Why We Don't Need The Blood Anymore

by:  Lonnie Lane

When God created Adam He created Him with the whole plan of redemption already in his DNA. This is a whole lot more evident when you read the text in Hebrew than it is in English, which looses a lot in the translation. Not that every Hebrew person would know this. It’s one of those Kingdom “knowings.” So let’s have a little Hebrew lesson here to justify my title to this article before you call me a heretic.

First of all, Adam means human, man or mankind. It was not the name God gave the first human that could just as well have been Jacob or any other name (I was tempted to say Ralph but how Jewish would that have been?). The word for man is pronounced Adahm in Hebrew and includes both male and female persons, as in, “This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day when God created man (Adam), He made him in the likeness of God. He created them male and female, and He blessed them and named them man (Adam) in the day when they were created” (Genesis 5:1-2).  So though we refer to them as Adam and Eve, God called them both Adam (humankind) and the man actually later gave her the name of Eve. Really Havah in Hebrew which means life, “because she was the mother of all living” (3:20) who would come after them. We’re not told what she would have called him.

Words in Hebrew either are or have root words of three letters. In the case of this word Adam meaning for mankind, the Hebrew name would be our equivalent of A-D-M. The Hebrew aleph-bet, from which we get our word alphabet, is based on the first two letters of the Hebrew Aleph-Bet, equal to our A & B – aleph and bet. Each of the letters in the aleph-bet is a word picture and can give a much deeper meaning to the words they make up. In order to see how this plays out in the name Adam, we need to look at the Hebrew letters that make up the name. These letters are reading left to right as in English for our purposes, when in Hebrew you would read from right to left.

The letters used to write Adam in Hebrew are:   א=A (aleph), ד=D (dalet), and  מ=M (mem); that is ADM. In Hebrew it is read correctly (right to left) as: מדא. To begin to look at these letters, the first, aleph, represents an ox. Can you see the two ox-like horns on the top of the aleph? We may think of an ox as a beast of burden but an ox in the Bible was given great honor where Ezekiel saw a living creature before the Lord which had four sets of wings and four faces, one face being that of an ox (see Ezekiel1:6-15 KJV). This four-faced creature is representative of the all-knowing holiness of God.

Aleph (א), being the first letter and pictured an ox represents: strength, leader or first. The dalet (ד) has the word picture of a door or a path. A door opens to a pathway. These are modern letters but the ancient letters would have been shaped more closely to look like what they represent. Use your imagination. So now let’s put these letters together to find out what Adam means. He was surely the first and therefore the leader of all humankind and, being created in the image of God and perfect, he would have lived in the fullness of the strength with which he was created. He was the door to all mankind in every way and it is through them both, she being as much Adam as he, that the pathway of mankind was established.  Now onto the letter mem: Mem (מ) is the word for water. Water in Hebrew is Mayim which begins and ends with mem. As for the mem, the water, you can see many ways in which mankind is dependent upon water and the many ways water or fluid is part of our bodies. This brings us to a very important aspect of the meaning of Adam’s name.  

If you put the letters dalet (D) and mem (M) together we get the word which is “dahm” which means blood. Blood is the fluid which flows through the paths of veins in our bodies to keep us alive. Put the A together with D and M and we get A+DM which most meaningfully signifies “First Blood.” Adam as the first created man had within the very makeup of his being the intrinsic quality of being the man who was the first blood of all humankind. Not first intelligence, or first love, or first anything else. Of all the other qualities God created in him, God chose to name him for what would was to be of primary significance for all mankind, the blood.

Years ago I trained as a Medical Technician and worked in a hospital where I was involved in doing blood chemistries and hematology.  I remember being so awed at the hundreds of properties in blood so that blood carries the life of the body. When I got saved, I found that to be true in Scripture. God spoke to Moses and said, “For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood by reason of the life that makes atonement” (Leviticus 17:11). “By reason of the life” means because of the life which the blood represents. There are two points here: Life is in the blood and God gave us blood not only for our physical lives, but also for atonement for sin.   

 A word about blood and its importance for our physical lives: Our organs serve the blood in our bodies. We can live without certain organs if other organs will take their place but we cannot live without blood. When an organ is sick and cannot serve the blood, it shows up in our blood and our blood becomes sick, so to speak. When our organs are so weak that they can no longer protect and nourish our blood, so that the blood cannot bring the life it is created to bring, we die. The life of our flesh (bodies) is indeed in the blood just as God said above. There is nothing more important to physical life than blood. Having created it this way, God has ordained that this very essential life-giving fluid is the one thing He will accept to atone for sin. Sin is so horrible and so contrary to the nature of God that sin alienates us from God. He, being the author of life, has ordained that nothing less than the very thing that enables life to continue, blood, is required to restore the sinner to God.  Nothing less than offering to God the blood of another living being, which is what the entire priestly sacrificial system of Israel was all about, would suffice to cover the sin that separated individuals or the nation from God.

