Leviticus and Offerings - Part 3
Why Blood?
When I have spilt blood from a cut on my hand or face, it stains the garment it drips on. The stain is very hard to get out. Therefore, I have always been puzzled by the way blood is used to cleanse things in the Old Testament, particularly in Leviticus, which I have studied in detail in an attempt to get an understanding of how cleaning with blood works.
The following is a bit speculative, and goes beyond the scriptures, but it is the only explanation that takes them seriously and explains how cleansing with blood makes sense. The key is to understand why some things and people become unclean.
Clean and Unclean
The Old Testament describes a range of things that are unclean. For many, the remedy is cleansing with blood. We need to understand how people and things become unclean, and why blood has this effect. To understand how blood functions, we need to understand the concept of uncleanness. The Hebrew word for unclean/impure is “tame”. There are two types of uncleanness in the Old Testament. Some activities can fall into both categories.
1 Health and Hygiene
Some unclean objects are things that should be avoided due to health and hygiene reasons. The risk was higher in a hot, dry wilderness. The solutions usually involved time and washing or avoidance.
Unclean animals carry disease, so they should not be eaten (Lev 11; Deut 14:3-21). The solution here was avoidance.
Spilt male semen - waiting until sunset and washing (Lev 15:16,17).
Sexual relations – waiting to sunset and bathing (Lev 15:18).
Sexual relations during menstruation – avoidance (Lev 15:24;18:19).
Menstruation - time and washing (Lev 15:13-23).
Childbirth - time (Lev 12:2-4).
Various bodily discharges – bathing and waiting a week (Lev 15:2-13).
Malignant skin disease –quarantine (Lev 14:1-9).
Mould and fungus in dwellings - washing or demolition (Lev 14:33-45).
Mould and fungus in clothing - wash or burn (Lev 13:45-59).
These activities were risky for the children of Israel because they could spread disease. The Israelites did not have reliable diagnostic technology, so God put in place rules that would protect the people. These activities are still a risk for us today, although modern hygiene practices and health care reduce the risk.
2. Spiritual Contamination
A range of activities are unclean because they have been contaminated by the spiritual powers of evil. This uncleanness leaves people vulnerable to spiritual attack, if they are not cleansed. The solution for all these activities is a decontamination offering and/or cleansing with blood. I will explain below.
Situations involving blood are risky because the spiritual powers of evil are drawn to them because they think they are entitled to blood as a ransom for human sin. So when blood is shed, they often hang around and attack. This is why a few of the activities in the list above are also included here.
The transgressions of the people of God made them unclean (Lev 16:16).
Death: when a person dies, any evil spirits they carried will look for a place to go, so people should be careful around dead bodies (Lev 21:1-3).
Menstruation: The spiritual powers of evil may see menstruating women as vulnerable to attack (Lev 15:13-23).
Childbirth is dangerous because it results in bleeding. Also, spirits may attack and try to harm a baby if God has an important purpose for it (Lev 12:2-4).
Malignant skin disease may have come from a spiritual attack (Lev 14:10-32).
Mould in dwellings might be caused by spiritual attack (Lev 14:52-53).
Idolatry opens people up to the spiritual powers behind the idol they are worshipping. It also defiled the land (Ezk 36:18).
Disobedience to God's law contaminated the Tabernacle (Lev 16:16).
A murdered body makes the land unclean (Deut 21:1-9).
This second type of uncleanness is more dangerous than the first, as it leaves the people vulnerable to spiritual attack. Cleansing is urgently needed.
Cause of Uncleanness
The modern world holds a materialistic worldview that assumes that the physical world we can observe is all that exists. Most Christians reject this materialism, but many hold a pseudo-materialistic worldview, because they assume the physical and spiritual realms are almost totally separate. The spiritual world is “up there” with God, and the physical world is “down here” where we live. We will go into the heavenly spiritual realm when we die, but in the meantime, we must live in this physical world, with the Holy Spirit popping in from time to time. This Christian, pseudo-materialistic worldview is wrong and dangerous.
