“What’s the Deal with all the Blood? Lev 17:1-14”
Gladstone Baptist Church – 9/4/06
The appearance of Blood is never good.
The appearance of Blood is never a good thing!!!! In our society, we don’t like to see blood. When we get a cut, we clean it up and put a band aid on it. I know that this is so it will heal quickly, but because we do this, we are not used to and do not enjoy the sight of blood.
How many people here feel just a bit queasy if they see blood? Not many people enjoy the sight of blood – not real blood anyway. TV blood is fine, but real blood is not. We see it on TV so often, we’ve become desensitized to images of blood, but when it comes to real blood, many of aren’t too sure.
That is because, while blood is quite natural, the sight of blood is not. Blood is supposed to be hidden away under our skin. And the emergence of it signifies that something is wrong. I’ve got a cut, I’ve grazed my elbow, I’ve chopped off my leg, I’ve ruptured my pulmonary artery, or something else bad like that. Blood is good when it is inside, but it is bad when it is outside!!!
Blood is essential to life.
When it is on the inside and flowing around the body, blood is wonderful. In fact, blood is fundamental to our lives and without it, we die.
I want to illustrate the importance of blood very simply by a simple experiment – I need a willing volunteer. Don’t worry, this experiment is going to be conducted under the expert medical supervision of John. I’m going to put on normal blood pressure test kit on your arm and pump it up to about 20mm mercury pressure which should be enough to cut off the circulation of blood flow to your arm. Now I want to you grab John’s arm and squeeze it as hard as you can and hold for 3 seconds, then release it and squeeze again for 3 seconds. Just keep doing that while I talk about the function that blood plays in our body …
Blood carries out a number of important functions …
1. It carries oxygen to every living cell in our body and carries away carbon dioxide
2. It carries away waste material produced by cells in our body. Our blood is constantly cleaning our body.
3. It carries food, electrolytes and vitamins to our cells to nourish them
4. It carries hormones from our around our body to control our responses like blushing
5. It carries antibodies around the body to help defend the body against bacteria and the like.
6. It carries heat around the body to keep our temperature stable.
Ask volunteer : How is your arm feeling?
Without blood flow, the toxins in your arm are building up due to the exercise of your muscles and your muscles will very quickly cramp up and be too painful to use. Explain to us now what you feel when I get John to take the pressure kit off your arm.
Without blood, our whole body would shut down and we would die and that is why blood is so important. Blood is quite literally the life force that keeps us operating. That is why the loss of blood is such a serious thing and probably so disturbing to many of us. You lose your blood and you lose your life.
In the Old Testament, blood was a common sight.
While we rarely see a lot of blood in our lives today, in times gone by, blood flowed freely. In the Old Testament times for example, blood was a common sight. If you looked into the temple or the tabernacle for example, you would be confronted by a real bloody sight.
There would be blood everywhere – all over altar, running down its side & dripping on the ground around it. Priests would be collecting the blood from the sacrifices in containers. It would literally be a slaughter house for hundreds of animals a day. I tried to find out how many animals were killed there today, but I couldn’t find an answer.
We know that every day, there was a morning and evening offering of 2 lambs. On Sabbaths, 2 more lambs were offered and on every new moon, 2 bullocks, 1 ram, 7 lambs and 1 goat was offered. In every case, when the animal was slaughtered, the blood of the animal was drained before it could be burnt as a sacrifice.
During special celebrations, this number increased dramatically. For example during the feast of the unleavened bread, over a week, 14 bullocks, 7 rams, 49 lambs and 7 goats were sacrificed. And over 8 days of the feast of tabernacles, 71 bullocks, 15 rams, 105 lambs and 8 goats were sacrificed – that’s 199 animals.
Passover was even busier … At Passover, people got into groups of a minimum of 10 and brought a lamb to be sacrificed. Josephus, who was writing in about 75 AD wrote that the number of lambs sacrificed was about 256,000. In this case, the dead animal was eaten by the nearly 2,700,000 people in Jerusalem for that festival. But Imagine all of the blood that was flowing during that festival.
But then you have individual offerings. There are a number of offerings that people were required to offer to cover their own individual sins. Burnt offerings, sin offerings and trespass offerings were all to be offered when people committed sins either knowingly or unknowingly.
Do you understand why I say the temple was a bloody place. There seemed to be so many sacrifices going on and so much blood flowing, that I’m sure that people were not put off by the sight of it.
