Enjoy Life, Enjoy God

BLOOD

May 29, 2009

We don't speak much about blood these days. The only times we mention it is when we call for a bandage, or the Blood Center asks for a donation. We're squeamish, I think, to dabble much in blood talk.

In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.

- Hebrews 9:22 TNIV

Yet the Bible is not squeamish at all in speaking of blood as not only the carrier of life, but with a central role in our theology. Forgiveness is expensive. The one who does the forgiving pays the price. In this case, the price of forgiveness is blood. The sacrificial system is so foreign to us that we ignore it and are offended by its vulgarity. But there is forgiveness in it, in that blood.

The Book of Hebrews may be the best cure for our twenty-first century pristine obsession with tidiness and the avoidance of the sacrificial system, and blood. But as the old hymn not sadly exclaims, but joyfully, there is wonder-working power in the blood of the lamb. The power of our forgiveness.
Joyfully,

Dale Patterson