Oh the Wonderful Power of the Blood!

Oh how there is so much power in the blood of the Lamb slain for God's glory and our salvation!!! We must proclaim this from the rooftops.
I believe we have been proclaiming this great truth throughout the ages. One of the most familiar hymns of Christendom is "There Is Power in the Blood."
As you know I have been reading When the Church was a Family. I recently read that the most significant relationship in the Mediterranean world was the sibling relationship.
So what does sibling relationships and the power of the blood have to do with each other?
Well I was told the other day by a friend that the brother-sister talk in the church is sort of strange. I began to wonder why this was so. I has pretty much adopted the language myself and never thought of it as strange. Except on occasions when I did not know how to address a pastor or lay leader of the church.
The language may be strange because we have only stressed the spiritual power of the blood of the Lamb. The blood is what washes us white as snow, cancels the debt of sin, frees us from pride, victoriously triumphs over evil, and empowers us to live for the King. Notice these are primarily vertical aspects of our relationship with God. What I mean by vertical is that they primarily have to do with our spiritual relationship with God and do not say a whole lot about our relationship with one another.
It is very interesting that throughout the New Testament that Jesus chose to use family language to speak of the relational aspect of Believers. Notice all the brother language in the Scriptures. What if we have missed something tied into the power of the blood?
I believe the thing we have missed is that the power of the blood work both vertically and horizontally.
Remember what Jesus says when Peter pipes up and says, "We have left everything to follow you (Jesus)." and Jesus replies, "Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left houses or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life." (Mark 10:28-30)
There are some amazing things this passage reveals once we really see the significance of the sibling relationship in the first century world.
Notice one relationship we place great value on in Western society that did not make the list. Marriage. This does not mean that marriage was not valued but I was not the most significant relationship of Jesus' time.
Notice also the timing of the blessings of following Jesus. Jesus tells us that we will be blessed now and in the future. At this time we will receive 100 times what we once had in brothers and sisters and land (possessions). In the future we will receive eternal life.
The blessing of 100 times what we left behind to follow Jesus is wrapped up in the power of the blood. We follow in such a way that disconnects us from our biological families but makes us adopted children of the King. The blood makes us new family members. We are what Joseph Hellerman calls "surrogate siblings." By the power of the blood we are forgiven, sinless, and apart of the King's family.
We have become brothers and sisters in a family that shares everything for the benefit of one another so that none are in need. We have become members of a new family that will love one another in a way that the world will know who our Father is. We are brother and sisters in the kingdom of God so that when we come to the alter of the King we will go forgive our brothers and sisters before we make our offering. We will not do these things out of obligation to the power of the blood but because of the power of the blood of Christ.
Are you a family member of the kingdom? Are you a brother or sister?
Live by the power of the blood--loving, living, caring, supporting, and walking with your other brothers and sisters in such a way that Bride would be most beautiful on the day of the Savior's return.
Oh, how there is power in the blood, wonderful power to bond us to one another as family and turn us from our rebellion against God.