Notice that even when an animal is dead, God still considers the blood to be the life of the animal. In this verse, the meat is lifeless, and yet even then, the blood still represents the life. Blood is a symbol of the life, even after it is no longer within a living animal's body.
Now, let's carry this through. In a typical sin offering, the transgressor symbolically transfers his sin by laying his hand on an innocent substitute. The animal's blood, then, which represents life, becomes a representation of the sin being atoned for. In type, the blood becomes a record of the sin.
This ceremonial aspect of blood can be seen by comparing the instructions for the sin offering with other blood sacrifices. We won't turn to it, but in Leviticus 6:27, it says that if any of the blood of the sin offering was sprinkled or splattered on the priests' garments, they had to be washed. However, this was not necessary if the blood of either burnt offerings or peace offerings got on the priests' clothes, because those sacrifices did not involve sin. The blood from those sacrifices was not considered to be defiled. But in a sin offering, the life and the sin of the guilty party were transferred to the substitute, and since the blood is the life, the blood of the substitute was symbolically defiled.
Now, remember that the blood of the typical sin offering was placed on the horns of the altar. Because of what the blood represented, it is as though the horns of the golden altar became a repository for the sins of the priests and the congregation (see Leviticus 4:7, 18). The prophet Jeremiah describes all the accumulated blood and sin:
