So much for the fundamental and central importance of His death, or of _the shedding of His blood_. But what was the purpose of the shedding of His blood?
1. First of all, the Bible distinctly and repeatedly tells us by direct statement, and by countless typical reference in the Old Testament, that _He died as a vicarious offering for sin; that is, that He, an absolutely perfect, righteous one, who deserved to live, died in the place of unjust men who deserved to die_. For example, we read in Isa. 53:5, +"But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed."+ And in the eighth verse we read, +"By oppression and judgment He was taken away; and as for His generation, who among them considered that He was cut off out of the land of the living for the transgression of my people to whom the stroke was due?"+ And in the 11th and 12th verses we read, +"He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied: by the knowledge of Himself shall my righteous servant justify many; and He shall bear their iniquities. Therefore will I divide Him a portion with the great, and He shall divide the spoil with the strong; because He poured out His soul unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors: yet He bare the sin of many. And made intercession for the transgressors."+ In I Peter, 3:18 we read, +"Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring us to God; being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit."+ And in 1 Peter 2:24 we read, +"Who His own self bare our sins in His own body upon the tree, that we, having died unto sins, might live unto righteousness; by whose stripes ye were healed."+ Now the meaning of these verses and many other verses, is inescapable. They teach in language the meaning of which no one can misunderstand (unless he is determined not to see) that the death of Jesus Christ was a vicarious atonement, that is, a just one, who deserved to live, dying in the place of unjust ones who deserved to die. It was, to use the language of the Los Angeles minister who denied his belief in it, "an atonement of blood and recompense." This is God's doctrine of the Atonement versus the Unitarian and Christian Science doctrine of the Atonement.
2. But this is not all. We are further taught that _He died as a ransom, that is, His death was the price paid to redeem others from death_. He Himself says so. His own words are, +"The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many."+ If His life was not a ransom, that is to say, if He did not redeem others from death by dying in their place, then He was the greatest fool in the whole history of this universe. Was He a fool or was He a ransom? No one who in any real sense can be said to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ can hesitate as to his answer.
3. But even this is not all. The Bible distinctly tells us that _He died as a sin offering, i.e., it was on the ground of His death, and on this ground alone, that forgiveness of sin is made possible for and offered to sinners_. This we are told in the 53rd chapter of Isaiah, to which reference has already been made. In the 10th verse it is written, +"Yet it pleased Jehovah to bruise him; He+ (i.e., Jehovah) +hath put him to grief+ (literally, made him sick): +when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of Jehovah shall prosper in his hand."+ Now the meaning of "_offering for sin_" is unquestionable to any one who has studied the Old Testament offerings. An "offering for sin" or a "guilt offering," which is the exact force of the Hebrew word translated "an offering for sin," was a death of a sacrificial victim on the ground of which pardon was offered to sinners (Lev. 6:6-10, R. V.). The Holy Spirit says expressly in Heb. 9:22, in words the meaning of which is unmistakable, and the force of which is inescapable, "_Apart from shedding of blood_ there is no remission," and the whole context in which the passage is found shows that the blood, to which all the blood of the Old Testament types as sacrifices pointed forward, was the blood of Jesus Christ. So then the Word of God declares that apart from the shedding of the blood of Jesus Christ there is absolutely no pardon for sin. There is absolutely no forgiveness outside the atoning blood of Christ. Without Christ's atoning blood every member of the human race must have perished forever.