Bible topic
Context coverage
Passages in context
Current coverage includes Exodus, Hebrews, Leviticus.
The Bible presents Jesus’ death as a decisive, God-provided act that deals with sin and opens the way for reconciliation. It is described as a sacrifice that demonstrates God’s justice and love at the same time. Christians differ on how to explain the inner logic of how the cross accomplishes this, but Romans ties it to forgiveness, restored relationship, and a new life under grace.
This theme appears in passages such as Leviticus, Hebrews, Exodus, where the Bible develops it through story, instruction, warning, and promise. In Leviticus 1:3–4, a worshiper who brings a herd animal for a whole-burnt offering must present a flawless male at the entrance of the tent of meeting. The offering is brought in a way aimed at being accepted before Yahweh. In Hebrews 2:17–18, the writer explains why the Son had to become fully like “his brothers.” Sharing their real human life qualifies him to act as a high priest for them: merciful toward their weakness and faithful in representing them in matters related to God.
Start with Leviticus 1:3-4, Hebrews 2:17-18, Exodus 12:7, then follow the related passages in their own setting before drawing broad conclusions.
A theme page is strongest when it follows the Bible's own contexts. The goal is not to collect matching words, but to see how repeated ideas develop across passages, books, and the whole biblical story.
13The blood shall be to you for a token on the houses where you are: and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and there shall no plague be on you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.
7They shall take same of the blood, and put it on the two side-posts and on the lintel, on the houses in which they shall eat it.
10Aaron shall make atonement on its horns once in the year; with the blood of the sin offering of atonement once in the year he shall make atonement for it throughout your generations. It is most holy to Yahweh."
11Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying,
12"When you take a census of the children of Israel, according to those who are numbered among them, then each man shall give a ransom for his soul to Yahweh, when you number them; that there be no plague among them when you number them.
13They shall give this, everyone who passes over to those who are numbered, half a shekel after the shekel of the sanctuary; (the shekel is twenty gerahs;) half a shekel for an offering to Yahweh.
14Everyone who passes over to those who are numbered, from twenty years old and upward, shall give the offering to Yahweh.
15The rich shall not give more, and the poor shall not give less, than the half shekel, when they give the offering of Yahweh, to make atonement for your souls.
16You shall take the atonement money from the children of Israel, and shall appoint it for the service of the tent of meeting; that it may be a memorial for the children of Israel before Yahweh, to make atonement for your souls."
17Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying,
18"You shall also make a basin of brass, and the base of it of brass, in which to wash. You shall put it between the tent of meeting and the altar, and you shall put water in it.
19Aaron and his sons shall wash their hands and their feet in it.
20When they go into the tent of meeting, they shall wash with water, that they not die; or when they come near to the altar to minister, to burn an offering made by fire to Yahweh.
21So they shall wash their hands and their feet, that they not die: and it shall be a statute forever to them, even to him and to his descendants throughout their generations."
30It happened on the next day, that Moses said to the people, "You have sinned a great sin. Now I will go up to Yahweh. Perhaps I shall make atonement for your sin."
31Moses returned to Yahweh, and said, "Oh, this people have sinned a great sin, and have made themselves gods of gold.
32Yet now, if you will, forgive their sin-- and if not, please blot me out of your book which you have written."
11Every priest indeed stands day by day ministering and often offering the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins,
12but he, when he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God;
13henceforth expecting until his enemies to be made the footstool of his feet.
14For by one offering he has perfected forever those who are sanctified.
15The Holy Spirit also testifies to us, for after he has said,
16"This is the covenant that I will make with them: `After those days,` says the Lord, `I will put my laws on their heart, I will also write them on their mind;`" then,
17"I will remember their sins and their iniquities no more."
18Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin.
19Having therefore, brothers, boldness to enter into the holy place by the blood of Jesus,
20by the way which he dedicated for us, a new and living way, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh;
21and having a great priest over the house of God;
22let us draw near with a true heart in fullness of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and having our body washed with pure water,
1For the law, having a shadow of the good to come, not the very image of the things, can never with the same sacrifices year by year, which they offer continually, make perfect those who draw near.
2Or else wouldn`t they have ceased to be offered, because the worshippers, having been once cleansed, would have had no more consciousness of sins?
3But in those sacrifices there is a memory made of sins year by year.
4For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins.
5Therefore when he comes into the world, he says, "Sacrifice and offering you didn`t desire, But a body did you prepare for me;
6In whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin you had no pleasure.
7Then I said, `Behold, I have come (In the scroll of the book it is written of me) To do your will, God.`"
8Saying above, "Sacrifices and offerings and whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin you didn`t desire, neither had pleasure in them" (those which are offered according to the law),
9then has he said, "Behold, I have come to do your will." He takes away the first, that he may establish the second,
10by which will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
11For the bodies of those animals, whose blood is brought into the holy place by the high priest as an offering for sin, are burned outside of the camp.
12Therefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people through his own blood, suffered outside of the gate.
17Therefore he was obligated in all things to be made like his brothers, that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make atonement for the sins of the people.
18For in that he himself has suffered being tempted, he is able to help those who are tempted.
26For such a high priest was fitting for us: holy, guiltless, undefiled, separated from sinners, and made higher than the heavens;
27who doesn`t need, like those high priests, to daily offer up sacrifices, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. For this he did once for all, when he offered up himself.
28For the law appoints men high priests, having infirmity; but the word of the oath, which was after the law, appoints a Son, perfected forevermore.
11But Christ having come as a high priest of the coming good things, through the greater and more perfect tent, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation,
12nor yet through the blood of goats and calves, but through his own blood, entered in once for all into the Holy Place, having obtained eternal redemption.
13For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled, sanctify to the cleanness of the flesh:
14how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
23It was necessary therefore that the copies of the things in the heavens should be cleansed with these; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.
24For Christ entered not into a holy place made with hands, similar in pattern to the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear before the face of God for us;
25nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest enters into the holy place year by year with blood not his own,
26or else he must have suffered often since the foundation of the world. But now once at the end of the ages, he has been revealed to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.
27Inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once, and after this, judgment,
28so Christ also, having been once offered to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, without sin, to those who are eagerly waiting for him for salvation.
3If his offering is a burnt offering of the herd, he shall offer it a male without blemish. He shall offer it at the door of the tent of meeting, that he may be accepted before Yahweh.
4He shall lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering, and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him.
29It shall be a statute forever to you: in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you shall afflict your souls, and shall do no manner of work, the home-born, or the stranger who sojourns among you:
30for on this day shall atonement be made for you, to cleanse you; from all your sins shall you be clean before Yahweh.
31It is a Sabbath of solemn rest to you, and you shall afflict your souls; it is a statute forever.
11For the life of the flesh is in the blood; and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that makes atonement by reason of the life.
20Thus shall he do with the bull; as he did with the bull of the sin-offering, so shall he do with this; and the priest shall make atonement for them, and they shall be forgiven.
10He shall offer the second for a burnt offering, according to the ordinance; and the priest shall make atonement for him as concerning his sin which he has sinned, and he shall be forgiven.
13The priest shall make atonement for him as touching his sin that he has sinned in any of these things, and he shall be forgiven: and [the remnant] shall be the priest`s, as the meal-offering.