As we commemorate the ultimate blood sacrifice of Christ Jesus on the cross and his defeat of death that we may obtain salvation and everlasting life, we must remember that this not just a story, not just a perfunctory “check off the box” that we attend services. As recorded in Luke 4, Christ proclaimed in the synagogue on the sabbath from the book of Isaiah, “The Spirit of the LORD is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recover the sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.” Then he said, “This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.”
Jesus set out on a journey to fulfill what had been set in motion in the Garden of Eden with the fulfillment of the Father’s salvation plan for mankind. This often prompts the question: Why all the blood? Many of the explanations deal with the idea of “penal substitutionary atonement,” in other words, God’s demand for justice that is “satisfied” by the shedding of the sacrificial victim’s blood. This idea was common to the time, with the many pagan sacrifices. However, the LORD had a better “pattern” to establish through the shadow of the sacrificial system. The Old Testament makes it clear that blood was used for obtaining atonement with God. For example, before the Exodus from Egypt, blood was applied to the doorposts of the houses so that judgement would pass over the house. Note that unblemished lambs were required.
The ultimate purpose was to make atonement for the soul upon the altar, as Leviticus 17:11 says, “For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to atone for your souls.” Blood then, is connected to the holiness of life through sacrificial death. “For what one earns from sin is death (Romans 6:23), and “…the soul who sins, himself will die” (Ezekiel 18:4). The sacrificial system was intended to symbolically depict the life for life principal—God in His grace accepted the innocent sacrificial substitute based on the offender’s faith. Sin separates us from God, but sacrifice (Korban in Hebrew), brings us near, that is the message of the gospel. The blood of Jesus is called the blood of the eternal covenant that cleanses us from our sins (Hebrews 13:20, 1 John 1:7).
Romans 3:25 says, that Jesus is the propitiation or atonement, in Hebrew, Kapporah, for sin “through his faithfulness in respect to his bloody sacrificial death.” The sprinkling of His blood, represented by His Passion on the cross, was offered upon the Heavenly Kapporet before the Throne of God. Hebrews 9:12 says, “He entered not by means of the blood of sheep and calves, but by his own blood, thus setting people free forever.” A meaning of the Hebrew word kapporah is “atonement.” To make us “at-one-ment” with God, because of His love, “Here is what love is: not that we have loved God, but he has loved us and sent his Son to be the Kapporah (atonement) for our sins (1 John 4:10). Indeed, Jesus, the Lamb of God, fulfilled God’s plan by paying with his blood to set us free from sin. To Him be the glory forever and ever. Amen.
