When many people think of Christianity and Judaism, they assume that Judaism is the older of the two religions and that Christianity branched off from it. In a broad sense, it is true that God’s covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob precedes the coming of Jesus Christ. However, when looking at the form of Judaism practiced today—post-Temple, rabbinic Judaism—it becomes clear that Christianity is actually the older system of faith. Christianity is rooted directly in the sacrificial system established by God and fulfilled in Jesus the Messiah, while modern Judaism developed in response to the catastrophic loss of the Temple in 70 CE. Thus, Christianity alone preserves the essential element of blood atonement required by God from the earliest days of Genesis.
The Jewish faith before 70 CE was centered on the Temple in Jerusalem. Worship revolved around the sacrificial system described in the Torah, especially in Leviticus. Daily sacrifices, offerings for sin, the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), and countless rituals depended upon a functioning priesthood and a consecrated Temple. As Leviticus 17:11 plainly states, “For 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.” Without the shedding of blood on the altar, there was no forgiveness for sins according to the Law of Moses. Sacrificial atonement was not optional; it was the divine means established by God Himself.
Christianity emerged during this period of Temple-centered Judaism, not after it. In 28 CE—exactly as predicted centuries earlier by the prophet Daniel in Daniel 9:24-27—Jesus of Nazareth began His public ministry, proclaiming that the Kingdom of God was at hand. His teachings, miracles, death, and resurrection fulfilled the promises and types set forth in the Hebrew Scriptures. Far from abolishing the Law, Jesus fulfilled it (Matthew 5:17), offering Himself as the once-for-all sacrifice for sin. As John the Baptist declared when he saw Jesus, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29).
The substitutionary nature of Jesus’ sacrifice was not a new concept, but rather the fulfillment of a pattern established long before. When God tested Abraham by asking him to sacrifice his beloved son Isaac, Abraham obediently prepared to do so. Yet at the crucial moment, God intervened, providing a ram caught in a thicket as a substitute for Isaac (Genesis 22:13). This event was a powerful foreshadowing of what God Himself would later do: provide a substitute to take the place of sinners. Jesus, the Son of God, became the true Lamb provided by God—not merely to spare one life, but to save all who believe in Him.
Jesus’ death on the cross during Passover week in 30 CE was the ultimate blood atonement. The writer of the New Testament book of Hebrews explains this point extensively: “Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins” (Hebrews 9:22). Jesus’ own blood, unlike the repeated animal sacrifices of the Temple, was pure, sinless, and infinitely sufficient. His resurrection three days later validated His claim to be the Son of God and the final High Priest who entered the true heavenly sanctuary, not merely an earthly copy.
Christianity, then, is the continuation and fulfillment of the faith begun with Abraham, shaped by Moses, and prophesied by Isaiah, Jeremiah, and the other Hebrew prophets. It is the direct outgrowth of God’s revealed plan of redemption that started in Genesis, when God promised that the seed of the woman would crush the serpent’s head (Genesis 3:15). In contrast, after the Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE, Judaism was forced to undergo a major transformation.
With no Temple, no altar, and no priesthood, the system God had established for worship and atonement could no longer function. In the absence of the Temple, rabbinic Judaism developed. The rabbis redefined the terms of covenant faithfulness, shifting emphasis from sacrificial atonement to prayer, repentance, and good deeds as the means of maintaining a relationship with God. Over centuries, this reinterpretation became mainstream Judaism as we know it today.
Unfortunately, the new Judaism that developed after the destruction of the Temple was a manmade creation. The rabbis, no matter how well-intentioned, did not have the authority to change what God had revealed about redemption to Moses and the prophets. The post-Temple redefinition presented a theological problem. Nowhere in the Torah does God authorize substituting prayer or good deeds for blood sacrifice. The Law is clear: atonement requires blood. The destruction of the Temple did not change God’s requirements; it only removed the means by which sinners under the Law could meet them. Therefore, according to the original biblical standards, post-Temple Judaism lacks the God-ordained mechanism for atonement.
Christianity, on the other hand, offers the fulfillment rather than the abandonment of the sacrificial system. Jesus’ death satisfies the Torah’s requirements completely. As the Apostle Paul wrote to early believers, “Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed” (1 Corinthians 5:7). In Jesus, the shadow of the sacrificial system finds its substance. The blood of bulls and goats could never permanently remove sin (Hebrews 10:4), but the blood of Christ cleanses the conscience and reconciles the believer to God.
In this light, Christianity must be seen not as a new religion but as the divinely intended completion of the old, a faith older in its adherence to God’s revealed plan than the rabbinic system developed after 70 CE. Christianity remains the only faith that continues to offer blood atonement as God originally required—a sacrifice not repeated endlessly, but offered once and for all by Jesus Christ, the perfect Lamb of God.
For those seeking reconciliation with their Creator, only Christianity presents the full picture: God’s demand for justice met by God’s provision of mercy. From Genesis to Revelation, the Bible speaks with one voice: sin is serious, blood is necessary for atonement, and God’s love has provided the ultimate blood sacrifice. Christianity, faithful to God’s original revelation, offers what no other system can: real, effective, eternal atonement through the blood of the Messiah.
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