IT’S ALL ABOUT THE BLOOD!

The photo on the right is a ZEISS Microscopy of ‘Human blood with red blood cells, T cells (orange) and platelets (green)’.  It is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Did you know that our heart beats about 100,000 times a day? That during an average lifetime (70 years), the human heart will beat more than 2.5 billion times and pump about 1 million barrels of blood—that’s enough to fill more than 3 super tankers.  In one day, the blood travels a total of 12,000 miles—that’s four times the distance across the US from coast to coast. It travels in blood vessels if stretched out would be 60,000 miles long.  This is enough to go around the world nearly two times! Astounding facts!

And this blood is our life! It is the life-giving fluid that delivers oxygen and protein to the cells of our body.   It also takes away impurities and defends us against certain bacteria, viruses, cancer cells, infectious diseases and other unwanted materials.  This is a remarkable physical example of what God ordained that His blood would do for us spiritually!!!

God ordained through the law of Moses, that blood sacrifice would be used to forgive sin.  Sin needed to be dealt with because it is sin that came between God and man.  His answer to sin was the shedding of animal blood, a precursor to the shedding of Christ’s blood on the cross. As Paul wrote in Hebrews 9:2, ‘The law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.’ And these sacrificial animals were according to Leviticus 22:21, ‘to be without defect or blemish to be acceptable.’

Remember also that the Jewish people were told by Moses to put blood on their door posts to protect them from the angel of death!

But it is obvious that ‘it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins’.  Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said: “Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you (God the Father) did not desire, nor were you pleased with them”—though they were offered in accordance with the law. Then he said, “Here I am, I have come to do your will.” Hebrew 10:4-9. To ‘once for all at the culmination of the ages, do away with sin by the sacrifice of (myself).’ Hebrews 9:6.

That is why John the Baptist, when he saw Jesus coming toward him said, “Look, the Lamb of God, (without spot or blemish) 1 Peter 1:19, who takes away the sin of the world!’
John 1:29. 

‘This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.’ 1 John 4:10. 

So Jesus, ‘the perfect lamb of God, the sacrifice to end all sacrifices’ shed His blood on the cross so that our sins could be forgiven and we could once again, as it was in the beginning, be reconciled to God.  His blood gave us spiritual life like our own blood gives us physical life and removed the sin or the ‘unwanted materials’ in our life and saved us from spiritual death.  ‘For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.’  Romans 6:23.

Isn’t it astounding how God used the cleansing of our own physical blood as a metaphor for His ability to cleanse us spiritually with His blood so that we might be reconciled to God!