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The filet mignon of the word, part 23, Laws of blood

Leviticus 17:10, 11 tells us,

¹⁰ And any man from the house of Israel, or from the aliens who sojourn among them, who eats any blood, I will set My face against that person and will cut him off from among his people. ¹¹ For the life [nephesh, “soul”] of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls [nephesh]; for it is the blood by reason of the life [nephesh] that makes atonement.

This prohibition against eating blood carries through into the New Testament, as seen in the first church council in Jerusalem. James, the head of the Jerusalem church, rendered his verdict in Acts 15:19, 20, saying,

¹⁹ Therefore it is my judgment that we do not trouble those who are turning to God from among the Gentiles, ²⁰ but that we write to them that they abstain from things contaminated by idols and from fornication, and from what is strangled and from blood.

The reason for this is that the blood of animals was not for food but was for atonement. The soul (nephesh) resides in the blood, and so the blood of the sacrifice was the soul that was given to make atonement for our souls. This, of course, became necessary after Adam’s soul was polluted by the original sin, thereby making him mortal. So Ezekiel 18:4 says,

⁴ Behold, all souls are Mine, the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is Mine. The soul who sins will die.

Adam was made “a living soul” (Genesis 2:7), but his sin brought death (mortality) to him and to his children after him. Adam’s self-identity, his person, was his soul. The law refers to his soul as “the soul of the flesh,” that is, the fleshly soul. The soul, then, is not spiritual but fleshly, or carnal. By contrast, Jesus Christ, being begotten by the Holy Spirit, was spiritual. He was a life-giving Spirit who was made flesh, but because He was not begotten by Adam’s descendant, He was not a fleshly soul.

So Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 15:45,

⁴⁵ So also it is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living soul.” The last Adam [Christ] became a life-giving spirit.

As the original Spiritual Man, Jesus was the Forerunner for all of us as we obtain the promise of becoming sons of God. The main difference between Him and us is that He was the Son of God from His conception by the Spirit, whereas we are all born soulish and must be begotten a second time (by the Spirit) to become sons of God.

It is that spiritual entity, or person, that becomes the real you by faith in Christ. By faith you are no longer sons of Adam, the “living soul,” but sons of God through Christ, the “life-giving Spirit.” By faith in Him, we undergo a change of identity, legally becoming the “new creature” (2 Corinthians 5:17) that has been begotten by the Holy Spirit.

The Law of Sonship

Animal sacrifices were not sufficient to make us into new creatures with a new identity. The blood of animals could provide atonement (kippur, “covering”), but it could not take away sin. To cover sin was a legal maneuver that imputed righteousness to us until the true and proper Sacrifice would come as “the Lamb of God” (John 1:29). It was His blood, shed at the cross, which went beyond atonement and provided full reconciliation between God and man.

So we read in 1 John 3:5,

⁵ You know that He appeared in order to take away sins; and in Him there is no sin.

Therefore, it can be said that the blood of animal sacrifices provided atonement to cover sin, but the blood of Christ accomplished the greater work of removing sin and reconciling us to God. This reconciliation establishes our status as sons of God.

The original law of sonship first appears in Genesis 1:26 when God created man, stating, “Let us make man in our Image, according to our likeness” (demoot). The Hebrew word demoot is from the root word damah, “blood.” Whereas “image” is a picture of a reflection in a mirror, “likeness” pictures being of one blood—that is, being related by blood. It implies that man was created to be sons of God. This position was lost through sin and postponed for a later time, but mankind will indeed fulfill its purpose in the restoration of all things when every knee bows and every tongue confesses Christ by faith.

Becoming sons of God was made possible from the beginning, but it was understood only gradually over a period of many centuries. In fact, it is not widely understood even in the church today, in part because the laws of blood have often been ignored, along with the rest of the laws of God.

Again, God saw fit to reveal this truth one step at a time, as I have already shown. The blood of animal sacrifices covered sin, and 1,500 years later the blood of Christ provided restoration that removed sin. The overcomers, the men and women of faith listed in Hebrews 11, were sons of God because they were obedient to the truth that was revealed to them in their day.

After Christ shed His blood on the cross and after He brought His own blood into the Most Holy Place in the temple in heaven (Hebrews 9:12), more was required to become a son of God. The new requirement was to place one’s faith in the work of Christ and the effectiveness of His blood. Under the New Covenant, faith in the blood of animals was no longer sufficient.

John 1:11-13 tells us (literally translated),

¹¹ He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. ¹² But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, ¹³ who were begotten, not of bloodline [genealogy], nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

We who have met the requirement of sonship can say with John in 1 John 3:2,

² Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.

Even so, we are yet imperfect, for we are still in the process of maturing spiritually to be conformed to the image of Christ. The next verses read (1 John 3:3, 4),

³ And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure. ⁴ Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness.

If we were already perfected, we would have no need to purify ourselves or to refrain from lawlessness. Having faith in Christ, then, secures our position as the sons of God and even gives us a positional righteousness in the sight of God, but a second work of Christ is necessary to complete the work of perfecting us.

Two Works of Christ

We see, then, that immigrating from the Old Covenant to the New is only the first step toward sonship. Once we have come under the New Covenant through its Mediator, we then discover that Christ’s work is divided into two parts. Part one was His death, resurrection, and ascension; part two, bringing perfection to the overcomers, is yet to be accomplished in His second coming. The first work of Christ gave us imputed righteousness; the second work of Christ will give us actual righteousness.

This is prophesied in the law as well. Leviticus 14:1-7 speaks of two birds needed to cleanse lepers. Leprosy, being a slow death, represents mortality. The law of cleansing lepers, then, presents the lawful basis of coming into immortality. Both birds prophesy of Jesus Christ. The first bird was killed, thereby establishing the fact that Christ would have to die in His first coming. The second bird was dipped in the blood of the first bird and released into the open field. (“The field is the world,” Matthew 13:38.)

So we read in Revelation 19:13 about Christ’s second coming,

¹³ He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called the Word of God.

His robe was “dipped in blood” to identify Him as the One fulfilling the prophecy of the second bird in Leviticus 14:6. Hence, He comes into the world to bring immortality to the overcomers.

A second prophecy is similar, but reveals how we are made righteous. Leviticus 16 speaks of two goats on the Day of Atonement. The first was killed, and its blood sprinkled on the mercy seat in the temple. Jesus fulfilled this when He sprinkled His own blood on the mercy seat in heaven. The second goat was sent alive into the wilderness. This is another way of expressing His second coming into the world.

We are now the temples of God. When Christ comes forth from our hearts, bearing our iniquities, sins, and transgressions with Him, it signifies the fact that He is removing sin from our temples. In both cases (bird and goat), Christ must come twice in order to complete the work. To complete it requires making us immortal and righteous. While both works are based on the first work of Christ, neither is completed until the second work has been done.

In both cases, blood is involved. The first work of Christ is based upon His shed blood on the cross. The second bird is dipped in the blood of the first; as for the two goats, the first provides atonement in the temple, whereas the second removes sin altogether.