Anthropological: With the recent discussion of Jesus bleeding at every pore (verse 7) that event clearly creates the framework for understanding this verse. In verse 7 Jesus bleeds. Here is blood is atoning. From our modern perspective, this highlights the atoning significance of Gethsemane. For Benjamin’s audience, however, the very idea of the efficacy of blood was laced with powerful cultural meaning:
"Blood was the mortar of ancient Maya ritual life. The Maya let blood on every important occasion in the life of the individual and in the life of the community. It was the substance offered by kings and other nobility to seal ceremonial events…After the birth of an heir, the king performed a blood sacrifice, drawing his own substance as a offering to his ancestors. Human sacrifice, offered to sanctify the installation of a king in office, was in some cases recorded as a vital part of accession imager…At death, Maya kings were placed in richly furnished tombs that often displayed the imagery o the watery Underworld, their walls painted the color of blood or in blood symbols. In the Maya view, none of these behaviors was bizarre or exotic but necessary to sustain the world (Schele, Linda and Mary Ellen Miller. The Blood of Kings. George Braziller, Inc. 1986. p. 14-15).
While we understand that the best evidence upon which this conclusion rests was post-Book of Mormon, yet the seeds appear to have gone deep, and it is not hasty to assume that these conceptions about the vital power of blood would have been part of the Mesoamerican cultural milieu at the time of Benjamin.
In Benjamin’s discourse, the emphasis is on the atoning power of Jesus’ blood. While his people would have been culturally disposed to attribute other-worldly power to blood, this particular function was not part of the Mesoamerican use. Thus Benjamin is separating this aspect of Christ’s mission from the possible associations with the other conceptions of the power of blood among his people. It would be very easy for them to assume that Christ’s sacrifice fit into the mold of the kingly sacrifices of the Mesoamerican kings. That would be a grave mistake, and Benjamin reiterates the atoning power of the Messiah in association with his blood, which would be understood as a medium that made the atonement effective.
Scriptural: Benjamin notes that Christ’s sacrifice is universal. It covers even those who know nothing of it – those who might be described as “without law.” The specific mention of those who sin in ignorance relates specifically to this type of person who may commit sins according to the law, but may be forgiven such transgressions because they never knew of the law.
While there may be sins so heinous as to constitute a universal law, these are not the focus here, and the conception of sin relates to the will of the person who sins. It is less the action than the choice of the individual. Where the correct choice is known, not making the correct choice is imputed as sin. Where the correct choice is not known, the action may not be considered sin. Therefore the real focus of sin is not, nor should be, on the specific action, but rather on the intent and will of the actor. As has been noted before, this emphasis on the intent rather than the action is the main focus of the Savior’s discourse on the Sermon on the Mount (see Matthew 5).