As soon as they left Egypt, the nation of slaves God had decided to save from their bondage had to learn something essential. Deliverance from oppression comes at a cost. He taught them that Life was in the Blood. And that blood was sacred (as your life is sacred).
What is so sacred about someone’s life? The miracle is that a pile of dust is only worth about $8.35 in primary materials (someone calculated it). But God breathed into Adam’s lungs the breath of life and he became a living person. The breath of God was upon him and that is invaluable.
Genesis 2.7: “Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being.”
Later God explains that the blood of an innocent one is sacred and serves as *atonement for your souls. (*Atonement is the price to pay to repair a fault or injury).
Leviticus 17.11 “For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement, by reason of the life.”
The sacrifice of an innocent animal was necessary to provide a pardon to one who is guilty.
Easter (the Passover) is the passage between certain death and eternal life.
Very precise instructions were given to Moses to prepare the people for the passage out of the land of bondage. For the Jews, Easter was the deliverance of the Hebrews from their slavery in Egypt and the miraculous crossing of the Red Sea (which was between them and the Promised Land).
Exodus 12.3-23: “The whole assembly of Israel shall sacrifice their lamb in the evening. 7 Then they will take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat them. … you shall eat in haste. It is the Lord’s Passover. 12 For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will smite all the first-born in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgements: I am the Lord. 13 The blood shall be a sign for you, upon the houses where you are; and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall fall upon you to destroy you when I smite the land of Egypt.”
23 “For the Lord will pass through to slay the Egyptians; and when He sees the blood on the lintel and the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over the door, and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to slay you.”
30 “There was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where one was not dead. 33 And the Egyptians were urgent with the (Hebrew) people to send them out of the land in haste; for they said, “We are all dead men.”
The price to stay alive is the blood of an innocent to cover each fault
God was teaching his people that an innocent lamb had to die on our behalf to cover our sin. Otherwise for each sin committed we would have to pay for it with our life. Of course, we only have one life to give and therefore the weight of our accumulated sins we can never make it up for our misconduct.
Even so, a lamb (even when innocent) does not have the same value as offering our own life for our sins. But we have a major default. No man is innocent. And as we don’t dare offer a lamb with a default to God, no imperfect man can satisfy Divine Justice. And he cannot die for himself much less die for someone else.
So the pouring out of a lamb’s blood has a symbolic meaning.
The blood sacrifice opens the way between Death and Life.
For Christians, Easter is the road Jesus travelled between Death and Eternal life. He proved by his life that he was the only Innocent Man that had ever lived. And he gave his life as a sacrifice to pay the price that Divine justice required. He repurchased the sins of all mankind. So, Jesus has been considered the Sacrificial Lamb provided by God in Jewish tradition.
The Innocent Lamb must pass from life to death at the hands of guilty men so that guilty men (already condemned) may pass from certain death to eternal life…And on the cross, one of the last words of Jesus was, “God forgive them for they know not what they do”. What a mystery!
So what was the use of all these rules and regulations (sacrifices and ablutions)?
Hebrews 9.9-10: ” 9 (This was symbolic) because the gifts and sacrifices are offered which cannot perfect the conscience of the worshipper. 10 but deal only with food and drink and various ablutions, regulations for the body imposed until the time of the reformation.
So, though it was necessary to follow these rules during the centuries preceding Christ, they were only an image of a heavenly reality. But when the heavenly reality in Jesus as the Lamb of God appeared, the sacrifice of His life handled the question of sin once and for all.
This is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1. 21)
The name given by the angel to Mary was Jesus which means “God saves”. And 500 years earlier the prophet Isaiah announced (Isaiah 7. 14) that the virgin will give birth to a son called Emmanuel (God with us or in the midst of us).
Yes God had already prepared the solution to save us. Only the blood of an innocent man could save those who are guilty of their sins. Where can you find such a man on the earth who would be willing to sacrifice his life voluntarily? And why would he do it for the worst criminals or persecutors on the earth? He certainly didn’t deserve to die that way.
But anyone who would accept that Jesus’ sacrifice was sufficient (in God’s eyes) to pay the price to purify the stain of sin on their lives will be saved. And like John says in 1 John 1.7 This man has come. “The blood of Jesus His son cleanses us from all sin”.
What is truly incredible is that he accepts that the justice of men (the Romans) decides if he had the right to live or not. (Pilate, who judged the case, declared him innocent but for political reasons and under pressure from the crowd, they crucified Him anyway).
John the Baptist declared prophetically (John 1.29) « Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world”. The work that Jesus was undertaking was to lift off the weight of cumulated sin since the beginning of time and for every person that has ever lived. And this sacrifice would be real (and not symbolic) for every man who believes that the sacrifice of Jesus has been accepted by God the Father as payment in full.
The blood sacrifice of the life of an Innocent Man accepted by God
Whoever calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. (Acts 2.21)
And the way into the holy presence of God has been opened thanks to Jesus. When Thomas asked him (see John 14.6: « How can we know the way (passage)”, Jesus answered: “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life; no one comes to the Father but by me”.
