Cause Before Symptom

For eighteen episodes, I have followed one question through Scripture: Why did God choose blood? What began as a question about sacrifice led us somewhere much deeper. We followed blood back to life, life back to breath, sacrifice back to relationship, and finally the entire silhouette toward Jesus. Now, in Part 19, the investigation reaches its end. It is time to stop collecting evidence and deliver the verdict.
 
But one major question remains. What did the blood of Jesus actually accomplish? The New Testament gives us more than one answer. It speaks of forgiveness, cleansing, justification, reconciliation, redemption, ransom, covenant, access to God, liberation, and victory. Rather than forcing all of these into a single explanation, we will ask whether they describe different dimensions of the same saving work.
 
We will also confront one of the hardest questions in Christianity: if God forgave people before Calvary, why was the cross necessary? David was forgiven. Nineveh received mercy. Israel repeatedly experienced forgiveness. Jesus Himself forgave sins before His blood was shed. Perhaps the cross was never about convincing an unwilling God to become merciful. Scripture says that “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself.” The question may therefore be much larger than how God could forgive. What was God doing about sin, guilt, alienation, corruption, bondage, and death itself?
 
We will investigate what Scripture means when it says Jesus gave His life as a ransom and that humanity was redeemed or bought with a price. Was someone literally paid? Or does ransom language emphasize liberation from captivity? We will also return one final time to the apparent tension between Leviticus and Hebrews. If animal blood truly made atonement, why does Hebrews say that the blood of bulls and goats could never take away sins? What did those sacrifices genuinely accomplish, and what remained unfinished?
 
Then we will ask perhaps the most practical question of the entire series: what actually changed after Jesus died and rose? The answer must involve more than simply saying that humanity could now be forgiven. Scripture speaks of a cleansed conscience, a new covenant, restored access to God, reconciliation, justification, the gift of the Spirit, freedom from the dominion of sin, and the hope of resurrection. The goal was not merely pardoned humanity. It was restored humanity living again in the presence of God.
 
Finally, we will confront the question beneath every other question: Why blood at all? Could God have chosen another way? Scripture may not tell us everything God theoretically could have done, so we will not pretend that it does. Instead, we will ask why Scripture says God chose this way and what blood communicated that nothing else in the biblical story communicated quite the same way.
 
Only then will we return to Leviticus 17:11: “the life of the flesh is in the blood.”
 
For eighteen episodes, that verse has followed us. Now we will determine whether it contains the thread connecting the entire investigation.
 
We began with breath. We encountered blood because life was lost. We encountered sacrifice because life was offered. We reached Jesus and discovered a faithful human life surrendered willingly in love and obedience. Then something happened that prevents death from being the final answer.
 
Jesus rose.
 
So Part 19 will not merely ask why Jesus died. It will ask why He gave His life, why God raised Him, and what became possible because He lives.
 
After nineteen episodes, there will be nowhere else to postpone the question.
 
Why did God choose blood?
 
It is time for the final verdict.
 
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For seventeen episodes, we have followed the trail of blood through Scripture, refusing to settle for the simple answer that blood matters only because “the life is in the blood.” That statement is true, but it has continually opened another question: if blood represents life, then what kind of life was God ultimately looking for? Part 18 finally places Jesus inside the silhouette we have been constructing and asks whether He is the human being the entire story has been pointing toward.
 
Paul gives us the key by placing Adam and Jesus beside one another. The first Adam is associated with disobedience and death, while Jesus is associated with obedience and life. Paul calls Jesus the “last Adam” and makes an extraordinary distinction: the first Adam became a living being, but the Last Adam became life-giving. God's answer to humanity therefore appears to involve far more than finding a perfect sacrifice to die. It involves a faithful human life that succeeds where Adam failed.
 
We follow Jesus through the wilderness, His ministry, Gethsemane, and finally Calvary and discover a remarkable pattern. Jesus is repeatedly given opportunities to satisfy Himself, prove Himself, exalt Himself, seize power, avoid suffering, or preserve His own life. Again and again, He refuses. Adam receives abundance and reaches beyond God's command. Jesus experiences hunger, rejection, suffering, and eventually death while continuing to trust the Father.
 
