The Blood of Christ

This sort of stance I can respect. However, follow along as I explain more about an alternate view of Heb 9 and see what you think.

I have no conceptual problem with Christ's literal blood being in heaven. I also have no problem agreeing that it could be that Christ took His literal blood to heaven. What I don't find is that it is either a doctrinal necessity (you don't seem to hold it is but Winman appears to) or that Scriptural *says* that such actually happened (ditto to the last parenthetical). *Might* it be inferred from Heb 9? Yes. However, I think it can be demonstrated that such an inference is shaky and does not result from the best reading of Heb 9.

So I will be interested in your take as I try to give a more extensive explanation of my view of Heb 9.

 

Obviously, I don't see my view as "shaky" or I probably wouldn't hold to it. I see it as based upon implication and therefore probable or possible but not an absolute certainty. Even in the disertation that winman gave by Dr. DeHann, he uses the word "maybe" as to the location of the material blood of Christ as in a vessel in the Holy Place/Mercy seat in the heavenlies more than once. Although my own feelings are a little stronger than "maybe".

The doctrinal necessity is that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin and not where it is geographically or celestially located.

HankD

 

I have already noted that the passage does not say that Christ entered with His blood, but instead says He entered by His blood. Now, yes, while "by His blood" is not equivalent to "with His blood", neither is it necessarily contradictory. So could "by" mean "with"? Well if one looks only at this single verse, then the answer is that, yes, it could. However, look at the rest Heb and the "could" dwindles to a "theoretical could, but highly improbable to the point absurdity".

Notice Heb 10:17And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. 18Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin. 19Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, 20By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh; 21And having an high priest over the house of God; 22Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.

So, unless one holds that we have the literal blood of Christ and that we carry this literal blood in order to enter the holy place, then holding that statement that Christ entered by His blood means that He entered with His literal blood would be inconsistent.

 

The problem with insisting that references to Christ's blood are literal.

There are numerous problems with seeing the references to Christ's blood as literal. While Catholics generally tend to take a mystical view of Christ's blood, Protestants have from the beginning of the Reformation seen such an approach as problematic and leading to unscriptural superstition. This has been *particularly* true of Baptists.

Here are the two main difficulties that arise with insisting on a literal reading of references to Christ's blood:
1. First and foremost would be the references to drinking Christ's blood. If references to Christ's blood are to be taken literally, then the Catholics are correct and transubstantiation is the proper view of the Lord's Supper. One would think that with the historic opposition of Baptists to such a view, not to mention the general opposition to anything striking of Catholicism among Fundamentalists, that no Baptist (much a Fundamentalist Baptist) would even give this literal view a second thought. At the very least, those who hold to a literal view of Christ's blood in passages like Heb 9 need to be able to explain the apparent inconsistency when they vehemently deny a literal view of Christ's blood in passages like Matthew 26:28, Mark 14:24, 1 Corinthians 10:16, 1 Corinthians 11:25-27, and particularly John 6:47-58 (where, just as in Heb 9, a comparison is being drawn to OT examples).

2. Secondly, if references to Christ's blood are literal, then it follows that believers have been literally sprinkled/purged/cleansed/washed with this literal blood (Hebrews 9:14, Heb 10:22, 1 Pet 1:2, 1 John 1:7, Rev 1:5). Yet we don't find believers with literal blood on them. So either we have been literally washed/sprinkled/cleansed, but not with literal blood, or else we haven't been literally washed/sprinkled/cleansed with blood (figurative or literal). Either way, it leads to a direct contradiction with the view that insists that references to Christ's blood should be taken literally.

 

dwmoeller1,
Your two-pointed explanation of the references to Christ's blood is the best yet!
Thanks, Mel

 

The prepostion used in Hebrews 9:12 in both the instance of is dia inboth instances of "by the blood of goats" and "by the blood of Jesus". So there is a prepositional (but obviously not a qualitative) equivalence of the treatment of both bloods.

This preposition looks more at the effect of the blood as the means of entering the Holy place rather than the blood itself. However to enter without the blood itself was forbidden.

The material blood was evidence of the death of the sacrificial entity.

The High Priest of biblical Judaism brought the blood in a basin into the Holy Place, then sprinkled that blood about the Mercy Seat within the Holy of Holies.

Based upon that prepositional relationship combined with the pattern followed by the OT High Priest, one could build a case of Jesus The High Priest of the NT bringing His own blood into the heavenly Holy Place.

The resurrection of Jesus Christ the living High Priest the proof that the sacrifice was accepted.

Hebrews 10:19 has an interesting grammatical structure.

Here "by the blood of Jesus" uses the prepostion "en" the blood of Jesus which could mean "in the presence of the blood of Jesus".

That is, we enter into the holy places in the presence of and because of the very blood of Christ.

