Why was the shedding of Christ’s blood necessary? Why could He not merely have died to save us from our sins? I’ll give you three reasons. First understand that it was ordained in the scheme of redemption by the Sovereign God, “Who works all things after the counsel of His own will”; whether men understand it or not. He said in Isaiah, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8-9). Cain’s failure to understand and his attitude toward the assumed unreasonableness of the matter only led to his reprobation. Secondly, there is a principle of life for life involved in the scheme of salvation. In Leviticus 17:12-14 we are taught that the principle of life is in the blood. “Therefore I said unto the children of Israel, No soul of you shall eat blood, neither shall any stranger that sojourneth among you eat blood. And whatsoever man there be of the children of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn among you, which hunteth and catcheth any beast or fowl that may be eaten; he shall even pour out the blood thereof, and cover it with dust. For it is the life of all flesh; the blood of it is for the life thereof: therefore I said unto the children of Israel, Ye shall eat the blood of no manner of flesh; for the life of all flesh is the blood thereof: whosoever eateth it shall be cut off.” The blood is the carrier of life; the shedding of blood symbolizes the pouring out of life. This is what Isaiah says of the dying of Christ in 53:11, “He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities.” Thirdly, shedding blood to make atonement was established in the law. You see this in application in Hebrews 9:12-22, “Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” God’s law is unbending. It has zero tolerance. What was established by it must be accomplished. Therefore Jesus Christ came forth; “…made of a woman, made under the law” (that is to redeem those who were under the law’s curse). The holy life of Jesus Christ was necessary, but the holy life of Jesus alone could not save sinners. Sinners could not be saved apart from the shedding of the blood of Jesus Christ.
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