The truth is that the spiritual realms and the physical realm are intimately twined together. There is constant interaction between the two. However, they don’t just operate in parallel. Every person and object in the physical realm is in contact with something in the spiritual realm. And the spiritual realm is curved, so that physical objects/people in two different places can be touched by the same spiritual entity in the spiritual realm at the same time. For example, when an Israelite offered a child to Molech in his temple, the tabernacle, which was many miles away, was contaminated by it (Lev 20:3). The evil powers working in the Molech temple could touch the tabernacle while they worked.
The evil spiritual powers that operate in the spiritual realm are always trying to push into the physical realm to do harm. Whenever a physical person, object, building or place experiences an intervention from the evil powers in the spiritual realm, they are left with a residual that contaminates them, even after the evil attack has finished and the evil spirits have departed. For example, If evil spirits spend time in a house where people are doing evil, an unclean residue remains, even when the people and the spirits they carried have moved on. This is why some houses need prayer to be decontaminated.
When evil spirits are allowed to penetrate the physical realm, it unlocks authority for them. They don’t always take advantage of this vulnerability, because they often lack the resources to take up every opportunity that is open, but they leave their contamination as a marker, so other spirits can see the opportunity and take it up at a later date, when a serious intervention fits better with their plans.
The residue remains even when the spirits have withdrawn from their intervention into the physical realm to go and infiltrate another place. Explains why a site where a person has been murdered often feels dark, and why flowers don’t grow and birds don’t sing in a place where evil has been perpetrated.
I think it is better, like the scriptures, to refer to the residue as unclean rather than evil, because the evil spirits have often gone, and what they have left has no evil power. Rather it is a marker indicating that they might return and attack if they get an opportunity. The residue they have left is unclean, rather than evil, because it has no power in itself. It just opens the way to evil power. Spirits can be evil, but their residue is simply unclean. It only becomes evil when a spirit intervenes directly.
Activity by angels and the Holy Spirit has the opposite effect. The Holy Spirit often leaves a sweet fragrance behind. This is why a cathedral or old church feels different, even to someone who does not believe in God.
Unclean Tabernacle
The Tabernacle was in the middle of the Israelite camp and was surrounded by various tribes. It belonged to the people, so there was a spiritual link between each family and the Tabernacle. The people and the tabernacle touched the same place in the spiritual realms, so that when a family did something wrong that gave access to the powers of evil, both they and the tabernacle were contaminated. It was like they were connected by a spiritual wormhole. The consequence of this connection was that the sins of the people contaminated the tabernacle with the same unclean residue as the person sinning.
When people engaged in evil activity, they allowed the spiritual powers of evil to penetrate further into the camp towards the Tabernacle. It seems that if these powe0rs got too close, they could contaminate the tabernacle with their unclean residue.
The powers of evil would not usually choose to enter the Tabernacle if they penetrated it, because they would be overwhelmed by God’s strong presence, but if they were able to unlock sufficient access points, they might feel they could attack with enough force and ugliness that God would choose to leave (Lev 18:26-30). If the contamination of the Tabernacle became too strong, God might become uncomfortable in the Tabernacle and move away.
Losing God’s presence would be a huge disaster for the children of Israel. To prevent this from happening, God arranged for the Tabernacle to be cleansed once a year. This annual cleansing ensured that the tabernacle remained a pleasant place for God to dwell.
Blood Ransom
The key to understanding why blood cleanses is recognising the human situation. When Adam and Eve sinned and trusted the deceiver, they placed themselves under his authority. Because God had given them authority over everything on earth, this was a huge disaster, because it gave the spiritual powers of evil authority over the earth. This meant that God could not rescue humans from their situation without getting their permission.
The spiritual powers of evil demanded the lives of all humans in their power. This was clever, because if they could wipe humans out, they would have free rein on earth. They demanded the shedding of blood as a ransom payment for setting humans free. As the ones with ownership authority over humans, they had the right to decide what the ransom payment should be. It seems that they accepted the animal blood offered in the Tabernacle as a down payment for the blood of his Son that God would eventually offer them.
