You might call it liquid history; as it pulses through the body, it is the arbiter of life and death.
What do a bull, a goat, a lamb, a dove, a human, and the Son of God have in common? Blood! So you should be warned: in the book of Leviticus, there is blood everywhere; the word occurs 66 times in the first 20 chapters! And why is this? Many question what they consider excessive slaughter in the Israelite religion. It’s interesting to me that the name of the first man, and of all humanity after him, was Adam. The word for blood is that word, but without the A = dam. Adam’s name literally means: “to show blood (in the face), that is, to flush, to blush, or be of a ruddy complexion.” What irony that the color in the cheeks that shows we have life was also the indication that death had come into the human race through sin, when our first parents were ashamed before the Lord. Here are three statements that help us understand why the blood was valued by God. 1. “The life of the flesh is in the blood” (Lev 17:11). When God thought of blood, He thought of the life it made possible. Every life was precious, for it was given as a gift from Him. 2. “Without shedding of blood there is no remission” (Heb 9:22). God declared by the shedding of blood the costliness of sin; sin brought death and so required the death of another to requite it. 3. We were “redeemed…with the precious blood of Christ” (1 Pet 1:18-19). In every drop of blood shed at Jewish altars, God saw a shadow of the ultimate blood sacrifice. “We have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace” (Eph 1:7). Thus God saw the value of LIFE in the blood; He saw sin’s consequence of DEATH in the shedding of blood; but He also saw LIFE ETERNAL through the gift of the precious blood of His dear Son!