The Blood of Christ

By Israel Crocker

October 2006

God in His infinite wisdom had a plan to save man from his sin, and such a plan that no mortal could have framed with his feeble mind. The Almighty's strategy involved the shedding of the blood of His precious Son, Jesus Christ. Several reasons could be given to prove that God is the only author of man's salvation, but one seems to prevail above the others: No man, not even an angel, had any idea as to how God was going to implement His scheme of redemption until it was finished (1 Pet. 1:10-12).

Blood has a crucial part in God's redemptive plan. "It is generally accepted by professed Christians that man is freed from sin by the blood of Christ; but I doubt if many who use this expression have any definite idea as to what conditions the blood of Christ cleanses from sin."1 It is strange to the world's judgment how a loving God could require the blood of the innocent to free the guilty. However, it is the world's ignorance of God's righteousness that creates this confusion. Those who learn of the need for Christ's blood and its purpose will learn to appreciate the sacrifice that Jesus made, and better understand the depth of God's love and wisdom.

Blood and Religion

Blood and religion would seem to make strange bedfellows, but ancient are the days since the two have been linked by the divine Creator. When most people think of blood they do not associate it with redemption or life-giving opportunity; instead, they relate it to sickness, death, or "horror" films. However, God has always considered blood to be a sacred item, and has forbidden man from partaking of it; especially since the practice of eating blood has paganistic roots. "In direct opposition to this emphatic prohibition of blood in the Mosaic law, the customs of uncivilized heathens sanctioned the cutting of slices from the living animal, and the eating of the flesh while quivering with life and dripping with blood."2 The Jews even, at one time, were guilty of idolatrous worship and eating blood. "Wherefore say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Ye eat with the blood, and lift up your eyes toward your idols, and shed blood: and shall ye possess the land?" (Ezek. 33:25, see also 1 Sam. 14:32). The Jews had drifted so far from God they turned to serve the grotesque practices of paganistic cannibalism. Eating blood of a victim has nothing to do with holiness nor the natural order of things. It is savage and perverted.

Paganistic similarities were not the only concern of God—He also regards blood to be the source of life for mankind (Gen. 9:4). From the physical perspective, it is blood that provides the capacity by which oxygen (among other substances) is carried throughout the body. Brother Rex Turner, Sr., says:

The case is that the cells of the body are maintained and/or sustained through the means of blood which carries oxygen to the other cells of the body. If, for example, the blood supply is greatly reduced or cut off from the brain, the brain cells die immediately for a lack of a proper supply of oxygen which is so imperative for their maintenance.3
Thus, the body's need for blood proves its importance in sustaining life. In some small way, this will explain God's words to the levitical priesthood: "For the life of the flesh is in the blood,…"(Lev. 17:11). Without blood there would be no life in the body; however, the context of this verse has greater significance than physical life.

Blood was/is the means of atonement for the souls of the sinful. Since God had designated blood as the agency of atonement, the Jew was not to partake of it, or else he would be cut off from God's people. The entire context reads: And whatsoever man there be of the house of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn among you, that eateth any manner of blood; I will even set my face against that soul that eateth blood, and will cut him off from among his people. For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul. (Lev. 17:10-11) The agent of God's atonement for man's sins, i.e., blood, is not to be consumed, nor tied to paganistic customs; because God hallows the sanctity of life-giving blood.

God's Justice and Bloodshed

Although most bloodshed would refer to wickedness, God says, "And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission" (Heb. 9:22). It takes the shedding of blood of the innocent to recompense the sins of the guilty. God's justice demands satisfactory compensation when it has been violated, and His justice cannot be ignored. For God to overlook sin against His laws would have Him contradicting His own righteousness. "If God should fail to requite the demands of violated justice, he would at that very moment cease to be a righteous God."4 Thus, the Holy Spirit said, "Behold, the LORD'S hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear: But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear" (Isa. 59:1-2). God cannot close His eyes to, nor excuse sin; consequently, in order for Him to maintain His justice and holiness, God has to separate Himself from sin. This separation from God results in death of the sinner.

