“You can run away from this truth as much as you want. He had to be crucified; He had to be resurrected. It’s not just the coming of a king to reign and rule. That will happen in His second coming. Messiah had to be crucified, and, in fact, that’s the key to my salvation and yours. Paul said, I could’ve come and given you excellent speeches, high words. I could’ve given you false hopes that you are wonderful, that you are great, that all you need is to wait for the reigning Messiah. No, the one thing I know that I had to come and tell you and preach is Him crucified. The crucifixion is a necessity.”

A well-known pastor used to refer to the Bible as “an integrated message system written by 40 different authors over 1500 years.” This fact alone is a significant proof that the Bible is “God-breathed” as 2 Timothy 3:16 reminds us. Forty men, most of whom had never met, who lived at different times spanning 1500 years, in different places and under different governments and social structures, wrote a Bible that is consistent cover to cover in its message. The only solution that can come close to explaining this feat is that someone from outside of time, who can see the future and knows all of the past, spoke to these men who held the pens and put the words onto the page.

While there are multiple themes that span the course of the Bible, truths like the Holiness of God and the sinfulness of man; and while there is one central personage that is the focus of the Bible’s message, Jesus, and one central nation that is communicated to and about throughout the Bible, Israel, there is one truth that flows as a thread through all those things and that is:

Leviticus 17:11 KJV – “For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.”

Hebrews 9:22 KJV – “And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission.”

Both Testaments record the necessity of a blood sacrifice to atone for the sins of man. Think about the Passover and how for 1500 years the Jews were reminded by this event that the innocent blood of a lamb was shed on their behalf so they could escape death.

Hebrews 10:1-4 KJV – “For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins. But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.” 

The Passover Lamb each year was a reminder that blood was required to remit sin and atone for man’s soul, and the fact that, as Hebrews says, they were repeated indicated there was something lacking in these sacrifices.

Hebrews 13:12 KJV – “Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate.”

This is the Bible’s core message. That sin requires a blood sacrifice, and a blood sacrifice implies death. Jesus was the perfect sacrifice, and thus the Passover lamb. Any further blood sacrifices are not needed. Why? Because that which is perfect has already come. The Son of God, as the Lamb of God, sanctified His people by shedding His own blood.

There is another well-known pastor who said something that is not true – “Christians need to unhitch themselves from the Old Testament.”

Remember the two dejected disciples heading home to Emmaus after Jesus was crucified? They were discouraged and disappointed, and they discussed this as they walked back to their home town. Suddenly they were joined by a stranger who inquired as to why they were sad. They replied, “You must be the only person who doesn’t know of the events of the last three days.” They then recounted them to the very One who endured them, and He said:

Luke 24:25-27 KJV – “Then he said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken: Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory? And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.”

Without the Old Testament we wouldn’t know of the necessity of shed blood in atoning for our souls. Without the Old Testament the New Testament would be a series of truth claims that could not be validated.

The Old Testament tells us that the perfect sacrifice, One who would shed better blood than that of bulls and goat, would be a Jew who would come from the kingly tribe of Judah. He would be a descendant of David, who would be born of a virgin in Bethlehem, called out of Egypt as God’s Son, and known as a Nazarene. This same Man would be despised and rejected by men, would be killed but not for anything He had done, would die with criminals and be buried with the rich, and would rise from the dead and be alive forevermore. Why would anyone want to unhitch from that? 

The message of the Bible is that man has sinned, and God has provided His only begotten Son as a sacrifice to shed His blood once and for all. Some today want to reject this, yet the proof of the Bible’s message and claims are indisputable.

1 Corinthians 15:3-4 KJV – “For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures:”

In Leviticus 16 we find instructions for the High Priest – Aaron at that time – for the rituals and sacrifices to be performed on the day of Atonement. Every year the High Priest would enter into the Most Holy Place and sprinkle blood on and before the mercy seat. He would then come out and lay his hands on the head of a goat, known as the scapegoat, and release it into the wilderness to symbolically carry away the sins of the people.

Simply put, the rituals and sacrifices on the Day of Atonement said: one man, shed blood, sin taken away, year after year after year. Then one Man would come and shed His blood for the world, and, as the Lamb of God, take away our sins.

Some have said Christianity is a bloody religion, and indeed it is. For it is only through the blood of Jesus that anyone can be saved.

Even so, come quickly Lord Jesus.