THE BIBLE
Can we trust a book written 2000 years ago?

EYEWITNESS
Did the writers of the New Testament get their picture of Jesus right?

GOD - MAN
Is Jesus really God?

RESURRECTION
Did Jesus really rise from the dead?

RELIGIONS
With so many religions, why Christianity?

SUFFERING
If there is a God, why is there so much suffering?

TRINITY
Understanding the Trinity.

SCIENCE
The complementary nature of Science & Christianity.

FORGIVENESS
What it is and why it matters?

GUIDANCE
How does God guide?

REPENTANCE
What it is and why you can't get to heaven without it.

BORN AGAIN
What does it mean to be converted and born again?

SAVING FAITH
The kind of faith that will get you to heaven

ASSURANCE
Can I know for sure that I am going to heaven?

TRUTH
What is truth and does it matter?

MORALITY
Does it matter how we live? A Christian view of morality.

THE CHURCH
God's vision for his family, the Church. A call to the churches of the new millennium.

PURPOSE
How can I find a great purpose for living?

IDENTITY
Who am I; Finding my true identity as a human being and as a child of God.

SELF-ESTEEM
How can I feel good about my self? The Christian basis for proper sel-esteem.

LIFE AFTER DEATHChristianity's Hope & Challenge.

THE CROSS
Why did Jesus Die? What the Bible says about the Cross.

Grace
The importance of grace in the New Testament.

The cross in the New Testament letters

When we come to the letters of the New Testament, we find a very interesting thing. You would have thought that with someone who had lived such a wonderful life, such as no one else has ever lived before or since, that there would have been lots of things the writers of these letters could have written about. They could have written about his great compassion and the way he mixed with the outcasts of society; his remarkable healing ministry to the lame, the lepers, the blind, the tormented and even how, on occasions, he raised the dead; the confident authority with which he spoke and the wisdom of his teaching which has been unsurpassed, or the confident and unassuming way in which he challenged the civil and religious rulers of his day. We have a full account of all these things in the four Gospels, but they hardly get another mention in the rest of the New Testament.

When events from the life of Jesus are referred to, from his birth to his ascension into heaven, we find that all the emphasis is on his death and resurrection. According to my reckoning, a rough estimate of the number of references to the cross in the letters is as follows: 18 in Romans; 11 in 1 Corinthians; six in 2 Corinthians; eight in Galatians; six in Ephesians; three in Philippians; seven in Colossians; two in 1 Thessalonians; one in 1 Timothy; two in 2 Timothy; one in Titus; 23 in Hebrews; ten in 1 Peter; five in 1 John; and if we include all the references to the Jesus as the Lamb, the animal of sacrifice, 30 in Revelation. The only letters not to mention the cross directly are James, 2 Peter, Jude, and the three short personal letters of Philemon, and 2 and 3 John.

Christ’s death “for our sins”

Another interesting thing to note is that all the emphasis here is on the fact that he died for “us” or “for our sins”. Consider the following phrases that are typical of what we find: He died “for many” (Mark 10:45); “for the ungodly” (Romans 5:6); “for us” (5:8); “for us all” (8:32); “for you ” (1 Corinthians 11:24); “for our sins” (15:3); “for all” (2 Corinthians 5:14); “for me” (Galatians 2:20); “for her [the church]” (Ephesians 5:25); “to do away with sin”(Hebrews 9:26); “to take away the sins of many” (9:28); “for sins” (1 Peter 3:18); “for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:2).

The different words that are used in the Greek language in which the New Testament was written, which are translated “for” in this context in our English translations, are significant. Four different words are used, huper, peri, anti and dia. Huper is the most common and is used 26 times in this way. It has the meaning “in behalf of, for the sake of someone or something”, though many times it is shown by its context to be used in the sense of “instead of”. For example, Paul wanted to keep Onesimus in Rome to serve him “on behalf of” his master Philemon, that is, “in his place” (Philemon 13). This meaning, in relation to the cross, is particularly clear in passages such as 2 Corinthians 5:21 and Galatians 3:13. Peri, used 6 times, usually has the meaning “with regard to, with reference to”. According to the Arndt-Gingrich lexicon, when used with the Greek word for “sin” it has the sense “to take away, to atone for”. Anti is used three times in connection with the Greek word lutron, “a ransom” (Matthew 20:28; Mark 10:45; 1 Timothy 2:6). It has the primary meaning “instead of, in place of”, though it can develop into “in behalf of ”, similar in meaning to huper. Leon Morris, in The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross, comments: “The most common meaning of the preposition, both inside the New Testament and out, is ‘instead of’ or ‘in exchange for’.”Dia is used once in this context (Romans 4:25). It has the meaning “because of”.

