The Doctrine of the Blood of Christ

RV04-01

In Revelation 1:4-8, John has been introducing the living God in His Triune personality. He has, therefore, declared that the revelation which is recorded here in this book, comes from the Triune God, and each person is specifically identified. First the Father is described under the words, "Him who is; and who was; and, who is to come." This, of course, describes God the Father, in terms of his eternal life, and as the one who originates the plan of the Godhead. We call that the eternal decree.

Secondly, God the Holy Spirit is presented. He is presented under the words, "The seven Spirits who are before his throne." This describes God the Holy Spirit, as the executor of the divine plan, with His absolute power, and the various services which He performs. God the Father, the eternal one, makes the plan. God the Holy Spirit executes the plan.

Then the third person of the Trinity is presented: the Lord Jesus Christ, under the words, "The faithful witness, and the firstborn of the dead, and the Prince of the kings of the earth. This, of course, describes the Lord Jesus Christ as the Son of God, and as the one upon whom the divine plan is based. He, in His role as the Lamb of God, paid for the sins of the world. Furthermore, having done that, He is to be the future ruler of all the nations on this earth during the great millennial kingdom. So John makes it very clear that his revelation is important because it comes from all three persons of the Trinity.

John directs an intense expression of devotion of praise to the Lord Jesus Christ as he completes this introduction. As he mentions the person of Christ, his heart wells up in a doxology, an expression of praise. The Lord Jesus Christ is the Holy Son of God who loved sinners who were enslaved to Satan, and who chose to do something about it. The Lord Jesus Christ has released those sinners from Satan and from enslavement to an evil lifestyle made up of sins and human good.

Those that the Lord has freed have become a royal priesthood in God's kingdom. This is the thing that, again, Christians often do not appreciate about themselves. In 1 Peter 2:9, we read, "But we are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood." In Revelation 1:6, we have the statement again: "And has made us a kingdom of priests unto God and His Father.

One of the things that is true of you and me as believers in the church age, as members of the body of Christ, is that we are royalty. We have become members of the royal family of God. Entrance into the royal family of God has been made possible by the blood shed by Jesus Christ in His death on the cross as God's sinless Lamb, receiving the punishment of mankind's evil. That is the point of the importance of the blood of Christ, and why it is under such attack today, because it is the basis of creating the royalty that exists in this age – the royalty which is known as the priesthood of God, the royal family of God.

It was a great thing if you lived in Old Testament times, surrounded by heathen nations, to be part of the privileged few who were known as Israel. They were known as the Jewish chosen people of God. But that is absolutely nothing compared to the privilege that you possess as being a member of God's royal family, and belonging to that royalty. That is absolutely fantastic. That's what comes into the mind of John at this point, as he breaks out into this doxology, and as he greets these people with this opening salutation. He praises this expression of ultimate devotion by referring to the shedding of the blood of Jesus Christ.

Verse 5 says, "And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the Prince of the kings of the earth, unto Him that loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood." Apart from the blood of Jesus Christ, which He shed as God's Lamb, there is no way to be redeemed from slavery to Satan, and to enter the royalty of the church family. For this reason, Satan attacks the key element of Christ's blood as the divine basis of salvation. Every liberal church, which includes most major denominations, completely rejects the concept of the literal blood of Jesus Christ shed in our behalf in order to remove the guilt of sin from our souls. The payment made by the blood of Christ preserves God's integrity in forgiving sinners, and for this reason, it is the blood of Christ that is central in the thinking of Almighty God. Without it, there is no hope for any human being.

In Colossians 1:12-14, we read: "Giving thanks unto the Father who has made us fit to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light, who has delivered us from the power of darkness, and has translated us into the kingdom of His Dear Son, in whom we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins." Everything that God has provided to solve the human sin problem is related to the literal blood of Jesus Christ. If the blood of Jesus Christ is rejected for salvation, then there is no other way.

I stress this to you so that you will not be too shocked when you read some highly respected theologian who is widely read, and who will come to the subject of the blood of Jesus Christ, and will refer to it with such words as "that old butcher religion." Within the circles of liberalism, there is a rising tide of turning away from what they call "the butcher religion" of the blood of Christ, which they consider debasing to human beings, and which they consider beneath the human being.