HankD

 

Being a former Catholic I know that the doctrine of Transubstantiation is not true, The wine remains wine.

Admitedly to "drink" His blood has a spiritual and not a literal meaning.

The blood of Christ is the covenental basis of our life, i.e. life eternal and the cleansing from the curse of sin.

The blood of Christ in Hebrews 9 and 10 is in the heavenlies so whatever these verses mean it has had its application in the heavenlies and not here on earth. Note: I said "it's application" is in the heavenlies and not on earth but it's cleaning effect is here on earth. Whether using the language of cleansing, washing or sprinkling, it is IMV, the actual and literal blood of Christ present in the heavenlies and not a figure of speech and is the eternal witness of the completed Blood Atonement of Christ and the cleansing agent of sin for those under the New Covenant.

So the presence of the one time shed Blood of Christ in the heavenlies has a continuing effect of the cleansing of sin here on earth of believers both old and newly born of the Spirit.

1 John 1:7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.

"cleanseth us" present tense - active, indicative.​

HankD​

 

I missed the fact that they were different prepositions. I withdraw that particular argument.

 

It's not necessary to withdraw the argument.

Indeed it is a different preposition but it does not necssarily mean I am correct in my interpretation.

I leave it up to you to give your own or someone elses interpretation you adopt and/or as your own in your own words.

HankD

 

I again note that Scripture does not say that Christ's blood is in the heaven - it is merely inferred from a particular reading of Heb 9. Nor can it be inferred from any other Scripture. Yet Scripture does speak of specifically in several places of the cleansing act of Christ's blood. In no case does it mention nor can it be inferred for those passages that its application is in heaven. In fact, given the reference to Christians being sprinkled and the comparison to the sprinkling of the Israelites which took place outside the Holy Place, the consistent means of dealing with this would lead one to conclude that the application of blood to the Christian is *not* in heaven.

Its the seemingly random alternation between what is literal and what is figurative that is so problematic for this view. The blood is literal, yet its not literally applied to Christians, but its literally in heaven where it has some sort of literal application to Christians, which really isn't literal except in a heavenly sense, and back and forth and back and forth.

None of this disproves your view, but by Occam's Razor, if there is an alternate view which doesn't require so many additions of new assumptions, your should be considered the view least likely to be correct, the least reasonable.

This can be further demonstrated by showing the extreme dependence such a view has on Heb 9. IOW, if Heb 9 were ignored, then there would be no reason to come to this view of heavenly blood. So, read all other verses about Christ's blood and you come to one conclusion, but add Heb 9 and you come to either a totally different conclusion, or a conclusion which requires you to make new assumptions to explain all the other verses. Again, if another view of Heb 9 can harmonize all the passages about Christ's blood but without requiring the addition of new assumptions, then by Occam's razor, it should be considered the better view.

 

My withdrawal is not equivalent to saying your interpretation is correct. I merely recognize that the strength of my objection rested upon the two uses of "by the blood" being exact parallels. Since the prepositions are not the same, then the assertion that they are exact parallels is thrown into doubt thus weakening my argument to the point that its no longer of use to me as an objection. You could be totally wrong in your take but my objection would still remain weak - too weak to spend in sort of effort defending when I have so many other much stronger arguments to use as objections. I will likely reference it later as an explanation, but as an objection it of little use.

 

OK, I think we went over this before. I am a little confused however.

Is your postition that the literal blood of Christ cleanses of sin (for instance) but is not in the heavenly temple Or that "the blood of Christ" is a symbol of something else?

If it is not in heaven where then is it?

Since matter is currently neither created nor destroyed (but can change form) those molecules of Christ's shed blood must of necessity have remained here on earth in some form or another (reminiscent of the blood of Abel "crying out").

Realizing that the scripture is silent about the location of His blood (apart from the inference of Hebrews 9-10) but not His resurrected body, it seems more in keeping that it is where He the High Priest is. In my opinion.

If His literal blood is not cleansing us continually as indicated in 1 John 1:7 what is?

Thanks
HankD

 

The phrase the blood of Christ is in reference to the complete act of atonement - to Christ's death as a sacrifice for sins.

His natural human blood is no where. Whether His resurrected body has blood in it no one knows, but regardless its not the same as His "shed blood". It is not necessary for it to be any where because the act of His sacrifice is what cleanses and atones - the reference to His blood is referring to the total event, not the blood in particular, much less the literal physical blood.

This view allows all references of his blood to be harmonized w/o a need for other assumptions for different passages.

True, but they would no longer be His blood in a literal or meaningful sense once they had decayed. It is just as true that those molecules existed on the earth in some form before they were Christ's blood.