But though it was commonly seen, blood was highly valued.
But although blood in the Old Testament times was a common sight, it was still highly valued and treated with huge respect.
Open up your bibles and read with me from Lev 17
Lev 17:1-14 The LORD said to Moses, 2 “Speak to Aaron and his sons and to all the Israelites and say to them: ‘This is what the LORD has commanded: 3 Any Israelite who sacrifices an ox, a lamb or a goat in the camp or outside of it 4 instead of bringing it to the entrance to the Tent of Meeting to present it as an offering to the LORD in front of the tabernacle of the LORD—that man shall be considered guilty of bloodshed; he has shed blood and must be cut off from his people. 5 This is so the Israelites will bring to the LORD the sacrifices they are now making in the open fields. They must bring them to the priest, that is, to the LORD, at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting and sacrifice them as fellowship offerings. 6 The priest is to sprinkle the blood against the altar of the LORD at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting and burn the fat as an aroma pleasing to the LORD. 7 They must no longer offer any of their sacrifices to the goat idols to whom they prostitute themselves. This is to be a lasting ordinance for them and for the generations to come.’
8 “Say to them: ‘Any Israelite or any alien living among them who offers a burnt offering or sacrifice 9 and does not bring it to the entrance to the Tent of Meeting to sacrifice it to the LORD—that man must be cut off from his people.
10 ”‘Any Israelite or any alien living among them who eats any blood—I will set my face against that person who eats blood and will cut him off from his people. 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. 12 Therefore I say to the Israelites, “None of you may eat blood, nor may an alien living among you eat blood.”
13 ”‘Any Israelite or any alien living among you who hunts any animal or bird that may be eaten must drain out the blood and cover it with earth, 14 because the life of every creature is its blood. That is why I have said to the Israelites, “You must not eat the blood of any creature, because the life of every creature is its blood; anyone who eats it must be cut off.”
There is a little piece of silk in the museum of Springfield, Illinois, that could not be bought for any amount of money in the world. Why the value attached to it? Because it is covered with blood. It was once a part of a dress worn by Laura Keene, who sat by Abraham Lincoln when he was shot. That girl took his head in her lap and held him while he bled his life out. The State of Illinois purchased that dress, and cut out this piece of silk covered with the blood of the great statesman and man of God.
That silk is precious because it has the blood of a man on it. Blood represents life and so this dress represents the life of Abraham Lincoln.
In a similar way God considered blood to be incredibly valuable – but not just the blood of famous people, but the blood of any creature he created. Blood wasn’t meant for playing around with, it wasn’t just for leaving in the meat to tenderize it. In fact when the Israelites ate meat, it had to be drained of all blood because blood was so holy. That just means it was set apart for a specific purpose. And that purpose is given in vs 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.
Blood was meant for only 2 purposes – to give life and to make atonement.
This is a word we don’t often use today. It is a word that comes from the Anglo-Saxon word for “making two people one” i.e. At-one-ment. Bringing 2 people together into a relationship. The Hebrew word means to cover over. It is the same word that described how Noah covered over the ark with pitch to make it water proof.
Blood was meant to make atonement – to bring us into relationship with God – by covering over the damage to our relationship.
You see, though Adam and Eve once had a perfect relationship with God, that was destroyed when we started doing our own thing and disregarding God. That is what the bible calls sin and we are all guilty of it.
It was us who walked away from God. God didn’t move. And so, it needs to be you and me who come back to God and ask for forgiveness. And this is where blood comes in.
People who rebel against God or do their own thing are guilty of sinning against God and justice demands they be punished. The just punishment for this is death. It is a spiritual death of eternally being separated from God.
But we have just established that our life is contained in our blood and so if one is to die, we could just as easily say that blood needs to be shed. God made a way, that enabled people to pay the penalty for their sins and make atonement with God by shedding blood. By shedding the blood of bulls, rams, lambs, goats and doves, people could make restitution for their sins and become one with God again.
The Israelites relied on the shedding of blood to make atonement for their sins.
The Israelites were just like you and me. They regularly were selfish. They regularly put their own desires about those of God and others. They regularly decided that they knew best. And as a consequence, they continually needed to be forgiven.
They continually needed blood to be shed so that they could be forgiven. Imagine if you had to sacrifice a lamb every time you did something wrong that you were aware of. How often would you be killing a lamb? To us, this seems completely over the top. To us it is horrific and barbaric, that God would demand a life every time they sinned.
