Can the blood of animals take away sin? In Exodus 24:1-8, Moses seals God's covenant with Israel by sprinkling the people with blood. Dr. Toby Holt explains why the Bible speaks so much about blood — and where it all points. After the people vow, "All that the LORD has said we will do," Moses offers sacrifices and sprinkles half the blood on the altar and half on the people. Animal blood could never truly take away sin; these were shadows pointing to Christ, the perfect Lamb. The old covenant's weakness is exactly why we need a better one.

Questions this study answers:

1. Can the blood of animals take away sin? No. Animal sacrifices could only cover sin temporarily and point forward. They could never truly remove it.

2. How did the sacrifices point to Jesus? They were shadows of the perfect sacrifice to come. Jesus is the Lamb of God whose blood truly takes away sin.

3. Why do we need a better covenant? Because the old covenant, based on the people's obedience, could not save. Christ brings a new covenant in His own blood. "And Moses took the blood, sprinkled it on the people, and said, 'This is the blood of the covenant which the LORD has made with you…'" — Exodus 24:8 (NKJV)

Dr. Toby Holt is President of New Geneva Theological Seminary, and his sermons have been downloaded more than 1.9 million times on SermonAudio. Find more verse-by-verse Bible teaching at newgeneva.org; support this ministry at newgeneva.org/give.

God's people had seen sacrifices before.

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They'd seen lambs and goats upon the altar.

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They'd seen the blood of these animals and had even placed it on their doorpost.

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But they'd never been sprinkled by it as Moses did in chapter 24.

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Join us to find out why he did such a thing in our study of the book of Exodus.

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you know it goes without saying but the people of jesus day they never heard of palm sunday people

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jesus they'd never heard of palm sunday now we call it that now but of course it didn't mean

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anything back then when jesus entered into jerusalem on the week of what we call his

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passion week on the very week that he was going to die no one in the right mind would refer to

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that as palm sunday however however the day was still significant very significant just for

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different reasons. You see, the Jews of the first century and previous centuries, the Jews of this

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time looked at this particular day that we refer to as Palm Sunday, and they referred to it as Lamb

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Selection Day. Lamb Selection Day. Now, what is Lamb Selection Day? Well, on Lamb Selection Day,

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what happened is what you might think would happen. On Lamb Selection Day, the people who

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had grown up celebrating the Passover, that time once a year when a lamb would be slaughtered,

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A perfect, a blemished lamb would be slaughtered.

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And commemoration for that time, way back in the book of Exodus,

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when the angel of death passed over all those homes that were marked in the blood of the lamb,

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the Passover meal they celebrated every year was a commemoration of those events long ago.

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And on this particular day, on the very day that Jesus Christ would enter into Jerusalem,

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the people were out scouring the hillsides, scouring the fields in search of a perfect lamb.

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I hope you can see the irony on the very day that the people of Israel were looking around to find

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a perfect, unblemished lamb, a lamb that way back in the book of Exodus was identified as something

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that was to be perfect without mark. It was not to be bucktooth. It was not to be lazy-eyed. It was

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not to be three-legged. It was not to be any of these things. It was to be perfect. And on the

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very day when they're looking for the perfect lamb to sacrifice, guess what? The perfect lamb

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walked right into the city. He rode into the city on a donkey. This is not an accident. This is not

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a coincidence. This is what we call providence. God appointed that the very day that Jesus would

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enter into the city was the day when all the people were looking for a perfect lamb. And the

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cruel irony is that the perfect lamb was right before them, and they knew it not. They knew it

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not. And today's text, way, way, way, way back in the book of Exodus, centuries before Palm Sunday,

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we're going to read about a sacrifice. It's a different sacrifice, but it's a sacrifice

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that has great import to everything that we come to think about on Palm Sunday and on Easter.