The Doctrine of the Blood of Christ

1. The Old Testament

   The Old Testament uses the word "blood," which is the Hebrew word "dam" 362 times. 203 times it uses the word to refer to death with violence. 103 times it uses the word "blood" to refer to the blood of sacrifices, these picturing the work of Christ. Seven times it is used in connection with the life being in the blood. 17 times it refers to eating meat with blood which was forbidden to the Old Testament people. 32 times it uses it in a variety of miscellaneous ways.

2. The New Testament

   When we come to the New Testament, the word "blood" is the Greek word "haima," and it is used 98 times. 25 times it is used to indicate violent deaths, such as you have, for example, in Act 22:20. 12 times it is used in reference to animal sacrifices. 25 times it is used of the blood of Christ in salvation. Nine times it is used as an apocalyptic sign, such as in Revelation 6:12, a sign of divine wrath in the end times. Then 27 times it is used in miscellaneous ways.

3. The Red Fluid in the Veins

   The word "blood" is used normally in the Old Testament and the New Testament as the designation for the red fluid that flows in the veins of people and animals. Luke 13:1 and Acts 15:20 indicate that. When you read the word "blood" in the Bible, in both Old and New Testament, the first thing you should think about is the red fluid that flows in the veins of living animals and human beings. That's the way that it is normally used.

4. The Bearer of Life

   The blood is the bearer of life in both people and animals. John 1:13 and Leviticus 17:11 indicate that the life is in the blood. That means that the blood is the critical factor for preserving life. If too much blood is lost, the person dies. Therefore, when a person is in an accident where there are wounds, that is the reason for the immediate attempts to stop the bleeding. The concentration is immediately to stop the loss of life through the loss of bleeding. If you've ever been in an unfortunate situation of seeing somebody seriously bruised and cut, and doctors working, you will be amazed with what speed, and how their eyes quickly scan every possible external source of the loss of blood, because that will ensure death if it is not stopped. That's true of whether it's an animal or whether it's a human being.

5. The Blood of Jesus Christ

   The blood of Jesus Christ occupies a central position in New Testament thought. This is not just an occasional reference. It is referred to in a variety of ways. There is the expression, "the blood of Jesus Christ" in 1 Peter 1:2. There is the expression, "the blood of Jesus" in Hebrews 10:19 and in 1 John 1:7. There is the expression "the blood of Christ" in 1 Corinthians 10:16, Ephesians 2:13, and Hebrews 9:14. Then there is the expression, "the blood of the Lord" in 1 Corinthians 11:27. Finally, there is "the blood of the lamb" (Revelation 7:14. Revelation 12:11). All of these expressions are referring to something about the person of the God-man, Jesus Christ, that's called "blood." What does it refer to? And is it important? And how does it fit into the idea of your personal salvation? But again and again, we see the fact that Jesus was a human being; He possessed blood in His veins; and, this blood is referred to. This blood is a point of significant observation in the New Testament.

6. References to the Blood of Christ are Literal

   The principle of literal interpretation demands that references to the blood of Christ be normally taken as literal. That's the first thing you have to learn when you start reading the Bible. There are certain principles for interpreting the Bible as a written document. The first principle for interpreting any written document is that you take the words at their face value. You let the words mean what they normally mean. In dealing with this word, the "blood" of Christ, as you read the Bible, you must deal with it as normally meaning simply the red fluid that flows in the veins of the person of the God-man. What we're getting at is that there's a great deal of attempt today to spiritualize the blood of Christ, and to simply make it a word which is a symbol for something other than the literal blood of Jesus Christ. The Liberals have been doing this for a long time, and some conservatives are doing it in our day, for some reason, to evade the fact that the Bible says that without the physical death of Jesus Christ, and without the literal shedding of His blood, it is not possible for you to go to heaven. They recoil from that, and the devil is behind it. You have to take the words literally.

   Notice, for example, in 1 Peter 1:18-19, where Peter says, "Forasmuch as you know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things like silver and gold." Now what would silver and gold mean? Did that bother you when you read silver and gold? Did you say, "Now, I wonder what he means by silver and gold? I wonder if he means that silver is the color of my wife's hair. And gold: Is that the nature of my words? What could that mean?" No. Right away, when you said, "Silver," you thought of pre-1964 American coins – good silver coins. You knew what that meant. When it said, "Gold," you thought of Krugerrands. You knew exactly what he meant. No problem. With money, "You are not safe from your vain manner of life received by tradition from your fathers."