The answer to this spiritual separation (death) was given by the loving God Himself. The bloodshed of the innocent Savior makes possible God's justice against sin. This vicarious death of Jesus appeases God's wrath against the transgressor.

For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. (Rom. 3:23-26)

Infidels mock God and accuse Him of being a sadist, as though God finds pleasure in death and suffering. Turner gives answer to this unwarranted allegation: First, true enough, if Christ were an unwilling sacrifice, then God would have been unjust in his requiring the death of his only begotten Son in the place of fallen man….Second, true enough, if the death of Christ was unnecessary, or if it could have been avoided, then God would have been unjust in requiring it;…5 The Father did not force death upon the Son—it was a willing sacrifice made by Jesus. "Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father" (John 10:17-18). As Turner accurately concludes, with the willingness of Jesus to die as the propitiation (appeasement) for God's wrath, the Father is just to require the death of the innocent Savior. "Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand. He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities" (Isa. 53:10-11).

Also, the death of Jesus was a necessary act to maintain God's righteousness. If Christ's death was unnecessary then the accusers of God would be correct to say that He was a Sadist. Notwithstanding, the Scriptures teach the contrary. Ezekiel prophesied, "For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord GOD: wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye" (18:32). God has no amusement in suffering and death; but, if He is going to remain just against the transgressors of His law, there had to be bloodshed to answer His wrath.

Insufficiency of Animal Sacrifice

"But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law" (Gal. 4:4). Jesus Christ did die on the cross, but His death did not come until approximately 6,000 years after the first sin was committed. As a temporary means, God allowed animal sacrifice to stand as a "bridge" until the true sacrificial Savior would come.

Reading the Old Testament, it is evident that animal sacrifices for sins is a matter that the Holy Spirit wants impressed upon the reader's mind. So many sacrificial offerings were made, and yet none of these would be sufficient to remove the sins of mankind. Here are some examples during the Patriarchal Age:

Abel's blood sacrifice (Gen. 4:4).

Noah's sacrifices after departing from the ark (Gen. 8:20).

Abraham's sacrificial offering as a covenant with God (Gen. 15:9).

Job's burnt sacrifices made on behalf of his family were from by the blood of animals (Job 1:5).

Even more examples can be produced in the following period—the Mosaic Age. God, through Moses, provides in greater detail all of the conditions for an acceptable animal sacrifice. In addition, there were so many different offerings for different occasions.

Burnt offering (Lev. 9:2-3)

Peace offering (Lev. 7:11-15)

Sin offering (Lev. 4:5-6, 17)

Trespass offering (Lev. 7:2-5)

Day of Atonement (Lev. 16:14-19)

Sacrifice as a vow (Lev. 7:16-17)

The Scapegoat Offering (Lev. 16:7-26)

These are just a select few among the many commanded sacrifices by God; the Lord had sacrifices for the firstborn child (Ex. 34:20), for the cleansed leper (Lev. 14:10), and for a free will offering (Lev. 22:18). Still, these sacrifices were not designed to fully remove the transgressions of men.

Were the deaths of these animals pointless? In no such way. First, God had commanded these sacrifices, and if the sinner wanted to live by faith (Rom. 1:17) he had to follow God's commands. Second, it is the opinion of this writer that every time that an animal died it was to remind the transgressor that life was lost because of his sins. The penalty of sin is death (Rom. 6:23).

The Hebrews' writer says that the blood of animals was insufficient:

For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered? Because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins. But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins. (Heb. 10:1-4)

Under the old covenants (both Patriarchal and Mosaic) continuous sacrifices had to be offered. The blood of bulls and goats was not able to take away the sins of man; but why not? An obvious point for animal insufficiency is that animals are not on the same "level" as man. Man was made in the image of God. 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. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. (Gen. 1:26-27) Since man was made in the image of God, having the ability to choose right from wrong—man is accountable for his actions (Gen. 2:16-17, 3:6ff). Animals, on the other hand, are not accountable. Therefore, to have ignorant and unwilling animals to die for the sins of man will not completely serve God's justice. True justice must come by the death of one equal to man's spiritual standing. A man must die for man's sins; but animals were not equal to humans, and their sacrifices had to be offered continually.