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and that sacrifice again is in Exodus 24. All right, what I'm going to do this morning is I'm

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going to read verses 1 and 2, and then just work our way through these eight verses as the time

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allows. All right, Exodus 24, verses 1 and 2. Let me read these, and then we'll try to unpack it.

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Verse 1, now God said to Moses, come up to the Lord, you and Aaron and Nadab and Abihu and 70

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of the elders of Israel and worship from afar. And Moses alone, this intercessor, this one guy,

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Moses alone shall come near the Lord, but they shall not come near, nor shall the people go

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up with them. All right, a couple of weeks back, we studied Exodus 20. We studied the Ten

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Commandments. And when we studied the Ten Commandments, we saw that the commandments

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could be broken up into two tablets. The first four commandments of the Ten dealt with how we

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approach God, how we worship God, how we are to revere Him, and the like. And the last six

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commandments on the second tablet dealt with how we interact with one another. So that's what we

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studied a couple weeks ago back in Exodus chapter 20. Now, if you were to look at the intervening

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chapters 21 through 23, you'd see that chapters 21, 22, chapter 3 include additional laws,

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additional regulations, but they were different from the Tenth Commandment. You could say they

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augmented the Tenth Commandments. They augmented the Decalogue, as it's sometimes called. In

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chapters 21 through 23, what you see are commandments that deal with the civic laws,

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how to engage with one another, with a lot of specifics. And there was also some additional

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ceremonial laws dealing with how we come to God and worship. Now those laws, the civic,

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the ceremonial laws, did not replace the original ten, but they augmented them. And we see that

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across three chapters. Now, let's say you're the people. That's a lot of laws. I mean, there's the

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ten. There's the primary ones, the ten. But there's other things that God has expectation of you

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to fulfill. So you're God's people. Now, you used to live in Egypt. Now you're at Sinai. You don't

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know what the future holds. You know there is a God because you looked up the mountain and you

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saw the fire and the lightning and the thunder and you heard the trumpet. You even heard his own

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voice. You know there's a God and you know he has given you laws for what you're to do. With that

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said, you like to do what you want to do. The people of Israel are fundamentally no different

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from anyone today. People like to do what they want to do. Well, in this case, a God, a lawgiver

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says, hey, hey, hey, irrespective of how you want to live, irrespective of how you want to approach

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me, this is the way we're going to do it. Here are the laws. Now, what did the people think about

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all that? Well, I can assure you that your response, your response, my response to any law

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is predicated on how much we fear the lawgiver,

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how much we revere the lawgiver.

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Back in 1984, a famous individual ran for president.

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1984, a famous individual ran for president.

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You might remember his name,

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although you might not have known he ran.

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1984, a famous individual ran for president.

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His name was Bozo the Clown.

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Bozo the Clown.

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Now, the real name of this guy, I think it was Larry Harmon.

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If you're older than 50, you know who Bozo was.

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bozo the clown 1984 ran for president the guy's name was larry harmon he was a right-hand candidate

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now needless to say bozo lost it's probably for the best he did can you imagine living in a country

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where clowns are in public office i'm just going to leave that there well here's the thing imagine

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bozo and bozo shows up in the comic of the pain bozo says hey this is what i think we should do

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and he honks his big red nose.

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Dear heavens, you are not going to care

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what laws Bozo gives you.

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Why?

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Because you have no reverence for Bozo.

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There's no fear, there's no awe for such an individual,

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for such a clown, for such a one.

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You see, in order to rule, in order to govern,

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in order to reign, you need to have

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the ability, the authority

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to enforce the laws that you decree.

