Why does the Bible have blood sacrifices?
Substitution is always the basis of animal sacrifice . Hence, if a life was to be spared, a life had to be forfeited, and when the animal was sacrificed, ‘the life of the flesh is in the blood’, Lev. 17:11. Therefore, in those days, animal blood was a divine gift for the purpose of sacrifice only: ‘I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul’, v. 11. The person who treated animal blood as a common, everyday thing, and dared to eat it would be cut off, ‘from among his people’, v. 10. Also, careless treatment of animal blood in other situations would lead to the person having to ‘bear his iniquity’, v. 16. The word atonement occurs once in the King James Version New Testament, where it means just that, ‘at-one-ment’, Rom. 5:11, i.e., reconciliation, through our Lord Jesus Christ . Atonement by blood in the Old Testament only brought a covering of sins to the Israelite, who had brought such a blo