Tuesday, June 28, 2016

Life Is In The Blood

Leviticus 17:11-12

(11) For the life of the flesh is in the blood; and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that makes atonement by reason of the life.

This is a general principle that holds true in every age. Physical life is in the blood circulating through the body giving life to all its parts. If the blood flow is cut off from any body part, that part dies. God had His people offer to God the blood of the sacrifices to show that the animal was giving its life instead of the person dying to pay the debt of the sin. 

That's why Jesus shed His Blood at Calvary, as the Perfect Lamb of God, the Perfect Sacrifice, that not only covered a sin (like the animal sacrifice), but paid in full the whole debt of sinfulness that we all, each of us, owed to God.

(12) Therefore I said to the children of Israel, "No soul of you shall eat blood, neither shall any stranger that sojourns among you eat blood."

So they were not to take any blood as food for themselves; nor anyone else who lived among them. 

And the New Testament Church was also to still obey this principle according to the letter the Church Leaders sent to the Gentile believers:

Acts 15:29

That you abstain from things sacrificed to idols (nothing placed before God, or beside God) and from blood (here it is, no eating any blood as food) and from things strangled (not healthy to eat) and from fornication (general word for any sexual activity outside of the marital relationship): if you keep yourselves free from such things, you will do well. Farewell.

So if we, God's New Testament Church, stay away from these four things in particular, then our lives will go well, will succeed: but if we ignore or twist any of these principles, then we will not do well; we will be sick, we will have relationship problems, things just will not go very well for us in any area. When we take seriously the life principles God teaches us in His Manufacturer's Instructions, our lives will go well, we will be successful in what we do. But if we think we know better, and that times have changed and things that were destructive before aren't any more, then we will face the consequences of our choices, we will suffer the failures that come with acting against the way God designed this World and this Earth and this Universe to run.

It's our choice.

Even so, come, Lord Jesus!