Why Is God So Interested in Blood?

The entry for today is based out of 1 John 2:2, and it relies on a word which most people in this day do not understand.  Even reading the definition doesn’t bring home the significance of it.  The word is propitiation, and it is important because of that often overlooked part of the life with the Master of the universe, His wrath.

The Greek word is only used twice, and only in 1 John.  It is related to a word used for the “Mercy Seat” in the Hebrew Temple.  That relation is where the trail of blood is typically lost.  The Mercy Seat was where the blood of the sacrifice was sprinkled to atone for the sins of the nation of Israel.  It took blood, and it had to be repeated every year. 

That practice of blood on the Mercy Seat was what Jesus overly fulfilled in His death on the cross.  In that event, the blood of a perfect sacrifice was used, God provided it, and it was not just for the nation of Israel, but for the whole world (actually for the entire created order, cosmos).  In other words, God, Creator of matter and energy, had to be appeased.  Appeasement implies a threat, and the great threat of the Universal Master is His wrath.  This is not a comfortable place for believers to hang out.

Unfortunately, not hanging out in that truth means it isn’t communicated to this world, and much of the world then falls into the wrath of God.  It’s like standing in the middle of the street hoping that if the speeding bus is ignored it won’t hit me.  Reality is quite different.  The good news is that the terror of the wrath of God is met and removed in the work of Jesus’ blood.  He Himself is the blood sacrifice that appeased the wrath on our failures to measure up, and not ours alone but also the whole created order.

This is one of those areas where I have had to wrestle with and offer up the ideas of what I want my god to be like, and accept in its place what the God of the Universe describes Himself to be.  Just because my Master has revealed Himself as the Son and the Spirit, does not take away the consistent truth that there is a Father.  But even in the descriptions of Jesus in Revelation is fairly terrifying.  He rides a white horse, and His robe is dipped in blood.  He leads an army into battle and the destruction of that war rearranges the entire created order.

I am a knight of the realm, servant to the King, and my King wields a mighty sword.  His wrath is impossible for His creatures to appease on their own, so He made the sacrifice Himself.  I serve a powerful King, a Destroyer King, but also a Creator King.  He has created the means to survive His coming destruction; but it is coming.

Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, October 15