I do not follow the logic. You propose that His literal physical blood (ie. the same physical blood that was shed) is in heaven because His literal *resurrected* body is in heaven? How does one follow from the other? Now certainly, if His literal physical body (ie. the one He had while on the earth) were in heaven, then your inference would be reasonable. But to infer that His physical blood must be where His resurrected body is seems like a non sequitor. The more proper conclusion would be that His resurrected blood is in His resurrected body.

1. If it is His literal blood that cleanses us then why do you not find His blood on you continually? It makes little sense to insist that the blood of the verse is literally meant while denying that the action it does is literally meant.

2. So if not His literal blood, then what cleanses us? His act of sacrifice. Instead of a literal blood doing a virtual cleansing, it is instead His once for all act of sacrifice that is continually effective for believers. No need for literal blood with a virtual effect since Christ's sacrifice was sufficient for all time. A virtual act (He is sacrificed in our place - He becomes a lamb, but not literally) has a virtual effect (it cleanses our conscience and our guilt even though we may still fall into sin). The sacrifice of Christ is, after all, the focus of Heb 9.

 

OK I understand, I need to think about your view.

Had 1 John 1:7 been in a past action tense (perfect, pluperfect or even aorist) then I wouldn't be stuck. I just can't get around the present tense, active voice, indicative mood of 1 John 1:7.

Like "the blood of Jesus Christ his Son hath cleansed us from all sin"
but it says...

...the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.​

Active voice: "Voice is that property of the verbal idea which indicates how the subject is related to the verb ... The active voice describes the subject as producing the action". Section 152-153 of Dana and Mantey a Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament.

The indicative mood:
"In the expression of the verbal idea it is necessary to define its relation to reality...This affirmation of relation to reality is mood...
It is the mood of certainty. It is significant of a simple fact stated or inquired about. The thing which distinguishes the indicative is its independence of qualification or condition. It represents the the verbal idea from the viewpoint of reality". Section 160. ibid.

The active voice and indicative mood combined with the present tense simply means that the blood of Christ" is presently and in reality cleansing us from all sin without any conditions attached to it such as depending on or pointing to something else such as the Blood Atonement as a concept.

Like I said, I'm stuck here and can't move.

To me it matters not where the blood of Christ is located (although I believe it to be in the heavenlies), this passage can only mean that it does indeed exist somewhere and that it is presently cleansing me of all sin.

HankD

 

I don't disagree with any of this nor does it present a problem for my view. The difficulty is over whether "blood of Christ" is in reference to literal blood or not. The problem with seeing this phrase as the literal blood of Christ is that the tense and voice of the verb would most naturally have to refer to a literal cleansing - literal blood leads to literal cleansing. So look at your statement again with your meanings attached:
"the present tense simply means that the (literal) blood of Christ is presently and in reality cleansing us (but not a literal reality since we get no blood on us) from all sin"
So, you see only a virtual cleansing but you insist on a literal agent. That makes no sense given your analysis of the verb's tense and voice. A literal agent would imply a literal cleansing - since you deny the literal cleansing it makes little sense to insist on a literal agent.

Furthermore, there is the question of literal nature of the sin we are being cleansed from. Are we literally dirty with sin? If so what literal part of us? And if so, why has that part never been observed to be literally dirty or covered with sin? Again, we run into the problem of insisting on seeing the verses in a literal physical sense. I think you would agree with me that we aren't in need of a literal cleansing of sin. Instead, the reference to cleansing of sin is imagery to what sin does to our soul, our conscience and our rightness before God - it dirties them even though no literal physical dirtiness occurs. Sin blackens our heart even though the heart is not a literal object to which white or black can literally be applied. Thats not to downplay the *reality* of the dirtiness of sin or our cleansing from it, merely to point out that there is no literal physical component meant in statements about cleansing of sin.

So, if the cleansing is not literal physical reality and the sin we are cleansed of is not a literal physical reality, then why would we expect the ongoing agent of this cleansing of sin to be a literal physical reality? Such a view would seem to be problematic, at best. Much better to see the agent of the virtual cleansing to be virtual itself. Again, this in no way denies the solid reality which connects the agent and the cleansing, it merely holds them to both be non-physical realities.

Just as the cleansing is not literally physical nor the thing that is cleansed literally physical, so is the agent not literally physical. Thus, seeing "blood Christ" as a reference to the nature of His sacrifice fits very nicely with the tense and mood of the verb.

 

Yes, I think I could agree that the cleansing is on a plane that transcends the earthly realm as the scripture does indicate that we are seated with Him in the heavenlies.

Having been born of the Spirit, our being is presently intersecting two worlds, the physical and the spiritual and that spiritual realm is presumably where the blood of Christ is applied.

I don't know for a surety why we need present tense cleansing of sin by the Blood of Christ but the Scripture definitely declares the fact.

Considering the context of the First Epistle of John Chapter 1 it is probably to maintain fellowship with each other within the body of Christ and to maintain fellowship with the Father.

