Defending John Macarthur

Jermyn Davidson · #1 09-01-2017, 06:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by n david

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."

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...

Jermyn Davidson · #2 09-01-2017, 06:20 PM

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

Jermyn Davidson · #3 09-01-2017, 06:27 PM

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

n david · #4 09-02-2017, 10:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jermyn Davidson

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

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

Evang.Benincasa · #5 09-02-2017, 11:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by n david

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

Amen, now wasn't that painless and easy.

Originalist · #6 09-01-2017, 06:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jermyn Davidson

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...

Spot on!

n david · #7 09-02-2017, 10:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jermyn Davidson

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.

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.