From ancient times until today, it has been regarded as a mysterious substance. It is amazingly complex, wondrously powerful, absolutely essential. Blood: the fluid of life. Even The World Book Encyclopedia begins its article on the subject by stating, "Blood is the life stream of the human body. No part of the body can live without this red fluid."

Your blood carries oxygen and food to every part of your body. It promotes and sustains your life. Your blood also carries away waste products from various organs of your body; that is to say, blood has a cleansing effect in your body. And, your blood fights a warfare against hostile germs of disease in your body; that is, blood has a healing and restorative power in your body. Interesting, isn’t it? Amazing, isn’t it?

No wonder, then, that even today, with all our biochemical knowledge and medical technology, we still regard blood as something of a mystery. It is a symbol of life itself, and so when the blood-mobile comes to the church, we are urged to "Give the gift of life" and to "Give so that others may live." But it is also the symbol of death. The very sight of it evokes an instinctive, visceral, primordial fear. With just a nick of the kitchen knife, you can see your life flowing out of you. The mystery of life and death, symbolized by blood, is imbedded in our human consciousness, indeed, our subconsciousness. Interesting, isn’t it?

Well, it shouldn’t surprise us, then, that blood figures so prominently in the Bible — for the Bible is a book (the Book) about life and death. And, indeed, the Bible is a blood-stained book. From Genesis chapter three, in which we read that the LORD God offered the first sacrifice for sin and "made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them," (Gen.3:21) to the book of The Revelation, in which we see the glorified Lord Jesus "clothed in a robe dipped in blood" (Rev.19:13), the Bible, from cover-to-cover, is stained, so-to-speak, with blood. And, therefore, Christian theology, Christian vocabulary, Christian hymnology is filled with the imagery of blood. We evangelicals, in particular, are known for, and sometimes ridiculed for, our obsession with "the blood." Think of our hymns for today:

But what’s this all about? Why this emphasis on blood? As Pastor Sykes said last Lord’s Day, some people today, even some professing Christians, find this blood-imagery to be offensive --- primitive, violent, grotesque--- and would rather not hear of it. But the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is a gospel sealed in blood; and without the blood of Jesus Christ shed on the cross, there is no gospel. But why is that?

We get a clue in Genesis chapter nine. The context is God’s blessing of Noah and his sons after the floodwaters had receded. In this passage, God gives the animal creatures to mankind as food. God says to Noah, "...just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything" (that is, the animal creatures, for food). But then God immediately adds this word: "But you must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it" (Gen.9:4). Another translation reads, "Only, you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood" (NRSV), and the Hebrew literally says, "You shall not eat flesh with its life, its blood." In other words, the blood is "the life" of the animal. Blood is so necessary for life, so inseparable from the power of life, the reality of life within the creature, that it can be metaphorically, symbolically equated with life itself. So, even the World Book calls blood the "life stream" of the body!

Likewise in this passage, blood represents life when God declares, "...for your lifeblood I will surely demand an accounting ...from each man, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of his fellow man. Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed." (These verses provide the basic Biblical foundation for capital punishment in the case of murder — but that is not our focus this morning, and please don’t let your mind wander on that subject). The point here is that, again, "blood" is equated with life itself: to "shed blood" is to "take life." Blood represents the mystery of life, the mystery which belongs to God alone, and as such is to be regarded as sacred.

But when we turn to the book of Leviticus, we gain even more insight into the sacredness of blood. In Leviticus 17, again we read a strong prohibition against the eating of blood, and again the explanation is given, "...for the life of a creature is in the blood" (Lev.17:10). But another reason is also given in Leviticus 17:11. The Scripture says, "It is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life." And so, blood, by God’s decree, has a sacred purpose. Blood, representing life (or life poured-out), makes atonement; that is, the blood of a sacrifice satisfies the justice of God, appeases the wrath of God, procures the mercy of God, and removes the guilt of the sinner before God. How could it do that?

Well, first of all, and very important: it is not that blood, in and of itself, has some magical power to make atonement for sins. No. There is only one thing that satisfies the judgment of God against sin. Now, think about this: there is only one thing that satisfies the judgment of God against sin. What is it? That one thing that satisfies the judgment of God against sin ...is death. "The wages of sin is death"and "the soul that sins shall die" (Romans 6:23; Ezekial 18:4); and so the Scripture says, "without the shedding of blood (without the taking of life) there is no forgiveness of sins" (Hebrews 9:22).

The blood of the Old Testament animal sacrifice represented the "pouring out of life," the death due to the curse and guilt of sin. The bloody sacrifice was the Israelites’ way of acknowledging before God that they deserved death, that they deserved to pay with their own lives — their own blood — for their sins. But the blood of the animal sacrifice also clearly showed that their only hope of salvation and peace with God, was that God would mercifully accept the blood of a substitute in place of their own blood. God Himself instructed the Israelites as to how to offer sacrifices, so as to teach them that He would, yes, graciously and mercifully accept the blood — the life and death— of a substitute in place of their own.

But as the Letter to the Hebrews tells us, "it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins" (Hebrews 10:4). In other words, the animal sacrifices of the Old Testament were not actually sufficient to pay the penalty of sin, not really able to satisfy the judgment of God, and effectively appease His wrath, and procure His mercy, and truly remove the guilt of sinners. They were symbolic sacrifices of a real sacrifice that was necessary. The animal sacrifices of the Old Testament pointed the Israelites to the need for a true and real substitute, by whose life and death sinners would be actually saved.

