Today we need to look at the idea's behind the Old Testament Blood sacrifice system. God's temporary answer to the problem of sin, disease, death and unholiness was the Tabernacle, then The Temple. Sin, disease, death and unholiness polluted the very land they lived on, and even the Tabernacle. The Holy places were built to represent the whole of creation, and functioned as an enormous magnet, drawing in all of that type of pollution to one place where it could be dealt with.

But how do you "deal with" these things. The answer: with something that is LIFE: blood. Blood alone, carrying the markers of life (which scientifically we now know it does). Only blood was understood to be able to symbolically conquer death and everything associated with death. When people brought sacrifices to the temple they were not trying to appease a grumpy God. They were following God's instructions for cleaning up their land and their lives. Animals were identified with the ones bringing them - their substitute, paying the price for any pollution, that person had caused and repented.

Deep and deliberate sin, and the sins of the entire nation were dealt with 1 day a year, on Yom Kippur - The Day of Atonement. On that day the High Priest, representing God with God's name written on his forehead, would make a sacrifice and carry the blood to the Holy of Holies pouring it out on the horns of the alter and the mercy seat of the Ark of the Covenant. It was like God himself (his representative) making atonement for us, appeasing the "deep magic" the universal laws that had been breached. So every year for a time the Holy of Holies was pure, the people reconciled to God, sin wiped out. An annual, effective but temporary solution.

But what if it wasn't just a human representative of God, but God himself in material form? What if the blood of God himself in human form could soak up the sin and pollution of the people? The real thing of which The Temple rites had been only a shadow. God's blood, the infinite, holy and pure, sinless life blood of God in liquid form. How powerful would that blood be? Powerful enough that when Jesus poured it out for us, animal sacrifices would no longer be required. Death was conquered once and for all, and it was also no longer just local, the impact of it's cleansing power swept through not just the representation of the World (The Temple) but the world itself. Any who accept Christ as Savior, who accept his atonement on their behalf, anywhere in the world, experience the cleansing power of that blood, transforming us from within, reconciling us to God and washing us with his mercy and forgiveness, freeing us from the consequences of sin by the power of Jesus blood.