No forgiveness without blood meant no atonement without substitution. There had to be life for life or blood for blood. But the Old Testament blood sacrifices were only shadows; the substance was Christ. For a substitute to be effective, it must be an appropriate equivalent. Animal sacrifices could not atone for human beings, because a human being is ‘much more valuable...than a sheep’, as Jesus himself said (Matt. 12:12). Only ‘the precious blood of Christ’ was valuable enough (1 Pet. 1:19).