Gethsemane exposes the issue underneath everything: human will. Jesus does not approach death without anguish or desire. He asks whether the cup can pass from Him, yet says, “not my will, but thine, be done.” Before His blood is ever shed on the cross, His life has already been surrendered in will. Calvary does not create His surrender. It makes physical what His entire life has been expressing.
 
That changes how we understand the blood of Jesus. If “the life of the flesh is in the blood,” then Christ's blood cannot be separated from Christ Himself. Jesus says He lays down His life. He connects laying down life with love. Hebrews says He “offered himself.” The final sacrifice is therefore not merely the shedding of a particular kind of blood. It is the willing self-offering of the faithful human representative.
 
Then Part 18 takes one final unexpected turn.
 
Jesus breathes again.
 
After His resurrection, Jesus appears to His disciples, shows them His wounds, breathes upon them, and says, “Receive ye the Holy Ghost.” The Greek language used by John carries a striking connection to Genesis 2:7, where God breathes life into the first human. We will handle that connection carefully, but when it is placed beside Paul's description of Christ as the life-giving Last Adam, something remarkable emerges.
 
The first Adam receives life. The Last Adam gives life.
 
The pattern that began in Genesis now comes into focus: received life became misdirected life, but in Jesus it becomes surrendered life, resurrected life, and shared life.
 
Part 18 therefore brings us to the doorstep of the final answer. Blood was never God's destination. Death was never God's destination. Paul actually calls death an enemy that will be destroyed. The trail passes through blood, sacrifice, surrender, Calvary, and the tomb because the destination is life.
 
We began this investigation asking why God chose blood. After eighteen episodes, we may finally be discovering the question underneath that question.
 
Perhaps God chose blood because blood represents what He valued all along.
 
Life.
 
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For sixteen episodes, we have been building a silhouette without naming the person standing inside it. We began with breath, followed life into blood, blood into sacrifice, sacrifice into covenant, and covenant into the promise of a righteous human representative. Now, in Part 17, we finally turn on the light and ask whether Jesus of Nazareth actually fits what the Old Testament had already drawn.
 
The evidence points to something deeper than simply saying Jesus died for sin. Paul places Jesus beside Adam and describes the first Adam as a living being, but the last Adam as life-giving. Adam receives life and turns away from God, while Jesus lives in obedience, refuses to grasp for Himself, submits His will to the Father, and willingly gives His life.
 
That changes how we understand His blood. If blood represents embodied life, then Jesus' blood matters because of the life it represents. His obedience, love, righteousness, and willingness are not separate from the cross. They are what make the cross the final surrender of a life that had already been given to God.
 
Part 17 therefore follows Jesus from the wilderness to Gethsemane, from Gethsemane to the cross, and from the cross to resurrection. The same pattern keeps appearing: He refuses self-preservation, refuses shortcuts, refuses to seize power, and keeps returning His will to the Father.
 
Then something remarkable happens after the resurrection. Jesus breathes on His disciples and tells them to receive the Holy Spirit. The story that began with God breathing life into Adam appears to return to breath again.
 
The movement becomes clear: received life, misdirected life, surrendered life, resurrected life, and finally shared life.
 
Part 17 asks whether this is what God has been teaching all along. Life was never meant merely to be possessed. It was meant to be received from God, returned to God in love, and poured out toward others. Jesus did not merely show humanity how to die. He showed humanity how to live.
 
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Why did the story of blood eventually have to become the story of a human being? In Part 16, we return to the beginning and discover that blood was never actually where the story started. Breath was. Genesis says God formed Adam from dust and breathed into him the breath of life. Humanity's first moment was therefore an act of receiving. Life came from God before humanity could ever offer anything back to Him.
 
That gives us a new way to understand blood. Leviticus tells us that the life of the flesh is in the blood. If breath represents life received from God, blood represents that life embodied in flesh. Sacrifice therefore begins to look like something deeper than God demanding death. Blood represents the surrender of a life that originated with Him in the first place.
 
But humanity's problem was never merely that humans could die. Adam received God's gift of life and then used that life to choose against the One who gave it. Humanity's problem became rebellion, will, and obedience. An animal could shed blood, but an animal could never consciously return its will to God. It could die, but it could not choose faithfulness. It could surrender biological life, but it could not willingly say yes to God where humanity had said no.
 
