Exodus 29: 10-14, “And thou shalt cause a bullock to be brought before the tabernacle of the congregation: and Aaron and his sons shall put their hands upon the head of the bullock. And thou shalt kill the bullock before the LORD, by the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. And thou shalt take of the blood of the bullock, and put it upon the horns of the altar with thy finger, and pour all the blood beside the bottom of the altar. And thou shalt take all the fat that covereth the inwards, and the caul that is above the liver, and the two kidneys, and the fat that is upon them, and burn them upon the altar. But the flesh of the bullock, and his skin, and his dung, shalt thou burn with fire without the camp: it is a sin offering.”
The Lord told Adam that he would die on the day that he ate the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen 2: 17, “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” When Noah came out of the ark the Lord told him that the life was in the blood (Gen 9: 4, “But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof”). On the day that Adam and Eve ate that fruit the Lord sacrificed animals so that they could hide their nakedness and be covered with skins (Gen 3: 21, “Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them.”). This lets us know that the blood of a substitute could be used to deal with sin. However, this was only a temporary solution and Adam and Eve eventually died. We also read that one day with the Lord is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day (1 Pet 3: 8). In that context, Adam who died at age 930 (Gen 5: 5, “And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died.”) Adam did die within the Divine day on which he sinned. However, when the priests were ordained there was an acknowledgment of their imperfection and blood had to be shed to deal with their sin. The blood was shed when the bullock was sacrificed and the blood was placed on the altar to show that the priest’s sin had been dealt with so that he was now qualified to offer sacrifices on that same altar for the sins of other people. The remains of the animal were burnt so that there would be no memory of the bullock or the sins that had been taken away.
(The view expressed in this blog are my own and should not be taken as inspired in any way.)
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