The Scarlet Thread in Scripture – Introduction
The Scarlet Thread in Scripture – Introduction.
| “Glory be to Jesus, Who in bitter pains, poured for me the life-blood, from His sacred veins. Grace and life eternal, in that blood I find, blest be His compassion, infinitely kind.
Blest through endless ages, be the precious steam, which from endless torments, did the world redeem. Lift ye then your voices, swell the mighty flood; louder still and louder, praise the precious blood.” (Friedrich Filitz). |
Glory Be to Jesus – Christian Song with Lyrics (youtube.com)
The scarlet thread that is sewn into Holy Scripture from beginning to end is unmistakable. There is no doubt whatsoever that the Bible is blood-centric, that there is an overriding theme of blood wherever we look. We don’t need to be super-detectives to discover blood patterns in the Word. The Scripture seems practically preoccupied with blood, and one could be excused for observing that God seems to be out for blood. We find out why this is the case in Leviticus 17:11 and 13… “The life of all flesh is in its blood. The life is in the blood.” The Word of God seems preoccupied with blood only because God is preoccupied with life. God is out for blood only in the sense that He is out for Life. The Bible is blood-centric only because God is life-centric. In fact, the term “scarlet thread” is not strong enough. Instead, the Bible has a powerful crimson tsunami flowing through its pages from Genesis through Revelation, from before creation to the New Creation.
In this Bible study we will take a good look at the blood-stories in Scripture, from the divine sacrifice before the foundation of the world, to the animal sacrifice in the Garden of Eden; from the bloodshed in the first family, to the blood-themed covenant between God and Noah; from the Nile River, to the Passover in Egypt; from the bloody mess in the Tabernacle, to the Scarlet Worm that hinted at Jesus. Yes, there seem to be blood-splatters all over the floors and walls of Scripture. Through it all, the precious blood of Jesus is the centerpiece.
The tangible reality of human blood suggests the sanctity of blood in the spiritual world. We depend on human blood for our physical survival, and we depend on Christ’s blood for our spiritual survival. Human blood is a glorious, miraculous fact of physical life: Blood is the fluid in our body that transports live-giving oxygen and nutrition to our lungs and body tissues; it promotes clotting and thus prevents tragic blood loss; it carries disease-fighting antibodies and develops our immune system; it carries away waste products to the kidneys and liver and so is vital to cleansing our body and blood; it brings chemical hormones to give directions to our body; it regulates our body temperature. Human blood takes only 30 seconds to travel from the heart through the body and back to the heart. The average adult human body contains about 1.3 gallons of blood, roughly 8% of our body weight. The average adult heart pumps 1.5 million barrels of blood through a circulatory system of over 100,000 miles of blood vessels. If we stretched one person’s blood vessels end-to-end, it would circle the earth two and a half times over!
Perhaps the most astounding aspect of human blood is that simple human blood cannot be replicated by genius scientists in the lab. With all our advances in creating artificial knees and shoulders, inventing artificial intelligence that can operate at lightning speed to direct robots and computers… Even with human brilliance on display everywhere these days, the researchers and designers are nonetheless unable to replicate a simple ounce of blood. The human blood sample created by God turns out to be beyond the reach of human genius. Human blood literally cannot be produced or replicated in a lab. There is no such thing as artificial blood. It appears that Creator God has reserved the makings of blood to Himself. Blood is sacred and deserves our ultimate respect. But God says to all of us, “Hands off, lab technicians! Blood is my special creation, and I will not allow mere man to recreate this mystery of Mine. Blood is too precious to leave in the hands of man. I will keep this recipe a secret, for if you were allowed to solve the mystery of blood, then life itself is in danger of being replicated by mankind. In case you haven’t noticed, life is in the blood.”
Because the topic of blood has inspired literally hundreds of songs and hymns and choruses, I have included a song about the Blood at the conclusion of every article in this study. Please consider each song to be a prime opportunity to reflect on the Blood and to worship Christ, the bloodied Lamb of God who has taken away the sins of the world.
Oh The Blood Of Jesus | The Altar Music | Official Music Video (youtube.com)