How does the concept of Jesus' blood sacrifice actually work?

[Kouyate42]

This is something which has got me wondering, and I’d appreciate some answers.

We all accept that the Bible gives an account of how Jesus was betrayed by Judas, tried by the Sanhedrin and finally handed over by Pontius Pilate to be crucified, before his final painful death on the cross after some 9 hours.

But I’m wondering this: how precisely does this blood sacrifice work in terms of the mechanics behind it? How does the idea of God having Himself put on a cross and then die actually solve anything in terms of forgiving sin?

 

[donsnow]

This is something which has got me wondering, and I’d appreciate some answers.

We all accept that the Bible gives an account of how Jesus was betrayed by Judas, tried by the Sanhedrin and finally handed over by Pontius Pilate to be crucified, before his final painful death on the cross after some 9 hours.

But I’m wondering this: how precisely does this blood sacrifice work in terms of the mechanics behind it? How does the idea of God having Himself put on a cross and then die actually solve anything in terms of forgiving sin?

Good afternoon, Kouyate42,

When God let Noah and his family out of the Ark, He made a new covenant with humankind. He gave Noah and his family instructions, among which was the admonishment, “He who sheds the blood of man by man his blood shall be shed.”

Jewish law also forbids eating blood or bloody meat.

So, there’s something to blood.

Now, when God let Noah and his family out of the Ark, God had just finished slaying the bulk of mankind, and in the doing had shed human blood. When God led Israel out of Egypt, He shed the blood of Pharaoh’s army. At other times in the Old Testament, God shed the blood of different armies to save Israel.

So, one aspect of God submitting Himself to die a bloody death, was to keep His own word about the shedding of human blood, by letting His blood be shed at Calvary. Christ’s sacrifice also makes unnecessary any further blood sacrifices. In those days, there were blood sacrifices by the Jews to the Almighty and blood sacrifices by pagas to their false gods.
Even to this day, Voudou makes blood sacrifices with a chicken or rooster, but that sacrifice is no good since Christ’s sacrifice on the cross.

I hope this has been a help.

God loves you,
Don

 

[bmullins]

This is something which has got me wondering, and I’d appreciate some answers.

We all accept that the Bible gives an account of how Jesus was betrayed by Judas, tried by the Sanhedrin and finally handed over by Pontius Pilate to be crucified, before his final painful death on the cross after some 9 hours.

But I’m wondering this: how precisely does this blood sacrifice work in terms of the mechanics behind it? How does the idea of God having Himself put on a cross and then die actually solve anything in terms of forgiving sin?

The concept is closely tied to the story of the Jewish passover in which the pure, unblemished lamb was sacrificed. The lamb was to be killed, it’s blood painted on the frame of their doors, and then all of it consumed. Any house that did not follow these rules would also have the punishment from God carried out on their ‘first born’.

Jesus was the Passover for all of mankind. The phrase covered by the blood implies specifically that you have been painted by the blood of Jesus. The Eucharist is seen as the fulfillment of the requirement of the lamb, in that it ‘had’ to be consumed. Jesus reiterated that in his own words:

[bibledrb]John 6:52-53[/bibledrb]

We also see fulfillment in that the description of the Passover lamb indicates it must be without spot or blemish. This is fulfilled in Jesus in that he had none of his bones broken, and he was without sin. (It also fulfilled a prophecy that none of his bones would be broken.)

We also see in Ezekiel a vision of three men entering the temple and destroying all of the people that were not marked.

[bibledrb]Ezekiel 9:6[/bibledrb]

Through Jesus and his work on the cross, we received the advocate, the Holy Spirit. The Holy spirit is eluded too throughout the new testament as God’s seal, or mark. So we see that as Ezekiel’s vision indicated, that just as God’s wrath passed over the Egyptians in Egypt on Passover, and just as the mark (taw) on the foreheads of those in temple were passed over for execution, so will Christians be passed over.

There is so much more to it though, this is just a glimpse at it. If we study the entire Bible in light of the blood of the Lamb, the Paschal sacrifice, the Mark of God… we find that using Jesus as the key opens us to the truth of the scriptures.

We also have to get into covenant theology. That when God made his first covenant with men, he promised to keep it and the result of breaking it would be death (for whoever broke it.)

Here is a short blog on covenant theology that I wrote before if you’d like to read some. It too is much deeper than can be done with just a blog, but it’s a start.

What is a covenant anyway?

Might I also suggest reading the book “A Father Who Keeps His Promises”, it will help a lot in understanding.

 

[nickybr38]

This is something which has got me wondering, and I’d appreciate some answers.

We all accept that the Bible gives an account of how Jesus was betrayed by Judas, tried by the Sanhedrin and finally handed over by Pontius Pilate to be crucified, before his final painful death on the cross after some 9 hours.