The blood offered on the bronze altar was a partial ransom payment to the spiritual powers of evil, so the tabernacle offering set the people free from the immediate consequences of their sins. However, the people could not be completely transformed until the Holy Spirit was poured out, so during Old Testament times, they kept falling back into sin. This is why the Tabernacle offering had to be repeated again and again.
The people urgently needed the full and final ransom that Jesus would pay when he died on the cross. His death and the blood that he shed satisfied the demands of the spiritual powers of evil, so they had to give up their authority over humans and over the earth. His death was a terrible defeat for them.
Why Blood Cleanses
Whereas waiting and washing enough to deal with hygiene and health issues, spiritual contamination is much more serious because the spiritual powers of evil can do terrible harm if they are not controlled. Prior to the cross, when they were defeated by Jesus, the best way to restrain them was by offerings in the Tabernacle. The tabernacle could be cleansed by the sprinkling of blood. People could be covered/cleansed by the blood poured out beside the bronze altar at the entrance to the Tabernacle courtyard when they brought an offering to the priests.
The Leviticus offerings are based on the reality that “life is in the blood” (Lev 17:11).
Blood is physical. It operates in the physical realm.
Life is spiritual. We cannot see it.
Blood combines the physical and the spiritual. This means that it operates in both the physical and the spiritual realms. It is physical, but contains life, which is spiritual.
When God created Adam, he breathed life into his nostrils. God is spirit, so his breath was spiritual. This spiritual life went into Adam's lungs and was absorbed into his blood. The life of God, which is spiritual, was absorbed into his blood through his lungs. His blood then carried life that came from God. Animal life is different, because God did not breathe in them when he created them.
Blood that has been offered in obedience to God carries good life, which pushes into the spiritual realms and squeezes out the unclean spiritual residue that has been deposited on an object or place by the spiritual powers of evil. When blood was sprinkled on the covenant box and the horns of the golden altar, the life in the blood seeped into the spiritual world in the place where the tabernacle linked to it. This removes the unclean residue that the spiritual powers of evil have put in place and closes any authority they think they have gained.
An offering was often made after the birth of a child (Lev 12:6-8), persistent menstrual bleeding (Lev 15:25,30), sometimes for a house that was contaminated (Lev 14:48-53) or a person with malignant skin disease (Lev 14:21-22,30-31), and in the place where a person was murdered (Deut 21:6-9) This blood removed the unclean residue the spiritual powers of evil had left behind. Hebrews 9:22 says that all things were cleansed by blood.
In these situations, the person may not always have been attacked by an evil spirit, but the people in Old Testament times did not have the gift of discernment to know. So it was best to make the offering for cleansing with blood in case they had. It was a situation where it was better to play on the safe side.
We don’t need to sprinkle blood on objects and places these days, because we sit with Jesus at God’s right hand, far above all spiritual authority, so we can command them to leave a place or thing, and we can speak life into it to push out the unclean spiritual residue they have left.
God always had a Plan
God has a coherent plan for bringing salvation to the world. Each new covenant that he established was not designed to replace the old because it had failed, but an extension of the previous covenant to gain additional benefits for him and his people. The new covenant that Jesus established by his death and resurrection was the ultimate fulfilment of his plan.+
God does not make mistakes, and he knows what he is doing, so his covenants did not fail. Each one achieved what he expected it to. Each one prepared the way for the next one.
The Rainbow covenant established with Noah gave God the authority to intervene when evil got out of hand. Placing a constraint on evil was a limited gain, but it was a start.
The covenant with Abraham created a people for God, but they did not yet have a land. He lived a wandering life, so he was relatively safe from spiritual attack if he stuck with God. Abraham created one nation, but God wanted all the people of the world.
The covenant with Moses established a land for the people with laws that enabled them to live in peace with each other in close quarters. By coming together in his way, they became vulnerable to spiritual attack, but the Tabernacle offerings provided spiritual protection for them if they stayed loyal to God. This covenant was a huge advance, but Moses only got one piece of land, whereas God wanted the entire earth. The Holy Spirit was active, but only on a few special people, mostly prophets. God wanted a broader range of ministries.
