‘Eternity’ is a very different dimensional experience to the linear time we inhabit as human beings.
In a mystical way, the cross of Christ is the very CENTRE of time; everything ‘explodes’ out from it in every direction, back into the past all the way to the very beginning, and all the way into the future, until the very end of it. Jesus could therefore forgive sins before the actual physical event of the crucifixion in earthly linear time, because He is the ‘Lamb slain before the foundation of the world’.
From an eternal perspective, He always had that authority to forgive sins, because the cross was the plan of redemption for sinful ‘Adam’s seeds’ before anything was even created. Secondly, because the life force of any creature is actually IN the blood, it carries great value in the spirit, even though it is ‘of’ the physical realm. There has always been great spiritual power and value in blood, especially in ‘innocent’ blood, hence the gory practice of child or virgin sacrifice in certain cultures, for sorcerers and witch doctors et al have long harnessed spiritual power from it, unto their own occultic ends.
The trouble is that with ANY human blood, is it carries what I’d call ‘corruption’, or ‘pollution’, all because of sin (hence the value placed on children or virgins, for they were less prone to this corruption and therefore their blood held more power to those who knew how to harness it)… basically, the longer we live, the more exponential the corruption, for the more sins we accumulate as time enhances.
In the first covenant God made with Israel, He made a way for transgressors of His law to ‘transmute’ the sin onto an animal sacrifice, so the sinner could find forgiveness. Animal blood is guiltless, but the blood does not have even nearly the same value as human blood, so it had to be repeated over again, sin by sin. Yet, it was all a parable of what would happen in the future, with His Son…the concept of the innocent for the guilty played out unto it’s fullest. In the Jewish law, the animal would ‘bear the sin’ of the transgressor, then be sacrificed and burnt, for the innocent blood of the animal would ‘cover’ the guilt, and then the carcass of the animal had to be destroyed in a special way. The theological word for this concept is ‘atonement’. This was a flawed system that Israel took advantage of, of course, but that’s another story. God’s response to human evil was to finally atone, once and for all time, ALL the corruption of human sin, by sending His Son to die as the ‘passover Lamb’. This was the second covenant, that God made with not only Israel, but with the whole world.
As you may well know, each of our own sins were then spiritually ‘transmuted’ onto Jesus, and He bears ‘hell’ on behalf of those who place their faith in Him. How can this work? Because He was entirely innocent… He never sinned, not even once, even as a child (incredible, but true!). He completely fulfilled the law of Moses perfectly. Why is this important? Because His blood was, is, and always will be forever without any CORRUPTION. In the spirit, there is nothing more valuable than that spilled divine blood… it can purchase anything; it can cleanse anything… it’s the strongest kind of spiritual ‘bleach’; it can turn sins as red as crimson into innocence whiter than snow.
Why then does God even require blood to forgive, you might ask?
Well, it’s the price that must be paid to redeem from sin. It’s VERY costly to buy back innocence. Can someone who loses their virginity ever buy it back? Can imperfection ever be made perfect again in it’s own strength? It’s all kind of mirrored in our own earthly justice system; to bail someone out of a serious crime can cost millions! And even then, their guilt remains, they just bought extra time to sort out their affairs etc.
But God’s righteous wrath on all sinful humanity is completely satisfied in the excruciating death of His OWN innocent Son; the Judge pays our bail (as criminals on death row) by getting His Son to take the blame and brunt the burden of payment, because His Son has also been given the authority by Him to rise again from the dead. You might have heard that the wages of sin is death; but death has no claim on a sinless murder victim 😉 Thus, the debt was paid! And Christ defeated death, satan and hell at the same time as redeeming all those who recognise their need for a Saviour.
In one fell swoop, Jesus turned everything on it’s head, because of the power in His blood. There is nothing more precious or valuable than the blood shed by the Son of God at Calvary, on behalf of everyone who acknowledges Him as Lord and repents from their evil ways.
I absolutely admit that it is very mysterious, but one day, coming very soon, all shall be revealed, and those who have questions now will have everything answered to it’s fullest then.