By: Patty Joyce
I recently had a CBC (complete blood count) test done as part of my annual wellness appointment. This type of test measures many different parts and features of our blood. It includes, but is not limited to, red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets, hemoglobin, anemia, diseases of the immune system, and blood cancers. In addition, a basic metabolic panel was also performed, which is a group of fourteen laboratory tests that measure sugar level, electrolyte and fluid balance, and kidney function.
All of this vital information comes from a small vial of blood. When you really consider this, it is quite amazing that a few simple tests can determine the details of our health through the substance that carries life or death through our body.
Blood not only gives us physical life—it plays an integral and absolute part in our spiritual life as well. Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance lists approximately four-hundred scriptures where the word blood is cited. Taking this into consideration, I think we should delve a bit into what God has to say about this subject.
We are not told the composition of Adam and Eve’s blood. I imagine it to be perfect, as they were made in the image of God. They had no shame, no labor to perform, no threat of disease, and no death. Unfortunately, deception and disobedience ruined their paradise experience, and they were banished from the Garden of Eden forever. Genesis 3 gives the entire narrative of man’s fall from grace. In verse 14, God curses the serpent for his deception:
So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life.” Genesis 3:14 NIV
In verse 15, God gives us the first indication of man’s redemption:
“And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” Genesis 3:15 NIV
Enmity is hostility or hatred that exists between enemies. Crush in this text foreshadows Satan’s defeat when Christ rose from the dead. Strike his heel refers to Satan’s repeated attempts to defeat Christ during his life on earth. A strike on the heel is not deadly, but a blow to the head is.
Were the sin nature and all of the imperfect human elements immediately passed on to Adam and Eve? It appears so, as they were banished from the Garden of Eden forever. Sin corrupts, hence blood, our life source with all of its valuable information, is spiritually corrupted as well.
In Exodus 12, we read the story of the Passover where God instructed the Israelites to take a year-old lamb without defect, slaughter it, and put some of the blood on the doorframes of their houses. It is the Passover sacrifice to the Lord.
God makes it very clear that only blood could provide the substitutionary element for sacrifice because life is in the blood.
The Lord said to Moses, “Speak to Aaron and his sons and to all the Israelites and say to them: ‘This is what the Lord has commanded: I will set my face against any Israelite or any foreigner residing among them who eats blood, and I will cut them off from the people. For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life.” Leviticus 17:1-2; 10-11 NIV
When the Lord your God has enlarged your territory as he promised you, and you crave meat and say, “I would like some meat,” then you may eat as much of it as you want. Eat them as you would gazelle or deer. Both the ceremonially unclean and the clean may eat. But be sure you do not eat the blood, because the blood is the life, and you must not eat the life with the meat. You must not eat the blood; pour it out on the ground like water. Do not eat it, so that it may go well with you and your children after you, because you will be doing what is right in the eyes of the Lord. Deuteronomy 12:20; 22-25 NIV
Because blood is the source of life, and life is God’s gift and His alone, blood had to be returned to God and not used by people. This would be consuming a person’s life.
Blood—the substance that gives us life, and yet, in spite of the wonder of it all, it does not eradicate sin, which leads to physical and eternal death. Even after thousands of substitutionary sacrifices, God was not satisfied. Whose blood and what type of blood would fulfill the prophecy of Genesis 3:15?
Several years ago, I did a study on the incarnation. Jesus was born as a result of what we call the miraculous conception. His mother, Mary, a virgin, became pregnant as the Holy Spirit overshadowed (to envelop in a haze of brilliancy, to invest with preternatural ((that which appears outside or beside the natural influence)) her. To which percentage of her DNA God used is unknown.
Sin nature is passed on from the male seed. The virgin birth bypassed the natural process to ensure no sin nature was transferred to the female chromosome. Neither the male sperm nor the female ovum has any blood. It is when these two unite that blood is made and a new life begins. Therefore, Jesus' blood has no sin. He is one-hundred percent God and one-hundred percent man and the only living sacrifice for the atonement of sin.
When I saw the results of my CBC blood test, my mind immediately became a ticker tape of the words “the blood is the life.” What took years for scientists to discover, God had already shared in His Word. No amount of research, genetic genius, or further laboratory cloning can ever create a blood that allows a holy God to look upon us with forgiveness and love.
So, as you watch that small vial of blood being drawn from your vein, I ask you to remember that your life is not in it, but in the perfect, sinless blood of Christ which is available to all.
If you are not sure you have accepted His sacrifice for sin, please pray with me:
Jesus, I want to be cleansed by your perfect sinless blood. Please forgive me and help me to follow you and to share your love and life with others so they, too, can live eternally. Amen.
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