WHY BLOOD?

            In my previous essay titled "Cowardly Christ" I mentioned that I would write on why blood is the only payment for sin, so, here it is.

            If you are a Christian, and you attend church even on an irregular basis, you will know that "...without shedding of blood there is no remission."  He 9:22   We have heard again and again that the blood of "the lamb" (Jesus) is the only thing that puts us back in right standing with God.  The question, and it isn't asked or answered often enough, is WHY?  Why blood?  And why ONLY the blood of Jesus?  These two questions are inexorably linked.

            To understand the answers to these questions we have to understand the nature of something God ordained from the beginning, the Covenant.  In a covenantal relationship each party gives everything he has to the other party and can deny nothing.  When God finished creating the world he gave dominion over all his works to Adam.  While God retained ownership he trusted Adam fully with its administration.

Gen 1:26  And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

And

Gen 1:28  And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

But did man's dominion extend beyond the Earth?

Psa 8:4  What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?

Psa 8:5  For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.

Psa 8:6  Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet:

            (I am well aware of the fact that in one sense these scriptures are speaking of Jesus, but they are also speaking of man.  This isn't the only instance where scripture will have a multiple meaning.)

            It is obvious that it refers to Christ in that we see it in I Cor 15:25 and I Cor 15:27, also Eph 1:22 and Heb 2:8.  But you will notice that some of this is future tense, and some of it, while present, says that the dominion has been given over to us... his church.  We must also recognize that WE were made a little lower than the Angels, and that we now sit with Jesus in high places.  Jesus took his rightful place as Lord over all by his right as a Man.  He took back what Adam had given away in the garden.

            If our place in the universe isn't clear from this passage then consider this.  Why did Jesus have to enter into the very presence of God, and sprinkle his blood on the mercy seat and purify the utensils of worship next to God's throne if they were not polluted?

            Man was given dominion  over ALL of God's creation.  This is significant.

            Here on Earth the priests had to go into the Holy of Holies once a year to sprinkle the mercy seat of the Ark of the Covenant with the blood of animal sacrifices.  (A shadow of the things that exist in heaven [Heb 8:5])

Lev 16:14  And he shall take of the blood of the bullock, and sprinkle it with his finger upon the mercy seat eastward; and before the mercy seat shall he sprinkle of the blood with his finger seven times.

Lev 16:15  Then shall he kill the goat of the sin offering, that is for the people, and bring his blood within the vail, and do with that blood as he did with the blood of the bullock, and sprinkle it upon the mercy seat, and before the mercy seat:

Lev 16:16  And he shall make an atonement for the holy place, because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel, and because of their transgressions in all their sins: and so shall he do for the tabernacle of the congregation, that remaineth among them in the midst of their uncleanness.

            What the priests were doing was a foreshadow of what Jesus would have to do in the presence of God, in the heavenly Holy of Holies.

Heb 9:11  But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building;

Heb 9:12  Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us

            So the question arises, why did he have to do that in Heaven?  Could it be that the sin of man extended to the very presence of God?  We have seen where man was given dominion of ALL of God's handiworks, so it would only be reasonable to assume that those things in the heavenly Holy of Holies were polluted were too.

Heb 9:22  And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission.

Heb 9:23  It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.

Heb 9:24  For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us:     

            When Adam acted against God's will he brought sin into the world and it poisoned everything that God had created.  Now, understand, God doesn't care about "stuff", he can create more.  Man was created out of the Earth and now that source was polluted.  God was concerned about was his man.  His child was lost to him.  He couldn't create another man because the Earth from which he had created him was polluted so he had to redeem him.

            In Genesis we read that God killed a lamb as a picture of what would be required to redeem his man.  In the future God would provide a payment for the sin of Adam, and a covering for the sins of men.

            So now man finds himself in the situation of owing God for the destruction of "everything" and no way to pay for it.  Couldn't God just forgive it and let it go?  No, the sin that Adam turned loose in the world was not a part of him, it was lodged in his very soul.  Sin cannot exist in the presence of God so it has to be removed.

