The Life is in the Blood…
Was death the result of man’s sin or were the consequences of sin already here for millions of years through the evolutionary process? This is an important question to be sure and if answered incorrectly can have devastating effects on Christian doctrine and the Gospel. In this blog we will focus our attention on the essence of life, and how sin and death are the direct result of human responsibility. Secondly, we will look at how sin has robed us of life itself, and third, how Jesus Christ restores the true essence of life to us who believe. Let us think then about the essence of life and how God has planned to move us beyond the natural to the spiritual.
NATURAL LIFE
Man is born to trust in his five senses as he is born to life itself, even though we live in a world that demands that we live by faith. When we sit in a chair we trust it will be strong enough to hold us up; when we compete in sports we hope (faith in the future) our abilities will save the day. When we get in a car we trust we will avoid an accident; and when we submit an application for a job we hope that we will be the one picked. Regardless of the necessity of faith in our present world we are prone to think that seeing is believing. If we are honest we will admit that we trust in what we see as opposed to what we cannot see because our pride will not allow us to trust much beyond ourselves. And science has only helped to make our state of unbelief even worse. When something falls we say it was gravity, if we see a plane we understand it is made possible by the law of lift and drag. We are a scientifically minded people to the point of excluding God from existence. This condition is true of men of the world, but we who believe in God’s word should see things from an entirely different perspective.
SPIRITUAL LIFE
The bible, however, defines faith another way, “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:6) (Emphasis added). Sin destroyed man’s ability to believe in God and specifically in what He says. Many say they believe in God but when it comes time to believe what He has written in scripture – that’s another matter. God has made it clear that in a biological sense the life of man is in his blood,
“Only be sure that you do not eat the blood, for the blood is the life, and you shall not eat the life with the flesh.” (Deuteronomy 12:23)
How long was this message starring men in the face and either did not take the time to read it, or they just did not understand it. Many men were bled by physicians in an attempt to let ad the impurities out that made them sick; if only doctors paid closer attention to (Deuteronomy 12:23) many a life could have been saved.
God wants us to know that there is something internal coursing through our body that is the very breathe of life, it fills our bodies with power, and it is that very thing that is the life within us. Of course we speak in a physical sense when we speak about the fluid that flows through our veins, which is a picture of the true life that is meant to pass through us as well. In a natural sense we know life from day to day as eating, drinking, working, resting, and all the things we do, we might call them the mechanics of life. In a higher sense as people created in the image of God we can be creative, intuitive, knowing, feeling, caring, loving, etc., and in these things we know life from a much higher level.
Sin, however, has taken the higher things of the natural life and turned them into self-seeking, self-serving wickedness that does not appreciate the God who makes these attributes possible and even worse ignores Him all together. Paul made this point in (Romans 1:21),
“For although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God or give him thanks, but they became futile in their thoughts and their senseless hearts were darkened”.
Sin separated man from God through pride, and it was this pride that blinded man to the fact that he is dependent upon God for everything, including life itself. Pride caused man to ignore the God that gave him life, and made all things for him to enjoy, but for the purpose of serving his maker. This separation from God brought death to his soul and eventually to his body, because separation from God is separation from true life. We see this concept that God is our life in the book of (Psalm 36) beginning with the 7Th verse,
“The human race finds shelter under your wings (speaking of God). 36:8 They are filled with food from your house, and you allow them to drink from the river of your delicacies. 36:9 For you are the one who gives and sustains life. (Psalm 36:7) (Emphasis added)
In this immediate context we notice the idea that food and drink sustains our life, which is given to us by God, but it is much more than food that gives and sustains our life but the Almighty who is the very source of all life. God does not refer to food and drink as eternal life but as that which sustains our temporal life, only God can sustain us eternally because only God is eternal.
“And the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son” (1 John 5:11) “This is the promise which He Himself made to us: eternal life” (1 John 2:25). “And the life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us—“(1 John 1:2).
It is faith alone that allows a man to understand that life does not ultimately consist in the things of the body, but true life is spiritual, and eternal life is found in God Himself and in His Son.
"For he who finds me finds life and obtains favor from the LORD” (Proverbs 8:35) “In him was life, and the life was the light of mankind (1 John 1:4) “I am the bread of life” (John 6:48) “He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life” (1 John 5:12)
And this statement about having life is true no matter how capable we think we are about sustaining the things of our natural existence.
A true change occurs in our worldview (Man centric to God centric) when we come to accept what God has said about Himself as the only source of eternal life. The person of faith believes that God’s word is true, and he submits himself to its authority.
“My child, pay attention to my words; listen attentively to my sayings. 4:21 Do not let them depart from your sight, guard them within your heart; 4:22 for they are life to those who find them and healing to one’s entire body” (Proverbs 4:20)
Notice that God’s words are life AND healing to one’s entire body. The life spoken of here is the essence of life, the life that causes all things to be, it is life at its source, life that sustains us through all eternity. Jesus is reported as saying just that in the Gospel of John, “The Spirit is the one who gives life; human nature is of no help!” (6:63).
THE ATONING WORK OF CHRIST’S BLOOD
We are told that the life of the body is in the blood and for this reason we are not to eat the blood.
“… For the life of all flesh is its blood. So I have said to the Israelites: You must not eat the blood of any living thing because the life of every living thing is its blood – all who eat it will be cut off.” (Lev 17:14)
It is clear in this passage and others like it that there is something special about the blood, in fact it is so special that by it God makes atonement for sin.
“… For the life of every living thing is in the blood. 2 So I myself have assigned it to you on the altar to make atonement for your lives, for the blood makes atonement by means of the life.” (Lev 17:11)
The Study Dictionary from Bible.org
“Death is the effect of sin (Heb. 2:14), and not a "debt of nature."
“There is a spiritual death in trespasses and sins, i.e., the death of the soul under the power of sin.” (Rom. 8:6; Eph. 2:1, 3; Col. 2:13).
“The "second death" (Rev. 2:11) is the everlasting perdition of the wicked (Rev. 21:8), and "second" in respect to natural or temporal death.”
It is blood that atones for sin; ultimately it is the blood of Christ that reconciled us to God or brought us back to God, reunited us in an unbreakable union of love through the sacrifice of Christ’s life. The life is in the blood and it was the life that was poured out of Christ as He hung upon the cross. The life that is in the blood is the life of the body, so that on the cross the body of Christ was put to death. The wages of sin is death and apart from sin there can be no death. Christ as a man need never die because He never sinned; the only reason Christ died was because He was a substitutionary sacrifice for the sins of man. On the cross Christ suffered in His soul the eternal punishment of God’s anger for the sins of men, and when that punishment was over Christ died physically.
“God made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we would become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21)
Our reconciliation was only made possible through the death of Christ.
“And all these things are from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ” (2 Cor. 5:18)
Reconciliation is the act of bringing peace between two parties, and that is an active peace, on built upon love, affection, friendship, devotion, and communion.
EVOLUTION DISTORTS THE GOSPEL
As Christians let us answer well the question, did God begin the creation of all things by life or by death? God created all things in six literal days as He has said, and in the day of their creation they were good. Good means there was no death in them; they were not separated from God but joined to Him out of appreciation and obedience. Only after the Fall of Man into sin was their separation from God that brought about suffering, disease, war, hatred, murder, and death.
Evolution teaches that there was death for millions of years as the evolving universe rose higher and higher until it got to man, and all such teaching is a distortion of gospel truth.
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