Given For You
Last Sunday, at the end of the sermon on the Day of Atonement, I said something about communion that I want to come back to. The priests in Leviticus were required to sprinkle the blood on the altar, and Jesus has us eat it. Then I opened Leviticus 17 to prepare for this Sunday, and the first verse of our passage says this:
"If any one of the house of Israel or of the strangers who sojourn among them eats any blood, I will set my face against that person who eats blood and will cut him off from among his people." (Leviticus 17:10)
That is about as direct as the Law gets. God speaks in the first person, and He includes the foreigner living among Israel along with everyone else. The rule is older than Israel, too. God gave it to Noah after the flood, for all of humanity: "But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood" (Genesis 9:4). Observant Jews still keep it today, which is why kosher meat is salted to draw the blood out. And yet on the night before He died, Jesus handed His disciples a cup and told them to drink His blood. Shocking. It bothered the people who first heard it.
Leviticus gives the reason for the rule in the very next verse, and that verse explains every drop of blood in the book so far.
"For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life." (17:11)
Last week I said it still seems to be a mystery how this whole economy works, how blood can cover sin. This verse is the answer Leviticus gives. Blood stands for life. When an animal's blood was poured out at the altar, a life was given up, and God accepted that life in place of the life the worshiper owed. Nothing in the blood itself had any power. What mattered was that a life was given, and that God was the one who gave it. Israel did not invent this system or bargain for it. "I have given it for you." The blood was a gift before it was ever an offering.
That is why no one could eat it. The life belonged to God, and He had set it aside for one purpose, atonement. Even a hunter out in the field, far from any altar, had to pour the blood of his game onto the ground and cover it with earth (17:13). Every time an Israelite sat down to a meal with meat, the meal itself reminded them that a life had been given and that it was never theirs to take.
The men in the upper room had kept that law every day of their lives. They had never tasted blood. It was Passover, the meal that remembered the night God brought Israel out of Egypt, when the blood of a lamb on the doorposts meant the LORD would pass over the house (Exodus 12:13). Jesus told them, "I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer" (Luke 22:15). Then He took the cup.
"Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins." (Matthew 26:27-28)
Earlier in His ministry Jesus had said something even harder: "Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you" (John 6:53). The reaction was exactly what you would expect from people raised on Leviticus 17. "This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?" (6:60). Many of His disciples "turned back and no longer walked with him" (6:66).
Look closely at the words Jesus chose, because they are the words of Leviticus 17:11. The blood is poured out, it is for forgiveness, and it is for you. "This is my body, which is given for you... This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood" (Luke 22:19-20). In Leviticus God said, "I have given it for you on the altar." At the table Jesus says, "given for you." The law kept the blood off every table in Israel because God had set that life apart for atonement. The cup is that atonement, finally handed to us.
The apostles understood it this way. Even after the Last Supper, they asked Gentile believers to "abstain... from blood" (Acts 15:29). They never took the cup as permission to drink blood. They took it as Jesus giving them His own life.
This is where it goes against our logic. Something in us still feels like we have to keep the law ourselves, even when we know we'll fall short of it. Receiving Christ can feel too easy, as if we haven't done enough to deserve it. But we ingest Christ because He is our righteousness. Full stop. And when someone says, "But that breaks the law!" the answer is no. That is what the law was saving the blood for. Paul answers the same objection: "Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law" (Romans 3:31).
Jesus was clear about what kind of eating He meant. "Whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst" (John 6:35). When His disciples stumbled over His words, He told them, "It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life" (6:63). We take Christ in by faith, and His life becomes ours.
The very next paragraph in Leviticus turns from the altar to the whole of life. Sunday's reading is Leviticus 18:1-5, and it begins like this: "Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, I am the LORD your God. You shall not do as they do in the land of Egypt, where you lived, and you shall not do as they do in the land of Canaan, to which I am bringing you" (18:2-3).
Before God gives a single "you shall not," He says, "I am the LORD your God." He says it again in verse 4 and again in verse 5. Israel did not obey in order to become God's people. They were already His, brought out of Egypt under the blood, and these commands describe what life looks like for a people who belong to Him.
Egypt is behind them, the place they lived for four hundred and thirty years. Canaan is ahead, the culture they are about to live inside. God tells them they will be shaped by neither one. We have our own Egypt, the way of life we came from, and our own Canaan, the world we live in now. The life given for us is what brings us out of the first and keeps us from being shaped by the second. None of this makes us better than our neighbors, and Leviticus never says it does. What it keeps saying instead is "I am the LORD your God."