We like to say all roads lead to Rome. And that is possible in geographical terms. But on the spiritual level, Jesus says clearly: “No one comes to the Father but by Me”. Either Jesus tells the truth and we had better question our certainties. Or He is a big liar! In that case, we are completely wrong to think that he is a Prophet or an important historical person.
Clearly, the disciples believed Him.
Acts 4.12: “And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved “.
But we can also believe it by deduction. We read in the letter to the Hebrews.
Hebrews 9.22: “Under the law, almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sin ».
To shed any more blood is useless
The fact is that every year blood sacrifices are held all over the world. If that was efficient (more than a symbolic representation) they would have been cancelled.
Hebrews 10.1: “For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of those realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices which are continually offered year after year, make perfect those who draw near. 2. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered? If the worshipers had once been cleansed, they would no longer have any consciousness of sin. 3. But in these sacrifices, there is a reminder of sin year after year. 4. For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sin…
The problem with committing a sin
Something very important is to be noted here. By the fact that time moves on second by second, any sin committed a second ago is already solidly fixed in the past. It is like anything that happened yesterday. Nothing we can do will change the reality of what was done. But the shameful regrets can torture our thoughts and the consequences affect our lives every day thereafter.
Let’s take the example of a young driver (or an older one) who ran into and killed a cyclist an evening in November. The excuse could be that the headlights of an oncoming car blinded him. That will allow him probably to escape being arrested for involuntary homicide. But that does not change the fact that the person is dead and as a consequence, destroyed a family or a promising career.
Nothing will clean our subconscious of this memory.
Nothing will clean us of the memory of that event. And you can make as many sacrifices as you want to be a volunteer in an NGO that takes care of others suffering from road injuries. Unless the blood of Jesus purifies your conscious mind of this past event, your efforts will only reinforce your distress.
Your « fault » like any event from your past is recorded indelibly in time and space. Nothing can wipe the slate clean!
That is the sense of what is written here. “IT CAN NEVER, by the same sacrifices which are continually offered year after year, make perfect those who draw near. 2. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered?
If they were purified once and for all, they wouldn’t have any consciousness of their sins !. 3 But in fact, the yearly sacrifice reminds them continually of their sin.” Poor us!
To delete a sin fixed in the eternity of our past we need to benefit from a sacrifice that has an eternal value in the eyes of God.
As sin has the nature of eternity, so the sacrifice needs to have the power of eternity behind it.
God proved the divine nature of Jesus several times in public. “And a voice came out of the cloud saying, « This is my Son, My Chosen: Listen to Him !» (Luke 9.35)
The proof of His divinity was manifested by His resurrection. For a sinful man cannot enter into the presence of God and come back to life.
Hebrews 9.12: “(Jesus) entered once for all into the Holy Place, taking not the blood of goats and calves but His own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption”.
So no wonder that the Last Supper was such an intense and intimate moment. Because Jesus was preparing a new covenant with his Father to give eternal life to friends and enemies alike. And this « testament » was signed by his own blood.
Mark 14.24: He said to them: “This is my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many.”
The blood which was highly effective to save me
The blood of the Eternal One was effective, once and for all, to delete the faults and misconduct of all mankind. Even more, this act purified them from the post-traumatic stress caused by past events buried in the past.
Hebrews 9.14: “How much more shall the blood of Christ, which through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, purify your conscience from dead works to serve the living God. »
If you believe this word, you will be able to live again!
Summary
· The very night that God prepared his people to leave Egypt, He taught them how the blood of an innocent lamb would protect them from the inevitable destruction awaiting those who would not put themselves under the blood of the sacrificial lamb.
· No man can satisfy the anger of Divine Justice and die for himself or someone else. Since the time of Adam, God has never found a man that was totally innocent. We are all contaminated by sin.
God leads the movement “Justice for All” that we all want (as long as it does not apply to us).
· Though it was necessary to purify all things with the blood of an innocent animal, nevertheless this act was only the image of a heavenly reality.
· John the Baptist declared prophetically: “This is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.“ (John 1 :29). And this offer to take away your sin is real (and not symbolic) if you believe that Jesus’ sacrifice was accepted by God as a final settlement for all sins.
The sinful act or thought is fixed in eternity
· By its nature, the sinful act has been fixed in the eternity of our past once it has happened. It is like that happened to us yesterday. Nothing we can do can change the reality of what was done.
· All our « faults » like all events of the past is locked in the space-time continuum. We can try to hide it, but nothing can delete it!
· To wipe away an eternal sin we need to benefit from a Sacrifice that has eternal value in the eyes of God. The blood of Jesus was designated by God to save all men from the destruction awaiting them.
Let us pray.
Jesus, thank you for doing for me what I was incapable of doing for myself. I realize how much you loved us and wanted us to be with you. I accept that your blood sacrifice ids applied in my life. No other road leads to the Father. So I will no longer try to invent my own earthly solution. Because I don’t want to be deprived of the eternal presence of the Father. Thank you, Jesus.