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If you are to rule, if you are to reign,

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if you were to govern, you need to have the authority to enforce the laws that you've decreed,

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and the people need to have the reverence for you, the lawgiver. People don't obey laws if they don't

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respect the authority of the one who has laid them down. Well, after watching, earlier in the book

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of Acts, after watching God descend in fire on the top of the mountain, after watching the lightning

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strike, hearing the thunder, hearing the trumpets, even hearing his own voice, they might not still

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have loved the laws he gave them because some of those laws conflicted with the ways that they

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wanted to live their lives and yet at that moment they did not doubt that he had the authority he

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had the authority and the ability to enforce the very things that he had decreed and so the people

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trembled the people trembled if you remember back in exodus 19 exodus 20 the people flat out

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trembled they heard the word of god they heard the 10 commandments given before it was ever written

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down on tablets of stone which would happen chapters later they heard it audibly at the foot

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to the mountain. God's own voice declared the Ten Commandments. And do you remember the people's

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reaction at that time? They trembled, and they went to Moses, and they said, Moses, dear God,

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don't let that happen again. You, you go talk to God, not us. If this ever happens again,

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we're going to die. We cannot survive such an encounter. Well, verses one and two we just read,

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God says, you know what, you're right.

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You will stay over here, and only one individual,

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one intercessor, one mediator will come up the mountain

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to meet with me there.

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Let's look at verse 3.

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Verse 3, so Moses came and he told the people

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all of the words of the Lord and all of the judgments.

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And the people answered with one voice,

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and they said all the words which the Lord has said we will do.

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As we said a few weeks ago, a lot of people are under the impression, because they watched

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Ten Commandments by Cecil B. DeMille, they're under the impression that Moses went up the

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mountain just like one or two times. He went up the mountains a couple times and then he was

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done with it. Wrong! Moses went up the mountain a lot. He went up the mountain

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seven times, we believe in Scripture. He was going up and down and up and down throughout

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the early portions of the book of Exodus. His sandals put a lot of miles on him

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on the basis of how often he was going up and meeting with God. With that said,

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verse 3, he's coming down from his fourth trip up. He's been up there four times. He's coming down at

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this point, and what does he do? What does he do next? Well, verse 3 says that at this point, he tells

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the people all the words and all the judgments. Now, I want you to notice something there. At first

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glance, you and I might hear, okay, he told people all the words and judgments, and we think those two

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things are synonymous. Words and judgments are the same thing. Again, wrong. Many scholars, most

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scholars agree, this is not a reference to the same thing. Back at the start of Exodus 20,

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back to the start of Exodus 20, in fact, it's in the very first verse in Exodus 20, which was when

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God gave them the Ten Commandments. Right before he gave them the commandments, it says God spoke

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all these words. The term words refers to the Ten Commandments itself. When we talk about the words

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and the judgments, they're different things. The words refers to the Ten Commandments. In Exodus

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24.3, which we just read, Moses making distinction. He's saying the words of God. These are the Ten

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Commandments. The judgments, these are those civil laws and the ceremonial statutes that he gave in

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chapters 21 to 23. Now, why is any of that important? Well, it's important because of the

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people's response in verse 3. They said, all the words, all the words of the Lord has said we will

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do. You see, the civic and ceremonial laws were obligatory to the people, but it was the Ten

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commandments that were the basis for the covenant that they were about to enter into all right let's

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look at verses four through six as we unpack this covenant verses four through six and moses wrote

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all the words of the lord and he rose early in the morning and he built an altar at the foot of the

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mountain and 12 pillars according to the 12 tribes of israel then he sent young men of the children

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of israel who offered burnt offerings and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen to the lord

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and moses took half the blood and he put it into basins and half the blood he sprinkled upon

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the altar you know someone is trying to emphasize a matter of just grave importance someone runs up

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to you and they want to get your attention they want you to really understand the gravity of what

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they're about to say they might take you by your lapels and they'll say this is a matter of life

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and death. Well, in today's text, we're seeing a reflection of this. In verse 4, Moses knew

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what's about to go down is a matter of life and death. And so he rises early, verse 4. He gets

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busy. He builds this altar, and then he commissions this series of sacrifices. And once the sacrifices

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are complete, he collects half the blood from the sacrifices, and he puts it in the basins.

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And then, as the people watched, he took the rest of the blood and he sprinkled it upon the altar.