The Lamb of God

In what seems to be the climax of the first chapter of the Gospel of John, "The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world" (John 1:29). Jesus Christ, the Lamb sent by God, could rightfully die for mankind as He also was a man. Woods comments: Jesus is called a lamb because he is the antitype of the paschal lamb offered in sacrifice in Jewish worship…, and he is called the lamb "of God" being given by the Father for sacrifice.6 Jesus is the sacrifice sent by God Himself, and this is a sacrifice upon which no improvement can be made.

After all of the countless sacrifices offered on the behalf of mankind, now comes the One—because of His humanity—who will sufficiently stand in the place of the sinner. In our understanding, Jesus' humanity means that his atoning death is applicable to human beings. Because Jesus was really one of us, he was able to redeem us. He was not an outsider attempting to do something for us. He was a genuine human being representing the rest of us.7

For Jesus' death to be possible, He being God, had to become flesh. The Holy Spirit says, "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth" (John 1:14). The word "dwelt" has the marginal reading, tabernacled, the literal significance of the word in the Greek text. It means to pitch one's tent. A tent or tabernacle, as conceived in this passage, is a very temporary abode and thus the word indicates the brief span involved by our Lord in the flesh.8

The second person in the Godhead, the Word, was "made in the likeness" of man in order to endure all of the temptations of mankind (Heb. 4:15). Without God entering into the body that was prepared for Him (Heb. 10:5), Jesus could not have shed His blood for the remission of sins for many. However, since Jesus did endure temptations as we do, and since He did willingly shed His blood, God esteemed Him as the worthy sacrifice to appease all of His wrath against the transgressors of His law.

Only God Himself could have engineered this plan. No man would have God dieing on the cross for sinners. In this writer's view, the blood of Jesus Christ in the scheme of redemption is the proof that God is who He says He is; and it also proves that the Bible is to be the true guide for mankind. What proves Islam, Taoism, Buddhism, etc., to be false religions is their lack of blood redemption for the guilty; also, they have no answer for the violated justice of the sovereignty of the Supreme Being. These religions, and many like them, have no answer to the origin of evil and the price for conquering death (Eph. 4:8). Christianity, on the other hand, has all of these issues resolved.

Some even who claim to follow Christianity, but add their own doctrines, make the same mistake of underestimating the significance of Jesus' blood. For instance, some want to have a person being saved by grace but outside the church. This is impossible since the blood of Jesus was the purchase price of the church (Acts 20:28). If one is not in the church, he cannot receive the grace of God since he is not under the blood of the Lamb. Jesus' blood and God's grace are not separate in terms of forgiveness, both are necessary. God's grace comes from the blood. Again, if one believes that he can be "good enough" to make it to heaven, he does not recognize his need for the cleansing power of the Savior's blood. One cannot be saved without living a moral life (1 Pet. 1:15), but a person's good morals do not take away his sins (Rom. 3:23, 6:23).

In the religious atmosphere of today's Existentialism, or "better felt than told religion," people are more ignorant than ever on the significance of the blood of Jesus Christ. Man, the more educated he becomes with his own philosophies, attempts to find others ways to justify himself to God. However, without the precious blood of the Lamb there is no remission of sins, and thus, no hope for eternal life.

End Notes:

1. David Lipscomb, Salvation From Sin (Indianapolis, IN: Faith and Facts Press, 1913), 158.
2. McClintock and Strong, "Blood," in Cyclopedia of Biblical Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature, eds. John McClintock and James Strong (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1981), 1:834.
3. Rex A. Turner, Sr., Systematic Theology (Montgomery, AL: Alabama Christian School of Religion, 1989), 197.
4. Ibid., 178.
5. Ibid.
6. Guy N. Woods, The Gospel According to John (Nashville, TN: Gospel Advocate, Co., 1989), 41.
7. Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 1998), 821-22.
8. Woods, 32.

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