That may explain why the prophetic silhouette eventually becomes human. The final Worker needs blood because he possesses human life, but he also needs something no animal sacrifice could possess: conscious obedience. If the first human received life and turned his will away from God, perhaps restoration requires a representative human who receives life and willingly returns it to God.
 
Part 16 therefore follows a remarkable movement from Genesis forward: God gives breath, breath becomes embodied human life, blood represents the life of the flesh, humanity misuses that life through rebellion, and the prophetic story eventually points toward a righteous human Servant capable of giving both his life and his obedience.
 
The first breath was a gift. The final breath must become a surrender. Between those two breaths stands the question that may finally explain why God chose blood.
 
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Throughout this investigation, the question has usually been what humanity must bring to God. An animal. An offering. Blood. Obedience. Repentance. But Isaiah forces us to turn the question around. What if the deeper story has always been about what God brings to us?
 
Isaiah 40–55 reveals a remarkable pattern. God comforts His people, calls them by name, carries them, gathers them, leads them, redeems them, remembers them when they believe they have been forgotten, and opens the road for their return. Even repentance appears inside God's prior movement. God says, “return unto me; for I have redeemed thee.” Humanity must respond, but God has already called.
 
Then the mysterious Servant appears, and something extraordinary happens. The work assigned to the Servant begins to resemble the work God has already said He Himself will accomplish. God saves, and the Servant carries salvation to the ends of the earth. God restores, and the Servant restores Israel. God brings His people back, and the Servant is formed to bring Jacob back to Him. God establishes covenant, and then God says He will give the Servant “for a covenant of the people.”
 
This changes the direction of the blood story. The Servant is not humanity's offering designed to convince an unwilling God to love us. God is the One who provides the Servant. The sacrifice does not begin with humanity searching for something valuable enough to give God. It begins with God seeking humanity and providing what humanity could never provide for itself.
 
Isaiah 52 brings these threads together. Redemption comes “without money.” God's salvation is revealed to the nations. His holy arm is made bare. He goes before His people and guards behind them. Then comes the announcement: “Behold, my servant.” Immediately afterward, Isaiah describes the Servant suffering, bearing the sins of others, giving his life, and becoming associated with an offering.
 
Part 15 therefore asks whether the silhouette we have been constructing reveals something even larger than the identity of the coming Worker. Perhaps it also reveals the character of the God who sends Him. From the beginning, God has been calling, carrying, pursuing, rescuing, and making a road back to Himself without destroying human freedom.
 
If that pattern holds, then the blood of the coming Servant cannot represent the moment God finally decided to love humanity. It must belong to the rescue God had already begun.
 
The road back to God keeps beginning with God.
 
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Part 13 moved the investigation from the altar into the human heart. We discovered that God promised something repeated animal sacrifice could never accomplish by itself. He would circumcise the heart, write His Law within His people, cleanse them, give them a new heart and spirit, and ultimately place His own Spirit within them. Jeremiah called this coming restoration a new covenant, and Part 14 asks why covenant and blood belong together.
 
At Sinai, God did not demand that Israel earn its rescue. He had already delivered them from Egypt and told them that He had brought them to Himself. Only afterward did He establish the covenant. This matters because covenant was more than a contract or collection of commandments. God had rescued a people and was establishing how they would live in relationship with Him.
 
Then Exodus 24 places blood directly at the center of that relationship. Moses puts part of the sacrificial blood upon the altar, reads the covenant to the people, and then places blood upon them, declaring, “Behold the blood of the covenant.” We already established that Scripture connects blood with life, so now the question becomes why life represented by blood appears when covenant relationship with God is established.
 
What happens next is remarkable. Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and seventy elders ascend the mountain, encounter God's presence, and eat and drink before Him. We should not force later New Testament meaning into this scene, but the sequence deserves attention. Blood, covenant, God's presence, and a meal appear together. Perhaps covenant was always about something much greater than rules. Perhaps it was about life with God.
 