            Even if it were just a matter of God saying, " OK, forget it.  You don't owe me anything."  It wouldn't work and here's why.

            If you owe me a couple of bucks and I say forget it, it's over.  We stay friends and the debt doesn't come between us, but if you owe me thousands of dollars and have no way to pay it back my simply forgiving the debt won't end it.  There will always be that anxiety over the fact that you "owe" me.  I may truly forget about the debt, but you won't.  As a result our friendship will end up on the ash heap.  You'll stop calling, you will avoid me, we will stop being friends because of your guilt.

            Man had to pay for the sin which poisoned God's creation.  He had to find something that God would accept as payment, but what?  All that man has access to was created by God and poisoned by us, nothing could be acceptable.

            For four thousand years the sacrificial blood of an innocent, spotless lamb was used as a temporary payment for sin.  It was man's way of saying to God "I will pay you back someday with the blood that you require."

            Over that length of time another problem arose as a result of Adam's original sin.  We had the nature to sin against the will of God in us.  The fact that we were no longer in the one to one relationship that we were created to have with him causes us to build up an individual sin debt.  Remember, when God killed the lamb in the garden the skin was used to cove the people individually. 

            The Hebrew people didn't understand that the blood of sheep and bulls wouldn't do the job because it was also tainted with our sin.  (He 9: 12-14 and He 10: 4)

What to do, what to do.

            The blood of animals that was sprinkled on the mercy seat, which sat in the Holy of Holies of the temple, was a picture of what Jesus would do with his own blood in the heavenly Holy of Holies.  This it begs the question:  What was it about the blood of Jesus that made it so special?

            First of all Jesus was the only BEGOTTEN son of God.  I emphasize that because there are books out there that have "Bible" on the cover and no "Bible" between them.

            This is one of the reasons that I am a King James man.  In my opinion it is the ONLY word of God in the English language.  If you want to debate me on that, don't bother.  Read "Final Authority" by Dr. William Grady and then fight with him.

            The King James Bible keeps the word "blood" in the text.  Many of the corrupted works remove it.  Now, I can understand if there is a difference of opinion on the translation of a word, but you can't just remove it if you don't like it.  And with "the Blood" being so central to salvation who would want to.  I think I know the answer, but that's for another discussion.

            The point is that the blood of Jesus was unique.  In being the only Begotten son he had the blood of God in his body.  This is simple hematology.  We carry the blood of our father, just like we carry the mitochondrial DNA of our mother, that's just the way it is.

            Remember, the sin of Adam polluted everything up to God's throne, but it didn't pollute GOD.  By having the blood of God in him Jesus carried the only thing in the Universe that was not polluted by Adam's sin.  It was the ONLY thing that COULD be used to pay the debt that was owed.

            Now some may be saying "How can a few liters of blood pay for the ruination of Everything?"  This is simple.  Who sets the value of something?  The owner.  If I decide to sell you a Lexus for a dollar that's what it's worth.

            Man destroyed God's creation.  When the question was asked, (by men who wanted to have a relationship with God) "How do I pay this debt?" 

            God answered with a question.  "What do you have?"

            Man couldn't answer, everything he had was worthless until Jesus stepped up and said "I have my blood."

            And God said "Good enough."

            So "WHY BLOOD?"  It was all there was, nothing else qualified as pure in all of creation.

            Now you know why blood is central in the true Christian church.  It is the necessary for the remission of sin.  It isn't glossed over, it isn't removed from their Bible, it isn't considered "gross", but rather it is preached on, sung about, and extolled upon without ceasing.

            If you haven't accepted the blood of Jesus as YOUR sin offering, do it now.  Accept the gift that Jesus freely gave.  Confess you sins and ask God to accept the blood of his only begotten son as a payment in full.  He will, and you will be set free.