Our lives are very tenuous, hanging on our regular heartbeats, pumping miraculous blood through our bodies at a given rate. Interrupt the heartbeat for even a couple of minutes and we are dead. Immediate deterioration of tissue, blood vessels, and brain cells sets in and our physical components begin to rot. Remarkably God designed two elements to give and sustain life in mortal man, i.e., His breath and His blood.

The Word gives two essential scriptures which focus on the centrality of the “blood” in our lives in Christ:

“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…” Leviticus 17:11

“When I passed you by (Israel) and saw you squirming in your blood, I said to you while you were in your blood, ‘Live! I said to you while you were in your blood, Live!” Ezekiel 16:6

Life/blood/flesh are fundamental concepts in the Word from their very beginnings. In chapter three of Genesis the Lord God sacrificed some animals – shedding blood – to cover Adam and Eve’s nakedness and establishing the first blood covenant with man and the act of covering or atonement for man’s sin. Atonement means “cover over”, usually used in conjunction with a blood sacrifice. The sin isn’t forgiven as in salvation in Jesus, but is taken into God.

The phrase, “Live! I said to you while you were in your blood, Live!” (chayyim) in the Hebrew means a state of living as opposed to that of death. Life and living blood are synonymous terms in the Bible. This phrase has been used by those in healing ministries to minister to people who have difficulties with their blood. When they speak these passages, often healing takes place in the blood and life regains vitality. God designed us and intends us to live in the Blood of Jesus. Not only are we to live but we are to be ‘alive’ in Him. Luke 20:28

By Gordon Kler