But I’m wondering this: how precisely does this blood sacrifice work in terms of the mechanics behind it? How does the idea of God having Himself put on a cross and then die actually solve anything in terms of forgiving sin?

You have to be deep, deep, deep in Old Testament and Jewish knowledge to really understand this concept.

Often Christians will go around telling people that Jesus died for YOU but how does that make sense unless you understand the concept of covenant?

The other posters who posted before me made excellent points. I want to stress that Jesus had to die to end the Old Covenant. To end a covenant one party or the other HAS to die… and in the case of the Old Covenant man had made a covenant with God. So either man dies or God does… God chose to end the covenant on His end so that we would not have to suffer further punishment. How’s that for a loving God?

The New Covenant was then sealed with the blood of the New Lamb.

I know my explanation is really limited and I apologize. I just explain things in my own words…

 

[ConstantineTG]

This is something which has got me wondering, and I’d appreciate some answers.

We all accept that the Bible gives an account of how Jesus was betrayed by Judas, tried by the Sanhedrin and finally handed over by Pontius Pilate to be crucified, before his final painful death on the cross after some 9 hours.

But I’m wondering this: how precisely does this blood sacrifice work in terms of the mechanics behind it? How does the idea of God having Himself put on a cross and then die actually solve anything in terms of forgiving sin?

Because human flesh is bound to death after the fall of Adam and Eve. Jesus, being fully God and fully man, cannot be bound by death. So by taking flesh and dying he conquered death and in effect release all humanity from the bounds of death.

 

[TimothyH]

I just posted in another thread re. atonement about sacrifice as established by God under the Old Covenant. I would welcome feedback on this post as I’m not sure it is exactly correct. Please feel free to comment. This is my understanding.

We have to remember that Old Testament Jews were covenant people. For the Israelites under the Law of Moses, it was all about God’s covenant with Israel made at Mt. Sinai. We can read about the God’s covenant with Israel in the Book of Exodus. Covenants create family bonds, and covenants are sealed with an oath, and with every oath comes a blessing for remaining faithful to the covenant and a curse for unfaithfulness to the covenant.

I call heaven and earth today to witness against you:m I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life, then, that you and your descendants may live… (Deuteronomy 30:19-20)

These words were part of Moses’ farewell speech given in the last few chapters of Dueteronomy. His last words were to warn Israel that there were both a blessing and a curse associated with the covenant they made with God - life for faithfulness to God’s commandments and death for disobeying God’s commandments. What should be clear here is that under the covenant, breaking God’s commandments meant death.

This was part of the reason why God set up the system of animal sacrifice, to show his mercy and to satisfy the requirement for curse and death under the covenant for those who were unfaithful.

If the high priest had sinned, then all of Israel was guilty of that sin. The perscription for sacrifice in this case was as follows:

The elders of the community shall lay their hands on the bull’s head before the LORD. When the bull has been slaughtered before the LORD… (Leviticus 4:13)

In the case of an individual who had sinned because of disobedience to the laws of the covenant given by God to Moses, the following formula was perscribed:

***The individual shall bring it to the entrance of the tent of meeting to find favor with the LORD, and shall lay a hand on the head of the burnt offering, so that it may be acceptablef to make atonementg for the one who offers it. The bull shall then be slaughtered before the LORD, *(Leviticus 1:3-5)

I had read in several places including the book “Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist” by Brant Pitre, that in laying hands on the animal, the sin was transferred to the animal. The animal was then sacrificed. The animal then satisfied the requirements of the covenant which demanded death for covenant unfaithfulness. The sinner was supposed to have died but God supplied Israel with a way out by allowing them to transfer the sin to the animal which was then sacrificed instead.

Yet the people persisted in sin. They could not stop. All the sacrifices could not make them holy. God himself had to become man and offer the perfect sacrifice. God the Son became the perfect sacrifice, taking the sins of the world upon himself - past, present and future - and offering himself in sacrifice to God the Father. God offering himself to God was the only sacrifice that could ever be offered to God to satisfy the demands of the covenant. It was the perfect sacrifice, and it satisfied the covenant once and for all.

That’s my understanding - that of the covenant and its reward of life and demand for death. Again, I would welcome comments, especially if I have gone wrong somehow.

-Tim-

 

[Mintaka]

I don’t think “mechanics” and “actually work” are very helpful. You can study a lot about what meant what, and how God trained His people to believe X and Y so that He could teach them Z. There’s plenty of complicated and beautiful theology, and there are theories that go even farther, trying to understand the mind of God.

But remember, it’s not some kind of contract or magic spell or machine or computer program, where you put blood in and forgiveness comes out the other side. It’s about family relationships and life.

And family starts in blood, because every human being is born and raised and lives by means of blood. Blood is life.

And if you want to have life and love, you have to give away all that you have.

God forgives sin, heals us, and makes us able to be part of His life again, by giving us life and love. If we respond, even a little, and give ours in return, we can have more life and love from Him.

