Defending John Macarthur
 

For crying out loud! As a Pentecostal, I certainly take issue with what I consider to be MacArthur's misrepresentations of our movement. But when he is misrepresented, I will defend him. And I want to go on record as saying I agree completely with his explanation of the significance of "the blood of Christ".



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvRv7iShIZ4

Re: Defending John Macarthur
 

Isn't it silly that he would have to defend himself in this manner?

Re: Defending John Macarthur
 

How does some heretic's squabbles with other heretics impact any of us?

Re: Defending John Macarthur
 

I thought this was going to be about his response to Charlottesville, which I thought was on point.
link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gm3U39lnPO0

Re: Defending John Macarthur
 

I think you are mistaken here. I have been accused and attacked by other Apostolics because I don't believe that the blood is literally applied in baptism. I've also been ostracized for saying that when we sing "Power in the Blood", we are not referring to liquid that came out of Jesus.

Re: Defending John Macarthur
 

What are these verses speaking of?

"And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission."

"In whom we have redemption through his blood, [even] the forgiveness of sins:"

"For the life of the flesh [is] in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it [is] the blood [that] maketh an atonement for the soul."

Re: Defending John Macarthur
 

The video explains all of that well.

Re: Defending John Macarthur
 

I, too, agree perfectly with what MacArthur said about the blood.

Re: Defending John Macarthur
 

If I understand Macarthur right, he claims that the act of Christ dying is what saves, not the actual blood of Christ.

"You have to stop short of saying that we are saved by the blood of Jesus, in the sense that there is some efficacy in the fluid that poured out of His body."

Blood isn't literal, just a symbol...

Jesus didn't die from bleeding, He died from asphyxiation...

Am I hearing this right?

I can't agree.

Now, I don't believe there are vials of blood in heaven being poured out constantly on the Mercy Seat. I do believe it was the literal blood of Jesus, poured out at Calvary, and sprinkled on the Mercy Seat once and for all (Heb 9&12) which saves us.

It wasn't the simple act of killing a lamb which saved the Israelites during the Passover. It was the blood. God said "when I see the blood, I will pass over you." He didn't say "when I see you killed a lamb." It was the literal fluid they applied to the doorposts.

And it's the literal blood of Christ which saves us.

"without the shedding of blood is no remission."

Re: Defending John Macarthur
 

You are not quite getting what he is saying, I believe. Yes, it is literally his blood that judicially cleanses our record and provided payment on our behalf, but it would not have been effective if Jesus had bled and lived. He had to die. Furthermore, there is nothing special about the liquid that poured from his veins. It contains no power to save us. God, however, accepted it as an offering because he who shed it was sinless and stood in our place.

To say "there is power in the blood" is not to say that the liquid that Christ shed contained some sort of force. The "power" that the blood (death) has is the fact that it satisfied the demands of God justice. The blood "will never lose its power" in that God will never require another offering or for someone else to die in our place. Christ died for God and God was satisfied with Christ.

Re: Defending John Macarthur
 

EDITED

Yes, without the shedding of blood there is no remission for sins but it isn't the efficacy of all that transpired to purchase our salvation is not in the literal blood but in the fact that He did what He did.

Yes His Blood was spilled.

MacArthur's point is that it isn't the literal blood that came out of the human body of Jesus Christ that day over 2,000 years ago that has been applied to our lives the days we were saved.

Everything about our salvation is faith-based and spiritual. When we observe communion, the wine doesn't literally become the literal blood that flowed from the veins of the man Jesus Christ. If you follow the this line of thinking (that has it's roots in Catholicism) then you will come to various, erroneous conclusions about the use of the literal blood of the man Jesus Christ.

At least, this is what I understand MacArthur to be saying and with this, he and I are on the same page.

I am open to correction in anything I have stated here...

Re: Defending John Macarthur
 

Or else answer this.

How would the literal blood of Jesus Christ that literally flowed through His fleshly veins, how did that blood make it to the Mercy Seat?

The Mercy Seat is spiritual.

His flesh did not go to Heaven.

Heaven is spiritual.

The Bible does not record someone at the foot of the cross collecting His blood in vials-- neither human nor angel.

"Flesh and blood shall not inherit the Kingdom of God." 1 Corinthians 15:50

Our entire salvation is based on something we cannot see in the natural-- which is why we are "SAVED by GRACE through FAITH...." Ephesians 2:8

Re: Defending John Macarthur
 

Not my words...



