“His own blood [brought] eternal redemption.”
(Heb 9:12, NKJV)
At this stage of the discussion surrounding the bronze altar, and specifically the mystery of godliness (1 Tim 3:6), we are concerned with the second root truth – “Jesus’ claims (was) justified by the Spirit”. We have already seen how these claims made by Jesus, stating that He was the Savior of the world (Luke 19:10; John 12:47), were also made by an angel before his birth (Matt 1:21), also made by John the Baptist (John 1:29), and later confirmed by many who considered it the truth, like Paul (1 Tim 1:15) and John (1 John 3:5; 5:9). We have already brought forth many pieces of evidence for why we undoubtedly know that Jesus is the Son of the living God, but when the Scripture states that “He was “justified [or, shown to be righteous] in spirit [or, by [the] Spirit]” (Analytical-Literal Translation), what was the trump card that brought man eternal salvation? Heb 9:12 says that it is His blood.
This subsection of the teachings looks particularly at the specific work of the Evil one and the role that it plays in our New Covenant lives, which makes it important to again return to the essence of the blood, as a mystery is locked up in the blood covenant, which determines the believer’s entire life in Christ.
In the previous teachings we also extensively covered the nature of the blood of Jesus. His blood was clean, devoid of any curses, illnesses or genetic derivations. His blood was devoid of death. We know that although life is in the blood (Lev 17:11) that blood is also the carrier of illness and death. Jesus’ blood was completely uncontaminated. 1 Pet 1:19 calls it “the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot”. But why did it have to be blood that was used in the greatest sacrifice of all time?
It is important to note that the first people who sinned were the first to need forgiveness and the accompanying sacrifice. In Gen 3:21 we find that God has them rid themselves of their self-made righteousness in the form of scratchy fig leaves (Gen 3:7), instead giving them dresses of animal skin to wear. There are certain teachers, such as Chris Wehrmann, who convincingly argues that the skin that Adam and Eve received was a physical covering that man put on for the first time, and that it was not the skin of an animal (it is never explicitly stated that the skin was that of an animal). This covering brought the spiritual man a physical skin, in other words the spiritual man that was created in the image of God only became a physical manifestation at that point.
I do have a few problems with this perspective. All the elements of creation were concrete, a sensory-experienced reality – the sun, the planets, the animals and the rest of creation. Why would man not be made in like manner, especially since it is explicitly stated that he was formed from the dust of the physical earth (Gen 2:7)?
Also, after Eve was taken from Adam’s side, God closed the wound with “flesh” (Gen 2:21), and this word in the original Hebrew can also mean skin, as it is translated in Ps 102:5. There was thus already skin to cover their “flesh and bone”, and that brings us to the skin of the animal which was used to clothe Adam and Eve.
- Sela: What could the dress of skin point to?
- Read: Jos 22; Ezra 5; Isa 38
- Memorise: Isa 38:18-19