Jesus, who was God and Man, gave away His life and love on the Cross. He gave it to us and gave us eternal life. We should give ours to Him.

 

[Speedypizza]

Jesus is God, and as such he COULD have made the choice to let us die in sin, or he could have just said “I forgive you.” So there has to be another reason for him to come down here then to die for our sin. Why? Are you saying God is powerful enough that he can do anything he wants but he cannot forgive our sins without a blood offering? Of course he could have found another way, but he choice this way, so maybe it would be a better question to ask WHY he chose this way.

To me the answer is simple. God wants to be loved and God loves us so much that he wants to be with us, always. Look at Jesus on the cross, what do you see? A blood offering? Yes, but what else? We see the God of the universe who wants us to love him and be near him so much that he takes on our form. In the body of a human we can love God fully, because he is a person now. More then this, he says “Look, my hands are to the side nailed there, I cannot harm you, I cannot scare you, you can come to me or walk away as you see fit. I am not even going to use words to tell you this, I am just going to look with sad, weary eyes. Now can you love me, now can you come to me at last?”

More then this he leaves himself here, under the appearance of bread and wine. So that we can choose to be with him, or choose to walk away. The God of the universe loves me so much that he makes himself be our prisoner in the tabernacles of the world, so I can be near him. So that I can come to him, just as John did when he rested his head on Jesus’s chest…
That is what he really meant when he said “When I am lifted up, I will draw all men to myself.” He is calling us right now, but he will never force, never make, just ask softly…
I know what I answer…

Pax

 

[ConstantineTG]

Lets try to answer this with the correct theology as taught by the Apostles and the Church Fathers. Its not about touchy feel good emotions. As taught by St. Athanasius and you will see in the CCC, Jesus Christ became man so that man may become gods. This is what is called theosis, that God partake in the life of man so that He might bring man to partake in His life. His death, which is part of what being human is, conquers death that which is introduced by Adam’s sin and thus granting us eternal life through His divinity. Because God is eternal, He passes on His divinity to us after we suffer mortal death, because by taking our flesh He has given us His divinity.

 

[TimothyH]

Lets try to answer this with the correct theology as taught by the Apostles and the Church Fathers. Its not about touchy feel good emotions. As taught by St. Athanasius and you will see in the CCC, Jesus Christ became man so that man may become gods. This is what is called theosis, that God partake in the life of man so that He might bring man to partake in His life. His death, which is part of what being human is, conquers death that which is introduced by Adam’s sin and thus granting us eternal life through His divinity. Because God is eternal, He passes on His divinity to us after we suffer mortal death, because by taking our flesh He has given us His divinity.

And let’s not confuse touch freely emotion with genuine guidance by the holt spirit. The church fathers explained the theology and mechanIcs of it all but above all else, there explanations were arrived at and given by the light of the Holy Spirit.

I’m not trying to lecture one such as you CTG. I think too many confuse touchy freely emotion with the experiecial theology of many of the fathers including Diadochus of Photoke. He and many others relied heavily on there experience of God to guide them.

We must always be on the guard for bad theology but many today tend to reduce Gods actions to mechanics and formulas and in so doing they miss out on the experience of God. We are human and can learn much from proper instruction but at the end of the day we learn best through experience.

pax
-Tim-

 

[Speedypizza]

And let’s not confuse touch freely emotion with genuine guidance by the holt spirit. The church fathers explained the theology and mechanIcs of it all but above all else, there explanations were arrived at and given by the light of the Holy Spirit.

I’m not trying to lecture one such as you CTG. I think too many confuse touchy freely emotion with the experiecial theology of many of the fathers including Diadochus of Photoke. He and many others relied heavily on there experience of God to guide them.

We must always be on the guard for bad theology but many today tend to reduce Gods actions to mechanics and formulas and in so doing they miss out on the experience of God. We are human and can learn much from proper instruction but at the end of the day we learn best through experience.

pax
-Tim-

I agree with you fully, however we also need to not lose sight of the trees for the forest. How about if we also try to understand that this is something I don’t think we will ever fully understand, at least not while we are on earth. I am not sure if we will be able to fully understand it all on the other side. It might be that it is beyond us to do so, being only creatures of the creator.

What is very important to keep in mind here is God is not in a box, where somehow he HAD to do things in this way. God is far more powerful then some make him sound when they get into this “The ONLY way God could forgive us was to become a blood offering to himself.” God is not so bound…

 

[nickybr38]

I agree with you fully, however we also need to not lose sight of the trees for the forest. How about if we also try to understand that this is something I don’t think we will ever fully understand, at least not while we are on earth. I am not sure if we will be able to fully understand it all on the other side. It might be that it is beyond us to do so, being only creatures of the creator.

