It Is the Blood that Maketh an Atonement (Leviticus 17:11)

2023-03-05

Leviticus 17:10-14 has some solemn warnings concerning blood. The children of Israel or their strangers could not eat blood. The penalty for doing so was death. They were to pour it out and cover it if they were eating meat. There are two principles about blood in this passage.

First, it is the blood that atones for souls. “For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul” (Leviticus 17:11). Since the life is in the blood, and life must be given for sin, it is the blood that is significant, and it is blood that must make the atonement. God created life this way, and it is He who declared that the blood would atone for us.

Second, the life of all flesh is in its blood. “For it is the life of all flesh; the blood of it is for the life thereof: therefore I said unto the children of Israel, Ye shall eat the blood of no manner of flesh: for the life of all flesh is the blood thereof: whosoever eateth it shall be cut off” (Leviticus 17:14).

We know it is the Lord Jesus Christ’s blood that was the essential part to saving us from sin. It was not just that He died; it was His blood that was spilled. “And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are: and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt” (Exodus 12:13). “But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water. And he that saw it bare record, and his record is true: and he knoweth that he saith true, that ye might believe” (John 19:34-35). “And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven” (Colossians 1:20). “Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God” (Romans 3:25).