   Let's go on to the next verse, which says, "But you weren't bought with material money, but you were saved (you were bought from eternal death) with the precious blood of Christ as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot." Now how are you going to interpret verse 19? Literal blood? Or do you think that you have some way to say, "Well, verse 18 is certainly literal silver and gold, but verse 19, no, that's not literal blood? That is a violation of one of the fundamental basic first rules of interpreting the Bible or any other piece of written literature. You can see the foolishness of trying to decide that you're going to take verse 18 literally, and then you're going to spiritualized verse 19. On what basis? It is purely an arbitrary decision on your part, because it doesn't fit some preconceived notion that you have in a theological way.

7. Animal Sacrifices in the Old Testament and Christ's Sacrifice in the New Testament

   The Bible links the Old Testament sacrificial shedding of animal blood with the New Testament shedding of the blood of Jesus Christ as a sacrifice (Hebrews 9:7, Hebrews 12:14-25, Hebrews 10:4, Hebrews 11:28, and Hebrews 13:11-12). All of those verses connect the shedding of the blood of animals in the Old Testament with the shedding of the blood of Jesus Christ in the New Testament. The two are put one against another. The Old Testament is an analogy. It's a picture of what Christ was going to do in the New Testament. For this reason, John 1:29 presents Jesus Christ as the Lamb of God – a lamb, because there is going to be a sacrifice, and there's going to be literal blood shed. The Old Testament animal blood was a type of the New Testament blood of Christ, which was the anti-type. Both are literal. The Old Testament was the type; that is, the picture. The New Testament blood of Christ was the anti-type, or the fulfillment of the picture. That's what we mean by the words type and anti-type. The Old Testament type was a picture of what was coming ahead. The New Testament anti-type is a fulfillment of that picture.

8. The Blood of Christ and the Blood of Animal Sacrifices

   The New Testament references to the blood of Jesus Christ derive their meaning from the Old Testament animal sacrifices, especially that on the Day of Atonement, as described in Leviticus 16. Jesus Christ brought the one efficacious sacrifice for sins – the one sacrifice that really works. That was the one sacrifice that does the job once and for all. The perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ was portrayed by animal sacrifices. That's all there is to it. There is no big deal here. The animal sacrifices were a picture of the perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ once and for all. Because the animal sacrifices did not cover sins, they had to keep doing it. But Christ, having the Scriptures tell us, made the sacrifice for sins once and for all because of who He was. Because of the nature of His shed blood, it was not necessary to make the sacrifice again. Therefore, when you see the world famous pope walking around to different countries of the world and conducting the mass, don't you forget for one moment that the mass is a performance of sacrifice of the person of Jesus Christ all over again. The Bible forbids that and condemns that in the most severe terms. This is a terrible thing, because this is an ancient consequence of the worship of the sun god. The round wafer was exactly what Nimrod and his people used because they were worshiping the sun God.

   When I was in Rome at St. Peter's Basilica, you could see that symbol everywhere you looked. There was that round sun god, everywhere you looked. Generally it had rays going out as being a decorative feature, and they were calling it the symbol of the Holy Spirit, but anybody who knows any ancient history knows exactly where that round symbol came from. And it is stamped everywhere you look upon the Roman Catholic system today. So the consequence here of the animal sacrifices could never be permanent, but the consequence of the sacrifice of Christ was a permanent one.

9. The Blood of Jesus Christ on the Cross was Sacrificial

   The literal blood shed by Jesus Christ on the cross was sacrificial in nature. Hebrews 9 describes that. The shedding of the blood of Jesus Christ was sacrificial in nature. The Lord Jesus Christ worked in His father Joseph's carpenter shop. As He helped His father working as a carpenter, if the Lord Jesus Christ, in the process of His work should have accidentally cut Himself, His blood at that point would have not been sacrificial in nature. That was not a sacrificial shedding of blood. That is because He would have lost blood; the wound would have been stopped; and, His life would not have been given. The shedding of the literal blood of Christ on the cross was sacrificial in nature.

