Our inheritance is in the light, and there is no darkness whatsoever in it. It is totally in the light. How has He done it?

He has delivered us from the power [I prefer to say “domain”] of darkness and conveyed [translated] us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins. (verses 13–14)

By redemption through the blood of Jesus, we have been delivered from the domain of darkness and translated, or carried over, into the kingdom of the Son of God’s love.

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Looking once again at the Passover ceremony for Israel, we find one burning question for our application today:

How do we get the shed blood—after the sacrifice is complete—to the places where we live?

As long as the blood remains in the basin, it is not doing any good. It is available, but it does nothing. The Israelites had to take this simple plant called hyssop, dip it in the blood, and strike it on the outside of their houses on the doorposts and above the doors. Only then were they protected. Yet in the Passover ceremony, something else preceded the application of the blood.

Let’s look at 1 Corinthians, where Paul applied the teaching of the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread to Christians. Every Jewish family had to eliminate everything that was leavened from their house for seven days. The Orthodox Jews still observe this practice today.

“Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” (1 Corinthians 5:7–8)

We, too, must purge the old leaven—sin—from our lives in order to live in obedience to God. This enables the blood to protect every area of our lives.

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It is important to remember that it is neither our righteousness nor our faithfulness that forms the basis for our confidence in approaching God’s throne. Rather, it is God’s righteousness and God’s faithfulness. The first epistle of John expresses this thought:

“Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence toward God. And whatever we ask we receive from Him” (1 John 3:21–22)

Any attitude that thinks we have some kind of righteousness or claim in ourselves to approach God results in our approaching Him without full confidence because there is ultimately nothing in ourselves. We have no righteousness of our own. Our confidence cannot be based in ourselves.

We must also come to the place where we do not allow our hearts to condemn us—where we are trusting not in our own righteousness or our own wisdom but in God’s faithfulness. And that produces confidence. Paul said, “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). In the remainder of that chapter, Paul painted the most glorious picture of a life that is filled and controlled by the Holy Spirit, enumerating all the blessings, privileges, and benefits of that life. But the entry into that chap

Declaring God's Word

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