Although I was raised in a Christian home, attended church twice on Sunday and heard about Jesus shedding His blood on the cross for my sins almost every week, it was a mystery to me.
I belted out lyrics like What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus, and There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel’s veins; and sinners, plunged beneath that flood, lose all their guilty stains.
There was nothing lackluster about my singing, but I admit to a limited understanding of the words.
Leviticus 17-18 take place after the time of the Exodus from Egypt and while they wandered in the wilderness. God set up a set of rules and regulations on the way His people were to live, interact, and worship, and blood played an integral part in that worship.
Think about this quote from Leviticus 17:11
for the life of the body is in its blood. I have given you the blood on the altar to purify you, making you right with the LORD.* It is the blood, given in exchange for a life, that makes purification possible.
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,
“For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life.”
The context of the above verse prohibits the Israelites from eating blood for two reasons: the life of the creature is in the blood and God established a blood sacrifice to make atonement for mans’ sins. In simpler terms, in the Old Testament, the blood sacrifice for sin covered the sin of man—we have been reading all about this in the book of Leviticus. The animal died as a substitute for man, the sinner.
The word used is atonement. One definition from Dictionary.com is, “satisfaction or reparation for a wrong or injury; amends.”
Hebrews 9:22
In fact, according to the law of Moses, nearly everything was purified with blood. For without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness.
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states that without the shedding of blood there is no remission or forgiveness of sins.
The only way to approach the Holy God of Israel was through the life or blood of an innocent victim.
Fast forward to Matthew 27:27-50
Some of the governor's soldiers took Jesus into their headquarters* and called out the entire regiment. They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him. They wove thorn branches into a crown and put it on his head, and they placed a reed stick in his right hand as a scepter. Then they knelt before him in mockery and taunted, "Hail! King of the Jews!" And they spit on him and grabbed the stick and struck him on the head with it. When they were finally tired of mocking him, they took off the robe and put his own clothes on him again. Then they led him away to be crucified. Along the way, they came across a man named Simon, who was from Cyrene,* and the soldiers forced him to carry Jesus' cross. And they went out to a place called Golgotha (which means "Place of the Skull"). The soldiers gave him wine mixed with bitter gall, but when he had tasted it, he refused to drink it. After they had nailed him to the cross, the soldiers gambled for his clothes by throwing dice.* Then they sat around and kept guard as he hung there. A sign was fastened above Jesus' head, announcing the charge against him. It read: "This is Jesus, the King of the Jews." Two revolutionaries* were crucified with him, one on his right and one on his left. The people passing by shouted abuse, shaking their heads in mockery. "Look at you now!" they yelled at him. "You said you were going to destroy the Temple and rebuild it in three days. Well then, if you are the Son of God, save yourself and come down from the cross!" The leading priests, the teachers of religious law, and the elders also mocked Jesus. "He saved others," they scoffed, "but he can't save himself! So he is the King of Israel, is he? Let him come down from the cross right now, and we will believe in him! He trusted God, so let God rescue him now if he wants him! For he said, `I am the Son of God.'" Even the revolutionaries who were crucified with him ridiculed him in the same way. At noon, darkness fell across the whole land until three o'clock. At about three o'clock, Jesus called out with a loud voice, "Eli, Eli,* lema sabachthani?" which means "My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?"* Some of the bystanders misunderstood and thought he was calling for the prophet Elijah. One of them ran and filled a sponge with sour wine, holding it up to him on a reed stick so he could drink. But the rest said, "Wait! Let's see whether Elijah comes to save him."* Then Jesus shouted out again, and he released his spirit.
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, the New Testament reading for the day. The perfect, spotless, Son of God was mocked and tortured by the very people He created. He hung naked on a cross while the crowd challenged Him to come down.
Pauline Hylton is a freelance writer and exhausted farmer who lives outside of Mayberry on an old tobacco farm. She and her husband Tom tried farming full time, but ran out of back. Now Tom works, and Pauline stays home and eats dark chocolate. She has company: a standard poodle, two mutts, a lion-kitty, and a whole “mess” of chickens. Oh yeah, and there’s Molly, the great Pyrenees guards the chickens 24/7, and she’s good at it. When she doesn’t eat one. Pauline’s looking toward heaven, while laughing on earth. She loves her Lord, her family, and dark chocolate—not necessarily in that order
