During 2024, I undertook a detailed study of the Offerings in Leviticus. The insights I gained were published in an article called Leviticus. They are important for clarifying what Jesus achieved when he died on the cross.
More recently, I discovered some important insights about the nature of purity and impurity, which I pulled out into a separate article called Purity and Impurity, because the original article on Leviticus had become too long.
A key important insight gained during this study was that the Decontamination Offering was the cure for Harmful Life Impurities. However, I was surprised to discover that blood was not offered as a sacrifice to God. This raised an important question: What does Blood achieve? This is a very important question, which is not well understood, so I have extracted my answer to this question and put it into this separate article.
Why?
When I spill 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 cleansing with blood works.
For impurities that pollute the tabernacle, the remedy is cleansing with blood. We need to understand how people and things become impure, and why blood has this effect (see Pure and Impure).
Blood Demanded
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 had agreed to eventually give them.
The blood poured out beside 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 (Mark 10:45).
Why Blood Cleanses
Whereas waiting and washing were enough to deal with minor impurities, spiritual contamination of the tabernacle was much more serious because the spiritual powers of evil could do terrible harm if they were 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. The spiritual powers of evil could be appeased by the blood that was poured out beside the bronze altar at the entrance to the tabernacle courtyard when they brought their offerings 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. It functions in both realms.
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 removed the unclean residue that the spiritual powers of evil have put in place and closes any authority they think they have gained.
A Decontamination 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). This blood removed the unclean residue the spiritual powers of evil had left behind in the tabernacle by getting access through the impurity on the person’s body.
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. The Torah rules were based on a conservative strategy of playing 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. Hebrews 9:22 says that all things were cleansed by blood.
God always had a Plan
God has a coherent plan for bringing deliverance 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 do. 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 Covenant
Jesus' ministry achieved everything that God needed done on earth and in the spiritual realms to achieve his purposes. His 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” (Mark 10:45).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. This seemed like a good deal, but when Jesus was raised, 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.
Forty 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 does not want blood; he wants 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 and dropped onto the ground. Jesus 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 for a pleasant odour, but the blood is not. Burning blood has an unpleasant smell. 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 to 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. “Deliverance” is probably a better translation of "sozo". 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 and the tabernacle 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).
He 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.
More at God and Blood.
Thank you for publishing this insight. Happy to have found you here on Substack! Your teaching has blessed my life, opened greater understanding and purpose for me.