Fifteen hundred years before Jesus of Nazareth died on the cross, the Lord God instituted a system of sacrifices, and He revealed what about the sacrifice brought atonement,

“For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul” (Leviticus 17.11).

Since the life of the flesh is in the blood, it is the blood that makes atonement for the life or the soul of man. Thus, for about one and a half millennium, while the Jews performed millions of sacrifices during those years, the God of heaven was reminding the nation of Israel and the world, that blood was needed to atone for the soul, but since the animal sacrifices had to be done repeatedly, they obviously did not do the job adequately. Yet, the blood of those countless animals showed that blood was still needed, and so they prefigured an ultimate sacrifice that would come and finally do the job of making atonement for the souls of man.

After Jesus arrived on Earth and began His wonderful ministry, He said and did things that showed Him to be the perfect blood atonement that would finally take care of the problem of the sin of the soul of man. Thus, when telling His disciples how He wanted to be remembered, He said,

“For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins” (Matthew 26.28).

Of Jesus, one of the apostles said,

…whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed (Romans 3.25).

Jesus was the propitiation, the satisfaction, the atonement, by His blood to take care of all sins, committed before, during, and after His time on Earth. However, to be our adequate atonement, the writer of the Book of Hebrews said,

Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people (Hebrews 2.17).

However, He did these things for the world, not just for Israel,

And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world (1 John 2.2).

Truly then, as John wrote further of the magnificent thing God did for us in the sacrificial atonement of His blessed Son,

In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins (1 John 4.10).

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• Messianic Prophecy Number 23: Lev 16.15 – 17 – Entrance into the Holy of Holies with Blood (theoldtestamentandthenewtestament.com)
• Messianic Prophecy Number 24: Lev 16.27 – Outside the Camp (theoldtestamentandthenewtestament.com)