²² And according to the Law, one may almost say, all things are cleansed with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.

Succinct and beautiful in its brevity. Yet, breathtaking in its expansiveness, for it covers a lot of ground. In fact, the whole of the Levitical sacrificial system, central as it was to the Mosaic Law, is summed up here. The tabernacle’s (at first, and then the temple’s) ritualistic system was God’s plan B. Plan A was, “Here are my requirements for righteousness, don’t sin.” As far back as the Garden of Eden, plan A was to obey God and enjoy Him and His creation. Plan B, sacrifices, came after the fall. That secondary plan had specified what to do about sin, failing to live up to God’s righteous standards. And a bloody sacrifice was at the center, whether implied in the story of the skins given to cover Adam and Eve by God (Gen 3:21) or Abel’s offering that was accepted over Cain’s (Gen 4:4-5).

This verse speaks of two related things, cleansing and forgiveness, which on the superficial reading might seem indistinguishable. Cleansing was a broad term to deal with a temporary unfitness for approaching God. While sin certainly makes a person unfit, it is a wider concept. The word “cleanse” draws on the analogy of washing physical dirt off the body or object. It deals with external things. So likewise, ritual cleansing deals with the surface of things irrespective of internal moral motivation. For example, if a person touched a dead animal accidentally or unintentionally, then that person became ritually unclean, and therefore had to be cleansed before approaching God with a sacrifice. A priest, for example, could not bring the offering into the tabernacle if he was unclean.

The normal course was to offer animal sacrifices for cleansing, but there were some exceptions. For example, Lev 5:11 shows that God allowed a person lacking the resources to sacrifice an animal to offer a plant-based sacrifice. In other places water and even fire were used for cleansing purposes. This is what is meant in our passage by “one might almost say, all things are cleansed with blood.” Some other translations make this more clear: “Almost all things are cleansed with blood.”

However, sin goes more to the center of a person and involves an intentional attitude. When it comes to forgiveness of sin, there are no exceptions to the blood sacrifice, period! God said, “The soul who sins, dies” (Ez 18:4). And a blood sacrifice, a living substitute was required for forgiveness.

Lord, I praise You for supplying the way for Old Testament believers to come to You, and thus preparing the way for the ultimate blood sacrifice.