Jesus' ministry achieved everything that God needed be done on earth and in the spiritual realms to achieve his purposes. This covenant was complete. Nothing was lacking, and nothing still needed to be done.
Jesus' death on the cross defeated the spiritual powers of evil by shedding the blood that they demanded as a ransom for setting humans free. The soldier pierced his side, and the blood ran down onto the ground where they wanted it. The blood was for the powers of evil, not for God. If Jesus had to die to appease God, he would have died in the temple, and his blood would have been put on the altar, but he died outside the city, where the powers of evil controlled the situation.
”Having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross” (Col 2:15).
Once he had paid the ransom they demanded, they lost their authority over humans and over the earth.God vindicated Jesus by raising him from the dead (Col 1:19). The spiritual powers of evil were happy to give up their authority over humans in return for killing the Son of God. They believed that by killing him, God’s plans would be totally defeated. However, God foiled them by raising Jesus from the dead. From their point of view, this was a massive disaster because they had given up authority over the people of the world to destroy the Son of God, which seemed like a good deal, but then Jesus was raised, so they lost out twice, and were left powerless. They can never recover from this defeat.
Jesus came from the tribe of Judah, so he was not allowed to be a priest while living on earth (Heb 8:4). Rising from the dead qualified Jesus to be a priest after the order of Melchizedek, who had neither beginning of days nor end of life (Heb 7:3). Having become a priest in this order, Jesus was qualified to enter the heavenly holy of holies and bring an offering to God. He did not need to cleanse the heavenly tabernacle because it was already holy.
Ten days after he was raised from the dead, Jesus ascended into the spiritual realms to be with God, the Father. He passed “through the heavens” (Heb 7:14) and became a High Priest who can sympathise with our weakness. In him, we can boldly approach the throne of grace and obtain mercy and forgiveness. In response to Jesus' request, God agreed to have mercy and forgive everyone who trusts in him (Heb 7:15-16). He takes away our shame by saying that we are “OK”.
Jesus keeps on asking for mercy on our behalf. He has faced the same battles that we face and understands how difficult it is to serve God through the intense spiritual battle that is taking place on earth. He defends us from every accusation of the enemy.Jesus sat down at the right hand of the Father, who appointed as King of Creation, far above all rule and every authority in both the spiritual and earthly realms (Heb 1:3; Eph 1:20-23).
Jesus threw the powers of evil out of their place in the spiritual realms where they had operated (Rev 12:7-12). Prior to the cross, they were able to go into God’s presence and accuse his people of sinning and demand that they be allowed to punish them. They lost that role when Jesus ascended into God’s presence. This is part of Jesus' intercession on our behalf.
Jesus poured the Holy Spirit out on his people. He released a much fuller manifestation of spiritual gifts. He released a broader range of ministries to strengthen the church (Acts 2:32-33; Eph 4:7-12).
Jesus organises the holy angels to support his people in their activities and ministry for him (Heb 1:14).
Jesus' ministry and the new covenant that he established completed each of the tasks that the earlier covenants had started (1-4) and provided several additional benefits for God’s people (5-8).
Jesus’ Blood
Many Christians believe that Hebrews teaches that Jesus took his blood into the spiritual Holy of Holies when he ascended, but I can’t find that in the scriptures, which suggests that something is wrong with the idea. Heb 13:12 is clear that he shed his blood outside the gate of the city.
And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood.
He did not keep any of the blood that flowed in a vessel, as the priests would have done in the tabernacle, so he had no blood to take into the spiritual Holy of Holies. Jesus was dead, so he was not able to gather any of his blood in a jar, even if he had wanted it preserved.
At the point of his death, Jesus could not capture blood to offer to God as he was not a priest (due to being born of Judah). And he did not tell any of his followers to do it, although some were of the priestly line.
Jesus' blood was poured out on the ground at Golgotha, just like the blood was poured on the ground by the bronze altar outside the entrance of the Tabernacle. The spilt blood was the payment of the ransom demanded by the spiritual powers of evil. They wanted life, not blood, but demanded blood as a way of taking life.
