I’ve asked God why ‘animal sacrifices’ for covering man’s sin back then, and then why His ‘Son’s sacrifice.’ Why blood? How does “blood” cover sin so that the Father’s wrath on man’s sin-nature is held off?
This morning the thought came that it’s all about LOVE. God is love: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Then this Scripture came to mind: “No greater love than this: that a man lay his life down for another.”
Animal sacrifices, that God required of God’s people to temporarily cover their sincould never ‘completely’ atone for sin permanently like Christ’s own blood sacrifice on the cross has done. They had to sacrifice on a regular basis. Christ sacrificed once and for all. Love was the difference.
An animal doesn’t offer itself; it doesn’t understand this. An animal is not made in God’s image, like man is. Dogs are loyal animals and have been known to protect their master to the point of dying, but that type of ‘love’ is physical only, not spiritual for eternal life. We might be blessed to live to be 80 or 100 in our physical bodies, but what then? There is eternity! “God has set eternity in the heart of man” so that man (not animals) would consider ‘life after death’ according to what GOD SAYS about it, not what man has conjured up out of self-deceived ignorance and arrogant unbelief.
The ’obedience’ of God’s people back then, and of the priest to do what was required for those animal or fowl sacrifices were simply that: out of obedient fear. When God’s priests failed to meet that requirement from God – they suffered the consequence, and so did the people they were to cover with the blood sacrifice.
God still says to us, “If you love Me – you will obey Me.” What do I obey? I obey the will of God by loving and trusting what Jesus Christ did for me on the Cross and then living in me with His indwelling Holy Spirit of eternal life.
What our Savior did with His own body, was out of PERFECT love for us; perfect because it provided life eternal. When someone like you or I lays our life down for another – that act does not provide eternal life; it just allows the person we died for to live a little longer on the earth. And that’s why Christ’s sacrifice was a “once and for all” sacrifice that brought our pardon from the Father’s eternal wrath on our sin-nature we are all born with. With Christ standing at the Father's right hand as our High Priest, we are favored by the Father because we have believed in the life and blood of His Son.
But why blood? “Life is in the blood.” How long will you live without the flow of blood? The flow of blood keeps everything in our body doing what it’s supposed to do for us to keep living. God was showing us in how He created our bodies how the physical life-flow has a spiritual meaning with the eternal life-flow of Christ’s blood. Our body’s blood gives life to our physical body, Christ’s blood gives us life eternal with God (in our new imperishable body).