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Now, what's the implication of all this?

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What's this ritual all about?

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Among other things, it's meant to emphasize that what was about to go down was a matter of life and death.

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Now, let me stop for a moment.

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The people had seen animal sacrifices before.

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Before we go any further, you have to remember, the people had seen animal sacrifices.

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I mean, dear heavens, these are the same people that took the blood of lambs and put them on the

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doorposts, right? They knew something about sacrifices. They'd seen goats and heifers

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killed and the like. They had seen these things. They'd seen the blood put on the doorposts. They'd

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seen blood sprinkled on altars. But, but, but, but, do you know what they had never seen?

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They had never seen the one who sprinkled the blood on the altar, then take blood

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and sprinkle it upon them and that's what set this apart that's what set this apart they'd seen

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sacrifices but when sacrifices are complete they had not encountered this experience where this

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one in this case this mediator moses would sprinkle them with the very blood of the animal

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which was slain and because that they had to wonder what's the deal what's going on here well

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let's see the answer verses seven through eight then moses took the book of the covenant and he

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read it in the hearing of the people. And then they said, all that the Lord has said we will do

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and be obedient. This is the second time they've just said, we'll do it, we're in, we got it. But

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then in verse 8, Moses took the blood and he sprinkled it upon the people. And he said, this

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is the blood of the covenant, which is the word of great consequence in their culture. This is the

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blood of the covenant which the lord has made with you according to all these words all right let me

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ask you a question what's the deal with all the blood and sacrifices in the old testament you know

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when i was a kid i admit i didn't get that i had no clue in fact it seemed weird open up the bible

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in the old testament and like every other page they're slaughtering the same animal now here's

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the thing. I have three dogs, one cat. We have a chameleon, I don't know, like 20 geckos. Goodness

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knows what we've got in our house at any given time. I like animals. I still enjoy going to

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petting zoos and the like. And you put in the quarter and you get the alfalfa and you feed the

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goats. I like that. So coming from that background, coming from that experience, when I read about

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animals being sacrificed, I'm like, no way. What is going on with this? So let me ask you, what's

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the deal with all the blood and all the sacrifices? Well, I had a Sunday school teacher who tried to

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help me through my conundrum, who tried to help me through this problem, and she said something

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that was true. She says, well, she says, well, the sacrifices, the sacrifice in the Bible, all those

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animals, they were slaughtered, they were killed on behalf of you and me, on behalf of the people.

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Now, here's the thing. That confused me even more. What is an animal dying? What effect does

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that have on my soul or the souls of 2,000 years ago? What benefit could be derived from the

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slaughter of an animal? How can the death of a goat or a sheep or a turtle dove or what have you

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take away anyone's sin? Well, here's the thing that I know now that I didn't know then, and that's

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this, it couldn't take away sin, and that's the point. And that's the point. You know, you could

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slaughter animals just all day long. You could slaughter them up to the rafters, up to heaven

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itself. And the slaughter of animals, all the animals on the globe combined, cannot offset,

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cannot pay the penalty due to one single sin. So why do it then? Why do it? Why sacrifice something

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if the sacrifice doesn't help?

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Well, although shedding blood

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cannot atone for a single sin,

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let alone the balance of all my sins

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or all the sins collectively in this room,

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although the shedding of an animal's blood

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could not atone for sin,

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it did do this.

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It pointed to one

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whose death could.

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Do you remember John the Baptist?

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He sees Jesus.

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Jesus is walking down the riverbank.

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And as Jesus is walking down the riverbank,

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John's with his disciples, and he looks to them, and he points.

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He says, behold, the Lamb of God cometh to take away the sins of the world.

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The Lamb of God.

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All those Old Testament sacrifices could do nothing of themselves,

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but they were shadows, they were types,

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and their slaughter was in anticipation of the ultimate death of the ultimate Lamb on Calvary.

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The reason they did that in the Old Testament

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is the same reason we do this in the New,

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to point to Jesus Christ,

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to point to the Lamb of God.