But in God’s eyes, sin is serious and the taking of life showed the Israelites how serious this was. They couldn’t go around rebelling and think they could get away with it. It would also cost them – something expensive (like a sheep). And it would cost the sheep – everything – its life.
When a person offered a sacrifice, they would lay their hands on the head of the innocent sacrificial victim to identify themselves with it. The act of shedding blood was to identify the offender with the sacrifice. The animal was killed and the blood poured out. The sacrificed animal died for the offender. It’s blood made atonement for his sins.
Remember earlier, when I was talking about the functions of blood. One of the main functions of blood is to get rid of the waste material from the cells of our bodies. In exactly the same way, shed blood cleans away the waste and the toxins of sin from our bodies. Sin is a toxin that paralyses us. It prevents a relationship with him and blocks us from being all that God intended us being. When blood is shed in this way, sin is cleaned away.
We require the shedding of blood to make atonement for our sins.
The question that is raised for us today is how do we atone for our sins? We all need to repair the damaged relationship with God, but I don’t see any blood being spilt in this church – except for the occasional BYG house accident. Does this mean that we are not having our sins forgiven?
The answer is maybe yes and maybe no.
I want to say straight up front that blood is still the means by which we gain atonement. We must rely on shed blood to gain atonement. Our sins have always and will always require a death to pay for them – God doesn’t change and neither do his requirements of us. So if we are not relying on blood, then our sins aren’t being forgiven
But what has changed from the Old Testament is the source of the blood that is used for our atonement.
Open your bibles up to Heb 9:11
11 When Christ came as high priest of the good things that are already here, he went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not man-made, that is to say, not a part of this creation. 12 He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption. 13 The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. 14 How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!
When Jesus died on the cross, his blood was poured out as a sacrifice for you and me. He was an innocent victim – just like those lambs and goats before him. He was called the Lamb of God whose job it was to take away the sins of the world. He gave his life and paid the penalty in full. So that if we only choose to identify ourselves with him, we will be cleansed.
When the Israelites offered their animals to be sacrificed, they had to confess their sins and lay their hands on the lamb or goat to identify with them in order to be forgiven. A life for a life. The lamb’s life for theirs. If they didn’t identify themselves with this lamb, the lambs death wouldn’t have been credited to them.
When you and I come to the lamb of God, I need to identify ourselves with him. This occurs when we give our lives over to him in repentance and faith.
This morning, we’ve witnessed the baptism of Bruce. About 5 weeks ago, Bruce identified himself with Jesus – the Lamb of God. He placed his hands on Jesus and said – you are my substitute. You are my lamb who died to take away my sins. Thank you Lord. And at that moment, Bruce was cleansed.
Today we have witnessed Bruce’s baptism. It has been a public declaration of this identification with Christ’s death. Paul writes in Rom 6 …
4 When we were baptized, we died and were buried with Christ. We were baptized, so that we would live a new life, as Christ was raised to life by the glory of God the Father. 5 If we shared in Jesus’ death by being baptized, we will be raised to life with him. 6 We know that the persons we used to be were nailed to the cross with Jesus. This was done, so that our sinful bodies would no longer be the slaves of sin.
Baptism is a picture of the identification with Christ. Before our identification with Christ – we were destined for judgment and death. But when we identified with Christ, we shared in his death. He died for us and we were forgiven and the consequence was that we can now live in perfect relationship with God. We have a new life – we got rid of the old condemned one and now we enjoy a new one lived with God.
Jesus’ blood cleanses us from sin once and for all. Heb 9 says that Jesus’ blood was a more effective cleansing agent than sheeps and goats. Jesus blood is far more valuable than the blood of sheep or goats or even Abraham Lincoln. Where as the Israelites had to keep bringing back lambs to be killed. The Lamb of God’s blood was a more effective payment. His blood covers all sins for ever. His one off death pays for your past sins, your present sins, and your future sins … It pays for my past sins, my present sins and my future sins – if we have identified ourselves with him.
Today, we don’t have a slaughter yard out the back of our church and an altar on which we pour the blood of animals. But we still need to identify ourselves with a lamb that was slain – with Jesus.
If you have never done this, then your sins have not been atoned for. You are still separated from God and you are still facing the punishment of eternal death.
After this service, if you are not sure that you have been cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ, Pastor Roger or myself would love to show you how you can identify with Jesus and take advantage of the precious blood that he shed. Almost 2000 years ago.
