Heb.9:18-22 – Therefore not even the first covenant was dedicated without blood. For when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water, scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, saying, “This is the blood of the covenant which God has commanded you.” Then likewise he sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry. And according to the law almost all things are purified with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission.
If you think about it, the message of God to man in the Old Testament is pretty messy. He required blood, the blood of hundreds of thousands of innocent creatures to cover our sins. The magnitude of all of those deaths of innocent creatures is breath taking but their deaths could not take away man’s sin. The offerings had to be offered again and again and our conscience still remained stained with guilt. The blood of animal sacrifices only provided a temporary covering or atonement but could never remove the guilty stain from our lives. All of this death pointed to a final sacrifice that was to happen in the fullness of time. God became a man and lived among us, He came to give His own life as an offering for our sins. Here is how Andrew Murray describes this passage.
“Not without blood! This is the wondrous note that rings through all Scripture, from Abel’s sacrifice at the gate of paradise to the song of the ransomed in Revelations. God is willing to receive fallen man back again to His fellowship, to admit him to His heart and His love, to make a covenant with him, to give full assurance of all this; but—not without blood. Even His own Son, the Almighty and All-perfect One, the gift of His eternal love, even He could only redeem us, and enter the Father’s presence, in submission to the word, not without blood. But, blessed be God, the blood of the Son of God, in which there was the life of the Eternal Spirit, has been given, and has now wrought an eternal redemption!”
It’s very interesting that the author of Hebrews used the word remission in referring to the shedding of blood. Remission is describing doing away with sin. Atonement was about covering our sins, covering is not good enough. Our sin needed to be removed totally and that is the point of the sacrificial death of the Son of God. This sinless man took our place, He became sin on the cross that we might become the righteousness of God. Because our sin has been taken away by the spotless Lamb of God we now have access into His presence.