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Now we'll return to this concept of Christ's sacrifice

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in a few moments,

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but first in verses 7 through 8,

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I want you to notice,

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the people heard the law of God,

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and once again they say,

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all right, we're in.

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We will do it.

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We will obey it.

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Everything the Lord has said, we will do.

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Now, what happened next when they went home?

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Do you think they kept the law perfectly, completely, every last one of them?

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This morning, in this room, have you kept the law perfectly, completely, every last person in this room?

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No.

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The short answer is no.

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None of us have.

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The people here in Israel, after they said, God, I'm in.

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God, you've given us laws, and by gum, I'm going to keep every last one of them.

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Well, before the sun had even set, they'd broken God's laws, let alone in the days to come, the months to come, the years to come.

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Dear heavens, it was like just a short amount of time thereafter.

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Forty days after, what did they do?

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Gold calf.

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They could not keep the law, but they think they could.

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They could not do what God told them to do, even though they thought they could.

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Why? Because we're a lot more righteous in our eyes than we are in God's.

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They thought they could do it.

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However, they could not.

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And this was problematic. Why?

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Well, because God takes his covenant seriously.

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and they had entered into one with him.

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They had entered into a covenant.

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What we call a covenant of works is a covenant by which they said,

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we will keep the law.

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And the penalty for covenant breakers was what?

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The wages of sin is death.

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The wages of breaking the law is death.

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They said they could keep it, but they couldn't,

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and so they were covenant breakers.

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Now, why is that a bad thing?

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Well, it's a bad thing, again, because of the wages,

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the wages being death.

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With that said, when God made a covenant, he sprinkled the blood upon them.

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What's the import here?

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Well, there's two things.

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Number one, the import was that the future was going to be very dark for these covenant breakers.

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They were in a lot of trouble.

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See, this particular covenant they'd entered into, as we said, it had extreme consequences.

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The consequences were death.

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And lest they forget that for a moment, lest they forget what they'd just done,

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what they'd signed and sealed with their own words, lest they forget,

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All they had to do was look at their neighbor's forehead and see the blood trickling down.

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All they had to do was look at the altar and see the blood trickling down.

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All they had to do was look at these things to be reminded that what they just agreed to had the most dire of consequences.

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Dear heavens, even the pagan cultures have blood oaths, and blood oaths suggest what?

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If you violate the oath, you bleed, you die.

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So this is what they just entered into.

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they entered into this covenant by which they said, we'll keep the laws at penalty of death.

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I wonder if any of them looked at their neighbor and said, are we sure about this? Did we just do

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what I think we did? I wonder if any of them thought this through as the blood literally

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rained down upon them. I wonder if any of them said, oh, this seems kind of significant, kind

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of dark. I wonder if any of them thought it all through. Well, we don't know, but here they seem

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to be uniform in saying, we got this. We got this. Now, a moment ago, I said that the blood

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signified two things. The first is the consequences for the covenant breakers. We just talked about

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that. But what was the second? What else did the blood signify in Exodus 24? What does the cup

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signify on the table before us? Just like the mediation of this one guy, Moses, pointed forward

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to a better mediator, the one we know as Jesus Christ?

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In the same way, the blood of the sacrifice trickling down their forehead

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pointed to the need for a better sacrifice,

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for something better than these animals.

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As we said a few moments ago, no amount of animals can offset a single sin.

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But what if, what if, what if someone came along whose sacrifice could?

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If the animals can't do it because they're animals,

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What if someone were to come along whose sacrifice could pay for your debts?

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What if someone could come along whose sacrifice could offset or pay down

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or pay off completely the sins and the debts of all of God's people?

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What if someone came along whose death would be sufficient

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for the totality of the sins of you and I?

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Now, I hear you saying, well, such a person would have to be divine.

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Yes, that's the point.

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When Jesus rode into Jerusalem, he was fully God and he was fully man.

