PRECIOUS BLOOD
‘Forty years ago, when 10-year-old Thomas went into the University Hospital of Geneva with a routine childhood infection, his blood test revealed something very curious: He appeared to be missing an entire blood-group system. Thomas seemed to be lacking all the Rh antigens. If this suspicion proved correct, it would make his blood type Rhnull—one of the rarest in the world, and a phenomenal discovery for the hospital hematologists. Only 43 people with Rhnull blood had been reported worldwide.
Until the 1960s, doctors had assumed that an embryo missing all Rh blood-cell antigens would not survive, let alone grow into a normal, thriving adult.
Hardly able to believe what she was seeing, Dr Marie-José Stelling, then head of the hematology and immunohematology laboratory at the University Hospital of Geneva, sent Thomas’ blood for analysis in Amsterdam and then in Paris. The results confirmed her findings: Thomas had Rhnull blood. And with that, he had instantly become infinitely precious to medicine and science.’(1)
Precious blood is a central theme in the Bible- where the reference is to Jesus’s blood, shed on the cross for all mankind.
For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. (1Peter 1:18,19)
Contrasting with the precious metals highly valued by men, Peter makes the assertion that the blood of Christ is infinitely more precious. Why is that so?
Firstly, the blood of Christ obtains its value primarily not from men but from God. Even precious metals fluctuate in value depending on the value accorded to them by men from time to time. Value systems change with time and geography. Value differs between men and God. What is highly valuable among men might be detestable in the sight of God. In the eyes of God, no other physical material even comes close to the value given to the blood of Christ.
Secondly, the blood of Christ is that of God Himself. It is astonishing that the fullness of deity, could be found in the human body of one person- and that is what we see in Christ. A single human life into which the entire eternity, omniscience, power and wisdom of God is concentrated, is no doubt amazing.
Thirdly, the only person in the history of mankind to be without blemish shed this blood. Perfection was neither seen before nor after Christ. Born of a virgin by the Holy Spirit, without succumbing to temptation even once, Jesus alone qualified to represent the entire human race when He gave himself up on the cross.
Finally, He offered Himself up willingly on the Cross and became for us the sacrificial lamb, who would take away the sins of the world and grant us eternal life.
On that fateful day when Jesus died on the cross and shed his blood for us, it was truly the centerpiece of history- because at that moment God in his entirety, met with mankind in its entirety within the physical body of Jesus. The blood of Christ thereby became the eternal life-giver for man and hence the most precious commodity of earth.
Nothing else even comes close.
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/10/the-most-precious-blood-on-earth/381911/