Israel eventually broke that covenant, and Jeremiah announces God's answer. God promises a new covenant in which His Law will be written within His people. They will know Him, their iniquity will be forgiven, and their sin will be remembered no more. Part 13 already established the heart problem, so we do not need to prove it again. Part 14 instead asks how the new covenant answers the failure of the old one.
 
Then Isaiah gives us one of the most important pieces of the silhouette we have been building. God describes His Servant as someone He will give “for a covenant of the people.” This is extraordinary because Isaiah also describes the Servant as righteous, suffering, bearing sin, associated with the guilt offering, and pouring out his life unto death. The Servant connected with sacrifice is now also connected with covenant.
 
We are still not going to name the Worker. Instead, we are allowing the Old Testament to construct His silhouette. Someone is coming who is righteous, bears sin, gives his life, is associated with sacrifice, and is somehow connected with covenant. Meanwhile, Jeremiah promises that the coming covenant will bring forgiveness and reach the human heart.
 
Parts 12, 13, and 14 are therefore beginning to converge. Part 12 showed us the life being given through the Servant. Part 13 showed us the life God intends to restore within His people. Part 14 asks whether covenant is the bridge connecting those two realities.
 
The question is becoming larger than why God chose blood. We are beginning to ask what God intended to accomplish through the blood. If covenant is ultimately about restored relationship with the God from whom life comes, then blood, sacrifice, forgiveness, transformation, and God's presence may all be pieces of the same story.
 
The Worker has still not been named, but His silhouette is becoming difficult to miss. The blood trail is bringing sacrifice, covenant, and the mysterious Servant into the same picture, and we are getting closer to understanding how the life that is given could become the road toward the life God intends to restore.
 
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Part 12 brought this investigation to an extraordinary turning point. God had commanded sacrifice, yet the prophets revealed that blood could never become a substitute for obedience, mercy, justice, righteousness, humility, or surrender. Then Isaiah showed us something different. Instead of another person bringing another animal, the righteous servant himself became associated with the offering. The sacrifice and the obedient servant began moving toward one another. We saw the work before we named the Worker.
 
But that discovery leaves another problem. Even if the perfect sacrifice deals with the sin we have committed, what happens to the heart that produces the next sin? Humanity's problem is not only the trail of wrongdoing behind us. Something inside us continually produces rebellion, selfishness, injustice, and disobedience. If that source remains unchanged, humanity simply keeps returning to the altar.
 
Part 13 follows the Old Testament as God's solution begins moving from the altar toward the human heart. At first, God commands people to change their hearts. Deuteronomy tells Israel to circumcise the heart and stop being stiffnecked. Jeremiah repeats the command. Ezekiel even tells the people to make themselves a new heart and a new spirit. Human beings are clearly being called to respond.
 
Then something remarkable happens. Deuteronomy says that God Himself will circumcise their hearts so that they can love Him with all their heart and soul. Jeremiah promises a new covenant in which God will place His Law within His people and write it upon their hearts. Ezekiel goes even farther. God promises to cleanse them, remove the heart of stone, give them a heart of flesh, give them a new spirit, and finally place His own Spirit within them.
 
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In Part 11, the Day of Atonement showed us blood associated with life moving inward toward God's presence while confessed sin moved outward into the wilderness. God had provided a way to deal with what separated Him from His people so that He could continue dwelling among them. But as we move deeper into the Old Testament, something unexpected happens. The same God who commanded sacrifice begins rejecting the sacrifices His people bring.
 
Why would God reject the blood He commanded? Had God changed His mind, or had people changed the purpose of sacrifice? Part 12 investigates whether God's way back after sin gradually became man's excuse not to come back at all. Instead of sacrifice accompanying repentance, people could perform the ritual while continuing the behavior that separated them from God.
 
The Law itself shows that this was never God's intention. Numbers distinguishes between sins for which sacrificial atonement was provided and deliberate, defiant rebellion. God did not simply assign a more expensive animal to someone who knowingly rejected His command. The sacrificial system was never designed to operate as “sin now, pay later.”
 
But the prophets reveal that something had gone terribly wrong. Jeremiah describes people committing serious sins and then entering God's Temple believing themselves secure. Amos describes wealthy people enjoying luxury and religious worship while the poor are exploited. Micah condemns leaders who take money while still claiming that the LORD is among them. Religion continues, but repentance does not.
 
