Blood has a very short life span. The average person has about ten pints of blood in his or her body. Over half of it is liquid, called plasma and most of the rest of it is made up of red cells, which die after 120 days and are constantly being replaced. In contrast, the most durable thing on earth is probably gold. Not even salt water affects it – even if it lies in it for centuries.

These facts make a comment by Peter, the leading Christian apostle, seem very strange:

“It was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed … but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.” (1 Peter 1:18-19, NIV)

Gold is not perishable, whereas, blood certainly is. But, Peter knew what he was talking about and meant to startle us into seeing a tremendous truth. The world thinks money is everything, but Peter intended us to see that it has no spiritual value what-so-ever. There are no spiritual cash payment bargains. In real terms, only the Blood of Jesus has lasting value. When heaven and earth vanish, the redeeming power of Christ’s Blood will continue.

Like everything ever believed, the Gospel has its critics. People scorn it as a “Gospel of gore,” “a slaughterhouse religion.” But, twisting and abusing it does not change truth. If we preach Christ at all, there is only One we can preach – the crucified Christ. The great fact about Him is that He died for us. We are worth nothing except what we cost God. People are seeking truth, and here it is – the Son of God loved us and gave Himself for us. That love is not a theory, but a fact of history. It is the ultimate truth the philosophers seek. Love is beyond reason; it “passes understanding.” God’s heart made His mind up. His love story has a never ending happy end.

What do those who want Christianity without Christ’s blood have to offer us instead? A bloodless faith is an anemic faith – just nice words and sentiment. The hymns that speak of His blood may have been taken out of the hymnbooks, but it is still in our Bibles. The only faith the Bible knows is concerned with what Jesus did. He threw Himself headlong into the battle with death – and not for His benefit, but for ours. Is His blood now unmentionable? How can we be so delicate? The earth around us still reeks with the blood of the 200 million people who have been slaughtered in wars last century. Should God distance Himself from that? How could He? Must He speak in bloodless terms? What could He do without blood in such a world that is anything but bloodless? Only a wounded Christ can come to a wounded world. Our kind of world needs that kind of Savior.