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In that respect, he was unique.

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Moses was a wonderful guy, but he was not Jesus.

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He was not fully, fully God.

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What Jesus wrote in Jerusalem on that first Palm Sunday,

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let's think about that for a moment as we look to wrap up this morning.

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What Jesus wrote into Jerusalem on Lamb Selection Day

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is he came toward the city.

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He couldn't see the cross just yet, and yet he could

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because he knew it was there.

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He knew it was the final destination.

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of the very trip that he was upon.

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Jesus knew his future, and he knew the past.

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He knew Exodus 24.

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In fact, he wrote Exodus 24, if you want to be technical.

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And so Jesus knew, as he looked to the people

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who were gathered around saying Hosanna,

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he knew that these same people were condemned

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under the covenant made by their ancestors,

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what we call the Mosaic Covenant.

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He knew that the covenant that had been made

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all the centuries ago was still in effect,

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and it condemned everyone in his eyesight.

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It condemned everyone on the planet.

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He knew that at the moment he was heading into Jerusalem.

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He knew you and I have a problem,

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and he knew that you and I are not capable of fixing our problem.

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Jesus knew what Elder Carl read earlier,

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without the shedding of blood, there's no remission of sins.

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And in spite of all that he knew,

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in spite of the cross that he knew awaited him,

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He rode into Jerusalem on Lamb Selection Day with the intent of dying.

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You know, if you ever had a problem with self-esteem,

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if you ever had a problem, you know, that so-and-so doesn't like me,

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so-and-so doesn't love me, my kids have turned on me,

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my parents have rejected me, my friends won't be my friends anymore,

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remember, when your life was on the line,

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your Savior made a beeline for the cross.

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you have value in the eyes of your maker.

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People's opinions come and go.

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They fade and change.

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But the one who has made you,

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loved you with a sustaining love,

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that he would die for you,

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even now he would sanctify you,

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and one day he will glorify you.

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When your life was on the line,

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your Savior there on Lamb Selection Day,

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what we call Palm Sunday,

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made a beeline for the cross,

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and when he got there, his body was broken.

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When he got there, his blood was shed for you.

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Now earlier this morning,

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Elder Carl read from Hebrews 9.

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I'm going to summarize a short portion

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on that passage as we close this morning. I'm going to let the author of Hebrews say everything

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we've been trying to say for the last half hour, because he says it far better. Hebrews chapter 9,

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the author says this, but Christ came when he came into Jerusalem as the high priest of the good

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things to come, not with the blood of the goats and the calves, but with his own blood he entered

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the most holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. For the blood of bulls and

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It was for this reason he is the mediator of the new covenant by means of death.

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It's appointed for men once to die, but after this the judgment.

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And so Christ is offered once to bear the sins of many.

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To those who eagerly wait for him, he will appear.

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He will appear a second time.

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And this is what we expect.

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For those who eagerly wait for him, he will appear a second time apart from sin for salvation.

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You think it was a triumphal entry before?

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Just wait to see what's coming down the pike.

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He will appear a second time apart from sin for salvation.

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In Jesus Christ, the summary statement as we close Palm Sunday,

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as we look forward to Resurrection Sunday next week,

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the summarizing statement is this.

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In Jesus Christ, we have the fulfillment of all those Old Testament shadows and types.

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In Jesus Christ, we have a new mediator. He's better than Moses.

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In Jesus Christ, we have a new covenant. It's better than the old one.

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In Jesus Christ, we have a new sacrifice, the Lamb of God,

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that does what none of those other animal sacrifices ever could,

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but atones for the sins of you and I.

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What then must we do?

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Turn him in faith.

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We cannot keep the law any more than those guys long ago could,

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But we can do, we can do through eyes looking back what they could do with eyes looking forward.

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We could look to the Lamb.

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We could look to the Lamb who was slain.

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If you've never turned to Him in faith, let today be the day.

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Let me pray.