We get used to seeing blood at an early age. When a little one scrapes a knee, cuts a finger, etc., the blood oozes. As one gets older, more severe injuries occur and the blood sometimes flows freely from a body. The dictionary describes blood as “the liquid in veins, arteries and capillaries of vertebrates. Blood is circulated by the heart and carries oxygen and digested food to all parts of the body and takes away waste materials.” From this definition, we understand that blood is essential to maintaining life.
I myself am a living phenomenon. On October 8, 2005, I suffered a ruptured abdominal aorta aneurysm and I “bled out.” An average-size man’s body contains approximately 10-12 pints of blood and I was given 33 units to get me going again. Statistics show that only about 10% of people who have an “aaa” survive, so I understand how close I came to losing physical life and know how very much God has blessed me. Yet, that’s not the intent of this recap; the aim is to help us understand how very vital blood is to life.
This was so from the beginning of time. The first mention of blood in the Bible is in Genesis 4:9. “The Lord said unto Cain, Where is Abel your brother? …The Lord said to Cain, What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood cries to Me from the ground.” These words were spoken following the act of Cain killing Abel.
Then, we have the proven texts from God that show that He meant for blood to sustain life: “Flesh with the life of it, which is the blood, you shall not eat” (Genesis 9:4). This was stated again in Deuteronomy 12:23, “Be sure that you don’t eat the blood for the blood is the life.” We can’t misunderstand that God put blood in physical bodies to give them life.
We have been discussing blood in relation to the physical body and know that it is absolutely necessary to maintain life. There is another way that life is in the blood and that is our spiritual being. Every person who has ever lived to an accountable age has sinned. Sin is described as “All unrighteousness is sin” (1 John 5:17). Anything that a person does that is not godly (that is, righteous) is sin (that is, unrighteous), and that sin separates us from God (Isaiah 59:1-2).
There is a progression of sin in one’s life. Listen to James as he penned, “Every man is tempted when he is drawn away by his own lust and enticed. Then, when lust has conceived, it brings forth sin and sin, when it is finished, brings forth death” (1:14ff). Sin which is not covered or forgiven by the blood of Christ brings death to the spiritual soul just as lack of blood in the body brings physical death.
When all the blood is gone from a physical body as mine was, death is knocking at the door unless something is done quickly to rejuvenate the blood and get it flowing again. Likewise, when we sin, eternal spiritual death is at the door unless Christ’s blood is applied. “We have redemption through His [Christ’s] blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His grace” (Ephesians 1:7). “You know that you were not redeemed with corruptible thing…but with the precious blood of Christ” (1 Peter 1:18ff). God provided a plan for man to be forgiven for his sins, and the only way that will happen is through the blood of Christ who died for the redemption of man’s sins for all time.
How appropriate that God planned this for men’s spiritual life! Because men understand the value of blood to physical life, so they can easily understand the value of blood to spiritual life. The fact is that in either case there is no life without blood. The body itself will die without life-sustaining blood, and the spiritual soul will die without the redemption we can receive through the blood of Christ.