   I don't know whether you've ever stopped and asked yourself, "Why did He die?" He was a physical human being. Physical human beings don't die unless something happens to the body that causes him to die. Something has to happen to the body to cause it to stop functioning. There are a lot of people that think Jesus Christ committed suicide on the cross – that He just killed Himself. Or some people think that God the Father in heaven suddenly put Him to death and murdered Him. Nothing of the sort. There was a consequence physically that brought about His death. And the shedding of the blood on the cross was a sacrificial shedding. Sacrificial means that it results in death.

   Don't ask me whether it is possible for Jesus Christ, while he was cutting a piece of wood or hammering, to have injured Himself and caused the blood to flow. Could he have cut Himself with a knife? When he was fishing, could He have gotten a hook stuck into his hand? He was a perfect man, who always did everything perfectly, and who had full control? Was it possible for Him to hit His finger with a hammer? Was it possible for Him to cut Himself with a knife? Or does it just take some imperfect, frail creatures like ourselves to do that? I don't know, so that will be a discussion that they will take up at training union in the near future.

10. The Blood of Jesus Christ has no Magical Powers

    The literal blood of Jesus Christ has no magical powers in itself. That literal blood shed at that point on the cross had no magical power. Contact with Christ's blood would not have produced a miracle, contrary to all that the Roman Catholic Church tries to teach on that subject. It would not have created a miracle had you been able to secure a few drops of the blood of Jesus Christ. The blood that was shed on the cross simply fell to the ground, and it was lost forever. The value of the literal blood of Jesus Christ lies in who He was as the sinless God-man, and that it was shed while He was bearing the sins of the world. That's what makes the blood of Christ have value. It was not a magical potion in itself. The blood of Jesus Christ is of no value in itself. It does not have magical qualities to it. The union of Christ's two natures is so complete that His blood becomes the blood of God, in effect, when it is shed.

11. The Blood of Jesus Christ, Apart from the Cross, had no Redemptive Value

    The blood of Christ shed at any time other than while bearing the sins of the world had no redemptive value. As you know, the enemies of Jesus Christ many times tried to kill Him, but the Lord would not permit it. John 10:17-18 describe this. He would not permit His life to be taken, because had He been killed as He was traveling the streets of Palestine, His death would not have merited paying for the sins of the world. It has to be a death that was done in a sacrificial form, and at the right moment in time when God the Father in heaven poured upon Him, the Son, the sins of the world – when He was bearing the sins of the world. As he walked about teaching and doing His labors in the land of Palestine, he was not bearing the sins of the world.

    That took place at a certain point in time on the cross, on that day on which He was crucified, at high noon. At that point in time, the sins of all mankind were placed upon Him, and poured out upon Him, and the crushing spiritual death that He then experienced was brought into effect, and He died spiritually, bearing the sins of the world. At the right time, Jesus Christ did permit His physical life to be taken. John 18:4-5 and John 18:12 tell us about that. At a certain point, His physical death was necessary, but it was not permitted until that particular point in time. So His blood would have been of no value had it been shed at the wrong time.

12. The Shedding of Blood of the Old Testament Animal Sacrifices

    The Old Testament animal sacrifices, portraying the atonement of Christ, always had to be killed by the shedding of literal blood. Death by any other means than the shedding of blood would not have been acceptable in animal sacrifices. Hebrews 9:22 and Hebrews 11:4 tell us that there is no forgiveness of sins possible if literal blood is not shed. The shedding of blood short of physical death of the animal was not acceptable with God either (Hebrews 9:22). The only blood which is sacrificial is that which takes the life of the bearer of that blood. So while Jesus Christ did not die by having His throat cut, as was the case with animal sacrifices, He did shed His blood, and that shedding of His blood did result in His physical death. So he died in a sacrificial way, and His blood that was shed was sacrificially shed blood.

13. Jesus Christ's Physical body

    Jesus Christ was given a physical body to be offered in sacrifice for sin by the shedding of His literal blood. Hebrews 10:5 and Hebrews 10:10 tell us that that is specifically why He was given a physical body so that it could die by a sacrificial process of shedding His literal blood.

14. Christ's Death was Sacrificial

    References to the blood of Christ are not simply a symbol for His death, but point to a specific sacrificial kind of death (1 Corinthians 5:7). When you say "the blood of Christ," don't simply equate that with the death of Christ. It is more than that. When the reference is made to the blood of Christ, it is referring to a specific kind of death – a sacrificial death. This was a death such as when an animal has its throat cut, and the animal throbs the blood out of his life, and then collapses in death.

