| Geneva Study Bible For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul. Wesley's Notes 17:11 Is in the blood - Depends upon the blood, is preserved and nourished by it. The blood maketh atonement - Typically, and in respect of the blood of Christ which it represented, by which the atonement is really made. So the reason is double; because this was eating up the ransom of their own lives, which in construction was the destroying of themselves. because it was ingratitude and irreverence towards that sacred blood of Christ which they ought to have in continual veneration. Scofield Reference Notes [1] altar (1) The value of the "life" is the measure of the value of the "blood." This gives the blood of Christ its inconceivable value. When it was shed the sinless God-man gave His life. "It is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats could take away sins" Heb 10:4. (2) it is not the blood in the veins of the sacrifice, but the blood upon the altar which is efficacious. The Scripture knows nothing of salvation by the imitation or influence of Christ's life, but only by that life yielded up on the cross. [2] blood The meaning of all sacrifice is here explained. Every offering was an execution of the sentence of the law upon a substitute for the offender, and every such offering pointed forward to that substitutional death of Christ which alone vindicated the righteousness of God in passing over the sins of those who offered the typical sacrifices Rom 3:24,25 Ex 29:36. Margin atonement See Scofield Note: "Ex 29:33". Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary 11. the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls-God, as the sovereign author and proprietor of nature, reserved the blood to Himself and allowed men only one use of it-in the way of sacrifices. Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary 17:10-16 Here is a confirmation of the law against eating blood. They must eat no blood. But this law was ceremonial, and is now no longer in force; the coming of the substance does away the shadow. The blood of beasts is no longer the ransom, but Christ's blood only; therefore there is not now the reason for abstaining there then was. The blood is now allowed for the nourishment of our bodies; it is no longer appointed to make an atonement for the soul. Now the blood of Christ makes atonement really and effectually; to that, therefore, we must have regard, and not consider it as a common thing, or treat it with indifference. | 
