“This is My blood of the covenant” (Mark 14:24). That’s what Jesus said at the Last Supper, and today’s passage helps us understand just what He meant. For when Moses first read the Law to the people of God, they made a solemn promise to keep it: “All the words that the Lord has spoken we will do” (Exodus 24:3). But such a promise was not sufficient by itself – blood also had to be shed (Hebrews 9:18). That’s why Moses put the Blood of the Covenant both on the altar and on the people (Exodus 24:6-8).

So, what did that blood mean? It wasn’t the subtlest of symbols. In Old Testament times, in order to solemnize a covenant, the two parties would kill an animal, cut it in two, and set the two parts a small distance apart. Those making the covenant would then walk on the bloody ground between the pieces of the slain animal, thus making the statement that if they were to break their word, their own blood would be shed in a similar way. That’s why Moses put the blood of the covenant between God and man both on the altar and the people, and that’s the same sort of ceremony Abraham prepared to solemnize God’s covenant with him (Genesis 15:9-10).

But when the time came for God and Abraham to walk on the bloody ground, Abraham had passed out – he was unable to go through with the ceremony. So God, represented by fire and smoke, walked by Himself between the pieces of the slain animals, taking the blood oath on Himself (Genesis 15:17). In the same way, Jesus shed the blood of the covenant for us, dying to pay the death sentence that we deserve because we have broken God’s covenant.

So of course no other sacrifice needs to be made for sin – why repeat the symbol when the reality has already come (Hebrews 9:26)? Instead, let us live as those who have been washed clean (9:14), serving God and thus preparing for Christ’s promised return (9:28).

Hebrews 9:11-28 (ESV)

11 But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation)
12 he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.
13 For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh,
14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.
15 Therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant.
16 For where a will is involved, the death of the one who made it must be established.
17 For a will takes effect only at death, since it is not in force as long as the one who made it is alive.
18 Therefore not even the first covenant was inaugurated without blood.
19 For when every commandment of the law had been declared by Moses to all the people, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people,
20 saying, “This is the blood of the covenant that God commanded for you.”
21 And in the same way he sprinkled with the blood both the tent and all the vessels used in worship.
22 Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.
23 Thus it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.
24 For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf.
25 Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own,
26 for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.
27 And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment,
28 so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.