Leviticus 17:11
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.
When I visited Africa a few years ago we had the opportunity to visit a Masai village. The Masai people are one of the oldest continuous cultures on the face of the earth; dating back nearly 10,000 years. Some scholars believe the Masai lived during the time of Abraham and before.
The Masai are nomadic herdsmen; they keep mainly cows, along with sheep or goats. But cows are their main thing. They build their villages completely out of sticks, mud and cow dung and when the rains move out of their area they simply pick up and move and rebuild their huts wherever there is water for their cows. Interestingly, the Masai also believe all the cows in the world belong to them.
But the Masai don’t keep the cows for the meat. They rarely, if ever, slaughter cows in order to consume their meat. Rather, they keep the cows for their blood! They have a way of “bleeding” the cows in order to harvest the cow’s blood without killing the animal; and they regularly drink the blood as a primary food source. Sometimes they mix the blood with the cow’s milk, sometimes they drink it straight. But they believe the blood makes them stronger and healthier. Just thinking about it makes me dangerously nauseous!
While the Old Testament actually forbids the eating or drinking of blood, but it does say, “For the life of a creature is in the blood.”
This is critical to understanding why blood plays such an important role in the history of salvation. Sin, according to the Bible, is serious business to God. God is holy; and sin, all sin, is not only a violation of God’s holiness, but destroys everything it touches. Simply put, sin destroys life; sin kills.
Therefore, sin is a life and death issue to God, and demands a radical life-saving solution. God’s solution is blood, because the life is in the blood.
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. Leviticus 17:11
The Hebrew word translated as “atonement” means to appease, to make propitiation, to cover over. It carries the sense of making reparations for wrong or injury; to cover payment; and is central to understanding the cross.
In the Old Testament God was telling his people that sin is so serious and so destructive that the payment for sin would be blood. So God allowed the payment to be made through the blood of sacrificial animals. This was the heart of Israel’s annual “Day of Atonement” described in Leviticus 16.
Some will ask, “Why blood? Why would a merciful God require a blood sacrifice? It just seems so barbaric!” To understand we must remember who God is and what sin is. God is holy. Sin is a violation of that holiness. And, in his holiness, God responds to all sin with wrath. In his mercy, God provides a way for his people to acknowledge both his holiness and their own sin by offering blood as atonement. The shedding of the blood of an animal reminds them of the costliness of their sin and the costliness of forgiveness, for the life of the creature is in the blood.
Fast forward to the cross.
On the cross the blood of Jesus was shed, poured out as the final and perfect atonement for all sin. No longer do we need to offer the blood of sheep or goats to atone for our sins. Even though our sins deserve death, though his blood we find life.
In the blood of Christ, therefore, we see the holiness of God, the horror of our own sin, and the mercy of God all at once.
Brian Coffey
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