03.01. What the Blood Does?
PART I The taking of life in the service of God and to the advantage of man began immediately after man sinned. It appears that the Creator Himself originated the practice. That the fallen pair might not be always exposed to His indignation as naked, and thus unsuitable to His eye, and that their nakedness might be hidden from each other, “Jehovah God made for Adam and his wife coats of skin, and clothed them” (Genesis 3:21). It is presumed that this involved the death of victims to provide the skins.
While the basic instinct to worship the Deity is inherent in man it could scarcely have been otherwise than by Divine instruction that Abel slew a firstling of his flock and offered this, including the richest element, the fat (Genesis 4:4). When the judgment of the Flood had swept away the wicked, and a new era opened for the cleansed earth, Noah consecrated all to God by offering clean beasts and birds, and these must die and be burned in fire on an altar. This distinction between living creatures, that some were “clean,” suitable to and acceptable to the Deity, and some were not, continued in the remembrance and observance of the race, even after mankind had again revolted from the only true God. Of early Babylonian sacrifices Sayce says:“It is noticeable that it was only the cultivated plant and the domesticated beast that were thus offered to the deity. The dog and swine, or rather wild boar, are never mentioned in the sacrificial list.*
[* A. H. Sayce, The Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia, 466, 467. The learned author showed various other parallels between that earlier Babylonian religion and the Mosaic ritual. Ch. ix, “The Ritual of the Temple” is of great interest, but his conclusion is wrong:The Mosaic Law must have drawn its first inspiration from the Abrahamic age.” Rather was the human religion a debased survival of the original God-appointed arrangements by which man could approach Him, and the Mosaic system a revival and extension by Divine instruction of that original system of worship.], This essential distinction was revived and amplified by Moses. In the same way Abraham drew near to God at altars he built, and God’s covenant with him was ratified by the sacrifice of clean animals and birds (Genesis 12:7-8; Genesis 13:4; Genesis 15:9-10). This ground of approach to God culminated in the offering of Isaac his son on an altar and the substitution of a clean animal, a ram, for the deliverance of Isaac (Genesis 22:1-24). Isaac and Jacob similarly drew near to God at altars (Genesis 26:25; Genesis 35:3; Genesis 35:7). During that same period Job likewise offered burnt-offerings on behalf of his family, in case their hearts had failed in reverence to God (Job 1:1-22
All this is Biblical and historical evidence that from the very beginning of man’s history God had taught him that, being a sinner, he could draw near to God only upon the basis that a death had taken place to redeem him from death as the consequence of his transgression of the Divine law.
Death as the penalty of sin cannot be remitted but must be exacted; only it may be exacted by means of an innocent substitute dying instead of the culprit.
Down to this stage the Divine records have summarized two and a half thousands of years of man’s history, and no mention has been made of the blood of the sacrifices. But it were wrong to infer from this that the use of the blood in sacrificing was unknown in earliest times and that the emphatic use of the word is a later addition not warranted by primitive usage. When writing this brief summary of the salient events of most ancient times Moses knew well (1) that the sacrificialuse of blood was practised universally and known by his hearers and readers; (2) that he had already, before writing his records, explained and enforced this usage upon Israel; and (3) that in the next following sections of his history (Exodus and Leviticus) the theme would be enlarged.
Thus no one of those times would make the false inference suggested, or would regard the extensive use of the blood as an innovation. This leads to our first topic, WHAT THE BLOOD DOES. But before considering its atoning virtue it is most necessary to notice first its opposite power, as the background of its atoning power.
