4. The Blood – A Deeper Meaning
As we look at Genesis 9 in a moment we need to remember that God instituted a plan, called the plan of redemption through the blood, and we are going to begin to see blood all over the Old Testament. Since the beginning there were those that didn’t agree and called it a “slaughterhouse religion” but God’s warning still stands just as he warned Cain. So throughout the Old Testament blood is everywhere. At certain times during the Passover celebration, there were over 250,000 lambs slain with blood everywhere, all over the Temple, with so much blood flowing down the brook Kidron that it was called a “horrifying sight.” Seeing the lamb which had become a household pet for four days, and then watching it kick and scream and be slaughtered in the presence of the family and the children was an object lesson that would forever make your skin crawl.
It may make us cringe to see an animals throat cut but it is our throat that deserves to be cut. That animal was standing in for us. Gods love and grace for us provided a means wherein full justice would be absorbed and not have to be absorbed by us. God had allowed full justice to fall upon it completely, not a little bit, but completely. The substitute would “stand in” for the judgment that belonged to the sinner and “identifies with its condition.” It would stand in because it literally “became sin” God didn’t just make believe that the person’s sins were on it but that animal in God’s eyes became the very hated sinful nature and God’s full judgment fell upon it. Remember what the Scripture says of Jesus?
2 Cor 5:21 For He who knew no sin became sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
Jesus didn’t just bear our sins, He became the very hated putrid thing within Adam that separated him from God. When Christ became sin and completely and utterly identified with the condition of fallen man He didn’t just bear our sins, He bore the whole sin nature and He stood in for us by identifying completely with our condition and when Christ identified completely with our condition He became the “object of wrath.” All the judgment of God was laid upon Him and it is no wonder that Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” which means “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” because He literally became sin for the world. Every sin, past, present, and future, every sin that ever was or ever will be was in a moment of time laid upon Him.
1 Cor 15:21-22 For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive.
So throughout the Old Testament when they slaughtered a lamb the full penalty would fall upon the innocent substitute and the man who was really guilty was no longer guilty because the sin has been dealt with. He could proclaim that he had been forgiven and that the debt has been paid until he sinned again and then he would come again at a point in time throughout the year and once per year on Yom Kippur all the sins of the nation were atoned for. Of course, this was year by year, every year, until the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ came and took away sin for all time.
