The Doctrine of the Blood of Christ; John 19:28-30
John 19:31 NASB "Then the Jews, because it was the day of preparation, so that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a high day), asked Pilate that their legs might be broken, and {that} they might be taken away.
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 2:13 NASB "But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ." Hebrews 9:14 NASB "how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?" 1 Peter 1:18, 19 NASB "knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers,
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 2:17 NASB "but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die." We have seen that the phrase "will surely die" was based on a Hebrew idiom which doubles the verb. It is a qal infinitive absolute plus the qal perfect of the verb. We saw that it doesn't have the idea of two deaths there. Having two verbs doesn't mean there are two deaths. The point is that it is not that we have two deaths in this verse but only one death and that is spiritual death, and it is immediate. The judicial penalty was spiritual death but the consequences have a physical dimension. Genesis 3:19 is the first mention of physical death. It is the outline of the curse that deals with the consequences of sin. That is the difference. We have to maintain that understanding that the judicial penalty was spiritual death but that there were physical consequences that related to the animal kingdom, the woman, the woman, their relationship with one another, and nature.
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 17:12 NASB "Therefore I said to the sons of Israel, 'No person among you may eat blood, nor may any alien who sojourns among you eat blood. [13] So when any man from the sons of Israel, or from the aliens who sojourn among them, in hunting catches a beast or a bird which may be eaten, he shall pour out its blood and cover it with earth. [14] For {as for the} life of all flesh, its blood is {identified} with its life. Therefore I said to the sons of Israel, 'You are not to eat the blood of any flesh, for the life of all flesh is its blood; whoever eats it shall be cut off.'" Because it represents life blood is to be drained from the body as a sign of respect for life. The conclusion from this is that blood is a tangible or symbolic representation of the intangible, imperceptible, immaterial presence of the soul which is the key to life.
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). Israel broke the Ten Commandments, they rejected God's provision of manna, and they rebelled against Aaron's leadership, so each of these represented sin in the nation. On top of the ark there was placed this lid which is the mercy seat, and on each side of the mercy seat was an angel, a cherub. The wings of the cherub touched over the middle so that they faced one another so that each looked down upon the mercy seat. The high priest would come in and place a bowl taken from the sacrificial blood of the unblemished lamb and would place that on the mercy seat. When the two cherubs faced that—they represented the righteousness and justice of God—it indicated that the righteousness and justice of God was satisfied by the shedding of blood, the taking of life. This in turn was a picture of what was to take place on the cross. It was not that the blood in and of itself was efficacious but that God had assigned it that value.
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 Israel of the extent of sin and the damage that sin has caused.
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 19:28 NASB "After this, Jesus, knowing that all things had already been accomplished, to fulfill the Scripture, said, 'I am thirsty'." So before He died physically He knew that all things had already been accomplished; it was finished. So it was spiritual separation from God the Father. [30] "Therefore when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, 'It is finished!' And He bowed His head and gave up His spirit."