Spiritual musing

Why do Christian’s and Jews emphasize “blood”?

Blood symbolizes “life”.

God lives in a different realm or world that we do and his way of doing things is spiritual. Blood is not a spiritual thing, but physical. Blood is only found here on earth and not in Gods realm. We won’t be taking blood with us when we cross over. I think we, our souls, may have some physicality when they cross over the veil at death but it isn’t extremely clear in the bible.

So God doesn’t ‘see’ blood but does see “life” Life is a spiritual term and a spiritual thing. It’s pretty amazing that such a spiritual thing dwells in this physical world! Spiritual things don’t really mesh with the physical world, naturally. Of course god was able to make it happen with his creation.

When a sacrifice is made, which is a physical act here on earth that translates into a spiritual act in the spiritual realm, god doesn’t find pleasure in the physical part, but in the spiritual part. God doesn’t not find suffering and death pleasant, but what these produce spiritual he does find pleasant.

Jesus suffering and death was not pleasant to god but the spiritual benefits of this sacrifice were.

When an animal was sacrificed on an altar there was no pleasure in the physical aspects, but the “sweet aroma” refers to the spiritual aspect of the sacrifice. God was pleased by how the human recognized the need to give something that belonged to them to accept gods merciful offer of redemption. 

A pagan idea? I would say a “universal” idea. Yes , pagans also used and still do today this principle of propitiatory sacrifice. 

It is vital to realize that a sacrifice is invalid if it is not a genuine gift from the human, with the understanding that they are responding to gods mercy. If a person just sacrifices an animal thinking they can ‘appease’ god, they are way off the mark. There is a kind of a cost to the one asking god for mercy. It is the cost of submission and choosing god. The heart and mind of the human giving the sacrificial animal is of personal sacrifice and true assent to gods good nature.

The physical aspects of sacrifice are not the point. What happens on earth is not the point. This world is a temporary illusion. We may think that life on earth is amazing, but the reality for a believer is that we are only here as a soul temporarily. The soul is eternal and spiritual. The soul is just passing through.