So we see that God created Adam, that is to say mankind, with blood in all its complex properties which keeps us alive. Yet we don’t continue to live forever in these natural bodies because of our sin, because “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23a). You sin, you die. Maybe not immediately but the deterioration in our bodies and souls is as a result of living in a sin-sick world and eventually we all die. But God made a way through the sacrifice of animals, for at least Israel to begin with, not to have to live under the burden of guilt and the state of being ‘in sin’ which does terrible things to us emotionally and physically. Only blood can atone or pay for our sins to have righteousness restored. The blood of animals served as alternatives to our own blood to pay the price to cover our sin in God’s sight. Rather than see it as a law or command that they were obligated to do, to have an animal killed on their behalf. Think of it as the recognition of and owning up to their own sin that would motivate people to have an animal killed in order to be restored back to God’s acceptance. The motive was a matter of the heart. Consider also that God instituted the priesthood with all that made up the sacrificial system for the purpose of restoring men back to Himself. God couldn’t just ignore the sin, it would have been against His holy nature, but He so wanted mankind near Him that He ordained that animals would die and their life’s blood would be the antidote to sin. This, of course, we know was a type and shadow of the ultimate atonement that would be accomplished: “once (and) for all” people (Romans 6:10), when He sent His only and holy Son to be the final and complete sacrificial atonement for ALL the sin of humankind.

Think about this objectively, God killing His own Son. Anyone outside of the Kingdom of God is likely to be appalled at the very thought of it. But for those of us inside the Kingdom of God, who grasp the significance of His atoning death on the cross on our behalf, it is nothing short of the glory of God. “For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Corinthians 1:18). This cross we’re talking about was the vehicle for the blood of His son to be poured out as a sacrificial offering to God. His unblemished blood alone would so thoroughly restore man to God that our very sin nature was eradicated from us. The blood of animals could cover the sin, but only the blood of the Sinless Son of God could do away with the sin nature and entirely cancel the debt of sin before God. Animals could not satisfy that as they did not offer themselves willingly; only Yeshua did that. The animals didn’t change the spiritual reality of sin; their blood just paid a price for the sin so the sinner could come out from under the guilt of that particular sin. But animal blood could not bring the sinner to a place of a clear conscience. That can only come as a result of grasping the revelation that Yeshua, by His willingness to obey His Father even unto death, reversed the spiritual direction of mankind for whoever would accept that it brought us into a state of sinlessness! Adam rebelled against God, choosing self over obedience and trust in God and His goodness, and as first and leader set mankind in the pathway of sin and destruction. 

Now here’s the key to understanding what I’m leading up to: Yeshua, being as fully human as the first Adam, is identified by God as “the last Adam.” The distinction between the two is that in Adam we were created soul and body, but by Yeshua perfecting the damaged creation, He was able to make the way for the Spirit of God to come into mankind as God had originally intended. “The first man, Adam, became a living soul. The last Adam became a life-giving spirit” (1 Corinthians 15:45).  Did God create Adam with access to His Spirit? Yes, but God knew that Adam would sin, so even though he had a soul that would relate to God, it is not until Yeshua rectified the fall of mankind into sin, that the way was made open to spirit life - life coming from the Spirit of God to mankind.

Through Yeshua we who are born again of the Spirit of God know that the meaning and value of our lives now comes by the Spirit of God. We now know that our physical bodies or even our own souls are not what we regard as our highest being, but our lives in the Spirit supersede anything else in our lives. If we’re truly born again by the Spirit of God, having accepted Yeshua’s death on our behalf, even if we’re not fully walking in this priority, we know it’s where truth is for us and where we need to be. We rely on God to conform us to that reality, repenting of what keeps us from walking in holiness before our God. Believers have willingly sacrificed their own physical lives since Yeshua gave up His own life rather than give up our spiritual oneness with God. Yeshua has become the source of our lives; no longer are we just persons with a soul and a body, but we are united with God by His Spirit, eternally, and we want nothing to jeopardize that. Amen, folks? 

