Tuesday Morning

Concept: Sin Requires Blood to be Spilled

Here’s a tricky question: When was the first blood spilled on Earth? Did you catch it in the teaching last night? Was is when Cain killed Abel? Nope. It’s earlier and much more subtle. Here’s a hint. Adam and Eve were naked, then they sinned, realized they were naked and made clothing. From what was the clothing made? They made loincloths made of fig leaves. I’m sure it was quite fashionable. After all everyone was wearing it … literally.

After God enters the picture and pronounces punishment, it says in Genesis 3:21, “And the Lord God made for Adam and his wife garments of skins and clothed them.” Skins?! Where did He get skins? Genesis 2:2 clearly says that God was finished with creation. He couldn’t have created more skins. And what was wrong with their own high fashion apparel? Does God have something against clothes made from plant fibers? I hope not. I’m a jeans and T-shirt kind of guy. Most of what I wear is cotton.

The truth is that sin always requires blood to be spilled. Read this excerpt from Hebrews 9:15-28:

For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance — now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.
In the case of a will, it is necessary to prove the death of the one who made it, because a will is in force only when somebody has died; it never takes effect while the one who made it is living. This is why even the first covenant was not put into effect without blood. When Moses had proclaimed every commandment of the law to all the people, he took the blood of calves, together with water, scarlet wool and branches of hyssop, and sprinkled the scroll and all the people. He said, "This is the blood of the covenant, which God has commanded you to keep." In the same way, he sprinkled with the blood both the tabernacle and everything used in its ceremonies. In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.
It was necessary, then, for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these sacrifices, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ did not enter a man-made sanctuary that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God's presence. Nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own. Then Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But now he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.

From the earliest sin to the ones you’ve already committed this morning, blood was required. Adam and Eve’s sin required an animal or animals to die to cover them. Your sin required Jesus to die to cover you.

Remember this concept: sin requires blood.