Purification and Sanctification in the Old Testament

Why The Blood?

Purification and Sanctification in the Old Testament

The blood of Jesus, spilled on the cross, has a crucial significance in the healing from traumatic events. To understand the role of the blood in the healing process, we have to look at its importance in the Old and the New Testaments. 

The Old Testament’s sacrificial system was set on the shedding of animal blood. Entering God’s presence into the Holy of Holies required conformity of heart after God’s nature; one must be pure and holy, like God, to enter His presence.

Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy! (Leviticus 19:2) 

This is God’s requirement for humankind. This call for purification and sanctification recurs throughout the Old Testament. No one could approach God without first being cleansed from the defilement of sin. As the Law is irrevocable, so is the condition for one’s purification for entering God’s presence because God’s mouth has spoken both. In the same way, we, the believers in Christ, are warned that no one can enter the Kingdom of God unless one is cleansed from all impurities (Colossians 3:5). 

Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. (Colossians 3:5-10)

The pages of the Old Testament are “stained” with the blood of sacrificial animals for purification and sanctification. Once a year, on Yom Kippur—the Day of Atonement, only the high priest was to enter the presence of God into the Holy of Holies, where He resided. The Lord God gave thorough instructions to Moses concerning how Aaron, as high priest, should purify and consecrate himself to enter God’s presence and not die. God warned Aaron not to come into the Most Holy Place behind the curtain whenever he chose or else he will die, because God appears in the cloud over the atonement cover (Lev 16:2). The office of the high priest did not give Aaron the right to come into the Holy of Holies; only his condition of purity permitted his entrance. If Aaron was not ritually cleansed when entering the presence of God in the Holy of Holies, he would have died. 

In accordance with the requirements for purity, the path from the altar to the Holy of Holies, the place for meeting with God, was sprinkled with blood—from the horns of the altar to its base (Exodus 29:12). The high priest also had to be sprinkled with blood—from the lobes of the right ear to the big toe of the right foot (Exodus 29:20). These repulsive instructions better fit the description of a butcher shop or a crime scene, not a process of purification. According to our human standards, the sight of sticky, smelly, dried blood is nothing but unclean, but from God’s perspective, the outside appearance is not a concern. It is the inside of us that God wants to cleanse from the defilement of sin. Only the blood of a perfect sacrificial animal could purify the soul. According to the just retributions of God’s Law, “the soul who sins is the one who will die” (Ezekiel 18:4, 20), but according to God’s love, He redeems that life through another life, that of an animal. 

For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life. (Leviticus 17:11)