Yes, the shedding of blood is precisely the giving of life. Something to note is that Christ gave His life not just on the cross, but during his whole incarnation (and even now, as it is the nature of God to give).

The giving of a life as pure as Christ's could only result in His death, and we can recall that on a number of occasions Christ would have been killed had it not been for the supervision of God.

Taking this metaphor to texts that tell us of Christ's blood in heaven, we can equally conclude that this is dealing with His life. So when we are told that Christ is pleading His blood, we understand He is pleading His life. But why would He need to plead before the Father, since the Father already knows what He did?

Just some thoughts. Don't know if this thread is the right place for them, but seemed to follow from earlier ones.

A comment about history. A famous saying goes those who are ignorant of history are destined to repeat it.

Ideas do not originate from nowhere. A knowledge of the origin of an idea can help us evaluate the likelihood of its being true. It's not the only thing to consider, of course, but if a given idea really has its source in Scripture, there are certain historical facts that we would expect would follow from that.

For example, if we want to understand the meaning of the cross to those who wrote about it, we need to understand something of what it meant to those who lived in the time of Christ in the culture in which they lived. We can then take atonement models that developed later and see if they make sense in that context.

Also the point about persecution is a good one. Looking at the actions, in terms of persecuting those who did not agree with the ones promoting the ideas the persecutors had, causes certain questions to come up regarding those ideas. To give an example we would all agree on, believing in an immortal soul.

Of course, one would need to know something about history to make an evaluation like this. To conclude that someone in the past could not hold the idea we do because if they did they wouldn't have persecuted those who disagreed with them, without considering what actually happened, isn't candidly looking at the facts. As EGW tells us, the truth fears nothing from investigation.

One final quick thought for teresaq, there are many models for the atonement. A common view is that there is truth in each of these models, and we can learn from gleaming truths from each of them. The author of the "Christus Victor" article agrees with this in general, but believes that Scripture lumps these models together under a basic organizing principle, that being what he calls the "Warfare" model (or, in past times, "Christus Victor" incorporated similar ideas), what we, as SDAs, would term "The Great Controversy."

So, to use our language, to answer the question, "Why did Christ die?" we could say "to win the Great Controversy."

Of course, that begs other questions...

Christ not only lived a self sacrificing life, He literally shed His blood and literally died.
The shedding of blood means dying in the literal sense.
Not just living a life of surrender.

The SUBSTITUTE
If God does not need Christ's blood and death to forgive sins,
then one cannot say Christ died in my stead, so I won't have to die the eternal death.
One could not say, if He didn't die, then I would have to die, since God can forgive, reinstate and save me without that death, He doesn't need that "kind" of blood, if I repent, reflect on His self sacrificing life, and am led by the Holy Spirit to conscrate my life to Him in a self sacrificing manner.

Many who did not know about the cross have sacrificed self for others.

A substitute death is a substitute death, to absorb the penalty of sin that would have fallen upon me, had He not absorbed it, it is not just an example of what sin could do.
It is necessary for the forgiveness of my sins, no matter how "self sacrificing" and loving I may become.

I know this is how we honor the Father in believing in this literal death of His Son. I agree it is important to not wash this down or dilute it as a role playing.

You know that in adventism we are taught about role playing, and that Christ Divinity didn't really died, but it was his humanity. To me, it's doesn't sound right and not in harmony with the Bible. Isn't Divinity suppose to be our subtitute?

some questions came to mind reading your post.

can God/divinity die? can man kill God/divinity?

if God could die, what is the only way that He could die?

My point regarding Christ's giving His life is not that He died (which, of course, He did) but that there is more meaning to this than that simply He died.

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how did you get from the bible verse to your conclusion? please dont start pointing the finger at me-by the way there is a bible verse for that should anyone be interested-by calling me toms follower or accusing me of believing in things i only vaguely know about. im called on to give impromptu bible studies on a regular basis with various people i have come to know, and im here to tell you they can come up with some doozies of questions. if i started attacking them for their questions because they arent seeing what i see how many people would i be driving away from the bible?

this particular verse says to me that adams sin, and consequently our sin because we will sin brings death. that sin brings death. i cant see anything in that verse that says the moral law demands death along the lines of if you steal you will go to jail. it reads more to me that it is saying if one steals pretty soon no one will trust that one, to mention one consequence.

(this author is covering both justification and sanctification and denying neither.)

are you basically saying that Christs whole life was a sacrifice for us? not just His death?

do you see His whole life and death as a substitute for ours?

another thought:

This sounds like an interesting one. What are you thinking, Teresa?