What is very important to keep in mind here is God is not in a box, where somehow he HAD to do things in this way. God is far more powerful then some make him sound when they get into this “The ONLY way God could forgive us was to become a blood offering to himself.” God is not so bound…

To me, the concept of Him dying to cleanse us makes no sense without the covenant. I never, never understood the logic of why He had to die. It never made sense until I read some of Scott Hahn’s work. It was Hahn’s covenant explanation that made me go AH! Now it makes sense!!!

 

[Linda_Marie]

From St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church website
Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ - B

<…>
A covenant is a family bond, entered into freely, binding perpetually, and sealed in blood. The Sinai covenant was between God and Israel. God promised to be the God of Israel; Israel promised to keep all the commands of the Lord. Moses took the blood of animals which had been sacrificed and sprinkled it on the altar (representing the presence of God) and the people (indicating their participation in the covenant).
<…>

Moses immediately reports the words (the ten commandments) and the ordinances (the covenant code) to all the people.

they all answered with one voice, “We will do everything that the LORD has told us.”

The people assent to the terms and conditions of the covenant.

4 Moses then wrote down all the words of the LORD and, rising early the next day, he erected at the foot of the mountain an altar and twelve pillars for the twelve tribes of Israel.

The solemn covenant ritual is prepared: the words are written down, the altar and pillars are set up, sacrifices are offered. A covenant ritual includes a sacrifice and a covenant community sharing of the sacrifice.

11th Sunday in Ordinary Time - A
Justification by Christ’s blood can be best understood when a contemporary rabbinical axiom is recalled: “There is no expiation of sins without blood” (Hebrews 9:22). The axiom itself is based on Old Testament purification rites (Leviticus 8:15; 9:15-21; 16:19; 19:24; etc.). This idea was not that the blood so shed in sacrifice appeased Yahweh, nor was the emphasis on the shedding of the blood and the ensuing death a sort of recompense or price to be paid. Rather, the blood was shed either to purify and cleanse ritually, objects dedicated to Yahweh’s service (Leviticus 16:15-19) or else to consecrate objects and persons to that service.

On the Day of Atonement the high priest put blood on the ark of the covenant “because of the uncleanness of the Israelites and their transgressions in all their sins” (Leviticus 16:16). The sins were considered to have defiled the land, the Temple, and all it contained. The sprinkling with blood purified and consecrated anew, expiating the sins. The underlying reason is found in Leviticus 17:11: “the life of the flesh is in the blood; I have put it for you upon the altar to make atonement of your lives; for it is the blood that makes atonement by reason of the life.” Blood was identified with life itself because the* nepeš* (breath of life) was thought to be in it.

When the blood ran out of a man, the nepeš left him. The blood that was shed in sacrifice was not, then, a vicarious punishment meted out on an animal instead of on the person who sacrificed it. Rather, the “life” of the animal was consecrated to Yahweh (Leviticus 16:8-9); it was a symbolic dedication of the life of the person who sacrificed it to Yahweh; it cleansed him of his faults in Yahweh’s eyes and reconciled him once more.

Christs blood, shed in expiation of mans sins, was a willing offering of His life to bring about the reconciliation of man with God (Ephesians 2:13). Heaven was opened so that we may approach God individually and have our sins forgiven. Through baptism we can become Gods children; we are no longer considered just His slaves without a right to inheritance,

 

[u8nc]

i dont know if i can explain this fully
but in addition to the fine answers given so far, the matter is also a legal one, if mechanics are your interest. Jesus has fulfilled the contract or covenant in a full and perfect way that your country’s most brilliant lawyer cannot set up.

By rising from the death where his own blood was divided from his flesh in the manner that sacrifices were prepared, He becomes the perfect witness to His testament, of which He is still the testator, and therefore being his own witness and executor of the will and testament ( covenant ) he is incorruptible, and His document ( Holy Word ) is true and faithful in a way our documents cannot.

But the entry point for us into this perfect arrangement is in fact our baptism. Its where, by faith, we “sign into it” in a sense, which is why Jesus was adamant to John the baptizer that it was important for Him to do anyway. Debates then about sprinkling vs full immersion fall away as insignificant in this light.

–

incidentally, blood sacrifice was in practice long before Mt Sinai, I’ve done a search but cannot find the results for on someone that was considered a righteous man because he gave offerings on behalf of his sons in Case they had sinned. Noah?, I really thought it was. Perhaps Lot? Nope. I can’t find it, maybe the version i’m searching with has left it out!.

Anyway when Jehovah passed through Abram’s divided heifer, goat and pidgeon, there is already a significance of life lost in order to mark the covenant, and this would have been familiar to Abram who posed the question “By how shall i know that these things come to pass?”

 

[Benadam]

Good question.

The mechanics of water as a conduit for Baptism is tied to the fact that water is the primordial source of earthly life. I think life resides in the blood for reasons linked to that.