God takes the blame for the blame we couldn’t take ourselves.

• What we find in the OT is a model for life that Jesus satisfies in the NT. There are ancient rules and laws that seem to not make sense to us but can really help us to understand Jesus.

Exodus 24:6–8 ESV

And Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins, and half of the blood he threw against the altar. Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it in the hearing of the people. And they said, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient.” And Moses took the blood and threw it on the people and said, “Behold the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.”

Covenant not contract

God uses the language of covenant to show us who He is and to remind us of His love for us. That God is calling us into relationship. He is not just demanding that we act, He is showing us what life is like with God in the center of it.

• A covenant is an agreement that two parties make that is relational.

• Because we are used to a contractual language. We think more often in terms of contract rather than covenant.

• So let’s talk about what a contract is

But it has three inherent limitations.

1)performance oriented.

2)a limited commitment and

3)they are reciprocal. I only do for you as you do for me.

• But God didn’t create a contract with us. He gave us a covenant

• A covenant is an agreement for the life of the relationship. IT is not based on performance and reciprocity.

• And God has agreed to move heaven and earth to hold us up. He has agreed to give us everything we need for life and peace.

What’s with all the blood?

• In order to understand this concept of God acting in a way that we can respond, we should really address blood.

Blood represents life. It is a symbol of value

• But for the amount we try to remove ourselves from it we recognize that blood is really a symbol of life. It is what allows us to have life.

• And that blood, even in our passage today, represents something incredibly valuable, life itself.

Looking for blame

• And that there are times when that balance in between our lives, or the lives of the Ancient Near East is knocked off balance. And when something is knocked off balance there needs to be someone to blame.

• the first way we try to catch our balance is through blame.

• In the OT, because groups knew that there is a weight to relationships and that blame is easily cast and things don’t always go the way that they hoped, they allowed animals to be sacrificed to represent that blame. All fingers now pointed to the animal and the animals life was given and it’s blood spilled became a reference that blame was taken and all was balanced again. There was forgiveness.

Taking the blame

• This is the basic setup for animal sacrifice in the OT. So when Moses is chucking blood around, it is because wrongdoing in the relationship was forgiven and the relationship was right again. It was a commitment to keep the relationship at the cost of life. That the relationship was so important that life was needed to sustain it.

• Someone had to pay the price for the cost of the relationship. And animal sacrifices were a way to pay so that you didn’t have to.

Pointing Fingers

• Here is what hasn’t changed in the history of human progress.

• We still prioritize our lives around the idea of blame.

• Instead of us trying for force people to take the weight of our blame. To take the weight of our finger pointing, Christ has offered His life to take all that weight on Him.

There is war raging everywhere. War in between nations. War in between ideas. War in between people. War in between selves. War in between the self. An internal civil war. War always gives way to the strongest because someone has to give in. Something has to give. In the OT they shed blood because something had to give for war to end no matter where they looked for it. The problem was that there was not enough blood to calm whatever war was happening in our lives. Christ showed up to say He would give Himself for the peace that follows war. He gave Himself so that we could have peace.

• Our passage this morning shows us that God isn’t interested in us trying to be able to point to what life looks like. God is interested in making sure we have actual life.

A Better sacrifice

Hebrews 9:11–14 ESV

But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.

– When you are tempted to blame or take blame remember that Christ offered Himself to bear that burden.