15. Jesus Christ Died as the Perfect Lamb of God for Our Sins

    Jesus Christ presented His literal blood in the sacrifice of Himself on the cross as the perfect Lamb of God for the sins of the world (Hebrews 9:12ff). In this way, He fulfilled all the Old Testament animal types. As the Old Testament animals literally shed their blood, so Jesus Christ literally shed His blood. Christ's literal blood also testified to His literal death. You know that literal death has taken place when literal blood has been shed. Without the blood, there is no life. The blood is the vehicle of life. When you drain the blood from an animal or from a human being, you know that literal death has taken place. So the Old Testament sacrifices themselves, by the very design of taking literal blood, were indicative of the kind of death that Christ was to have in removing His literal blood to produce a literal death.

16. The Day of Atonement

    The sacrificial ritual on the great Day of Atonement portrayed the necessity for the literal blood of Jesus Christ in the atonement (Leviticus 16:30, Leviticus 32:27, Hebrews 9:11-14). You could not have had the ritual on the great Day of Atonement without literal blood. On that day, as you remember, the high priest first killed a heifer as a sacrifice to cover his own sins. Then, as a representative of the people, he took two goats. He killed one goat; he took the literal blood of that goat into the Holy of Holies; he sprinkled it on the mercy seat; and, atonement was made for the people of Israel. That means covering of their sins temporarily for another year. All of this was on credit until Christ should come. Then he went outside; took the other goat; put his hands on the goat; laid the sins of the people symbolically on that goat; and then they turned him loose (the scapegoat) into the wilderness, never to be seen again. This was thus symbolically conveying that the literal blood that had been shed inside the Holy of Holies had taken away their sins, so that they would never see them again. This is a beautiful picture, all in symbolic form, but it took literal blood to do it. That forgiveness (that covering of sins temporarily) could never have taken place if the literal blood of that animal had not been there to be used in that way.

17. The Passover Lamb

    The analogy of Jesus Christ to the Old Testament Passover lamb demands the shedding of His literal blood as part of the atonement (1 Corinthians 5:7). The Passover lamb had to be killed. That little lamb was kept; they watched to see that it was perfect; and, it had to be a male that had no blemishes, because it was symbolizing the perfection, the sinlessness of Jesus Christ. That little lamb had to be sacrificially killed, or it did not provide the Passover picture. The Lord Jesus Christ had to be killed in the same way.

18. Christ's Blood was Shed in the Atonement for Sin

    The literal blood of Jesus Christ was shed profusely in the course of the atonement for sin. This is one of the greatest mistakes a lot of people make, that Jesus Christ did not bleed a lot in the course of the atonement for sin. But in the Garden of Gethsemane, Luke 22:44 tells us that his sweat was mixed with drops of blood. Under great emotional strain and pressure, blood will seep up through the capillaries and come out through the sweat glands on the skin. He also lost blood from the physical beatings (Matthew 26:67, Matthew 27:26). He also lost blood from the crown of thorns thrust on His skull (Matthew 27:29). He lost blood from the nail wounds in His hands and feet. (John 20:25, Luke 20:4, Luke 30:9-40).

    The point we're making is that Jesus Christ lost a lot of blood, and He kept being attacked physically in such a way that the wounds were reopened and reopened, and the blood was flowing. He didn't lose just a little blood.

19. Christ's Death on the Cross was Due to His Loss of Blood

    The death of Jesus Christ on the cross was the normal result of the beatings and the great loss of blood which He experienced. That's why His body quit functioning and died – because He lost so much blood. Jesus Christ did not commit suicide. Jesus Christ lay down His life for the sins of the world by permitting sinful men to murder him. Jesus knew when the moment arrived that His body would die, and He announced it (Luke 23:46). The deity of Christ was in full command of the proceedings of His death, and as the God-man, He chose the moment of death (Matthew 27:50, John 19:30).

    So on the one hand, His deity was pacing his own death. On the other hand, His humanity knew when the moment of the consequences of shock would set in because the loss of blood had now reached its critical point, and death was imminent, and He announced it. The two sides of His nature were pacing, controlling, and determining the specific point when the sins of the world had been paid for. He had died spiritually. That part had been paid. Now the part to be paid was His physical death to complete that atonement. When He was in His agonies of bearing spiritual death, He was screaming out, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" And God the Father and God the Holy Spirit had turned away from Him, Scripture tells us, because He was now in the condition of sin, in bearing our sins, and He was in the condition of spiritual death. Just before He gave up His physical life, He said, "Father," the word of fellowship. He was now back spiritually alive, back in fellowship with the Father: "Into thy hands I commit My Spirit," and the fellowship has been restored.

