The One About “Why Do We Talk About Sacrifices, Blood and A Lamb?”
I was thinking about it when I took our students to camp last summer and I was bringing along some high schoolers that had hardly any knowledge about Jesus and I started to think about, what are they going to think when they hear about “the blood”, “the lamb” , “sacrifice”, etc.. it can start to sound a little eerie or “cult-like” if you are completely new to the faith. So, I am going to start first and talk about why the heck we always are talking about “the blood".” I will be splitting this up into many different posts + sections so stay tuned on the topics you want to dive deeper on. As you read this, I encourage you to not read this with barbaric perceptions but to try to understand the culture back then, the way that they lived and what was “normal” to them .
In this post, I want to do my best to try to unpack why we talk about “sacrifices” in the Bible and thus lead into the overall idea of “the blood.”
To effectively understand the significant of “blood” in the Bible, we have to understand God’s purpose for it. Blood is the symbol and representation of life and the consequences of sin (death/seperation from God). It sounds harsh but that’s just how it is, God is holy and He is the Author of our lives, He knows what sin does to our character, our heart and spirits and the way it altered His perfect and holy design. So, how do we wrap our heads around this? Where did this whole idea even begin? Why does blood have to be the redeeming power? Why did sacrifices have to be made?
We have to first understand the heart of God is that we LIVE, truly LIVE. He desired for us to have sinless lives and the Bible shows us countless times, after the fall of humanity and the birth of sin, we see God persistently reminding us to not do certain things (out of love and foreseen knowledge), desiring us to walk in reverence and partnership with Him and saving us from our foolish ways of thinking.
Now that we established that God wants us to truly be alive, we see how blood is what He gave to us as a vital and crucial part of the body. Blood shows that there is a life that is living and breathing. Blood was precious to God because life is precious to God. The blood and sacrifices of animals served as a reminder of the consequences of sin in our lives which leads us ultimately to death but the atonement or “cover” for our sin was through the shedding of innocent blood (which foreshadows to Jesus).
While it may seem like an arbitrary requirement, the shedding of blood as a means of atonement is not random or unnecessary. It is rooted in the concept of life and death, and the understanding that sin requires a sacrifice to be atoned or covered fr. God's choice of blood as the means of atonement/covering is linked to the understanding that life is in the blood.
Let’s start here and take a look in Leviticus 17:11, “For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life.”
(The Hebrew word for atonement, "kaphar," means to cover and/or reconcile, indicating that blood serves as a covering for sin). This verse in the Bible leads us into the understanding that life of anything is in its blood, therefore, the shedding of it symbolizes the giving up of life. The reason that we are reminded of that is because the penalty for sin is death.
In the Old Testament, animal sacrifices were offered as substitutes for human sacrifices, providing a way to temporarily atone or cover for sins. The blood of the sacrificed animal was seen as a symbolic payment for the sin and to also showcase the reminder of what sin leads to.
The sacrificial system of the Old Testament foreshadowed the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus Christ, who offered himself as a perfect, unblemished sacrifice for the sins of the world and allowed His body to be crucified by the hands of His own creation. His blood, shed on the cross, is believed to be the final and sufficient atonement for sin, fulfilling the requirements of the law, paying our debt and setting us free.
Let’s recap
God is HOLY
We disobeyed God by wanting to know knowledge and evil from doing an act He told us not do and thus sin entered the world; leaving us separated and alienated from God.
God desires LIFE and states that in the blood, there is LIFE.
God uses the symbolic representation of an animal sacrifice to serve as an atonement/covering for our sin. The shedding of innocent blood of the animal was to remind us of what sin does to us, how it leads to death.
We continued to fall short and making mistakes until God came down to earth, born from the womb of a woman, living a perfect life and eventually giving Himself up to His own creation as the ultimate and fulfilling sacrifice, shedding His innocent blood for all of mankind, raised back up to life and that whoever believes in Him (Jesus) will not perish but have eternal life.
We can now begin to understand why we hear Jesus say, “Truly, truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of Man, you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. (John 6:53, 54)
It starts to break down the “shock” of it and instead actually have reverence and understanding for what He has spoken and the truth within. His blood is what cleanses us once and for all. It is His blood that washes us clean. Jesus who delivers us from the danger of sin and eternal loss. He who was treated as we deserved so that we can be treated as He deserved.
He is the innocent lamb that was slain. He is the ultimate sacrifice that overcame any animal sacrifice.
John 1:29 - “The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, "Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”
1 Peter 3:18 - For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit.
We see how the death of Jesus demonstrates His justice, His mercy, His grace and love.
We see how in His ressurection we also see His power, authority and sovereignty.
God is love, His whole plan is rooted in LOVE. Let this be your lens you use when you read scripture. Let the knowledge and understanding that God is love lead you into understanding why things unfold the way they do.
Love you all, xoxoxo.
2 Cor 5:21 “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God”.
Gal 1:4, “.’.who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father.”
Gal 3:13, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. For it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.”
John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that everyone who believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
2 Cor 8:9 “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor…”
Isa 53:4-6, “Surely He took on our infirmities and carried our sorrows; yet we considered Him stricken by God, struck down and afflicted. But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”