1.- BLOOD CRIES FOR VENGEANCE. This God had sternly emphasized in the earliest years when He said to Cain:“the voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto Me from the ground. And now cursed art thou from the ground, which hath opened its mouth to receive thy brother’s blood; when thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee its strength” (Genesis 4:10-12). This, as other first events in man’s history, must have been well known to Noah, seeing that for 600 years he was contemporary with Methusaleh who had been contemporary with Adam for 243 years, and that during that period the race formed but one society in one region. The memory of those words of God to Cain would, it may be taken for granted, be fresh in Noah’s mind when, directly after the Flood, God added this declaration fundamental to human society:“Every moving thing that liveth shall be food for you; as the green herb have I given you all. But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat. And surely your blood, the blood of your lives, will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it:and at the hand of man, even at the hand of every man’s brother, will I require the life of man. Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed:for in the image of God made He man” (Genesis 9:3-6. R.V.).
These early Divine statements are basic to the affairs of earth and man as viewed by God. They have never been abrogated but rather amplified. These essential points are to be observed, 1. That blood shed unrighteously brings Divine judgment on the very land it stains. This was incorporated into the Mosaic law. Speaking of murder Moses said:“blood it polluteth the land” (Numbers 35:33). Considering the torrents of blood that have been shed without Divine warrant how defiled this earth must be before God, and what judgments must hang over it. How heavy must be the wrath of heaven accumulating against, say, the United States of America with over 11,000 murders annually, and only a few punished, and 21,000 suicides.
2. Blood is the vehicle of bodily life. This also forms the basis of sin being atoned by blood, which will be considered later from Leviticus 17:1-16. Life is the gift of God alone. No one else can impart it, though one may rob another of it. To take life therefore is to rob God. He sets upon human life such value that He exacts reparation from the man who takes it and even from the beast which takes it. Such is the control of the Creator over every creature, even the wild creatures. What an awfully solemn title of God is this. “He that maketh inquisition for blood” (Psalms 9:12). It is said that when Metternich urged Napoleon to agree to peace and to spare human life, the Emperor replied by cursing human life.”He that maketh inquisition for blood” could not overlook this.
3. The penalty of shedding man’s blood, so taking his life, is that the murderer’s blood must be shed. Capital punishment is by express Divine command. It is not simply a deterrent against murder, though it is this:much more it is demanded by equity. Life is of higher value than anything else; as Satan truly said, “all that a man hath will he give for his life” (Job 2:4).
Therefore nothing else could be accepted from the murderer in place of his life, for nothing else could be equivalent to the other man’s life he had taken (Numbers 35:33).
4. Hence arises the prohibition against eating blood, or flesh with the blood undrained from it. It is self-appropriation of an article which belongs exclusively to God, its only Giver, its permanent and solitary Owner. The prohibition was heavily enforced upon Israelites (Leviticus 17:10 : Deuteronomy 12:16; Deuteronomy 12:23), and duly re-enacted upon Gentile Christians (Acts 15:20; Acts 16:4; Acts 21:25). The ground for it admits of no exceptions. In its highest aspect war is a Divine judgment upon peoples for their sins (Ezekiel 14:21). Yet even so, David, the God-fearing soldier who executed this judgment on the surrounding nations, and was supported by God in his campaigns, was disqualified from the honour of building God’s house at Jerusalem because he had shed much blood (1 Chronicles 22:6-8). Let the soldier who is a Christian ponder this. It emphasizes the value that God sets on human life, and that, even when war is viewed ideally, it is a lower service that disqualifies for the highest service. Suppose that the extermination of some degraded tribe or nation be a Divine judgment, required for the general moral good of mankind, yet clearly a Christian soldier who, by order of his superiors, carries out that extermination cannot build up God’s spiritual house, the church, among that people he destroys.
Thus does blood shed defile man and land and cries aloud for vengeance, which cry God hears. This being the case when any common man is murdered, how much louder must be the cry for vengeance of the holy blood of the murdered Son of God. What an incubus of guilt and penalty His murderers accepted when they shouted in a frenzy of rage “His blood be on us, and on our children” (Matthew 27:25). That penalty is not yet exhausted because, as a people, the descendants maintain the attitude to Christ of their ancestors. The observant sojourner in Palestine can note how the above cited curse upon the soil is in force, for the nearer one gets to Jerusalem the more sun-scorched and barren is the land.