For those raised in the Jewish culture of Jesus Christ’s time, blood was the cleanser of sin.[i] Jesus took upon himself the sins of the world and all the worlds of God’s creations.[ii] He was therefore dirty, with the blood and sins of his people.[iii] Because of his filthiness, He could not enter the Kingdom of Heaven, where God, the Father dwells, because no unclean thing can dwell therein.[iv]
He himself was without sin, therefore He was the perfect One to atone[v] for our sins or reconcile[vi]us with God, the Father, from whom we have been estranged by sin[vii] and rebellion, breaking our covenants with Him that we have made of our own free will. The atonement was the taking upon us of all our sins, infirmities, sickness of every kind, death and suffering in all its various protean miseries.[viii]
So how did Christ, now filthy with our sins, cleanse Himself. We do not know the fullness of His power to do so, since we live in a corrupted, world, with corrupted thoughts[ix], corrupted speech[x]. We will understand more, perhaps not all when we pass through the veil and enter His divine presence. However, we can see with our mind’s eye, our spiritual eyes, the now sinful blood of all the worlds’ peoples of every time of every creation, dripping out of his pores in Gethsemane[xi], hemorrhaging out of his stripes on his back, his wounds in his hands, wrists, feet and side. So He expelled the blood so full of sin, and Mother Earth, the great recycler, and cleanser swallowed it all up. So His remaining blood, which was very little, was now clean of the blood and sins of the worlds.
He gave His life freely as a ransom for sin; and to swallow the sting of death, He rose from the dead on the third day by the power given to Him by God[xii], the Father. We do not understand the power of the resurrection either, waiting for further light on this subject when we pass through the veil. But it is not merely returning to life like Lazarus, or Talitha, or the son of the widow of Nain.[xiii]All these would have to die again and wait in Paradise, the world of the righteous spirits, the resurrection later.
The most enduring symbol of early Christianity, is not the cross, the mechanism of His death, or the Fish, the anachronism of His sacred name, but the empty tomb. Having been guarded by Roman soldiers under orders inspired by the fears of the Sanhedrin, it was sealed with Christ’s mutilated body inside and opened by angels and an earthquake. The guards deserted their post afraid for their very lives, having seen otherworldly things. Normally, they would have stayed with lesser threats, because desertion of one’s post carried with it punishment by death. The Sanhedrin covered for them, however and their lives were spared. Christ had forgiven all the Roman soldiers, and perhaps the Sanhedrin and others, when He said on the cross, “Father, forgive them for they known not what they do.”[xiv]
So His precious, but mutilated body, did not disintegrate into dust to be blown around the world like the rest of us. Rising from death in glory, His glorified, purified, resurrected body went back to God, the Father who gave Him life in the first place. His veins now flowed with the Holy Ghost.[xv]The lifeblood having been spilt from Gethsemane to the Cross, the veins now empty of sinful blood flowed with divine energy.[xvi]
So what became of His blood on the ground in Gethsemane, the Roman flogging, the way of the cross, Calgary, and the empty tomb. It disintegrated into dust. Golgotha, on a hill[xvii], would put his bloody dust into the air to spread around the world by winds.[xviii] Eventually over millennia of time, the dust would fall on farmer’s fields, and become incorporated into plants, and all living things. We are all made of the dust of the earth. From dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return.[xix] Jesus said in his High Priestly prayer at the Last Supper, speaking spiritually: “I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”[xx]
[i] Hebrews 9:22 “And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission.” (of sins)
[ii] Alma 7:11-12 11 And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people.
12 And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities.
[iii] Isaiah 1:15-16 15 When you spread out your hands in prayer,
I hide my eyes from you;
even when you offer many prayers,
I am not listening.
Your hands are full of blood!
16 Wash and make yourselves clean.
Take your evil deeds out of my sight;
stop doing wrong.
17 Learn to do right; seek justice.
Defend the oppressed.
Take up the cause of the fatherless;
plead the case of the widow.
18 “Come now, let us settle the matter,”
says the Lord.
“Though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red as crimson,
they shall be like wool.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah+1
[iv] 1 Nephi 10:21 “Wherefore, if ye have sought to do wickedly in the days of your probation, then ye are found unclean before the judgment-seat of God; and no unclean thing can dwell with God; wherefore, ye must be cast off forever.”
[v] Kaphar in Hebrew means to cover up. See Strong’s Concordance in http://biblehub.com/hebrew/3722a.htm
[vi] katallagé in Greek means to bring two separated parties together again, or reconciliation. See Strong’s Concordance in http://biblehub.com/greek/2643.htm
[vii]Hustereó in Greek or sin in English means to fall short of one’s goal which in this case means to fall short of returning to the presence of God the Father because we have broken his commandments and are no longer pure, clean and perfect (a Greek word meaning completing the course of requirements necessary to be an initiate in the temple). New Living Translation Romans 3:23 “For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.”
[viii] Alma 7:11-13 “And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people.”
[ix] Isaiah 55:8-9 “My thoughts are not your thoughts” https://www.lds.org/scriptures/ot/isa/55.8-9?lang=eng
[x]Isaiah 6:5-7 “Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips” https://www.lds.org/scriptures/ot/isa/6.5-7?lang=eng#4
[xi] JAMA article on capillaries bursting under great duress to cause one to sweat blood. “On the Physical Death of Jesus Christ”, William D. Edwards, MD; Wesley J. Gabel, MD; Floyd E. Hosmer, MS, AMI JAMA March 21, 1986—Vol 255, No. 11
[xii] John 10:18 American King James Version “No man takes it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.”
[xiii] Mark 5:41, Luke 7:11-17, John 11:38-53
[xiv] Luke 23:34
[xv] D&C 130:22, 1 Corinthians 15:50. “All being raised by the power of God having the spirit of God in their bodies & not blood.” See Ehat and Cook, Words of Joseph Smith, 109, 260-270.
[xvi] ibid
[xvii] Had his body and blood been buried in a grave, it would never have seen the light of day, since most areas on the planet accumulate dirt over time and get buried deeper. Being on a hilltop, the old dried disintegrated blood dust could easily be carried away by the prevailing winds. See the following links for information on how dust blows around the world.
[xviii] http://www.nasa.gov/content/a-portrait-of-global-winds Chinese dust falls on California. See http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/03/31/17541864-dust-from-chinese-storm-reaches-central-california African dust falls on southern Florida and even Texas. See https://weather.com/science/weather-explainers/news/saharan-dust-africa-caribbean-gulf-of-mexico
[xix] Genesis 3:19
[xx] John 17:20-21 as quoted in NIV at http://biblehub.com/niv/john/17.htm