Though many of us have great difficulties dealing with blood, it is certainly amazing. Our blood consists of red blood cells, platelets and white blood cells. Red blood cells sustain us through nourishment, carrying oxygen, calcium, potassium and amino acids, travelling through 60,000 miles of arteries, veins and capillaries in about 23 seconds. Wow! Additionally, those red blood cells help to keep the blood clean by removing waste. Platelets work with the red blood cells to ensure that we don’t lose all of our blood if we are cut, through coagulation and clotting. White blood cells are the soldiers, fighting off disease along with antibodies, and some of those white blood cells die in battle.
Many of the laws of the Old Testament have to do with blood, including the ritual of the blood sacrifice. Many Christians and non-Christians alike struggle with what they view as an archaic, sacrificial system, yet God began teaching us about the power of the blood all the way back in the Garden of Eden, when He covered the naked Adam and Eve with clothing, by killing an innocent ram (Genesis 3:21). Even then, the spilling of innocent blood covered sin.
For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul.’
Leviticus 17:11
It all was fulfilled in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. He became the sacrificial Lamb when He died on the cross, in punishment of our sins. In John 6, Jesus tells His followers another aspect having to do with His blood:
53 Then Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. 55 For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. 56 He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. 57 As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me.
John 6:53-57
That statement offended many of the Jews, who were taught in the Old Testament to eat the sacrifice, but never to drink the blood. This appeared to be cannibalism! Yet in communion, we are told that the wine is the blood of Christ, while the bread is His body broken for us. Communion is like the red blood cells that give us food and nourishment. Jesus feeds us! Additionally, Jesus cleanses us, just as the blood in our bodies removes waste.
But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.
1 John 1:7
To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood,
Revelation 1:5
Additionally, the blood of Christ can prevent infections from taking root and destroying us. Those infections are sin-based, and even Christians continue to sin. Yet through the covering of the blood of Christ, and the Holy Spirit dwelling inside of us, He attacks that sin in our lives. Just as the blood in our bodies continues to circulate, the blood of Jesus continues to flow within the Body of Christ, cleansing its members.
As God reminded us in the Old Testament, it is all about the blood, for there is life in the blood. Whether human or animal, without blood, we are dead. In the same manner, without the blood of Christ that feeds us, cleanses us and heals us, we are spiritually dead. Are you a member of the Body of Christ? There’s power in the blood!
And according to the law almost all things are purified with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission.
Hebrews 9:22
For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins.
Hebrews 10:4
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