The Old Testament priests offered blood as it contained life. They could not offer their own lives, as they were not willing to die. Hebrews says that Jesus offered his own life to God when he went into the Holy of Holies. God wanted life. He wants our lives and redeemed us so we can live the full lives he created us to live. God is all about life, not blood.
Jesus' ministry was a process just like the offerings described in Leviticus. Dying was just the first step in the process that ended with him offering himself to God in the spiritual Holy of Holies. Once raised, he became a priest after the order of Melchizedek and could enter the Holy of Holies.
Hebrews teaches us that Jesus offered himself when he entered the presence of God. The phrase offered himself is used numerous times in the book (Heb 7:27; 8:3; 9;14; 9:25; 9:28;10:10): It never says that he offered his blood.
Heb 9:12 says that he” entered by his blood” and gained redemption for us (we needed to be redeemed/ransomed from the spiritual powers of evil).
He entered the Most Holy Place once for all through his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption.
His blood was shed on the cross. He was made perfect by this suffering, which allowed him to become a priest and go into the Holy of Holies.
Heb 9:14 says that his “blood cleanses our consciences (from the accusations of the spiritual powers of evil) but that “he offers himself unblemished to God” by the power of the Holy Spirit (ie the resurrection).
How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!
When Jesus rose again, he had a spiritual body. I presume that it had the spiritual equivalent of blood (whatever that means), but it was not offered, apart from his entire being and life. He went into the heavenly holy of holies and offered his entire human life to his Father, a life that culminated in his suffering and death. His life was a worthy offering, so his Father was pleased with him and offered mercy to the people who belong to him (Heb 8:12).
Ironically, the Old Testament priests never presented blood to God in the holy of holies. In Leviticus, the word “present/bring” is applied to the person bringing the animal or grain and giving it to the priest. The priest enters behind the curtain and splatters blood on the covering of the covenant box and on the horns of the golden altar, but he does not put it on top of the altar as an offering. In contrast, the fat of the animal is placed on the fire on the bronze altar and the smoke rises to Yahweh as a pleasant odour, ie the fat is offered to him, but the blood is not. Blood cleansed the tabernacle and paid a down payment on the ransom demanded by the spiritual powers of evil.
Hebrews focuses on what the blood of Jesus achieves, not where it goes. The main thing it does is deliver us from the spiritual powers of evil (Heb 4:14-16) and thereby cleanse our consciences because they can no longer accuse us before God or in our hearts (Heb 9:14).
God Does Not Need Blood
God does not need blood. Why would he want it? He wants to rescue us so we can live our lives for him, as Jesus lived for him.
If God was unable to rescue us from the spiritual powers of evil because we refuse to be rescued, he could just disappear us (unless he wanted to torture us for our unwillingness to be rescued, but that would make him an ugly God). God created the universe and sustains all existence and life by his power, so if he became frustrated with me, he could remove me at any time, simply by stopping sustaining my life and letting me disappear from existence. If I have become so bad that God does not think that I am worthy of existence, he does not need to kill me. He can simply discontinue my existence. He does not need my blood.
On the other hand, the spiritual powers of evil are vicious haters who love destroying life. They like blood because it means death. That is why they demand blood as the ransom price for setting us free from our bondage to them. They are the ones who demanded blood because they assumed that no one would be willing to give it, especially for others. They were surprised because Jesus willingly died on the cross and shed his blood to meet their demand, so we could be set free to become the people of God. When he had risen again and ascended into the presence of God and offered his life to him. Paul explains the nature of Jesus' offering to God in Eph 5:2.
Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.
Jesus offered his life of obedient love to God. This was a sweet-smelling aroma, equivalent to the effect of the incense offered on the golden altar in the tabernacle.
Hebrews Promises
I have gone through Hebrews and identified every verse that promises something that Jesus has done or will do. I put them in a spreadsheet and sorted them into themes. The following table shows the results.
The writer two the Hebrews has a strong emphasis on rescuing us from sin. He died outside the camp, shedding his blood to pay the ransom price demanded by the spiritual powers of evil.
