Respect For The Blood
Rom 3:25 Whom God hath set forth [to be] a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;
The word blood is in the Bible 447 times in 375 verses. And in almost every case the Bible is referring to real blood. There are only a handful of times where the Bible talks about the blood of grapes and how the moon will become blood. If you are wondering how I know, I read all of the 375 verses that contain the word blood before I wrote this message.
The Bible starts with blood and ends with blood. The first mention of blood is in Gen 4:10 and the last mention of blood is in Rev 19:13. Blood is found in 41 of the 66 books of the Bible.
God gave a great amount of His Word to the subject of blood. And almost all of the time that God mentions blood in the Bible it is speaking of the blood of Christ either directly or in types and pictures that pointed to the blood of Christ.
All of the blood, of all of the Old Testament sacrifices was pointing to the blood that Christ would shed on the cross. And all of the rules about not eating blood was to teach man to have respect for the blood because blood was a picture of the blood of Christ.
God has great respect for the blood. Do you have respect for the blood of Christ.
Where and when does God tell man to have respect for the blood?
God tells man to have respect for the blood in the Old Testament.
It was a very intricate part of the law that God gave man. In the part of the law that we call the Ten Commandments, man is commanded not to shed another man’s blood. Man is not to kill man. In another part of the law God says,
God tells man to respect the blood in the part of the law that we call the civil law.
Lev 7:27 Whatsoever soul [it be] that eateth any manner of blood, even that soul shall be cut off from his people.
They were not allowed to eat any blood. It did not matter where it came from, a rabbit, a cow, a deer, a barely cooked rare steak. It did not matter no blood was to be eaten.
God tells man to respect the blood in the part of the law that we call the ceremonial law,
Exo 29:20 Then shalt thou kill the ram, and take of his blood, and put [it] upon the tip of the right ear of Aaron, and upon the tip of the right ear of his sons, and upon the thumb of their right hand, and upon the great toe of their right foot, and sprinkle the blood upon the altar round about.
Every thing in the tabernacle and even the priests had to be sprinkled with blood. It was the blood that sanctified them for service. They were not set apart to God until they had the blood applied. They could not serve God until they had the blood applied.
Exo 30:10 And Aaron shall make an atonement upon the horns of it once in a year with the blood of the sin offering of atonements: once in the year shall he make atonement upon it throughout your generations: it [is] most holy unto the LORD.
It was with blood that Aaron make atonement for the people.
And the blood could not be offered with leaven which is a type of sin.
Exo 34:25 Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven; neither shall the sacrifice of the feast of the passover be left unto the morning.
This was because this blood was a type and picture of the blood that Christ would shed, and the blood of Christ is without sin. With all of these rules God was teaching man to respect the blood.
But God’s teaching man to respect blood is not limited to the law. This teaching is from the beginning of the Bible to the end of the Bible.
Go way back in time before the law and before the Exodus. Go all the way back to when Noah stepped off of the ark and we see God telling man to respect the Blood.
Gen 9:6 Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.
Before the law God told Noah to respect the blood by not eating the blood.
Gen 9:4 But flesh with the life thereof, [which is] the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.
Go back before the flood. Go all the way back to the very first mention of blood in the Bible and you see God teaching man to respect the blood.
Gen 4:10 And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground.
Cain had just killed Abel, and we hear God teaching Cain that Abel's blood cried to Him from the ground. God was showing that you cannot disrespect blood and get away with it. God notices the shedding of blood.
Not only does God tells man to have respect for the blood in the Old Testament both before the law was given and after the law was given.
But God also tells man to have respect for the blood in the New Testament.
Yes even after the cross we are to have respect for the blood. In the book of Acts it is recorded for us how some Jewish leaders were trying to get people back under the law. The Jewish members of the early church insisted that the Gentile believers become circumcised and that they were to keep the law. They had a meeting and came to a conclusion as to what rules they were to obey. I find it very interesting that one of the rules that they came up with was to not eat blood. They did not pick lying, or covetousness, or murder. Out of all of the hundreds of rules that they could have used, one of the very few they came up with was to not eat blood.
Act 15:20 But that we write unto them, that they abstain from pollutions of idols, and [from] fornication, and [from] things strangled, and [from] blood.
Act 15:29 That ye abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication: from which if ye keep yourselves, ye shall do well. Fare ye well.
This was done and written by the inspiration of God. Even in the new testament God is teaching man to have respect for the blood.
God tells man to have respect for the blood in the Old Testament from the beginning with Cain and Abel, and then Noah, and then during the Exodus, and in the Moral laws, and in the Civil laws, and in the Ceremonial laws, And then again in the Historical books, and in the Major Prophets, and also in the minor Prophets and God also tells man to have respect for the blood in the New Testament.
Do you have respect for the Blood?