Life-Shedding
July 2, 2007
Dear Friends,
Bloodshed is intimately connected with the work of redemption. The writer to the Hebrews tells us “And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission.” (9:22) We can wrongly get the impression by verses such as these that we worship a bloodthirsty God who has some primal need for bloody sacrifice like the gods of the pagans. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Blood represents life. “For the life of the flesh is in the blood.” (Le 17:11) Although God required the shedding of sacrifices under the Old Covenant, this act was typical – that is to say representative – of a greater and more important aspect of redemption. The person offering the sacrifice had to identify with that being offered by putting their hands on the animals head. In this way, the animal’s blood represented the person’s blood which in turn represented the person’s life. It was not with the shedding of blood that God was pleased, but the shedding of one’s life that God was pleased. Like so many eternal truths, nothing has changed since that time. God is still pleased with “life-shedding.” As Jesus told his disciples:
And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me. He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it. (Matt. 10:38-39)
Life-shedding can unfortunately get lost in blood- shedding just as reality can get lost in ritual. The children of Israel were habitually missing this distinction. Through the prophet Isaiah, God told the children of Israel,
To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the LORD: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats. (v11)
He follows this up by telling them what God really wanted besides their ritualistic behavior:
Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow. (v. 16, 17)
While we might smugly read these accounts of ancient Israel, we need to realize (or the point is lost) that we all have a tendency toward this kind of behavior.
King David illustrates this point perfectly. When David sinned with Bathsheba by committing adultery with her and then killing her husband, there was no ritual under the Law that could make that transgression right. Yet, God, in His incomprehensible mercy, forgave David. The basis for that forgiveness was David’s life-shedding, not his blood-shedding. In his Psalm about this amazing deliverance from this sinful state, David wrote:
For You do not desire sacrifice; or else I would give it; You do not delight in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise. (Psa 51:16-17)
We too can share in the abundance of God’s grace and mercy if practice life-shedding after the example of King David, but more importantly the perfect example of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Have a great week,
Comments»
Re “Life-Shedding”, here is yet another TFTW that goes right to the mark. Thanks so much for your thought-provoking and encouraging articles. I look forward to them.