Sanctification is mentioned several times, not in the sense of being perfected over time, but in the sense of being cleansed by Jesus' death. A couple of verses speak about our consciences being cleansed. This is important because the accusation of the enemy about our guilt can be an obstacle to following Jesus.
Salvation is a big theme in Hebrews. The problem is that this has become a word with religious meaning, so we have lost sight of what the Greek word “sozo” actually means. It refers to being rescued or delivered from peril/harm. God has delivered us from our slavery to the spiritual powers of evil, which put us in terrible peril. It also means healing from disease.
The main feature of Jesus' character is that he is merciful. He has lived on earth, so he understands how difficult it is to escape from the stronghold that the powers of evil have over us. He gladly sets us free and continues to intercede with God for us if we fail. He sends the Holy Spirit and his angels to help us in our struggles to serve him.
Our ultimate goal is rest with him. In the interim, he puts his laws on our hearts so we can serve him and establish his Kingdom on earth.
Not to Appease God
A common belief among Christians is that the Tabernacle sacrifices were necessary to allow God to be in relationship with his people. They assume that God is so holy that he cannot interact with sinful people in any way, so sacrifices were essential to appease his anger so he could come near the people he had chosen.
Reading the Old Testament, it is clear that God has never had a problem interacting with sinful people. The initiative was always with God.
God spoke to Adam and Eve in the garden after they fell and blessed them with garments.
God called Abraham even though he continued to make serious mistakes.
He called Jacob and watched over him, even though he was a liar and a cheater.
He protected Joseph and spoke through him, even though he was proud.
Even when he sent his people into exile from the promised land, it was because he cared about them and wanted to restore them, and in exile, he continued to speak to them and keep them safe.
He prepared Moses and sent him to rescue the Israelites from slavery in Egypt before they offered sacrifices to him.
God revealed himself to Paul while he was intent on killing followers of Jesus.
He was active in my life while I was still hostile to him.
All these events took place without any human acknowledgment of sin or blood offerings for transgressions.
We are sometimes taught that God hates sin and can’t have anything to do with sinful people, but that is only half true. He does hate sin, but it is because of the harm it allows the spiritual powers of evil to do to people. But it is not true that he cannot have any contact with sinful people. He did it all the time throughout the scriptures.
God rescued the children of Israel from Egypt and brought them to the promised land before any offerings had been made. He did not need sacrifices to allow him to intervene, even though the people continued to be obstructive and rebellious the entire way.
The tabernacle offerings were not needed to start or sustain a relationship with God. Rather, they were needed to keep the people safe from the spiritual powers of evil who had dominated them as slaves in Egypt and wanted to get them back under control again. The offerings specified in Leviticus did that effectively.
The writer to the Hebrews refers to the offerings described in Leviticus throughout the letter. He describes how Jesus defeated the devil, but he never says that a blood offering was needed to appease God or to allow him to interact with his people. The idea that this is their purpose has to be read into the letter from elsewhere.
Blood and Covenants
When God first made a covenant with Abraham, he simply declared his commitment to Abraham and stated the promises he intended to keep (Gen 12:1-9).
When God made his promise to Abraham, since there was no one greater for him to swear by, he swore by himself, saying, “I will surely bless you and give you many descendants”... Because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, he confirmed it with an oath (Heb 6:13,14,17).
Initially, God made his promise to Abraham and swore by himself, by his own unchangeable authority.
Unfortunately, God’s promise was not enough for Abraham. He kept questioning God because he wanted greater certainty than God’s word promised. God responded by confirming the covenant in the way that covenants were confirmed at that time, although it seems a bit odd in modern eyes (Gen 15:9-20). God said,
Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon.” Abram brought all these to him, cut them in two and arranged the halves opposite each other; the birds, however, he did not cut in half (Gen 15:9-10).
The meaning of this action is explained in Jeremiah 34:18-19. They would cut some animals in half and place them across from each other. The two parties to a covenant would walk between the divided animals. This was a way of declaring an oath that if they broke the promises they were making, troubles would come on them. They were effectively putting a curse on themselves if they did not comply. They were declaring that if they did not keep the covenant, troubles would come upon them. If they broke the covenant, their blood would be shed.