So it could be said, in summary, that Christ died “on our behalf”, “for our sake”, or “instead of us”, or “with regard to”, “with reference to”, or “because of” our sins, or to “take them away”. Patricia Hampl, in I Could Tell You Stories, says that redemption requires that radical evil and radical atonement collide. This happened on the cross.

The eminent theologian, Karl Barth, in his Church Dogmatics, IV, summed up the New Testament use of these prepositions as pointing to Christ’s “activity as our Representative and Substitute.” He says:

They cannot be understood if—quite apart from the particular view of the atonement made in Him which dominates these passages—we do not see that in general these prepositions speak of a place which ought to be ours, that we ought to have taken this place, that we have been taken from it, that it is occupied by another, that this other acts in this place as only He can, in our cause and interest, that we cannot add to anything that He does there because the place where we might do so is occupied by Him, that anything further which might happen can result only from what is done by Him in our place and in our cause.

Concerning this emphasis John Stott, in Our Guilty Silence, says:

Since Jesus had no sin either in his nature or in his conduct, he need never have died either physically or spiritually…Then why did he do it? What was the rationale of his death? There is only one possible, logical, biblical answer. It is that he died for our sins, not his own. The death he died was our death, the penalty which our sins had richly deserved.

There are no doubt several reasons we could give as to why Jesus came: to show us how to live by giving us his teaching and an example to follow; to give us a purpose for living; or to give us hope for the future. However, John sums up the major emphasis of the New Testament when he declares, “he appeared so that he might take away our sins” (1 John 3:5).

The blood of Christ

Another significant emphasis is that which is placed on “the blood of Christ”. Jesus himself, during his last meal with his disciples, had spoken of “my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Matthew 26:28). Earlier, he had declared that it was through the appropriation of his blood that we receive eternal life and enjoy a close relationship with him (John 6:53-56). This way of speaking of Christ’s death occurs about thirty times in the New Testament. In the letters it is the most common way of doing so.

God had forbidden his people to eat the flesh of animals that still contained the blood, “because the life of every creature is its blood” (Leviticus 17:14). We now know the truth of that statement. Our bodies contain something like one hundred trillion cells, each of which requires a constant supply of oxygen, amino acids, nitrogen, sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium, sugars, lipids, cholesterols, and hormones. All these are carried on tiny rafts of blood cells which have access to every living cell in the body through minute capillaries. Each cell has its own drawing rights and extracts what it needs to fuel its amazingly complex chemical reactions. Without the life-giving quality of the blood the cells would very quickly die. Obviously, “the life of the flesh is the blood”! When Jesus spoke of his blood being “poured out”, he was referring to his life, the life of God himself, voluntarily given for us. Leon Morris, in The Atonement: Its Meaning and Significance, showed very clearly that this term “blood” denotes a life laid down in a violent, sacrificial death. Oswald Chambers made this comment:

The expression “the blood of Christ” means not only that Christ shed his blood, but also that he poured it out before God. In the Old Testament the idea of sacrifice is that the blood, which is the life (see Genesis 4:4), is poured out to God, its Giver. When Jesus Christ shed his blood on the cross it was not the blood of a martyr, or the blood of one man for another; it was the life of God poured out to redeem the world.

It is significant in this respect that the Hebrew word for blood occurs 362 times in the Old Testament. In 203 of these instances it refers to death with violence of some kind. In 103 instances it refers to sacrificial blood, 78 of these occurring in Leviticus and Exodus. When the Hebrews heard the word ‘blood’, the most likely association to be conjured up would be that of violent death.

Another function of blood is its cleansing properties. Each cell in the body needs to get rid of its potentially hazardous waste products such as carbon dioxide, urea and uric acid. It is the blood cells that have this cleansing action, removing these wastes to the kidneys. The heart of a 70kg man will pump about six litres per minute. Twenty percent of this flows through the kidneys, which distil some thirty chemicals and promptly return ninety-nine percent of the volume back into the bloodstream, sending the remaining one percent off to the bladder for expulsion. These remarkable blood cells survive for a quarter-million circuits and are then nudged to the liver and spleen for one last unloading. They are picked clean and broken down into amino acids and bile pigment for recycling. Every second the bone marrow produces another four million blood cells to replace these.

So the cleansing nature of blood also provides us with a very appropriate metaphor for the cross. The missionary doctor Paul Brand, who did some wonderful pioneering surgical work restoring dignity to patients deformed by leprosy, wrote the book In His Image, together with Philip Yancey, on this remarkable body God has given us. He says:

I used to think it strange that the Bible keeps talking about the cleansing power of the blood (1 Peter 1:2). It seemed to me that the blood was messy stuff. I needed to wash my white lab coats if they became stained with blood.

