The Blood and the Life

An English Language Dictionary describes “blood” as “the red liquid that flows through the bodies of humans and animals”. The word can describe a type of blood (“cold-blooded”, “blue-blooded”), family origins (“noble blood”) or it can describe relationships (“bad blood”, being after somebody’s blood, “blood is thicker than water” etc). A medical dictionary provides more detail-“A fluid that runs throughout the body by way of the arteries, veins and capillaries…composed of serum or plasma, red cells, white cells, and platelets. Plasma …carries the blood cells and transports nutrients to all tissues…also transports waste products resulting from tissue activity to the organs for excretion. Red cells give colour to the blood and carry oxygen. White cells aid in defending the body against infection. Platelets are essential to the formation of the blood clots necessary to stop bleeding.”

In short, without blood there cannot be life. Leviticus 17:11 indeed says, “For the life of the flesh is in the blood…” African societies lay great spiritual store on blood. If there is a small problem, they shed the blood of a chicken. If the problem is slightly bigger, they use a goat. If it’s a major issue, they use a cow and if the problem persists they use seven cows. Apparently African spiritual practice recognises a link between the quality of the blood and the resolution of spiritual matters. When there is a big need for propitiation, they may even use a human being! The traditional African society was not alone in recognising the redeeming value of blood. In Biblical Israel, when God was taking the Israelites out of Egyptian captivity, the final act of Passover as the Lord slew the first born of the Egyptians was based on blood. Exodus 12:13 says, “And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are: and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt.”

The children of Israel shed the blood of animals in presenting different types of sacrifice to their God, Jehovah. When there was need to recompense sin, the Isrealite was commanded in Leviticus 4:32-34, “And if he bring a lamb for a sin offering, he shall bring it a female without blemish….And the priest shall take of the blood of the sin offering with his finger, and put it upon the horns of the altar of burnt offering, and shall pour out all the blood thereat at the bottom of the altar.” It could be a peace offering as described in Leviticus 7: 29-30, “Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, he that offereth the sacrifice of his peace offerings unto the Lord shall bring his oblation unto the Lord of his sacrifice of his peace offerings. His own hands shall bring the offerings of the Lord made by fire, the fat with the breast, it shall he bring, that the breast may be waved for a wave offering before the Lord.”

It could also be a trespass offering-“And the priest shall take one he lamb, and offer him for a trespass offering…And the priest shall take some of the blood of the trespass offering, and the priest shall put it upon the tip of the right ear of him that is to be cleansed, and upon the thumb of his right hand, and upon the great toe of his right foot” (Leviticus 14:12-14). Blood could also be an instrument of covenant. After the Lord had delivered the children of Israel from Egypt, he gave them diverse laws and ordinances through Moses. In Exodus 24:7-8, after Moses read the laws of God to Israel they pledged obedience to God. Moses sealed the covenant between God and Israel with blood. “And he took the book of the covenant, and read in the audience of the people: and they said, All that the Lord hath said will we do, and be obedient. And Moses took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people, and said, Behold the blood of the covenant, which the Lord hath made with you concerning all these words.”

The Israelites could simply sacrifice to Jehovah to release blessings and the favour of God upon themselves, the famous sacrifice of King Solomon in 1 Kings 3 being perhaps the most notable example. Solomon is recorded to have gone to “the great high place” in Gibeon (according to Dake, this was one of the most prominent places of sacrifice in Israel at the time) and shed the blood of “a thousand burnt offerings” upon the altar of the Lord. Dake suggests that given the greatness of Solomon and his royal magnificence, the 1000 burnt offerings were likely to have been bulls rather than lambs, goats or rams and estimates the value of that offering at $325,000 excluding flour, wine and oil for each sacrifice. Solomon’s extra-ordinary offering led God to ask him, “…Ask what I shall give thee.”

The Israelites believed that animal blood could take the place of a sinner’s blood in atoning for sin, the sin of Adam having merited and brought death upon mankind. In the New Testament, Hebrews 9:22 asserts categorically, “And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission” And so in Israel, the High Priest would go into the Tabernacle on the annual Day of Atonement, and enter into the “Holy of Holies” and offer an innocent sacrifice unto the mercy seat on top of the ark of covenant, and thus obtain mercy from God for Israel for the next one year. (Hebrews 9: 1-7) But then God did not like this temporary arrangement. If the High priest was not clean, he would sometimes die in the Holy of Holies. The children of Israel were certain to sin again before next year and the annual atonement would become a hollow ritual-“But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year” (Hebrews 10:3) God purposed to create a more enduring arrangement.

And so Christ came as a permanent High Priest to offer an eternal sacrifice for man. Hebrews 9: 11-14 says, “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; 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. For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?”

Jesus declared in John 11:25 that He is “the resurrection, and the life…” and indeed rose on the third day after his crucifixion and Apostle Paul prayed in Philippians 3:10, “That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death.” That is my prayer for all the readers of this column and my family and I this Easter. Happy Easter.