"But by his own blood - That is, by his own blood shed for the remission of sins. The meaning is, that it was in virtue of his own blood, or "by means" of that, that he sought the pardon of his people. That blood was not shed for himself - for he had no sin - and consequently there was a material difference between his offering and that of the Jewish high priest. The difference related to such points as these.

(1) the offering which Christ made was wholly for others; that of the Jewish priest for himself as well as for them.

(2) the blood offered by the Jewish priest was that of animals; that offered by the Saviour was his own.

(3) that offered by the Jewish priest was only an emblem or type - for it could not take away sin; that offered by Christ had a real efficacy, and removes transgression from the soul.

He entered into the holy place - Heaven. The meaning is, that as the Jewish high priest bore the blood of the animal into the Holy of Holies, and sprinkled it there as the means of expiation, so the offering which Christ has to make in heaven, or the consideration on which he pleads for the pardon of his people, is the blood which he shed on Calvary. Having made the atonement, he now pleads the merit of it as a "reason" why sinners should be saved. It is not of course meant that he literally bore his own blood into heaven - as the high priest did the blood of the bullock and the goat into the sanctuary; or that he literally "sprinkled" it on the mercy-seat there, but that that blood, having been shed for sin, is now the ground of his pleading and intercession for the pardon of sin - as the sprinkled blood of the Jewish sacrifice was the ground of the pleading of the Jewish high priest for the pardon of himself and the people."

https://hermeneutics.stackexchange.c...lood-in-heaven

Re: Defending John Macarthur
 

Spot on!:thumbsup

Re: Defending John Macarthur
 

JD,

You don't believe in transubstantiaton?

Re: Defending John Macarthur
 

Placed here for no apparent reason.
Attachment 5968

Re: Defending John Macarthur
 

The life of the flesh is in the blood (Leviticus 17:11).

Here, "life" is from the Hebrew word nephesh.

See: http://biblehub.com/interlinear/leviticus/17-11.htm

"Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin..." (Isaiah 53:10).

Here, the word "soul" is from the Hebrew word nephesh.

See: http://biblehub.com/interlinear/isaiah/53-10.htm

It's not just that Christ shed His blood, or that He died, even though those things are of great importance. It's that His nephesh that was in His blood was made an offering for sin, by the hand of YHVH.

By the grace of God, Jesus tasted death for every man (Hebrews 2:9), and through the eternal Spirit, Christ offered up Himself, so that, through His blood, in which was contained His nephesh, our consciences could be purged and purified (Hebrews 9:22).

This was done by the foreknowledge and pre-determinate counsel of God the Father (Acts 2:23). From the very beginning, God intended for His Son to die by way of sacrificial death (Philippians 2:8 and 2 Corinthians 5:21), so that a sweet-smelling savor (Ephesians 5:2) of perfect obedience could come up before the Father, and propitiate Him (1 John 2:2).

Understand, then, that the Greek word for propitiation in 1 John 2:2, namely hilasmos, is contained in the Greek word translated "mercy-seat" in Hebrews 9:5, which is hilasterion.

So God foreordained that the blood of Christ, and more specifically, His nephesh would 1.) be a sweet-smelling savor, that when offered at the appointed time, would 2.) propitiate Him when offered up and brought before Him.

As far as where the blood is "applied", it is neither the human heart or the mercy-seat of God's throne. Hebrews 9:12 shows that Jesus entered into the Holy Place (not Most Holy Place) through His own blood. The mercy-seat is not the place of entrance, rather the gates are the place of entrance.

Just as the blood of the lamb was painted onto the lintels and doorposts in ancient Egypt, Christ's blood is likewise applied to the "lintels" and "doorposts", if you will, of the Most Holy place in the heavenly realm.

All who are regenerated and endure until the end, who sit in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, who have been made holy, will see protection and freedom from the destroying angel of God's Presence, the very same that went throughout Egypt to slay the firstborn, when God judges the earth.

God's Holiness is all-consuming. Nothing can live in It. Only that which is likewise holy may stand. Jesus our forerunner went through the Holy Place and into the Most Holy Place, and sat down at the right hand of God, and as High Priest, ever lives to make intercession for us. When we are made holy through new birth and continued sanctification by faith, we continue to freely live in the presence of God's holiness, and abide in the heavenlies, spiritually speaking, and as such, having entered into these realms, we, too, entered in through the same entrance upon which the blood of Jesus was applied.

