Updated 10.09.2010 ES
Reconciliation and salvation through the blood of Jesus Christ.
To understand the message about reconciliation and forgiveness in the Bible, it is fundamental to know the essence of these two verses:
Leviticus 17.11:”For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood by reason of the life that makes atonement.
Hebrew 9.22: And according to the law, one may almost say, all things are cleansed with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.
The principle is very clear throughout the Bible: Without shedding of blood as a sign for an offering taken place, instead of the sinner’s death, there is no forgiveness!
In the Old Testament this happened by animals being offered instead of a sinners death (The wage of sin is death! Rom.6.23) Blood was shed. This was a sign for what should come. The son of God should come himself down to earth to give his own life as a ransom for many(Mat.20.28).The first prophesy about this do we find already in Genesis 3.15:
And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on your head, and you shall bruise him on the heel.
It was God himself that told Satan that seed of the woman should crash his head; it indicates a seed should be planted in the woman’s womb not by a man. Otherwise God would say: -the seed of the man. We have all good reasons to believe that Jesus was born of a virgin!
God even told that Satan should bruise Him (the seed of the woman) in the heel.-This actually happened when Jesus died on the cross! But before Jesus should die on the cross it should accordingly to the chronology in the Bible pass about 4000 years!
Until the real solution by Jesus dieing on the cross and rising from death 3 days later, God had a temporary solution: In angering the human beings could offer an animal and then people through that should get forgiveness. So before Christ people could get out their forgiveness on credit!
We can read in Hebrew, chapter ten, that the law in old testament is only a shadow of the good things coming later, and it tells that it is impossible that blood of bulls and goats can take away sins! But by faith it was possible anyway because all the offerings in Old Testament were a model for what real should come with Christ!
But we believe that the history between Genesis 3.15 and the death and resurrection of Christ was necessary for God to show us the way of salvation in a very real and deep way. Someone has said it like this: The tabernacle in the desert is like a God’s powerpoint presentation about salvation!
Summary: God shows us in the Bible that all the offerings with their ordinances in the old covenant were a model to explain his way of salvation, so when forgiveness were taken out before Christ, it was taken out in advance! Blood of an animal couldn’t really do the work! Another man, without sin had to give his life instead of us. And because no man was without guilt, the only way to give real salvation was that God should be born as a human being among us.
About forgiveness through the blood of Christ we have got a lot of verses in the Bible! Here are some of them:
-The redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses (=sins).-Eph.1.7, Col.1.14
-Justified by his blood;Rom.5.9
-Being justified as a gift by his grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus;Rom.3.23-26.
-And the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all unrighteousness;1.Joh.1.7
-The punishment for our sins fell upon him; Isaiah 53.5
-Hebr.9.12-14,
-Hebr.10.19-23
