According to the Law, one may almost say, all things are cleansed with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. – Hebrews 9:22
God forgives sin through the shedding of blood. You can’t come up with your own method of getting rid of your sin. Forgiveness of sin requires blood. Why did God make that requirement? It goes all the way back to the garden. When Adam and Eve sinned, the first thing God did was slay an animal and make coverings for them from its skin. The Bible never explains why God requires blood as payment for sin, but it does make clear that it’s not because the blood itself is magical or even special. The shedding of blood really reflects the giving of life because the life of the flesh is in the blood.
Christ shed His blood for our sins. Christ’s death on the cross was a sacrificial substitutionary atonement for our sins. Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. “Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit” (1 Peter 3:18). Jesus had no sin of His own; He “committed no sin, nor was any deceit found in His mouth” (1 Peter 2:22). But the blameless One bore our sin “that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed” (1 Peter 2:24).
It was necessary that Jesus shed His blood for us, and according to God’s sovereign plan, it happened on the cross. Because of the cross, you are free to know God intimately and to experience His presence.
Don’t waste what happened at the cross. Experience His presence.
