The Importance of Blood
Leviticus
17 is essentially a bloody chapter. It
is a chapter of the Bible that entirely focuses upon blood as the source of
life. I do find it interesting that a
culture as completely unscientific as the Hebrew people were that they
understood so much truth about blood being the life within the body. Where there is no blood, there is no
life. Unscientific as they may have been,
they had this understanding correct and straight from God.
Why
focus upon blood, though? It is such a
gory topic – especially in the context of sacrifice. Why spend so much time focusing upon the
blood? Is hemoglobin, plasma, and all
the other stuff that make up our blood worth discussing to such great detail?
The
truth is simple: yes. Leviticus 17:11 is
so fundamental to the message of God’s salvation that we should be drawn around
it. It is one of the very core teachings
in the Bible that it should not be overlooked or read without notice. Life is blood; therefore atonement only comes
through life. When we add the message of
Leviticus 17:3-4 to this conversation we get the following image: “Blood is the key, shed blood must be an
offering unto me, only blood can be the key, and there is only one place where
the blood can be offered up.”
Seeing Christ Again Through Leviticus
This
really sets us up well to understand Jesus’ sacrifice. It is the shedding of His blood that gives us
true life. It is His blood through which
atonement comes. Christ’s blood was an
offering to God whether or not the people who shed His blood thought they were
doing it for God. Only Christ’s blood
can work. Only Christ’s blood upon the
implement of God’s choosing – the cross – actually works forever.
Blood
is in fact the key. There are people of
faith – people who call themselves Christian, even – out in the world who want
to make Christianity a bloodless religion.
They don’t want to talk about Christ’s death. They don’t want to talk about the horrible aspect
of Jesus’ dying. They deny God’s truth,
a truth that God establishes very early in the Old Testament. Only through the blood of Christ is our
relationship made whole with God. Deny
the blood and we deny the very means that salvation comes to us.
It’s
not easy to talk about, but I spend some time every day reminding myself that
it is about Christ and His death. I have
come to a place in my life where almost every prayer that I pray thanks God for
sending His Son to die on the cross so we can be in relationship with God. Without His death – an act that I am forever
mournful and joyful about – there is nothing.
With His death, there is everything.
Thanks be to God: amen, amen, amen.
Location of Sacrifices
Having
dealt with the most significant aspect of this chapter, I’m left with one other
question. Leviticus 17 tells us that the
Hebrew people were forbidden from killing an animal inside or outside of the
camp without bringing the animal to the tabernacle and first offering it to
God. This sounds like a very strict
command. It also sounds like it would
keep the temple staff pretty busy!
Ancient herding cultures like the Hebrew people were accustomed to
eating meat!
I
think that there are actually four interesting dimensions to this conversation. I’ll take them in what I believe is a correct
order of importance from least to greatest importance.
First,
as the people encamped around Canaan, they were most likely dependent upon the
female animals for milk and cheese and keeping their young alive. This declaration would have helped the
community ensure a healthy breeding stock of animals when they arrived in
Canaan. It would have allowed the Hebrew
people to be seen as a wealthy and powerful nation as they came into Canaan.
Second,
remember that when this particular Law was given the people were wandering
through the wilderness and being sustained solely by manna. They had cried out to God to feed them and He
was feeding them. They didn’t need other
sustenance while they were in the desert wandering around. There was no need to slaughter animals except
for giving a sacrifice to God.
Third,
this pronouncement helped ensure that the priesthood continued to receive food
and sustenance. The priests got a share
of all sacrifices brought to the Lord.
Since the priests were managing the tabernacle and all the sacrifices,
they didn’t have time to shepherd, make cheese, etc. They relied upon the sacrifice of the greater
community to feed and care for their own families.
Fourth,
this policy would help break the people of idol worship. Everywhere that the people had lived since
Abraham there was false sacrificing going on.
The Canaanites sacrificed to all kinds of gods in the time of Abraham
through Joseph. After Joseph when the
Hebrew people remained in Egypt they were surrounded by a whole different kind
of worship to foreign gods. It is highly
likely that some of those practices had leeched into the community of Hebrew
people. By making this stipulation, God
would train the people that worship begins and ends with Him. There is neither room nor need for other
gods.
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