20. The Animal Sacrifices Portrayed Christ's Death

    The Old Testament animal sacrifices simply portrayed the death of Jesus Christ for the sins of the world without distinguishing between His spiritual and physical deaths on the cross (Matthew 27:46, John 19:33-34). The Old Testament sacrifices portrayed just His death. They didn't try to distinguish between the spiritual and the physical sides of that death.

21. Jesus Christ Ransomed Believers form the Power of Satan

    By his spiritual and physical deaths, Jesus Christ ransomed believers from the power of Satan (Acts 20:28, Ephesians 1:7, 1 Peter 1:18ff, Revelation 5:9).

22. The Lord's Supper

    The blood of Christ in salvation is stressed separately in the memorial of the Lord's Supper (Matthew 26:26-28, 1 Corinthians 11:23-2:6). Since the bread symbolizes His literal body, the wine symbolizes His literal blood. Both the body and the blood are viewed as essential to redemption, and that is very significant. The Lord's Supper doesn't present just one or the other. It doesn't just present His physical side or His blood side. Both are there, and both elements are recognized as being necessary for redemption. So His literal blood was needed, and His physical death was needed.

23. The Purging of Sin

    The purging of sin in the Old Testament did not come at the point of the shedding of the animal's blood, but at the point of the application of that blood (Hebrews 9:19-22, Hebrews 12:24). In the Old Testament, the application was by pouring out the blood at the base of the altar (Leviticus 4:7); by smearing it on the altar (Exodus 29:12); by sprinkling it on the altar (Exodus 29:16); by sprinkling it on the high priest (Exodus 29:21); or, by sprinkling it on the veil of the temple (Leviticus 4:6). In the New Testament, the application of the blood of Christ is by believing in Jesus Christ as one's personal savior (John 6:53-56, Acts 16:31). It isn't at the point that the blood is shed that people are saved. Everybody is not going to be saved. It is at the point of application that the value of the blood is received, and you do not receive the application of the body and blood of Christ by taking the Lord's Supper, as many are thought, and as the Roman church mass teaches. You receive the application of sacrificial blood of Jesus Christ by trusting and in Him as Savior. So the sacrificial blood of Jesus Christ that justifies all the appropriate sacrificial death is described for us in Romans 3:25.

24. The Word "Blood" is Sometimes used Figuratively

    The word "blood" is sometimes used figuratively for the atoning work of Jesus Christ (Revelation 19:13, John 6:53-56). Here, one element of the atonement is used for the whole saving work. The blood of Christ cannot be viewed as simply meaning the death of Christ by any means whatsoever, but a sacrificial death. So the blood of Christ is sometimes used to cover the whole concept of the atonement. That's the important factor of it.

25. Sprinkled Blood

    The phrase "sprinkled blood" in Hebrews 12:24 means the application to the believer of the death of Christ for sin.

26. Forgiveness of Sins

    Without the substitution in death of an innocent life for a guilty one, there is no forgiveness of sins. Hebrews 9:22 makes it very clear that a life must be given in payment for sin. "The wages of sin is death."

27. Blood on the Door Posts

    The literal blood on the lintels and the door posts in Egypt is what protected the firstborn from physical death, symbolizing the protection of the literal blood of Jesus Christ from the literal eternal death (Exodus 12).

28. The Church

    The New Testament church is built upon the redemption provided by the literal blood of Jesus Christ (Acts 20:28). This is the reason we are redeemed. The church itself is built upon this literal blood.

29. The New Testament Covenant

    The New Testament is a covenant based on the shed blood of Jesus Christ (Hebrews 12:24, Hebrews 9:16, Hebrews 10:13). When we talk about the New Testament, we're talking about a new agreement based on the literal blood of Jesus Christ, and that's how the Bible views it.

30. Temporal Fellowship

    The shed literal blood of Jesus Christ given in death is the basis for the believer's maintenance of temporal fellowship (1 John 1:7-9). The reason you can maintain temporal fellowship by the confession (the admission) of your telling to God what you have done that has been evil is because the blood of Jesus Christ has already covered your payment for that sin.

