When the NT mentions the "blood of Christ", the purpose is to relate the cross to the animal sacrifices of the OT. In the OT, the blood was literal and the judgment was symbolic, but on the cross, the blood was symbolic, while the judgment was literal. The animal on the altar represented Christ on the cross. The animal’s throat was cut so it would shed its blood and die physically. The physical death of the animal illustrated the spiritual death of Christ. It is this spiritual death that provides our salvation (we’ll look at spiritual death in a separate lesson).
Four out of the five Levitical offerings authorized by the Mosaic Law required the shedding of blood. Three of these offerings taught specific truth regarding salvation. They were the Burnt Offering (Leviticus 1) teaching the principle of propitiation, the Gift Offering (Leviticus 2) also teaching propitiation, but through the perfect person of Christ and the Peace Offering (Leviticus 3) teaching the principle of reconciliation. Two more offerings taught the principle of repentance. They were the Sin Offering (Leviticus 4) acknowledging unknown sins and the trespass Offering (Leviticus 5) for known sins.
When the Jews "brought an offering" to the Lord, the Hebrew verb is qarab, which means "to draw near, to approach". Thus, these offerings represented the fact that God had provided the means by which sinful men could draw near to Him – through the principle of substitutionary death.
Those who brought offerings did so from his own free will (Leviticus 1:3) as an expression of his sincere desire to draw near to the Savior. The mature Jewish believer understood, as he looked forward to the coming of Messiah that these offerings only pictured the reality that was to come. He knew that the blood of sacrificial animals could not save him, and that only the future work of Christ on the cross could make his salvation possible.
This is as good a place as any to point out the fact that regardless of whether you lived under the Old Covenant or the New, the way you must approach God is the same. Under the Old Covenant it’s clear that human nature was the same as it is today. People made a pretense at approaching God for many different reasons. They could come to present an offering to the Lord because it made them look respectable in the community, or because the family expected it. They could do it to stay in the good graces of the religious establishment.
A wealthy Jew could leave the valuable bull in his herd and approach God with a less expensive goat. Another man could show his insincerity by refusing to take of his flock and simply buy an inexpensive pigeon to present to the Lord. The sincerity of your heart and your willingness to submit to Him always has been and always will be what determines whether or not the Lord will respond to your approach. Man looks on the outward appearance and trusts in it, but God always looks on the heart (I Samuel 16:7) and responds only to that. Then, as now, sincerity could be feigned. But God is never fooled (Galatians 6:7).
It was understood in the OT that the blood was merely a teaching tool, not a means of ridding man of his sin (Hebrews 10:1-4). In the New Covenant, the phrase "blood of Christ" is a symbolic one used to identify the spiritual death of Christ on the cross as the fulfillment of the dramatic and familiar rituals through which the principle of salvation had been communicated throughout the centuries in the Old Covenant.
The effectiveness of the OT rituals can be clearly understood through even a surface examination, and since the burnt offering required the shedding of blood, it’s a good representative example. The burnt offering illustrated the work of Christ in salvation, and the animal to be offered could come from any of three sources. It could come from the herd (Leviticus 1:2-9), the flock (Leviticus 1:10-13) or of the fowls (Leviticus 1:14-17). This allowed anyone, regardless of economic status, to participate. The grace of God extends to all.
Because it was impossible for God to die on the cross, He had to become a member of the human race. But He could not have the blemish of a sin nature or the guilt of personal sins. It was His virgin birth and perfect life that qualified Him for the cross. The burnt offering illustrated what Jesus fulfilled and, in time, what was written about Him in the NT. Jesus Christ took upon Himself the form of a servant in the likeness of men (Philippians 2:7) to satisfy the righteousness of the Father. Then He voluntarily offered Himself on the cross (John 10:17, 18) to satisfy the will of the Father (Matthew 26:39, Hebrews 9:14).
To demonstrate the principle of substitutionary death in the ritual of the burnt offering, the sins of the offerer were transferred to the sinless animal when the offerer’s hand was placed on the animal’s head (Leviticus 1:4). This illustrated the future reality of Christ taking our place and becoming sin for us (II Corinthians 5:21).
After the bull had been identified with the sins of the offerer, the priest then severed the carotid arteries in its neck with a sharp knife. This caused the strong, frightened animal to pump the blood out of its own body. The spurting blood soon covered the offerer, the priest, the altar and the ground, providing a graphic and spectacular illustration of the spiritual death of Christ. This ritual culminated with the burning of the carcass of the animal to represent the future divine judgment on the Son of God. The smoke rising out of the fire of judgment was a sweet smell to God (Leviticus 1:9) indicating His satisfaction with the work of the Son (Hebrews 1:3).
God’s terrible wrath against the sins of the entire human race, including the sins of every Jew that ever approached Him with an offering, was focused on the Lord Jesus Christ during His last three hours on the cross. His excruciating pain, more intense than anything we could ever imagine, was dramatized over and over again by the grisly, violent death struggles of these healthy, flawless and innocent animals. This shedding of blood, both in the detail of the ceremony and shock of the execution, was designed to permanently imprint upon the souls of the offerer and observer alike, the intensity of the indescribable pain of the spiritual death of our precious Lord.