Now comes the best part of all this. After Yeshua died and was resurrected, He had no more blood. There are two reasons for this: 1) He had been emptied of His blood through His death. The animal sacrifices were completely bled out and emptied of blood to be offered to God. In the same way, His body was basically emptied of His blood.  2) There was no more need for blood; the blood that God had created Adam with was no longer needed. The ultimate job of the blood as atonement was completed. His blood had accomplished the task for which blood was ultimately given to us, as atonement for our sins. But Yeshua was now living in His resurrected Spiritual body, and in that body there is no need for blood. When He came to His disciples after rising from the dead He told them, ”See My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself; touch Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have” (Luke 24:39). He had a body made of flesh and bones, but no more of flesh and blood as we still have.

Now, even though we still live in our physical bodies and our blood remains as critical to our physical lives as Adam’s did, those of us who are born again believers are now seen by God as being “in Him,” that is “in Yeshua,” and as one with Him and therefore we are adjudicated (declared legally) just as free from sin as He is. Even though we still live in the physical world in these bodies, we are no longer “of” the world; we are in the world but not of it. As Yeshua said, “They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world” (John 17:16). We now live “by the Spirit.” We are now a “new creation” (Galatians 6:15).

Our spiritual DNA has been altered and we are now seed of the Last Adam, Yeshua. He became the head, the first; the leader of a whole new race of humankind who are “in Him.” Do we still have need of the blood of Yeshua on our behalf? Yes, we do, because we still live in a fallen world and are subject to its sinfulness. But we do not need the blood the same way that the blood paid for sins under Adam. There is much more about the power of the blood than I can go into here, but if we have accepted Yeshua as Lord of our lives and are attempting “to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called” (Ephesians 4:1), then when we sin, for we all do at times, we have immediate access to God because our sin has already been atoned for.

Because atonement has been made, repentance can restore us. Where there has been no blood atonement, there can be no effective repentance. That’s why people who haven’t accepted Yeshua’s atonement as their own, those who are not yet “saved,” even if they tell God they’re sorry for their sin, they do not feel the release because they have not availed themselves of His atoning blood. In the same way, religion that is not based on the blood atonement of Yeshua is wasted effort. We can only repent because atonement has been made on our behalf. Otherwise, to tell God we are sorry would still leave us in the sin because, “without (the) shedding of blood  there is no forgiveness” (Hebrews 9:22b). Yeshua’s atoning blood made a pathway for us to come to God in repentance and to be relieved of the guilt of the sin and be entirely removed from the condition and consequences of sin. “For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son” (Colossians 1:3) in which there is no sin.

Whatever transgression we may fall into, God will use it, to say it in simple terms, as a sanctifying lesson, as a learning or discipline opportunity to teach us the ways of the Kingdom. Do we still need His blood now? Oh yes. He is ever on the watch over us to bring us to complete sanctification in Him. “Yeshua…because He continues forever, holds His priesthood permanently. Therefore He is able also to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them” (Hebrews 7:24, 25). The intercession of Israel’s priests was in the blood sacrifices; it is as the last Priest who offered the sacrifice, even though He Himself was the sacrifice, that Yeshua makes intercession for us, by virtue of His blood which is ever alive. Whatever we may face in this life that is threatening or potentially harmful as a danger or temptation, the Blood of Yeshua is powerful for setting us apart as belonging to God and for informing the devil that we are off limits to him. The blood cleanses us when we need cleansing and the blood sanctifies us and keeps us holy in God’s sight.

But we no longer need the blood to atone for our individual sins as had to take place under the original covenant with Israel so in that sense we have no more need for sacrificial blood any more. We don’t need Yeshua to reapply His blood for us any time we find ourselves in sin. We can immediately repent and come into the cleansing His blood has already bought for us and shed that guilt and shame without further ado. Holding on to guilt and shame if we slip, or reprimanding ourselves is not faith in the blood to wash us “whiter than snow” (See Isaiah 1:18). It’s not faith at all because it’s focus on ourselves, not on God and can therefore bring us no relief or righteousness.

The blood of Yeshua has been carried into Heaven to the real sanctuary before God and has been accepted as complete and total for our redemption. In the ultimate sense as we are “in Him” we are clean and pure and holy already, the blood of Yeshua having paid the price, once and for all time and all persons, whosoever will come to Him. We can rest in what He accomplished for us. We can rejoice in His acceptance of us and we can live in the faith that He is entirely trustworthy, for every need we may ever have, the very thing that Adam and Eve began to doubt when they ate the forbidden fruit. 

Reprint of this article is permitted as long as you use the following; Use by permission by Messianic Vision, www.sidroth.org, 2011. 

Scripture quotations are from the New American Standard Bible Copyright ©1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation, La Habra, Calif.  All rights reserved. Used by permission.