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Grace in bloody water

It was Charles Spurgeon who shared that Judas demonstrates the futility of knowledge apart from sincerity, and that familiarity with the sacred can still produce a traitor. Just before Judas betrayed Christ with a kiss, the Gospel of John records: “When he finished praying, Jesus went with his disciples and crossed the Kidron Valley. On the other side was a garden, and he and his disciples entered in “(John 18: 1).

It is Easter at this time in the gospel story, when Jesus would be crucified. (The term “Easter” applies to this week much later in history). As John Rushdoony pointed out, there would sometimes be as many as a quarter of a million people celebrating Passover in Jerusalem. There were many sacrifices made in the temple. Sacrifices whose blood was applied to the altar, symbolic of the worshiper’s sin that was transferred to a substitute lamb, a lamb that was a shadow of Christ. The blood of the sacrifices needed to be washed from the Temple, so the Jews had made an irrigation system that cleaned the blood from the floor of the Temple. Blood and water mixed as the soil was diluted, another shadowy image of Christ’s sacrifice, as recorded by John: “One of the soldiers pierced Jesus’ side with a spear, causing a sudden outpouring of blood and water.” (John 19:34).

The Kidron Valley where Jesus crossed to be arrested by 600 soldiers had a great history. King David crossed this valley as he left Jerusalem to avoid a deadly confrontation with his son. Second Kings 23: 4 records another king who returned to God and ordered the hidden idols to be destroyed and then thrown into the same valley, along with the ashes of the demonic sacrifices to Baal. In essence, over the years, Kidron Valley became a place of trash and trash. However, John records a seemingly insignificant geographic reference when he says that Jesus crossed this valley.

As stated above, a quarter of a million sacrifices created a lot of blood. The water washed the blood from the floor of the Temple, which then flowed into a ravine, and the blood and water then poured into the Kidron Valley. If you were there during Passover, you would have seen the blood and water flowing into the valley. When Jesus crossed this same area, he would also have seen the blood and water of the sacrifices, an indication of his impending death.

He crossed the Kidron, the place of garbage and garbage, of blood and water, of the remains and ashes of sacrifices, for you and me, to be the sacrifice, to enter the dark and dirty places of the world to rescue people who were blind and lost. He crossed the Kidron to enter our lives as the one whose blood would be shed to cleanse the world of sin, so that people would no longer have to live in the valley of death.

Don’t miss out on the significance of this valley, whose name means “dark,” the very place the Lamb would voluntarily walk on our behalf so that we could be safe and clean.

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