The Purpose of the Blood

The Purpose of the Blood
Hebrews 9.15-22

To some, this passage is one of the most central in scripture; to others, it’s one of the most shocking. After the twentieth century, in which more human blood was spilled through war, torture and miscellaneous violence than in all previous centuries put together, many people have reacted angrily against what they see as a kind of primitive theology. No pardon without bloodshed, they say? The very idea is barbaric.

Well, we shouldn’t be too quick to hurl charges of barbarism around the place. Our modern society tolerates, even fosters, so many things that previous generations, and other civilizations today, would consider barbaric (atom bombs, abortion as a method of birth control, anti-personnel land mines . . . and that’s just a few beginning with ‘a’), that we are hardly in a position to glance at something deep and mysterious in a different culture and declare, high-handedly, that it’s primitive, barbaric or bizarre. But let’s at least be sure we’ve understood what’s going on in this passage...

Taken from Hebrews for Everyone – by Tom Wright