This raises an uncomfortable question about wealth. Scripture does not tell us that rich Israelites generally sinned deliberately because they could afford more sacrifices. But wealth could make outward religion easier. A wealthy person could afford another animal, make impressive offerings, and maintain religious respectability. Yet God repeatedly demonstrates that money cannot purchase what He actually wants. The altar cannot erase the victim, and an offering to God cannot substitute for making right what someone has done to another person.
 
Then Isaiah gives us one of the most important clues in the entire investigation. Israel continues bringing sacrifices and blood, yet God says He does not delight in them. Their hands are full of bloodshed and injustice. Instead of asking for more animals, God tells them to stop doing evil, seek justice, relieve the oppressed, defend the fatherless, and plead for the widow.
 
That changes our question. If God merely wanted blood, Israel was still giving Him blood. Yet He rejected it. Therefore blood alone could never have been the final objective.
 
From there, a pattern begins appearing throughout the Old Testament. Samuel says obedience is better than sacrifice. David says God desires a broken and contrite heart. Hosea says God desires mercy and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings. Micah asks whether thousands of rams could satisfy God and answers by pointing toward justice, mercy, and walking humbly with Him.
 
Something is happening beneath the surface. The attention is gradually moving from what the worshiper brings toward what the worshiper is. An animal can be offered without obedience. Blood can be presented without righteousness. Money can be given without mercy. Religious ceremonies can continue without truly knowing God. But God repeatedly turns the attention back toward the person.
 
This is where Part 12 begins looking for the work before the Worker.
 
If God rejects sacrifice without obedience, then what would an offering look like that could never be separated from obedience? If God desires righteousness, mercy, humility, surrender, and a heart completely aligned with Him, could the Old Testament already be showing us the characteristics the final sacrifice would need?
 
Then Isaiah gives us something remarkable. The servant and the sacrifice begin moving toward one another. In Isaiah 53, the servant is not simply bringing something that belongs to him. The servant himself becomes associated with the offering. He suffers, willingly submits, is compared with a lamb, and ultimately becomes an offering for sin.
 
The pattern is beginning to come together. The obedient one and the offering are becoming one. The righteous one and the sacrifice are becoming one. The surrendered servant is no longer merely standing beside the sacrifice. He is becoming the sacrifice.
We do not need to name the Worker yet. The Old Testament is already showing us His work.
 
Part 12 therefore takes us beyond the question of whether Israel corrupted the sacrificial system. It reveals something much larger. God appears to be teaching humanity, piece by piece, what the final answer must contain. Blood alone is not enough. The final offering must somehow bring together blood, obedience, righteousness, mercy, humility, and complete surrender.
 
For generations, people brought God something separate from themselves: a bull, a goat, a lamb, a bird, grain, or oil. But the prophets continually turned the attention back toward the person. Eventually, the pattern points toward an offering in which the perfectly obedient servant and the sacrifice are no longer separate.
 
We have not yet met the Worker.
 
But the Old Testament is beginning to show us His silhouette.
 
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Why Did God Choose Blood? Part 11 of 19 – The Day of Atonement: How Far Will God Go to Remove the Distance Between Us?
 
In Part 10, the investigation reached one of the clearest statements God gives about blood: “the life of the flesh is in the blood.” Even more importantly, God said, “I have given it to you” upon the altar for atonement. Blood was not something humanity invented to satisfy a God demanding death. God provided it, connected it with life, and placed it within a system designed to allow a holy God to continue dwelling among sinful people.
 
Now the investigation reaches the Day of Atonement, where everything we have discovered begins coming together. Once each year, one man is permitted to enter the innermost place of God's earthly dwelling. But Leviticus introduces this ceremony by reminding us that two priests had already died after approaching God's presence improperly. The message is sobering: God desires to dwell among His people, but humanity cannot approach holiness however it chooses. God Himself must provide the way.
 
On this extraordinary day, the high priest washes, prepares himself, puts on the prescribed garments, offers sacrifices, creates a protective cloud of incense, and carries blood beyond the veil. The blood travels farther toward God's presence than it normally does, eventually reaching the place associated with God's presence above the Ark. If Part 10 taught us that blood represents life, Part 11 forces us to ask why that life is being carried inward toward God.
 
