The Doctrine of the Blood of Christ;
John 19:28-30
John
For the most part we will
not look at those verses in detail until we look at the aftermath of the
crucifixion: His removal from the cross and His burial. But there are two
verses in the middle here that do relate to our subject, and that is verses 34,
35 when the soldiers pierced His side resulting in blood and water coming out.
The reason this is an issue is that there has been a lot of confusion over the
phrase “blood of Christ” in the Scriptures. The problem is whether or not the
physical blood of Jesus Christ was unique, incorruptible, and the efficacious
element of His saving work on the cross. There are many through church history who have taught that. This view can be traced as
early as Chrysostom who lived from 347-407 AD. Luther and
Calvin held this view, as well as many others, that somehow Christ’s body was
drained physically of all the blood and that He bled to death on the cross. Among
many Protestant fundamentalists there is a tendency to take the phrase “blood
of Christ” in a very strict, literal fashion, and so it has become a sort of
touchstone of controversy. The passage that many go to is Hebrews 9:12 NASB
“and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He
entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.” But
the phrase “through His blood” is dia + the genitive, indicating the basis for something
and not the cause.
We need to understand that
when we talk about “by His own blood” just exactly what it means when it refers
to the blood of Christ. Is this to be taken as a literal statement or is it an
idiom or figure of speech in the original languages. We find this phrase in
several passages of Scripture, e.g. 1 Corinthians 10:16 NASB “Is not
the cup of blessing which we bless a sharing in the blood of Christ? Is not the
bread which we break a sharing in the body of Christ?” Ephesians
To understand this we have
to look at some basic verses in Genesis to understand the nature of the penalty
for sin as it was announced by God in the garden of
Eden. Genesis
Then there is an
interesting statement by God. Genesis 3:22 NASB “Then the LORD God said, ‘Behold,
the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might
stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live
forever’…” This is more than simply an implication that he would live forever, it is a clear statement that it was possible that
fallen man who was spiritually dead could hypothetically avoid physical death
by eating of the tree of life. So that would indicate that physical death wasn’t
the penalty for sin or even part of the penalty for sin because it could be avoided
by eating from the tree of life. That is why it is important to distinguish
between penalty and consequence. The penalty had such universal impact that it reverberated
throughout the entire universe.
So when Christ went to the
cross His physical suffering related to the physical dimension of the curse of
sin. But that did not pay the penalty for sin, it
simply demonstrated that he could have victory over the physical consequences
of sin. That is why He died physically; it was to show that He would through
the resurrection have victory over physical death. So we see that from the very
beginning that the penalty was spiritual death distinguished from the
consequences of physical suffering and physical death.
What, then, was the
solution? The solution is then indicated and applied in Genesis 3:21 NASB
“The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them.” In
doing that there was the shedding of blood. That term is not used in the verse
but it is clearly implied, and when we come to chapter four and see that Abel
brought the firstlings of his flock in v. 4 it must be presumed that there has
been some divine instruction on sacrifice. So in the Old Testament there was
the provision of animal sacrifices and the Lord taught that to Adam and the
woman in Genesis 3:21 so that there was the institution of the family
sacrificial system from Genesis 4 and following through the Old Testament. Then
there is another expansion of the idea of sacrifice in the Levitical system.
Another important passage
in understanding this is Leviticus 17:10 NASB “‘And any man from the
house of Israel, or from the aliens who sojourn among them, who eats any blood,
I will set My face against that person who eats blood and will cut him off from
among his people.
For example in Genesis
chapter nine when we look at the Noahic covenant
there is a warning: “Only you shall not eat flesh with its life, {that is,} its
blood.” In other words, don’t eat things that are still alive. Genesis 9:5 NASB
“Surely I will require your lifeblood; from every beast I will require it. And
from {every} man, from every man’s brother I will require the life of man. [6] Whoever
sheds man’s blood, By man his blood shall be shed, For
in the image of God He made man.” There we see that the phrase “man’s blood” is
really an idiom for life—whoever takes a man’s life.
Leviticus
In the Old Testament
salvation was based on the anticipated fulfilment of the promise of the
Messiah. This is most clearly seen and evidenced in the Old Testament on the
mercy seat. The ark of the covenant had a lid placed
over it. Inside the ark were three objects: the Ten Commandments (Law), manna
(sustenance), Aaron’s rod that budded (the authority of the Aaronic
priesthood).
This is the basis, then,
for understanding a verse like Romans 3:25 NASB “[Christ] whom God
displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood
through faith. {This was} to demonstrate His
righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins
previously committed.” The word “propitiation” is a translation of the Greek
word hilasterion [i(lasthrion] and it refers to the mercy seat. It means
satisfaction, that God’s justice and righteousness was satisfied by Christ’s
death. Now we see that “blood” is not talking about physical blood but is a
symbolic or tangible representation of death. So what this passage is really
saying is that God displayed publicly as a propitiation
in His death, through faith. [26] “for the demonstration, {I say,} of His
righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier
of the one who has faith in Jesus.” There was the anticipation which is
pictured by the mercy seat and the sacrifice of the lamb that was without spot
or blemish.
We must realise that the
sacrifices in the Old Testament were not efficacious in and of themselves, they just had that temporarily assigned value. For
example, Hebrews 10:1 NASB “For the Law, since it has {only} a
shadow of the good things to come {and} not the very form of things, can never,
by the same sacrifices which they offer continually year by year, make perfect
those who draw near…. [4] For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats
to take away sins.” It was simply that God the Father designed a plan whereby
people in the Old Testament prior to the coming of Christ could be saved by
virtue of anticipation of the completion of that work. From this we see that
the blood of the animals represented the presence of the animal soul and therefore
the presence of life. The shedding of the blood represents the taking of life. So
the physical sacrifices were a shadow or a type of a reality that was yet
future. It was used in the Old Testament as a visual aid, a training aid, to
demonstrate the horror of sin and the heinousness of spiritual death. Over and
again God uses these very concrete images to continue to remind
What we have in the Old
Testament is physical animal sacrifice which is a physical representation of
the physical human death of Jesus Christ on the cross. And, as in line with all
of the previous teaching in the Old Testament, physical human death itself is a
tangible, concrete expression of the spiritual death that has already taken place
on the cross as payment for our sins. Christ’s death on the cross involved two
categories of death. We know this from two passages in Scripture: Isaiah 53:9
where “deaths” is plural; Colossians 2:12 where “dead” is plural.
Just as there was a
spiritual, judicial penalty for sin and physical consequences, the atonement of
Christ on the cross shows victory over the physical consequences of sin because
it pays the spiritual penalty for sin on the cross. Notice two verses in John.
John