31. Christ's Blood Gives Access to God

    Christ's blood makes possible life in God's presence. It gives access to God (Hebrews 10:19, Ephesians 2:13, Ephesians 2:18). This is why this is a serious matter for those who reject the blood of Christ. They have rejected all access to the living God. Without the literal blood of Christ, there is no way to come to the literal true God.

32. The Tearing of the Temple Veil

    Now we come to one of the most important points of this summary. The veil in the temple was not torn until the atonement was completed with the physical death of Jesus Christ. I'm going to read just one of those passages in Mark 15, because this seems to be inclusive declaration as to just when the atonement was completed: before He died physically; or, after He died physically. People who reject the literal blood of Christ in the Atonement also reject His physical death for the atonement. Mark 15:37-38: "Jesus cried with a loud voice and gave up the spirit." He died physically. Verse 38: "And the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom." Matthew 27:50-51 give us the same information. The physical body of Jesus Christ was provided for the specific purpose of suffering and dying for the sins of the world (Hebrews 10:5, Hebrews 10:10, Hebrews 10:20). You may compare that to the animal death in Hebrews 10:4.

    Our access as believers into God's presence is through the physical death of Jesus Christ, symbolized by the torn temple veil. The Bible says that we have access to God through the veil, just as the Old Testament high priest had access to God. Where was God? God was in the Holy of Holies. He was in that innermost room. He met above the mercy seat, which was on the Ark of the Covenant, and the high priest, once a year, walked in there, and he was face-to-face confronted with the living God. But how did he get there? He had to go through the veil that shielded that part of the tabernacle from the rest of it. There was no way except through the veil to get into the presence of God. He could not go in unless he had the literal blood of an animal representing the coming literal blood of Jesus Christ as the ground to cover his sins – the basis of forgiveness so that a sinner could stand in the presence of a holy God, without God compromising His integrity in doing so.

    The body of Jesus Christ is compared to this veil. We have access into the very presence of God through the body of Jesus Christ given in death. His literal body was necessary for that access. And when that death had made that access possible, God's finger reached down from heaven and, like a knife, he slashed that very expensive and very thick curtain right in two, and threw open, for all the world to see, direct access to the presence of the living God. Why was that now possible? Because atonement was now a reality. The fact that that temple veil was not cut until Jesus died physically, I think, conclusively indicates that the physical death was necessary to cover our sins. Jesus Christ declared the giving of His physical life for His sheep (for His believers). He specifically says in John 10:15 that He's giving His life.

    Jesus Christ died physically for our sins because He was buried physically, and He was resurrected physically (1 Corinthians 15:1-4). His burial was physical; His resurrection was physical; and, His death was physical.

    In Luke 23:45-46, you find this order reversed: "And the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was torn in the midst. When Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, 'Father, into Your hands I commend my spirit.' Having said this, He gave up the spirit." Mark and Matthew give us the normal relationship. He died, then the veil was torn. Luke is just giving events. Sometimes He does not give events in chronological order. Luke says, "The veil was torn. Jesus gave up his life." But the pattern is established by Matthew and Mark. They give things in chronological order. First He died, and then the temple veil was torn.

33. Entrance into Heaven

    As entrance to the Holy of Holies of the temple was by means of literal blood, so also is entrance into heaven by means of literal blood.

34. The Doctrines of Salvation

    Finally, the great doctrines related to salvation are all based on the literal blood shed by Jesus Christ in His atonement. There is no forgiveness of sin without literal blood (Matthew 26:28). There is no sanctification without the literal blood of Christ first (1 Corinthians 1:2, Hebrews 2:10-11, Hebrews 9:13-15). There is no redemption without the literal blood of Christ (Ephesians 1:7, Revelation 5:9). There is no propitiation without the literal blood of Christ (Romans 3:25). There is no peace without the literal blood of Christ (Ephesians 2:1-3, Colossians 1:20). There is no reconciliation without the blood of Jesus (Colossians 1:20-22). There is no temporal fellowship without the blood of Christ (1 John 1:7-9). There is no justification without the blood of Christ (Romans 5:8-9). And there is no entrance into heaven without the literal blood of Christ (Hebrews 10:19-20).

Dr. John E. Danish, 1977

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