When Abraham divided the animals and put them in place, birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abraham drove them away. The birds represent the powers of evil. Abraham deliberately drove them off. When night came, Abraham fell into a trance, and a great dark dread came on him (Gen 15:12).
I presume this was an attack of doubt due to an attack by the spiritual powers of evil, but God showed what he was doing by confirming his promised with an oath.
When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces (Gen 15:12).
A smoking firepot, which represented God, passed between the pieces of animals. This confirmed the covenant that God had made with Abraham in the way that covenants were confirmed in those days by passing through between the halved carcases. God confirmed the covenant with the blood of these animals.
On that day, the Lord made a covenant with Abram (Gen 15:18).
God effectively put a curse on himself if he did not keep his promises.
When God made his covenant with Moses, he acted first and rescued the people from Egypt without them making any commitment to him except to go along with plans. He made his covenant promises at Sinai and wrote his requirements on tablets of stone. That should have been enough for the people, but because they were people of the times, they needed a commitment in blood. Moses acceded to this demand and sprinkled the people with blood to conform to his covenant.
Moses then wrote down everything the Lord had said. He got up early the next morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain and set up twelve stone pillars representing the twelve tribes of Israel. Then he sent young Israelite men, and they offered burnt offerings and sacrificed young bulls as fellowship offerings to the Lord. Moses took half of the blood and put it in bowls, and the other half he splashed against the altar. Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it to the people. They responded, “We will do everything the Lord has said; we will obey.” Moses then took the blood, sprinkled it on the people and said, “This is the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words (Ex 24:4-8).
The people agreed to keep the covenant that Moses had written down. Moses sprinkled the blood of the bulls on the people and the temporary altar to confirm the covenant with God. The people were placing an oath on themselves. They were saying that if they broke the covenant, their blood could be shed.
Even the first covenant was not put into effect without blood. When Moses had proclaimed every command of the law to all the people, he took the blood of calves, together with water, scarlet wool and branches of hyssop, and sprinkled the scroll and all the people (Heb 9:18-19).
When Moses set up the Tabernacle and ordained the priests to serve in it, he sprinkled them with blood after making an Ascending Offering and a Decontamination Offering to cleanse them ready for their task (Ex 29:21). The sprinkling of blood on their garments cleansed them from uncleanness. The Tabernacle was the centre of covenant-affirming activities, so it was also a confirmation of their commitment to the covenant with God.
The new covenant established by Jesus was confirmed with blood. Jesus spoke of a “new covenant in his blood” (Luke 22:20).
This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins (Matt 26:28).
The author of the letter to the Hebrews wrote about the blood of the covenant (Heb 10:29).
Jesus is the mediator of the new covenant (Heb 12:24).
He entered the Most Holy Place once for all through his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption (Heb 9:12).
Hebrews refers to the “blood of the everlasting covenant” (Heb 13:20).
The new covenant was confirmed with blood, but it was done in reverse. In the Old Testament, the blood represented the people's acceptance of God’s covenant. The blood was sprinkled as agreement that if people broke the covenant, troubles would follow, and their blood would be shed.
The new covenant works the other way around. Jesus made the covenant promise to everyone who would heed his call. They don’t have to promise that their blood can be shed if they don’t keep the covenant. There was no curse, as win the Mosaic covenant. Instead, Jesus shed his blood before the covenant was mediated to pay the ransom that the spiritual powers of evil demanded. He didn’t expect the people to put a curse on themselves that could be fulfilled if they broke the covenant. God did not put a curse on himself that could be claimed if he broke the covenant. Instead, Jesus took the curse on himself on the cross before the covenant was even mediated. By shedding his blood, he wore the curse for all future breaking of the covenant before it was even initiated.
This is the blood of the covenant. It was not a threat of future consequences if the covenant was broken. Jesus carried all the future curses of the covenant on the cross. Instead of the animals’ blood representing negative consequences for dishonouring the covenant, Jesus' blood took all future curses and promised full blessings to the people of the covenant.