- Dec 31, 2016
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Is there a discernible reason behind requiring blood sacrifice to atone for sin?
We see it in the OT, with blood of all manner of animals being use as propitiation for sin, and in the NT with the idea of Jesus being a substitutional sacrifice on the cross, but....why? Is there are rational behind the use of blood which we can discern?
On the face of it, blood sacrifice looks pretty barbaric (especially when it uses the blood of an innocent to protect someone guilty - that is a strange definition of Justice at the very least) so I'm wondering if there is a rational behind the specific requirement for it that we can find in scripture...
And please, not "God said so" arguments. I'm not doubting what is written. I'm looking to understand the reasoning behind that choice of process.
“Why blood sacrifice” is right up there with “explain the Trinity” when it comes to perplexing mental exercises for many Christians. Oh, people can point to Bible quotes, such as Leviticus 17:11, but that doesn’t help when you’re setting in a worship service listening to the congregation sing about precious blood in a mesmerized state, and the picture of a chanting heathen crowd urging-on some kind of witch doctor as he cuts out the heart of a living victim for sacrifice comes to mind.
I don’t know, but somehow I believe the idea of sacrifice got ingrained in the ancients and stayed there right up to the writing of the New Testament (and even later in some parts of the world), which used the blood sacrifice of Jesus (a willing innocent... big difference) to explain away the idea. I’m not doubting what was written either, I just prefer to think about it in terms of Jesus loved us, was willing to die (give up his life) for us to demonstrate it and atone for us according to God’s plan, and try to move on from the fixation on the idea of a blood sacrifice. These are difficult questions to answer in today’s world; I pray I haven’t said something wrong.
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