Greetings 2Gather2Gether family,
I pray that you and yours are doing well. I will be out of both my offices for the next week or so. Therefore, next Monday there will be no TFT. I will try to send out some form of 2G² update next Monday the 21st.
Today we will continue with our look at the book The Chemistry of the Blood by Dr. M.R.DeHaan. I pray that you are learning something from this study.
Throughout the Bible, from cover to cover, there runs a trail of blood. This is the unbroken, continuous stream of blood from the atoning sacrifice. It begins in Genesis chapter three and continues on through the sacrifices of Noah, Abraham, Exodus, Leviticus, and the entire Old Testament system until it culminates in the supreme sacrifice of Christ on Calvary. Then this blood trail continues on in an ever-increasing and widening course through the years which will flow on through the countless ages of eternity.
The first recorded sacrifice in the Bible is in Genesis 3:21,
“The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.”
After Adam had sinned, they realized that they were naked. Up to that point they were like hippies at Woodstock, not caring at all for their nakedness. But once they had eaten from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, now they felt shame at their nakedness.
So, God supplied an animal and shed its blood, and used the skin as a covering for Adam and Eve’s nakedness. In this one brief record we have the plan of all subsequent Scriptural sacrifice. In studying the Bible, students apply a law which is called The Law of First Mention. When applied to this verse, it gives us the key to the meaning of sacrifices in the word of God.
It would be stated this way:
The first use of a word, a phrase, or an incident in the Bible gives the key to its exact meaning everywhere else in the word of God.
If we apply this Law of First Mention to Genesis 3:21 we would find that it teaches us three things:
Salvation must be of the Lord. Salvation comes from God and nowhere else.
It must be by the death of an innocent substitute.
It must be by blood.
Every acceptable sacrifice must meet these three conditions. If one of these three is missing, the sacrifice is not acceptable to the Lord.
It must not be man’s work but God’s work, not man’s provision but God’s provision, not the silly fig leaves of man’s own failed righteousness but the bloody skins created by God’s own hands.
Every true sacrifice mentioned in scripture has these three essential features. We find that Abel’s sacrifice met these conditions, whereas Cain’s did not. Cain brought a sacrifice of his own, as a farmer, a grain sacrifice. It was bloodless. God rejected it. Abel, though, brought a lamb, an innocent substitute, in his place, and was justified before God in the shedding of its blood; namely, in death.
This same plan holds true throughout the Old Testament. Noah took one of the clean animals which God had provided by commanding him to take seven instead of two, therefore it was a sacrifice of God’s provision. It was the death of an innocent substitute and acceptable by blood.
In Genesis 22, Abraham was ready to slay his own son, when God showed him a ram caught by its horns in a thicket. Again, God provided this sacrifice, and the sacrifice was an innocent substitute and accomplished by the shedding of blood.
All through Leviticus we have the same plan clearly evidenced in the Burnt Offering, the Peace Offering, the Sin Offering, and the Trespass Offering. All through the Old Testament this blood trail of sacrifice runs unbroken until it leads us to the foot of the cross of Christ at Calvary.
With His Lamb of God, God fulfilled the same three requirements of an acceptable sacrifice:
It must be by God’s provision, God’s gift. John 3:16-17,
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”
2. It must be by the death of an innocent sacrifice. 1 Peter 2:22-24’
“He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth (from Isaiah 53). When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.”
3. It must be by blood. 1 Peter 1:18-21,
“For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God.”
The blood is a necessary ingredient for our atonement. The reason why the Lord must demand blood for the atonement of sin lies in the nature of God and the nature of sin.
Since God is perfectly and unimpeachably holy, sin can never be passed over without a satisfaction of the justice of God. And since sin is rebellion against an infinite God, the God Most High, only the greatest and highest price can be accepted as an atonement for sin. God gave unto Israel a holy, a perfect and a just law upon Mount Sinai.
Disobedience to this law demanded the greatest penalty in payment. It was for this very reason that God gave in the Tabernacle Service the Ark of the Covenant in the Holy of Holies. This Ark consisted of an oblong box made of acacia wood and covered with beaten gold. This Ark contained the law which had been broken by Israel when Moses was up on the mountain.
The broken law demanded the eternal damnation of Israel, but God had made a provision and so planned the Mercy Seat of beaten gold to cover this broken law.
Then, once a year, on the Day of Atonement, the high priest took the blood of the animal sacrifice, by God’s provision, from the Altar of Burnt Offering and sprinkled it on the Mercy Seat. The broken law was then covered by the blood of an acceptable sacrifice. God was appeased; atonement had been made. God’s holy justice was satisfied. His mercy could flow out unhindered to His sinful people.
To look upon the broken law without blood is to face wrath. The wrath of God. Until we accept Christ as our savior, as a gift from God, our acceptable innocent sacrifice by his blood on the cross, we are subject to God’s wrath. We require the blood from Calvary as a covering for our sin. When I see the blood, I will pass over you.
To remove Christ’s blood from God’s righteous judgment upon us is to invite certain destruction. Therefore, I choose to plead the blood. I pray you do as well.
Do no harm, do good, and stay in love with God.
Blessings,
Thad Brown
Opportunity House
and Harmony UMC