And so now we come to the mystery of the gospel — the mystery of salvation revealed in the gospel — the good news! — of Jesus Christ. God became man. God united Himself with a human nature. God partook of human flesh and blood, so that He Himself, in His perfect holiness and righteousness, could Himself, as a real man, offer Himself and shed human blood as the real and actual and effectual and once-and-for-all-all-sufficient atoning sacrifice for human sins! The wages of sin is death, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins; and God Himself, in Jesus Christ, entered into the reality of human life and death, and actually shed human blood for human sin; and, in so-doing, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, satisfied the justice of God, and appeased the wrath of God, procured the mercy of God, and removed the guilt of sin for all who place their trust in Him, who believe in Him — that is, who lay their sins on Him, cast their souls on His mercy, stake their life and their death and their eternal life on His sacrificial death and victorious resurrection, and look in faith to Him for their salvation.

You see, the gospel of Jesus Christ --- the good news to be received and believed --- is this: Jesus Christ is your substitute. It’s not just that He died for everybody in general; He died for you! YOU! He died because of you! Yes, He did! Your sins put Jesus on the cross! And He died on the cross instead of you: instead of you! He suffered and died under the condemnation and wrath of God instead of you. And He died for you; that is, for your benefit and blessing: for the atonement of your sins, for your peace with God, for your redemption and eternal salvation. And that is the reason the Scripture refers to the blood of Jesus over and over again: because His blood — His life — was offered as the substitute for yours.

And so the Scripture says that believers "have been justified by His blood" (Romans 5:9). Justified: that means that His blood has satisfied the judgment of God against the sins of those who have faith in Him. In Ephesians 1:7, we read that believers "have redemption through His blood" — redemption: that means freedom, release from bondage; it means that we have been bought back out of the slavery of Satan, into which we had sold ourselves by our sins; it means that His blood paid the sinner’s price, the debt we owed. In Colossians 1:20, the Scripture says that in Jesus Christ, God has "made peace through the blood of the cross" — that is, the blood of Jesus appeases the wrath of God and procures His mercy and completely removes the guilt of sin for all those who place their faith in Him. The Letter to the Hebrews tells us that Jesus Christ, as the True and Great High Priest of His people has entered into the holy of holies in the presence of the Almighty Father, not with the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, which cleanses our consciences, so that we — so that we! — may have confidence to enter the holy place "by the blood of Jesus" (Hebrews 9:12-14; 10:19). "By His blood, He made the way; come before Him now we may!"

But there maybe somebody here who is asking, "How can this really be true? How can it be true in my life? What does it mean to have faith in Jesus, and to be redeemed, and cleansed by His blood?" Well, let me try to illustrate something for you. This is only an illustration. But, do you remember the old cowboy and Indian stories about two friends becoming blood brothers? I don’t recommend this, but maybe even some of you did this as youths. Two friends would express their lifelong devotion to one another by cutting their hands, and then they’d clasp their hands together, each one pressing his wound against the other’s (it was really a covenant-making ceremony), and the blood from one wound would flow into the wound of the other, and vice-versa, and so each one had the other’s blood in him, and they would declare themselves to be "blood-brothers," forever.

Well, it’s only an illustration. But I invite you and urge you, to look upon Jesus Christ on the cross, and to consider that He suffered and died there under the wrath and curse of God as your substitute — because of you, instead of you, and for you. And consider your life --- your life, which is bleeding to death from the open wounds of sin. Consider Christ on the cross, for you; consider your own life, as you are bleeding to death, and go quickly to Jesus Christ on the cross, go to Him with your wounds, your open bleeding wounds of sin and guilt and shame and bondage, and remorse and regret, and call out to Him, "Lord Jesus, have mercy upon me, a sinner!" And reach out in faith to Him on the cross, and lay hold of Him, and press your open, bleeding wounds upon His bleeding head, His hands, His feet, His side! Press your wounds of sin, upon His wounds for your sins! And, by His grace and mercy and the power of His Spirit, His pure and holy blood will flow into the open wounds of your soul, and your sinful, polluted blood will flow into His sacred wounds on the cross — and He will be in you, and you will be in Him — and He will declare you to be His blood-brother, His blood-sister, forever!

That’s what it means to be redeemed by His blood, through faith in Him; it means that you are a blood-brother, a blood-sister, of the Son of God. It means that His sacred blood --- the power, the reality, of His life, is in you, by the working of His sovereign Spirit in your life. And His blood will cleanse you. The washing of blood is an internal cleansing, and just as surely as your physical blood serves to cleanse you internally, so the sacred blood of the Son of God, received by faith, will cleanse you from all iniquity. "There is a fountain filled with blood, drawn from Immanuel’s veins, and sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains!" And His sacred blood will heal you, spiritually. Just as surely as your physical blood is a healing agent physically, so surely the sacred blood of the Son of God, received in faith, will heal your broken heart and your wounded soul; His sacred blood, received in faith, will sanctify you wholly, and fight against those germs of sin which continually attack your soul. "By His stripes (by His wounds) we are healed" (Isaiah 53:5). And His blood will flow through you as the stream of life eternal. Just as surely as your blood is the lifestream of your body, so the sacred blood of the Son of God, received through faith, will flow through your re-created heart with the power of life eternal. "There is power, power, wonder-working power, in the precious blood of the Lamb!"

Press your wounds of sin upon His wounds for your sins, and His sacred blood, flowing into you through faith, will bring cleansing, and healing, and will be unto you the stream of His life in you, the stream of life eternal.

Glory be to the Lamb of God: in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen!