The Life is in the Blood

Thank you for reading this sermon from Christ Fellowship. I hope and pray that this sermon will be a blessing of grace and truth to you. With that said, let me encourage you not to use this sermon as a replacement for your local church. Christ Jesus did not establish his Church simply for us to consume content. Instead, He calls us to be part of a real, covenant family.

In our Road to Emmaus series, we have come to the book of Leviticus. It’s the book where Bible reading plans go to die. Most Christians have a hard time reading Leviticus because it describes rules and rituals that New Testament believers no longer practice.

But if you read it through Gospel lens, you will find shadows of Christ on every page. In fact, the book of Hebrews is basically a Christ-centered sermon on the book of Leviticus.

The sacrifices, the priesthood, the rituals, the purity laws, the feasts – all of these things pointed to Christ.

Leviticus carries themes of consecration, holiness, restored fellowship, forgiveness, and cleansing. These same themes are applied to the work of Jesus in the New Testament.

The instructions in Leviticus were also very serious to God, evidenced by the events of Leviticus 10. Two of Aaron’s sons tried being creative with the recipe for incense and God immediately consumed them with fire.

Another important aspect of Leviticus that is often ignored by New Testament Christians is the rhythm of their worship practices. God gave them very specific daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly routines. They were constantly being reminded of their need for a Savior.

But life was not found in the rituals any more than electricity is found in your phone charger. The charger simply connects your phone to the power it needs. In the same way, the rituals of Leviticus served as a kind of conduit, a means by which God taught His people about His holiness and their daily need for forgiveness.

But life was found somewhere else. We’re going to look at one specific ritual today, a yearly one found in Leviticus 16.

1 The Lord spoke to Moses after the death of the two sons of Aaron, when they drew near before the Lord and died,

2 and the Lord said to Moses, “Tell Aaron your brother not to come at any time into the Holy Place inside the veil, before the mercy seat that is on the ark, so that he may not die. For I will appear in the cloud over the mercy seat.

3 But in this way Aaron shall come into the Holy Place: with a bull from the herd for a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering.

4 He shall put on the holy linen coat and shall have the linen undergarment on his body, and he shall tie the linen sash around his waist, and wear the linen turban; these are the holy garments. He shall bathe his body in water and then put them on.

5 And he shall take from the congregation of the people of Israel two male goats for a sin offering, and one ram for a burnt offering.

6 “Aaron shall offer the bull as a sin offering for himself and shall make atonement for himself and for his house.

7 Then he shall take the two goats and set them before the Lord at the entrance of the tent of meeting.

8 And Aaron shall cast lots over the two goats, one lot for the Lord and the other lot for Azazel.

9 And Aaron shall present the goat on which the lot fell for the Lord and use it as a sin offering,

10 but the goat on which the lot fell for Azazel shall be presented alive before the Lord to make atonement over it, that it may be sent away into the wilderness to Azazel.

That word, “Azazel”, may have meant a specific place in the wilderness or it could be a metaphor for “banishment”. Either way, the symbolism is removal of sin. One of the goats is killed. The other is released. That second goat is often called the “scapegoat”.

The blood of the bull and the first goat was sprinkled on the altar and on the ark of the covenant. Then we come to the instructions for the second goat.

20 “And when he has made an end of atoning for the Holy Place and the tent of meeting and the altar, he shall present the live goat.

21 And Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, and confess over it all the iniquities of the people of Israel, and all their transgressions, all their sins. And he shall put them on the head of the goat and send it away into the wilderness by the hand of a man who is in readiness.

22 The goat shall bear all their iniquities on itself to a remote area, and he shall let the goat go free in the wilderness.

You might be tempted to think that this goat is the lucky one, but you’d be wrong. Neither of these goats is spared. Neither of them escapes judgment. The first one dies a quick death. The second goat is cut off from the safety of civilization to die alone in the wilderness. One goat alone in the desert has no chance of survival. It’s not free. It’s doomed.

The truth is, both of these goats symbolize something specific about the work of Jesus. The first goat symbolizes death as the penalty for sin. The second goat symbolizes the removal of sin.

Both of these goats represent our need for atonement. Atonement means covering and restored peace between God and man. These goats were condemned for the sake of the people, to cover them and restore peace.

They teach us that sin leads to death and separation from God. They teach us that Jesus suffered those things to redeem us from the curse of sin. 1 Peter 2:

24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.

Isaiah 53:

8 He was cut off out of the land of the living,
stricken for the transgression of my people.

The two goats then are one of the clearest pictures of the work of Christ in the Old Testament. But we also need to talk about blood.

The word blood appears 65 times in Leviticus, more often than any other book by far. Their worship was bloody by design. But in Leviticus 17, we find a command that seems unusual to us. God tells the people not to eat or drink blood.

In the Ancient Near East, every other culture had rituals involving blood and most involved eating or drinking it. God specifically commands his people not to do that, knowing it would be tempting. Why?

He gives the reason in Leviticus 17:11 –

11 For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life.

The pagans drank blood because they thought it would give them supernatural strength, health, or other blessings. But God commands something different. Don’t consume it! Put it on the altar instead.

Notice God says, “I have given it for you”. That’s such an obvious foreshadowing of Jesus and His shed blood on the cross. Hebrews 9 says that without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.

But here’s the crazy twist! Jesus reverses this prohibition, in a symbolic sense, in John 6:

53 So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, 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 feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.

55 For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.

56 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.

Many of the people following Jesus at this point abandoned him. Even his closest disciples struggled with it. Then at the Last Supper in Matthew 26:

27 And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink of it, all of you,

28 for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.

The life is in the blood. But not just any blood. It’s only found in the blood of Christ.

The prohibition against eating or drinking blood in ancient Israel was about trying to find life in counterfeits or copies, the worship of created things instead of the Creator. But the atonement through Jesus establishes union with Christ, reconciliation between God and men.

Leviticus 16 reminds us that sin is not a small problem. It leads to death and separation. God takes sin seriously—but also that He provides a way for it to be dealt with. One goat dies, one goat is banished. Both point us to the cross, where Jesus bore death and separation for us. His blood is the life we need, the only way to peace with God.

How should we respond?

We take sin seriously.
Don’t make peace with it, don’t explain it away. If atonement required blood and banishment, then sin is deadly serious. Confess it, repent of it, and bring it before Christ.

We rest in Christ’s finished work.
The Israelites had to do this ritual every year. You don’t. Christ’s blood was shed once for all. Stop trying to atone for yourself through guilt, penance, or busyness. Rest in His once-for-all sacrifice. You can’t take anything away from it and you certainly can’t add to it.

We learn to walk in holiness.
Leviticus calls God’s people to be holy because He is holy. If the blood of Christ really has cleansed us, then we are free to live differently—different from the world, different from our old selves, learning to walk in righteousness.