Today I love the analogy; it is so true of the body. The blood is constantly cleansing every cell, and washing away all the debris that accumulates all the time.

Consider the following statements:

We have been bought by his blood (Acts 20:28).
Our sins are atoned for through the shedding of his blood (Romans 3:25).
We are justified by his blood (Romans 5:9).
We have redemption, the forgiveness of sins through his blood (Ephesians 1:7).
We are brought near to God by the blood of Christ (Ephesians 2:13).
We have peace with God through his blood (Colossians 1:20).
We have eternal redemption by his blood (Hebrews 9:12).
It is the blood of Christ that will cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death (Hebrews 9:14).
We have confidence to enter the presence of God by the blood of Jesus
(Hebrews 10:19).
It is the blood of Christ that sanctifies us (Hebrews 10:29).
We are made holy by his blood (Hebrews 13:12).
We are redeemed from an empty way of life with the precious blood of Christ (1 Peter 1:18, 19).
The blood of Jesus purifies us from all sin (1 John 1:7).
He freed us from our sins by his blood (Revelation 1:5).
It was with his blood that he purchased for God members of every tribe and language and people and nation (Revelation 5:9).
Our robes are washed and made white by the blood of the Lamb (Revelation 7:14).
We triumph over the evil one by the blood of the Lamb (Revelation
12:11).

There appears, also, to be a progressive revelation of the remission of sin through the shedding of blood in the Bible. In the case of Abel, the blood was sufficient for the forgiveness of one man (Genesis 4:4). During the first Passover, the blood of the lamb on the doorpost was sufficient to protect a whole family (Exodus 12:3). When the tabernacle was constructed, on the Day of Atonement the blood of one goat was sufficient to atone for the guilt of the nation (Leviticus 16:15, 16). But in the case of Jesus, the Lamb of God, the blood shed on the cross was sufficient for “the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:2). I believe J. Behm got the New Testament emphasis on blood in this context right when he said: “‘Blood of Christ’ is like ‘cross’, only another, clearer expression for the death of Christ in its salvation meaning.”

Because I like stories, I will finish with three short ones. John Bunyan, the author of Pilgrim’s Progress, which has probably gone through more editions than any other book in history after the Bible, wrote in his later book, Grace Abounding:

I remember that one day, as I was travelling into the country, and musing on the wickedness and blasphemy of my heart, and considering the enmity that was in me to God, that Scripture came into my mind, ‘He [has] made peace by the blood of his cross.’ [Colossians 1:20]. By which I was made to see, both again and again that day, that God and my soul were friends by his blood; yea, I saw that the justice of God and my sinful soul could embrace and kiss each other through his blood. This was a good day to me; I hope I shall never forget it.

When the multimillionaire J. P. Morgan died, it was found that he had made his will a year before his death. It consisted of 10,000 words, and contained 37 articles. Some of his financial transactions had involved such large sums of money that they disturbed the financial equilibrium of the whole world. Yet he left us in no doubt as to what he considered the most important clause in his will and what stood out in his mind as his most important transaction. He said:

I commit my soul into the hands of my Saviour, full of confidence that having redeemed me and washed me with His precious blood, He will present me faultless before the Throne of my Heavenly Father. I entreat my children to maintain and defend at all hazards and at all costs personally, the blessed doctrine of the complete atonement of sin through the blood of Jesus Christ once offered and through that alone.

A story is told of Queen Victoria that is said to be authentic. When she occupied her castle at Balmoral, Scotland, she was in the habit of calling in a friendly way on certain cottagers living in the neighbourhood. One aged Highland woman, who felt greatly honoured by these visits and who knew the Lord, was anxious about the spiritual state of the queen. As the season came to a close one year, Her Majesty was making her last visit to the humble home of this dear child of God. After the good-byes were said, the old cottager timidly inquired, “May I ask your gracious Majesty a question?” “Yes,” replied the queen, “as many as you like.” “Will your Majesty meet me in heaven?” Instantly, the royal visitor replied, “I will, through the all-availing blood of Jesus.”

The poet and hymn writer, William Cowper, put it like this:

There is a fountain filled with blood, drawn from Immanuel’s veins,
And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.

Such language may seem a little grotesque in today’s society where we associate blood with all the mayhem we see constantly on television. However, to those with understanding and with the humility to recognise their greatest need, it contains the most important truth and glorious news that is available to this weary planet.

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