Re: Defending John Macarthur
 

"The life is in the blood" simply means you cannot live without it. It is not saying there is some force in the blood that imparts life to others.

Re: Defending John Macarthur
 

I don't believe in transubstantiaton.

I simply believe the blood which flowed at His death is what saved us. It's not just a symbol.

Re: Defending John Macarthur
 

As stated previously, I don't believe in the blood vials. I do believe Hebrews 9 and 10 answers your question.

Re: Defending John Macarthur
 

Amen, now wasn't that painless and easy.

Re: Defending John Macarthur
 

Blood vials. Lol. Wow. Do straw men have a need for blood?

Re: Defending John Macarthur
 

As Macarthur pointed out, "blood" and "death" are synonyms of one another.

Re: Defending John Macarthur
 

My response to that is if that's the case, why the requirement for the Israelites to put blood on their doorposts? If MacArthur is right, and I don't believe he is, them killing a lamb should have been enough.

And I keep coming back to "without shedding of blood is no remission." Even MacArthur says Jesus could have died any way....even that which did not include blood. But it had to be bloody, because it's the blood applied which saves...not just a death occurring.

Re: Defending John Macarthur
 

Blood has a major significance in all ancient rituals. Blood and water comes out of the side of Jesus just as Eve comes out of Adam's. Blood and water is the birth of the Church. Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins. Blood had to be struck at the post and the lintel for death to passover. Jesus is our passover, baptism in Jesus name is the water we pass over from death into life.

Re: Defending John Macarthur
 

Exactly... He mentions the use of violent bloody deaths of animals all throughout the OT, and the "blood" signifying the violence of Christ's death in the New Testament. He is simply saying there was no "power" in the liquid itself.

Re: Defending John Macarthur
 

MacArthur.....

Re: Defending John Macarthur
 

So you believe then the Spirit baptism is only an endowment of power for service and not the spiritual quickening that resurrects us from spiritual death? Just seeking clarification as you seem to be implying that this life is imparted unto us in baptism.

Re: Defending John Macarthur
 

Synonyms.

Re: Defending John Macarthur
 

Do you know what nephesh is?

It's not some "force" in the blood. It's a person's soul, their inner essence of being. Since this inner essence of being is in the blood of all humans, and even in animals, to a degree, when blood is shed, this inner essence is lost, hence why the physical body dies if sufficient quantities of it are lost (Also, it's why murder [shedding of blood] and the drinking and eating of blood was strenuously forbidden by Torah code of conduct).

Jesus died of cardiac arrest due to massive hemorrhage brought on by trauma and shock.

When this happened, more than just liquid poured out. His inner essence of being, what is considered His soul in Isaiah 53:10, also departed His flesh, when He died. It was this soul, that the Father would not leave in Sheol (See Psalm 16:10 and Acts 2:27), this inner essence of Christ's being, that propitiated the Father, since it was a life lived in perfect obedience, submission, and humility, even in death.

This same inner essence of Christ's being is imparted to us when we receive the Spirit of Christ (Romans 8:9), or Spirit of God's Son (Galatians 4:6). This is why the Spirit is life, because of righteousness (Romans 8:10). Because of Christ's righteousness, His Spirit imparts new life to us--HIS LIFE, gained again by the glory and power of the Father when God raised Jesus from the dead.

Re: Defending John Macarthur
 

Many medical doctors believe Jesus died of asphyxiation, as was the case of most victims of crucifixion.

Re: Defending John Macarthur
 

Baptism is one, no matter how anyone would like to flip it around concerning what comes first the chicken or the egg. It is still one Lord, one faith, and ONE BAPTISM. Jesus told Nicodemus, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit. The whole religious quagmire is that we compartmentalize this process into two or three steps. These steps being found in the Bible happening rearranged from the order shown us in Acts 2:38. Yet, the baptism is still one process. No one can enter the Paradise of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Death, burial, and resurrection, walking in newness of life, following the example of Jesus Christ. It is wholistic, and not independent of each other.

Re: Defending John Macarthur
 

Jesus died when He chose to die.

Anyone ever seen someone beaten to death? Bleed to death?

We all have heard Jesus' crucifixion with scientific explanations. Yet, Jesus made this very important point, No man takes my life from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father. Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” And having said this he breathed his last. Luke 23:46, John 10:18. This must be paramount in our minds. Trying to medically, scientifically explain cause of death in Jesus' crucifixion? Is like trying to use the same process to explain the Virgin birth, and His resurrection.