Defending John Macarthur

[Jermyn Davidson]

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]

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]

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

[Originalist]

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!

[houston]

JD,

You don't believe in transubstantiaton?

[houston]

Placed here for no apparent reason.
IMG_0568.JPG

[votivesoul]

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.

[Originalist]

Originally Posted by votivesoul

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.

"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.

[n david]

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.

[n david]

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.