Read Leviticus 17 and the first five verses of chapter 18 this week (the rest of chapter 18 is coming on November 1), and then read John 6. Come Sunday ready to talk about Egypt and Canaan, and about the life God promises in 18:5 to the people who walk in His statutes.
"If any one of the house of Israel or of the strangers who sojourn among them eats any blood, I will set my face against that person who eats blood and will cut him off from among his people." (Leviticus 17:10)
That is about as direct as the Law gets. God speaks in the first person, and He includes the foreigner living among Israel along with everyone else. The rule is older than Israel, too. God gave it to Noah after the flood, for all of humanity: "But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood" (Genesis 9:4). Observant Jews still keep it today, which is why kosher meat is salted to draw the blood out. And yet on the night before He died, Jesus handed His disciples a cup and told them to drink His blood. Shocking. It bothered the people who first heard it.
Leviticus gives the reason for the rule in the very next verse, and that verse explains every drop of blood in the book so far.
"For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life." (17:11)
Last week I said it still seems to be a mystery how this whole economy works, how blood can cover sin. This verse is the answer Leviticus gives. Blood stands for life. When an animal's blood was poured out at the altar, a life was given up, and God accepted that life in place of the life the worshiper owed. Nothing in the blood itself had any power. What mattered was that a life was given, and that God was the one who gave it. Israel did not invent this system or bargain for it. "I have given it for you." The blood was a gift before it was ever an offering.
That is why no one could eat it. The life belonged to God, and He had set it aside for one purpose, atonement. Even a hunter out in the field, far from any altar, had to pour the blood of his game onto the ground and cover it with earth (17:13). Every time an Israelite sat down to a meal with meat, the meal itself reminded them that a life had been given and that it was never theirs to take.
The men in the upper room had kept that law every day of their lives. They had never tasted blood. It was Passover, the meal that remembered the night God brought Israel out of Egypt, when the blood of a lamb on the doorposts meant the LORD would pass over the house (Exodus 12:13). Jesus told them, "I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer" (Luke 22:15). Then He took the cup.
"Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins." (Matthew 26:27-28)
Earlier in His ministry Jesus had said something even harder: "Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you" (John 6:53). The reaction was exactly what you would expect from people raised on Leviticus 17. "This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?" (6:60). Many of His disciples "turned back and no longer walked with him" (6:66).
Look closely at the words Jesus chose, because they are the words of Leviticus 17:11. The blood is poured out, it is for forgiveness, and it is for you. "This is my body, which is given for you... This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood" (Luke 22:19-20). In Leviticus God said, "I have given it for you on the altar." At the table Jesus says, "given for you." The law kept the blood off every table in Israel because God had set that life apart for atonement. The cup is that atonement, finally handed to us.
The apostles understood it this way. Even after the Last Supper, they asked Gentile believers to "abstain... from blood" (Acts 15:29). They never took the cup as permission to drink blood. They took it as Jesus giving them His own life.
This is where it goes against our logic. Something in us still feels like we have to keep the law ourselves, even when we know we'll fall short of it. Receiving Christ can feel too easy, as if we haven't done enough to deserve it. But we ingest Christ because He is our righteousness. Full stop. And when someone says, "But that breaks the law!" the answer is no. That is what the law was saving the blood for. Paul answers the same objection: "Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law" (Romans 3:31).
Jesus was clear about what kind of eating He meant. "Whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst" (John 6:35). When His disciples stumbled over His words, He told them, "It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life" (6:63). We take Christ in by faith, and His life becomes ours.
The very next paragraph in Leviticus turns from the altar to the whole of life. Sunday's reading is Leviticus 18:1-5, and it begins like this: "Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, I am the LORD your God. You shall not do as they do in the land of Egypt, where you lived, and you shall not do as they do in the land of Canaan, to which I am bringing you" (18:2-3).
Before God gives a single "you shall not," He says, "I am the LORD your God." He says it again in verse 4 and again in verse 5. Israel did not obey in order to become God's people. They were already His, brought out of Egypt under the blood, and these commands describe what life looks like for a people who belong to Him.
Egypt is behind them, the place they lived for four hundred and thirty years. Canaan is ahead, the culture they are about to live inside. God tells them they will be shaped by neither one. We have our own Egypt, the way of life we came from, and our own Canaan, the world we live in now. The life given for us is what brings us out of the first and keeps us from being shaped by the second. None of this makes us better than our neighbors, and Leviticus never says it does. What it keeps saying instead is "I am the LORD your God."
Read Leviticus 17 and the first five verses of chapter 18 this week (the rest of chapter 18 is coming on November 1), and then read John 6. Come Sunday ready to talk about Egypt and Canaan, and about the life God promises in 18:5 to the people who walk in His statutes.
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