He Poured Out His Soul

Near the end of the name the LORD proclaimed to Moses stands a sentence that seems to close every door: “clearing he will not clear.” The day is fixed, and the righteous Judge will not call the guilty innocent. How, then, can the guilty be saved without God ceasing to be just?

Scripture’s answer is not a gentle one. It points straight to the blood. It follows one word, soul, again and again joined to blood, from the Torah to the words of Yeshua, and the blood reaches the last book of the Bible.

The Soul Is in the Blood

Leviticus 17:11 For the soul (nephesh נֶפֶשׁ neh'-fesh) of the flesh (basar בָּשָׂר baw-sawr') is in the blood, and I myself have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls (nephesh); for it is the blood that makes atonement by the soul (nephesh).

Three times in one verse the word is nephesh (נֶפֶשׁ), soul or life. “The soul (nephesh) of the flesh (basar) is in the blood.” The life of a living creature is in its blood, dam in Hebrew. And the LORD says that He Himself has given that blood “upon the altar to make atonement for your souls.” The word for atonement is kaphar (כָּפַר), and the blood makes that atonement “by the soul.”

A soul is given for souls. This verse is the hinge on which the whole answer turns, and it is the meaning of the altar. When the blood was poured out on the altar, a life was poured out, a soul given for the souls of those who brought it. This is why the Torah forbade eating blood, as Book 1 showed from Leviticus 17: the blood belongs to the altar, because the soul is in it.

The Servant Poured Out His Soul

Centuries after Leviticus, Isaiah saw a Servant of the LORD whose own soul would be the offering.

Isaiah 53:10-12 Yet the LORD was pleased to crush him, he made him sick; when his soul (nephesh) makes a guilt offering, he shall see seed, he shall prolong days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand. After the toil of his soul (nephesh) he shall see light and be satisfied; by his knowledge (daat) my righteous servant shall make many righteous, and he himself shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide him a portion among the many, and with the mighty he shall divide spoil; because he poured out his soul (nephesh) to death, and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and for the transgressors he made intercession.

“When his soul (nephesh) makes a guilt offering.” The word is asham אָשָׁם aw-shawm', the guilt offering of Leviticus, brought when someone had done wrong and owed a debt. Here the offering is not an animal brought by the guilty. It is the soul of the Servant Himself.

“He poured out his soul (nephesh) to death.” The verb is he’erah, to pour out, to lay bare: he emptied out his soul even to death. The nephesh that Leviticus said was in the blood is the very thing the Servant pours out.

And the result is spoken in the language of knowing: it is “by his knowledge (daat)” that the righteous Servant makes many righteous, and he himself bears their iniquities. Daat comes from yada, the word of knowing that runs from Adam and Eve to “you shall know the LORD.”

Here is the answer to the question we began with. The LORD does not clear the guilty by pretending they are innocent. Their iniquities are borne. “He bore the sin of many, and for the transgressors he made intercession.” The justice of the name proclaimed to Moses is not set aside. It is carried by the Servant.

The Shepherd Lays Down His Soul

When Yeshua spoke of Himself as the Good Shepherd, He used the Greek word for nephesh.

John 10:11 I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His psyche ψυχή psoo-khay'(soul) for the sheep.

John 10:17-18 For this reason the Father agapao ἀγαπάω ag-ap-ah'-o(loves) Me, because I lay down My psyche(soul) so that I may take it again. No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative; I have exousia ἐξουσία ex-oo-see'-ah(authority) to lay it down and I have exousia(authority) to take it up again; this commandment I received from My Father."

The word is psyche, soul, which the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures regularly uses for nephesh. It is the word that Greek translation uses for nephesh in Leviticus 17:11 and in Isaiah 53. The verb is tithemi, to lay down, to set down. Isaiah’s Servant “poured out his soul”; the Shepherd says, “I lay down My psyche(soul).”

He adds what no animal on the altar could ever say. “No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative.” The life is not taken from Him. He gives it. And He gives it in obedience: “this commandment I received from My Father.” Even the laying down of His soul is the keeping of a commandment, and He names it as the reason the Father loves Him: “For this reason the Father agapao(loves) Me, because I lay down My psyche(soul).”

This is the love He named in John 15:13: “Greater agape ἀγάπη ag-ah'-pay(love) has no one than this, that one lay down his psyche(soul) for his philos φίλος fee'-los(friends).” He taught that love, and He did it.

God So Loved

John 3:16 For God so agapao(loved) the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, so that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal zoe ζωή dzo-ay'(life).

The Father’s love is measured by what He gave: “His only-begotten Son.” The Son’s love is measured by what He laid down: His own soul. It is one love, from the Father and the Son, poured out in one act.

On the night He was handed over, Yeshua took the cup and named what was about to happen.

Matthew 26:28 for this is My blood of the new covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins.

“Poured out” is ekchynomenon, the word for pouring, as blood is poured at the altar. The blood of the covenant is poured out “for many,” the same many whose sin Isaiah’s Servant bore. And it is poured out “for forgiveness of sins.” The word for forgiveness is aphesis, release, a setting free. The guilty are released, not because their guilt is ignored, but because blood has been poured out for them.

Him Who Loves Us

The last book of the Bible opens with a greeting that gathers all of this into one line.

Revelation 1:5 and from Yeshua Messiah, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth — to Him who agapao(loves) us and has washed us from our sins by His blood

In the Byzantine Majority Text (Robinson–Pierpont 2018), the reference text of the YLV, “loves” is agaponti, in the present tense: He is still loving us. The washing in His blood was done; the loving goes on.

The Line Through Part Three

The Song said that love is “strong as death” and its jealousy “hard as Sheol.” Many waters cannot quench it, and its flame is a flame of Yah. Hosea showed that love going after a wife of harlotries, buying her back, speaking to her heart, and crying, “How shall I give you up?” The one God, the only Savior and the only Husband called His people to know no other. Because He is long of nostrils, slow to anger, His patience waited for the Amorite, for the world in the days of Noah, for Nineveh and for us, not wishing that any should perish, and the Son wept over the city that refused Him. And still the day is fixed, great and terrible.

All of it meets at the cross. There the love that is strong as death went into death. The Son poured out His soul in blood, so that the righteous God who will not clear the guilty could release them without ceasing to be righteous. Nephesh and dam in Leviticus, nephesh in Isaiah, psyche and blood in the words of Yeshua, and blood again in Revelation form one line from the Torah to the end of the Bible.

That love asks for an answer. After He rose from the dead, Yeshua stood on the shore of the Sea of Tiberias and asked one of His disciples three times whether he loved Him. Each time the disciple answered, Yeshua gave him a command about His sheep.