The shedding of blood in the bible.

The first shedding of occurred in the Garden of Eden.

Genesis 3:21: “Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord make coats of skins, and clothed them.” Before I explain this verse in detail, let me first refer you first to Genesis 3:7; “And the eyes of the both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.” Dear reader what do you understand about the word ‘religion’. Let me shock you, religion has nothing to do with serving God, it has nothing to do with pleasing God and cannot attain you right standing with God. Now one of the results of Adam and Eve’s sin is that they saw themselves naked. That is exactly what sin does to any one regardless of your social standard; it leaves you drowning in the ocean of humiliation. We always lose to sin. After Adam and Eve sinned against the Holy One of Israel, they tried by themselves to make a cover up for sin or to repair the damage brought by sin by their own means, through the fig leaves. Religion is not different from fig leaves; it is man’s effort to cover for sin. What did God do about this? He made the coats of skins and clothed them. Where do these coats of skins come from? If one applies logical sense there was a slaughtering of an animal and shedding of blood, which makes it the first bloodshed in the bible. The golden question is what animal did God slaughter? Such is not explicitly stated in the bible. But here is a clue, Colossians 2:17: Which are a shadow of things to come.. The general application of this verse refers to all things of the Old Testament. Everything in the Old Testament points towards Christ. The believers of the Old Testament looked forward to the Messiah to come. Everything pointed towards Christ. We as the New Testament believers look back at Calvary, at the crucified Messiah. I am not at all doing injustice to the word of God when I say I believe the animal slaughtered by God to make a covering for Adam and Eve is a lamb, which is shadow of Jesus Christ the Lamb of God who has provided a covering for sin by His death on the cross. In all the humiliation that sin has brought to my life, Jesus Christ is my covering. One should note that in this instance the blood was shed for two individual being Adam and Eve.

Second shedding of blood occurred in the land of Egypt.

Exodus 12:3,5,6,7: “Speak ye unto all congregation of Israel, saying in the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for a house. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year: ye shall take it out from the sheep, or from the goats: and you shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month: and the whole assembly shall kill it in the evening. And they shall take of the blood, and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door post of the houses…. Let us go further to verses 12 and 13: for I will pass through the land of Egypt this night and I will smite all the first born in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the Lord. And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where you are: and when I see the blood, I will Passover you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt.”

The second bloodshed in the bible was for families.

Each family was to slaughter a lamb. On that particular night something happened in Egypt, God smote all the firstborns in Egypt of man and beast. This is the tenth and last plague of the plagues God sent upon the land of Egypt. What God says He will do He will do; Genesis 12:49: “And it came to pass that at midnight the Lord smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the first born of Pharaoh that sat on his throne unto the firstborn of the captive that was in the dungeon; and all the firstborn of cattle.” I do not know if one will accurately comprehend what transpired in the land of Egypt on that night, it was terrible. I cannot imagine the dead bodies throughout the land of Egypt, cries inside the Egyptian families. In the midst of all this, the children of Israel were safe and no danger or harm came upon them. Look at these words from verse 13 of chapter 12, ‘blood shall be a token upon the houses where you are’. Remember the golden rule: the Old Testament looks towards the coming Christ and we look back at Calvary. The lamb slaughtered by the children of Israel according to their families is a type of Christ. The blood of Christ is a token of protection and covering upon the children of God. No death occurred amongst the children of Israel, no cry heard amongst the children of Israel and no loss of a family member among the Israelites. Why no death occurred among the Israelites? Because death had already occurred in their families, the lamb which they slaughtered. If we have accepted Christ as our Lord and Saviour, we will not be judged with the world, as Christ has already taken our punishment and died on our behalf.

Satan is not afraid of any of us and in fact, he is mightier and wiser than we are. He is the wisest of all that God has created, Ezekiel 28:12: “Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom…” The archangel of God Michael, debated not with him when disputing about the body of Moses. Michael called unto the Lord to rebuke him (Jude1:9). This is how we can overcome Satan, Revelation 12:11: And they overcame him (Satan) by the blood of the Lamb. When the devil sees the covering of the blood of Christ upon our lives, he cannot destroy us. Dear brother ask God to seal you and cover you with the blood of His Son, Jesus Christ.