At the same time, another movement takes place in exactly the opposite direction. Two goats have been presented, but they perform very different roles. One dies and its blood moves inward. The other remains alive. Aaron places both hands upon its head, confesses Israel's iniquities, transgressions, and sins over it, and sends it away into the wilderness carrying those sins.
 
Life moves inward.
 
Sin moves outward.
 
That distinction may fundamentally change how we understand the Day of Atonement. The animal explicitly carrying Israel's confessed sins is not killed at the altar. It remains alive and removes those sins from the community. This suggests that atonement cannot be reduced to one simple picture of transferred guilt followed by punishment. Something is being cleansed, something is being removed, and the relationship between God and His people is being preserved.
 
Then we encounter one of the strangest words in the entire ceremony: Azazel. One goat is designated for the LORD, while the other is designated “for Azazel” and sent into the wilderness. The Ethiopian biblical tradition makes this especially interesting because 1 Enoch also contains an Azazel tradition involving corruption, judgment, and the wilderness. I will compare those texts carefully without assuming they describe exactly the same thing. The question is whether this ancient tradition can illuminate the imagery without being allowed to rewrite what Leviticus actually says.
 
By the end of Part 11, the Day of Atonement may reveal something much larger than an annual blood sacrifice. God's holiness creates boundaries, but God also provides the way through those boundaries. Blood associated with life moves toward His presence. Confessed sin moves away from His presence. Between those movements stands a mediator appointed by God.
 
Perhaps the Day of Atonement is showing us what God has been doing throughout this entire blood trail. Humanity continually creates distance through sin, but God continually provides the means by which that distance can be addressed.
 
The question is becoming less about why God demanded blood and more about why God gave it.
 
Was God looking for death?
 
Or was He providing life so He could remain near the people He loved?
 
Part 11 follows the blood all the way into the Holy of Holies to find out.
 
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For nine episodes, I have followed the trail of blood through Scripture without assuming the answer to one central question: Why did God choose blood? Now, in Part 10, Leviticus finally brings us to a passage where God begins explaining the blood Himself. “For the life of the flesh is in the blood,” God says, before adding something easy to overlook: “I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls.” The life is in the blood, and God is the One who gives it. 
 
That discovery may change the way we understand the entire sacrificial system. Leviticus does not present one simple ritual in which an animal dies because God demands death. There are different sacrifices with different purposes. The worshiper lays a hand upon the animal, the animal dies, the priest collects its blood, and then that blood is deliberately taken to particular sacred locations. If death alone were the entire point, why does the blood still have something to do after the animal is dead?
 
There is another surprise. Leviticus even permits an impoverished Israelite to bring flour as a sin offering when that person cannot afford the normal animal offering. Atonement is made and forgiveness follows without blood being shed from that person's particular offering. That means blood cannot be treated as a magical substance that forces God to forgive. God Himself determines and provides the means by which people may approach Him.
 
And that may reveal the deeper story behind sacrifice. God told Israel to build a sanctuary because He wanted to dwell among them. Israel's sin continually threatened that relationship, yet God continually provided a way for the relationship to continue. Leviticus 16 even shows blood being used in connection with the holy place because of Israel's uncleanness, transgressions, and sins. Perhaps atonement is not only about avoiding punishment. Perhaps it is also about overcoming the separation created by sin so that God can remain near His people.
 
That gives us a different way of looking at the blood. Life comes from God. Life is represented in the blood. God gives the blood upon the altar. Sin creates distance, but God provides a road back. Again and again, humanity moves away while God establishes a means of approach.
 
And if that pattern is really there, something extraordinary waits farther down the biblical road. Torah says life is in the blood and forbids Israel from consuming animal blood. Then Jesus eventually tells His followers that unless they eat His flesh and drink His blood, they have no life in them.
 
Why would He say that?
 
Part 10 may bring us to a completely different understanding of the question that began this series. Perhaps God chose blood not simply because sin demanded death, but because blood represented life—and the God who gave that life was continually providing a way to draw sinful humanity back into His presence.
 
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