7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.​

I believe I said at the very beginning that there are metaphysics involved as well as a time-spatial relationship that is beyond our understanding.​

However the Scripture only requires us to believe even if perhaps we don't have the capacity to understand the details.

So, as I said, I am stuck in 1 John 1:7.
Some other things have occured to me that I will look into.

I will get back with you, I am in overload mode right now.

Thanks
HankD

 

The high priest could not enter the Holy of Holies without literal blood, so why do you believe Jesus could enter the Holy of Holies in heaven without blood? What scripture even hints that he did not?

There are things we cannot understand, yet are shown in scripture. When Jesus spoke to the thief on the cross he told him they would be in paradise that very day. We also know that Jesus decended into the heart of the earth, so that is where paradise was.

But in Revelation we see paradise in heaven. I believe the verse that says Jesus led captivity captive (Eph 4:8) shows he went down into the heart of the earth where paradise was, and where all saints went at that time (Abraham's bosom). When Jesus ascended he took these captives with him. After this the scriptures speak of saints as going directly to heaven when they die. They could not do this until Jesus applied the blood.

Paradise is a real and literal place. We see it first in the garden of Eden, then in the heart of the earth, and lastly in heaven. How Jesus took paradise to heaven when he ascended I do not understand, but that is what the scriptures show. If he could do this, it is not difficult to believe he could have taken his literal blood with him as well.

 

No Scripture hints that He did. Instead you using inference based on there being an exact parallel in Heb 9 (type B in my earlier post). IF there is in fact an exact parallel between Christ's sacrifice and OT sacrificial practices, THEN it can be rightly inferred that Christ must have taken His blood to heaven. So the question is not whether Heb 9 says or hints that He did - it can be demonstrated that neither is the case. Instead the question is whether an exact parallel exists (in which case your inference is sound), or whether the parallel is inexact (in which case your inference is unsound). So please refer back to post #97 and lets see if we can at least agree on the distinctions I make. Then we can progress on to examining which type best fits Heb 9.

I have no problem with accepting that He could. The problem lies in
a. the claim that Scripture teaches He did
b. seeing that He did in terms of doctrinal necessity

No, if this question is one of mere speculative interest (ie. like whether animals could talk or not), then I have no real problem with it. But it appears you hold it to be much more than that, almost to the point of it being a doctrinal necessity. Thats where I take exception.

 

Well, there cannot be an EXACT parallel for one important reason, the high priests in the OT were sinners just like everyone else and had to offer a sacrifice for their own sins before they could offer a sacrifice for the people. Another difference is that the OT high priests offered the blood of goats and and calves which could never take away sins. But that is the whole point of Hebrews 9, that Jesus is the great High Priest who entered the Holy of Holies with his own perfect blood to offer once and for all a sacrifice that takes away all sin.

Heb 9:1 Then verily the first [covenant] had also ordinances of divine service, and a worldly sanctuary.
2 For there was a tabernacle made; the first, wherein [was] the candlestick, and the table, and the shewbread; which is called the sanctuary.
3 And after the second veil, the tabernacle which is called the Holiest of all;
4 Which had the golden censer, and the ark of the covenant overlaid round about with gold, wherein [was] the golden pot that had manna, and Aaron's rod that budded, and the tables of the covenant;
5 And over it the cherubims of glory shadowing the mercyseat; of which we cannot now speak particularly.
6 Now when these things were thus ordained, the priests went always into the first tabernacle, accomplishing the service [of God].
7 But into the second [went] the high priest alone once every year, not without blood, which he offered for himself, and [for] the errors of the people:
8 The Holy Ghost this signifying, that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest, while as the first tabernacle was yet standing:
9 Which [was] a figure for the time then present, in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices, that could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience;
10 [Which stood] only in meats and drinks, and divers washings, and carnal ordinances, imposed [on them] until the time of reformation.
11 But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building;
12 Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption [for us].
13 For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh:
14 How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?

I think verse 12 makes it abundantly clear that Jesus did not enter the holy place with the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood. The words "but by" is pointing back to this animal blood. And verses 13 and 14 emphasize this, both contrasting the blood of animals to the blood of Christ.

To me it is clear, but you are buying MacArthur's argument based on the word "by" in verse 12. He argues that this should say "with". I think this a very weak argument. Notice that verse 12 also says "by" concerning the animal blood. Would MacArthur argue this means the high priests in the OT did not enter the holy place with real literal animal blood? So, he accepts the first instance of the word "by" as meaning "with", but argues that in the second instance it has a different meaning. They are the same exact word in the Greek.

 

I again refer you back to post 97. There is no point in continuing until we can come to a common agreement on whether such distinctions are valid or not. My term "exact parallel" is based on my distinctions in post 97. Please let me know if you agree or disagree with the distinctions I make there.