Let us have a look at the thirteenth verse of the twelfth chapter of Exodus again, ‘when I see the blood I will pass over you and the plague shall not be upon you’. The lord Jesus Christ is our Passover Lamb. Those who will remain standing in the midst of the storms of this life are those who put their trust in Jesus. Christ is the rock of ages where one can take refuge, in him you can stand the storms of persecution, rejection, temptation, betrayal, false accusation, moral decay, insecurities of life.

The third bloodshed in the bible occurred during Israel’s journey in the wilderness.

In this instance, the blood was shed for the nation of Israel, God’s chosen nation Israel. Leviticus 16:7,8,9,15,21: “And he (Aaron) shall take the two goats, and present them before the Lord at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. And Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats; one lot for the Lord, and the other lot for the scapegoat. And Aaron shall bring the goat upon which the Lord’s lot fell, and offer him for a sin offering. Then shall he kill the goat of the sin offering, and bring his blood as he did with the blood of the bullock, and sprinkle it upon the mercy seat and before the mercy seat. And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness.”

Aaron presented two goats before the Lord on behalf of the children of Israel. One goat was to be killed and presented as a sin offering. The other goat was not killed. The two goats are types of Christ. They are both shadows of what Christ did for us on the cross as I will explain in detail. Christ is typified by the two goats, presented before the Lord in two different ways, however he fulfilled what was typified by the two goats at once. The first goat was slaughtered for sin offering on behalf of the children of Israel. I will deal with how the goat was offered in the tabernacle in detail in the chapters to come. For now Let us accept one simple fact that blood was shed for the sins of the nation of Israel.

Let us look at the second goat, though not slaughtered but the typology was fulfilled on the cross. You cannot separate such from the blood shedding. The sins of the children of Israel were imputed on the second goat called the scapegoat. The goat carried the sins of the nation to the wilderness and it never came back. When Jesus was crucified, our sins and transgressions were imputed upon him; Isaiah 53:5: “But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities.” These words were spoken by prophet Isaiah seven hundred years before Christ was born, he was foretelling what Christ Jesus will do for us on the cross of Calvary. When Jesus takes our sins away they can never be imputed on us ever again. Never let Satan deceive you into thinking that God cannot forgive and take your sins away. Once he takes them away, they are gone.

The fourth shedding of blood in the bible is at Mount Calvary.

The first blood shed was for individuals, the second was for families, the third was for the nation of Israel and the fourth was for the whole world. All the animals which were slaughtered in the Old Testament were a picture of the real thing to come, crucifixion of Christ the Messiah foretold by the Old Testament prophets. The death of Jesus Christ on the cross is not something that God thought about in the spur of the moment. It is something which God planned in eternity past, before everything came into existence. Revelation 13:8: “Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” The eighth verse of revelation chapter thirteen refers to Jesus as the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. Is it not a wonderful thing that God planned our salvation before everything came into being? When Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, which resulted in the fall of all human race, Satan did not win because that was when God introduced His plan of ages of saving mankind. Genesis 3:15, “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and her seed, it shall bruise thy head, and thou shall bruise his heel.” In theology, this is called ‘proto evangelium’ which is a Latin for first gospel. This is the first prophecy, of the Messiah, whom the nation of Israel was expecting. John 1:29, “The next day John sees Jesus coming unto him, and saith, behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” The bible centers around Jesus Christ, and I behold Him in every portion of scripture that I read. I behold Him in Genesis as the seed of the woman that will bruise the serpent’s head. I behold Him in Exodus as the one opening the red sea and making a way for the Israelites, in Leviticus I behold Him as the sheep, goats, fowls, turtledoves and pigeons that were offered as sacrifices. In Numbers, I behold Him as the brazen serpent, which was lifted up by Moses in the wilderness. In Deuteronomy I behold him as the great law giver, in Joshua I behold Him as the city of refuge. In Judges He is the great Judge, in Samuel He is the anointer of the kings, in the book of Kings, He is the king of kings. I will not go through all the books of the bible, but from Genesis to Revelation I see the Lord Jesus Christ. Isaiah calls him the wonderful counselor, in the minor prophets He is the one coming from Bethlehem, in Revelation chapter nineteen He is the rider of the white horse who will defeat the anti-Christ and establish His kingdom in this world for thousand years. The bottom line is that when Jesus shed His blood on the cross two thousand years ago, it was for the whole world. It was for the hardest criminals, for witches, for liars, for the homosexuals, for fornicators, for the self-righteous. Anyone can come to this fountain of blood and obtain remission of their sins.