So Christ has now become the High Priest over all the good things that have come. He has entered that greater, more perfect Tabernacle in heaven, which was not made by human hands and is not part of this created world. With [H]is own blood-not the blood of goats and calves-[H]e entered the Most Holy Place once for all time and secured our redemption forever. Hebrews 9: 11, 12, NLT (Emphasis provided).
Holy Father, today as we enter the study of Your Word we say, Thank You so much for Your blood! May we be covered with that blood as we study this day. In the blessed name of Jesus we pray. Amen.
I believe that Christians of every age have echoed this question, “Where would we be without the blood?” Many people believe that the Judeo-Christian tradition is very “bloody;” and maybe they are right; but let us stop for a while and consider this question for a few moments. I pray that after we have done this, we will be able to say, like so many before us, “Thank God for the blood!”
In the book of Genesis, when our first parents sinned, the Bible says that they took “leaves,” and made themselves “aprons.” We know how fragile most leaves are, and how limited the covering of some aprons can be. Therefore, God came to their rescue and we read in Genesis 3: 21, “And the LORD God made garments of skins for the man and his wife, and clothed them.” (Emphasis provided). Where do we get skin from? Animals, correct? Which brings us to the conclusion that in order to really cover humankind’s nakedness, an animal or animals had to die! This represented the “shedding of blood.”
After humankind sinned, a system of atonement was put in place to cover for the sins of humanity until the Perfect Sacrifice, the “Lamb without spot or blemish,” Jesus Christ, would be offered for the sins of the world. This system consisted primarily, of sacrificing animals, and offering their blood, as reparation for the sins of the people (Genesis 4: 4; Leviticus 16). It was not an inhuman system that indiscreetly sacrificed innocent animals (Leviticus 17: 3, 4). It had been set in place by God Himself, to keep alive the promise made in the Garden of Eden, that God would put enmity between the seed of the woman and the adversary (Genesis 3: 15); and to make humanity aware of the terrible “wages of sin.”
Originally, both human beings and animals were herbivorous, that is, all they ate were plants (Genesis 1: 29, 30). After the flood when all vegetation, had been destroyed, God gave human beings and the beasts that had been preserved alive in the ark, permission to eat flesh (Genesis 9: 3). So animal flesh now became a part of the diet for human beings. For this, there had to be the shedding of blood.
The importance of the shedding of blood in the sacrificial system was the fact that, “the life of the flesh (or body) is in the blood” (Leviticus 17: 11). Since the wages of sin is death; and God so loved us that He gave His Son, to take our place and die our death; it was the shedding of Jesus’ blood that caused my blood not to have to be shed! He became the slaughtered Lamb, so that you and I could walk away, whole; really whole! Hallelujah! Praise His name!
The sacrificial system of the old covenant was “ratified” with the blood of an animal” (Hebrews 9: 18). Under the new covenant, when type met Antitype, the innocent lamb escaped, and in its place, the Lamb of God surrendered His life on the cross, so that the blood of neither man or beast needed to be shed ever again! The once and forever Sacrificial Lamb had been offered, and His blood was, and is sufficient! Where would we be without His blood?