The glorious work of Jesus Christ on the cross has welcomed humanity into an eternal relationship with the very God that created them. I wonder what would happen to our spirit and soul if we could just begin to comprehend the depth of the love that was poured out for us at Calvary. As we dwell on the truth of the cross, may it humble us that we would feel the heartbeat of heaven.
We have to understand the importance of the blood of Jesus because only the blood of Jesus would satisfy the Father’s wrath. From Genesis to Revelation, we see God showing us the absolute need for there to be blood shed to atone for sin.
In the Garden of Eden, after Adam and Eve ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they realized they were naked and had sinned against God. They tried covering themselves with fig leaves, but God required blood to be shed to cover their nakedness, not their own idea of a covering. So, God killed two animals and took their skins to provide Adam and Eve with a covering.
Again, with Cain and Abel, the sacrifice of a lamb was what satisfied God. Not Cain’s vegetables, his own efforts or the work of his own hands. There had to be blood shed for the atonement of man’s sin until Jesus would come to be the final atonement.
When Moses received the Ten Commandments from God on Mount Sinai, it was the beginning of the journey for the Israelites to understand their sinfulness and need for someone to save them. When they were given the law, it put them under a curse which brought death. “I was alive once without the Law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died” (Romans 7:9). The Israelites thought they would be able to keep the law, but such wasn’t the case, for the law brought death to the soul and spirit. It would only be the blood of Jesus that would set them free of the curse of the law and into the freedom that living in Jesus brings.
God later gave Moses the plans to build a tabernacle where He would dwell. It would represent the way God operates in the kingdom of heaven. It would reveal His absolute holiness. The tabernacle had two departments: the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies. The High Priest would enter into the Holy of Holies once a year and sprinkle the blood of a pure and spot-less lamb upon the mercy seat to atone for the sin of the Israelites. The blood was what satisfied the Father for this period in time before Jesus would come. But the blood of bull and goats could not take away their sin (Hebrews 10:3). It was rather a reminder of their sin each year.
Then there were the Levites, men that served in the tabernacle, that had to sacrifice animals on the alter on daily basis for the children if Israel’s sins. “For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the alter to make atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul” (Leviticus 17:11).
How much better of an atonement would Jesus’ blood make for our souls?
Thanks be to God for His Son, Jesus Christ, who was willing and obedient to His Father to die on the cross. Our precious saviour Jesus is the sinless and undefiled Lamb of God. It is through the blood of Jesus that we are to be purified and sanctified as we grow in our relationship with God. It is the blood of Jesus that saves us from the wrath of God. Ephesians 2 tells us that we were by nature children of wrath before Jesus rescued us. The blood of Jesus made a better atonement for us in the heavenly tabernacle. This atonement satisfied the wrath of God toward us.
“That is why, when Christ came into the world, he said to God, ‘You did not want animal sacrifices or sin offerings. But you have given me a body to offer. You were not pleased with burnt offerings or other offerings for sin’” (Hebrews 10:5-6). A human being that was truly God and yet truly human had to die and shed blood for the sins of humanity. “And by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross” (Colossians 1:20).
What does the Cross mean for our personal lives? Life can become so busy with everything we do on a daily basis that we easily forget to stop and contemplate the deep riches of Christ on the cross. We can also become immune to hearing the Gospel preached and fail to stop to seriously consider, “How does this apply to me? Or how does this speak to my life right now?” Maybe there is something you are going through right now and you need a reminder that through Jesus’ blood, He has taken away the guilt and shame of sin. Maybe you need to be reminded that through the blood, we’ve been rescued from the eternal wrath of God. It’s the work Jesus did for us that enables us to be declared us righteous. We can now live free from the fear of death because we can know we are saved through what Jesus did for us on the cross.
“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).