangelism.
But we can do well to ask if our traditions have become as meaningless as water,
and whether
Christ wants to transform them into something more stimulating.
Jesus illustrates the spiritual bankruptcy
of the religious leaders
by saying that they focused on cleaning the outside of the cup
and dish but were full of robbery and pursuit of self-interest
(Matthew 23:25).
Jesus says they should first focus on cleansing the inside of the cup and dish
(Matthew 23:26).
If they do that, the outside would be clean as well.
Jesus further illustrates the problem of hypocrisy
by calling them whitewashed tombs—they were pretty on the outside,
but they were full of death and decay on the inside
(Matthew 23:27–28).
Jesus’ message is consistent.
To make a cup truly clean, it is important to cleanse
the inside of the cup
(Matthew 23:26).
That is, it is necessary to have authentic, inner righteousness
that only Christ can provide.
The Pharisees and scribes were pursuing righteousness by their own efforts,
but they failed to recognize that even our most righteous deeds are like filthy rags
(Isaiah 64:6).
We have nothing to offer God that would make us righteous.
The only way we can be righteous is faith in Him.
This has always been the recipe, as evidenced by the early example of Abraham,
who was declared righteous
when he believed in God who was speaking to Him
(Genesis 15:6).
In the same way, we are justified
(declared righteous by God)
through faith in Him and now have peace with God
(Romans 5:1).
Because of this we are citizens of His kingdom (Colossians 1:13) and will one day see Him in all the glory of that kingdom (Revelation 19—20).
It was true when Jesus first said it—it is important to cleanse the
inside of the cup—and it is
still true today
Righteousness is on the inside by faith in Jesus
When the Bible speaks of our sins being washed away,
it means we are forgiven.
Our sins, which had defiled us, are gone.
By the grace of God through Christ, we are
no longer spiritually corrupt; we stand justified before God.
The concept of having our sins washed away is first introduced in the Old Testament. When God gave instructions for consecrating the Levites, He said, “Thus you shall do to them to cleanse them: sprinkle the water of purification upon them, and let them go with a razor over all their body, and wash their clothes and cleanse themselves” (Numbers 8:7). Isaiah 1:16 commands the rebellious people to “wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil.”
God often used physical illustrations to help us
understand spiritual truths.
We understand that washing with water makes us physically clean,
so the Bible takes that
concept and applies it to our spiritual state.
Throughout the Old Testament, God commanded people to purify themselves by following rigorous instructions about sacrifices, ritualistic bathing, and types of clothing to wear
(Exodus 30:20; Numbers 19:21; Joel 1:13).
From ancient times, God’s people understood that sin makes us dirty, and dirty people are unworthy to enter into the presence of the Lord.
Many of the laws in the Old Testament were given for
the purpose of contrasting God’s holiness with man’s unholiness.
David wrote of his need to have his sins washed away. After his sin with Bathsheba was exposed by Nathan the prophet (2 Samuel 11),
David repented with great sorrow. In his prayer of repentance, he says,
"Purify me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow”
(Psalm 51:7).
Jesus refers to Nicodemus’s need to have his sins washed away:
"Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are
born of water and the Spirit”
(John 3:5).
Human beings have always needed some way to have our sins washed away.
The New Testament continues the theme of washing sins away. Ananias told Paul to “be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on his name”
(Acts 22:16).
God had demonstrated through the Law that we cannot purify ourselves;
only He can.
So when Ananias instructed Paul to be baptized to wash away his sins,
Paul understood that,
despite his exalted status as a Pharisee, he was as sin-covered as
the lowest tax collector
(1 Timothy 1:15–16).
The Bible makes it clear that every human being is
born into this world as a sinner
(Romans 3:23).
That sin makes us ceremonially unclean and unfit to enter into the presence of God.
The blood of Christ is what washes our sins away
(1 John 1:7; 1 Peter 1:19). Hebrews 9 contrasts the old methods of cleansing with the new covenant that came through Jesus Christ. Jesus came to earth to establish
a new way of being made right with God.
Hebrews 9:13–14 says, “The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean.
How much more, then, will the blood of Christ,
who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God,
cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death,
so that we may serve the living God!”
When we, through faith, apply the blood of Jesus to our unclean souls, God pronounces us clean (Titus 2:14; 3:5).
He washes our sins away, as it were; He places our sin debt upon His own Son and declares us righteous in His sight
(Colossians 2:14; 2 Corinthians 5:21).
God chooses to forget our sin and remove it far from Him (Psalm 103:12).
We are still sinners in practice, but righteous in position.
An adopted child becomes a son the moment the judge declares him so,
even though he may not know the parents well, understand their house rules, or be deserving of their love in any way. Over time, he grows to know and love them,
assimilating into their family life,
and becoming in practice
what he was already declared to be in position.
So it is with us. Our sins are washed away the moment we place our faith and trust in the saving work of Jesus on our behalf (Acts 2:21). Over time, we grow to know and love our Father, assimilate into our Christian family, and become in practice what we have already been declared to be in position
(2 Peter 3:18; 1 John 3:3).
The joy of the Christian life is that, even though we are not perfect,
we can live every moment with the
confidence that our sins
are washed away by the blood of Jesus and we have
been pronounced “clean” by the
final Judge
(see Genesis 18:25 and Romans 8:33).
The Litany Of The Most Precious Blood
Lord, have mercy on us.
Christ, have mercy on us.
Lord, have mercy on us.Christ, hear us.
Christ, graciously hear us.
God, the Father of Heaven, have mercy on us.
God the Son, Redeemer of the world, have mercy on us.
God, the Holy Spirit, have mercy on us.
Holy Trinity, One God, have mercy on us.
Blood of Christ, only-begotten Son
of the Eternal Father, save us. (after each line)
Blood of Christ, Incarnate Word of God,
Blood of Christ, of the New and Eternal Testament,
Blood of Christ, falling upon the earth in the Agony,
Blood of Christ, shed profusely in the Scourging,
Blood of Christ, flowing forth in the Crowning with Thorns,
Blood of Christ, poured out on the Cross,
Blood of Christ, price of our salvation,
Blood of Christ, without which there is no forgiveness,
Blood of Christ, Eucharistic drink and refreshment of souls,
Blood of Christ, stream of mercy,
Blood of Christ, victor over demons,
Blood of Christ, courage of martyrs,
Blood of Christ, strength of confessors,
Blood of Christ, bringing forth virgins,
Blood of Christ, help of those in peril,
Blood of Christ, relief of the burdened,
Blood of Christ, solace in sorrow,
Blood of Christ, hope of the penitent,
Blood of Christ, consolation of the dying,
Blood of Christ, peace and tenderness of hearts,
Blood of Christ, pledge of Eternal Life,
Blood of Christ, freeing souls from purgatory,
Blood of Christ, most worthy of all glory and honor,
Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world,
Spare us, O Lord.
Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world,
Graciously hear us, O Lord.
Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world,
Have mercy on us.
V. Thou hast redeemed us, O Lord, in Thy Blood.
R. And made us, for our God, a kingdom.
Let us pray:
Almighty and eternal God, Thou hast appointed Thine only-begotten Son the Redeemer of the world and willed to be appeased by his blood. Grant, we beg of Thee, that we may worthily adore this price of our salvation and through its power be safeguarded from the evils of the present life so that we may rejoice in its fruits forever in heaven. Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.