JOHN MACARTHUR AND THE BLOOD OF CHRIST?

Plains Baptist Challenger ^ | unknown | E.L. Bynum, others

[Quix]

Am not a great fan of McArthur's at all.

But THE BLOOD--THE PRECIOUS BLOOD OF THE LAMB IS WITHOUT PEER IN ALL CREATION.

The bloodline from Adam to Christ is clear. The Scripture is clear that without the shedding of blood, there's no remission of sins.

I've always been wary and avoidant of folks who are skittish and minimizing about THE BLOOD--THE PRECIOUS BLOOD.

God chose the means, import, value to emphasize re Salvation. I choose to love what God loves and hate what God hates.

Praise God for Christ--once and for all.

Thanks for the post.

[Mrs. Darla Ruth Schwerin]

I totally agree with your assessment of the Billy Graham business, mostly because I would do the same in a similar situation. Anyway, in my opinion, it is dangerous ground to begin trying to separate what a person says, with the way a person is. What comes to mind is, our lovely ex-Pres., Billy. There was no difference in his conduct, either personally or professionally. And yet there were attempts, to make it so. That is a recipe for disaster. And how many diasaters did we witness in that scenario?
...Getting back to being pressed on an issue. To me, that sparks of trying to put someone in a cage. No one likes that, and they will fight to get out. That sounds exactly like what happened in the altercation beteen MacArthur and the other guy.
...In reality, what is happening is the fella is playing readers like a filddle. And them kind of people get a, SHAME ON YOU, from me...

[Quix]

This article, at least towards the start, takes more of an issue with what McArthur has preached, rather than who he is. And, unless the article has fundamentally misrepresented McArthur's behavior, it is McArthur, not some interviewer, who has pushed the issue. Thus, in contrast to Graham, who simply refused to make a dogmatic issue a grounds for an ideological war within the Church, McArthur appears to be making a conflict.
- - - -

Excellent points, imho.

[Quix]

I think you are quite right about the preciousness of blood to the Jew. And the scene from the movie is a wonderful, very touching one.

I also like the hymn, . . . one precious drop . . .

It will be interesting if Wyatt's claims end up true about a crack in at the base of the central cross hole in Golgatha and blood dripping down through that crack onto the Mercy Seat of the Ark of the Covenant in it's hiding cave.

[Quix]

IMO, after researching one of the original sources quoted in this article, I come away thinking the author of the posted article is on a heresy hunt and looks for heresy in all the wrong places.
- - - -

Hmmmm. I hope you're right.

Though, in general, I'm not very blessed by folks who seem to be most thrilled and energized by heresy hunting and grabbing folks by the intellectual jugular vein

rather than loving folks into The Kingdom.

[Quix]

One of my very favorite hymns. NOTHING BUT THE BLOOD!

[Quix]

I think some of McArthur's teachings are Scriptural and good.

My pastor's sister is married to one of McArthur's core staff persons, as I understand it.

McArthur's hostility to the practice of I Cor 12 & 14 in our Christian Church era

is unBiblical as well as . . . . . . cheeky and short-sighted, imho.

The brother-in-law evidently is pretty hostile to even being part of family holiday meals--it's an A of G family.

[Rhadaghast]

there is another reason that the blood is so vitally important and not Just the death of Christ. (not to put any shadow on his death at all)

That is that the blood was considered unclean. That the sin was actually taken in to the blood and that is how we are washed and made clean. Yes a sacrifice was made, and all the sin was placed on that sacrifice, but the part of the blood was that it had become infused with the sin. Therefore its nature is to take sin from us.

THis is evidenced by: The pass over being unlevened bread, leven being a simble of sin; and wine, not grape joice, being that fermentation was present in the wine. Fermentation and or yeast being the symbol of sin.

[Mrs. Darla Ruth Schwerin]

Yep. My thoughts exactly. Some people find their identity in their ability to incite riots, and/or arguments through antagonistic sayings. Which will be perceived by those unaware, as being a totally harmless post. But it really is quite a sneaky, deceitful, childish and all around ugly thing to do. And, it is very much, not a good plan...

BTW, hadn't thought of Thoreau in a while, as I read, Civil Disobedience my first or second year of college. And I think nowadays, many are quite clueless as to what civil disobedience really is...

[Mrs. Darla Ruth Schwerin]

None of this post is the least bit offensive. You are simply posting your opinion, and everyone has a right to their own opinion. And we all learn a thing or two about folks and their posting habits, as we go along...

[Dr. Eckleburg]

Glad to see you've returned, FC.

MacArthur has been the object of a witch hunt for years in certain Baptist circles because of his Reformed beliefs. Once you say you believe that God has ordained the future as well as the past, free-willers of all stripes come out to take their shots.

Generally, that's because if you deny free will, you've taken away the mechanism by which the temporal powers of this world control us worker bees.

Either God controls His creation, or men control it. And if men control, other men will tell you you're free while usurping your freedom. Same old, same old.

I agree, Albion Girl, that MacArthur seems to be arguing against the idolization of any matter, even Christ's blood. How different is His actual human blood than the supposed relic of His foreskin? It's all magick. The body does not matter. Christ's atonement is what saves; His act of standing in our place and taking on our punishment for sins when we should be sentenced to the fire. I like a Baptist arguing against ceremonial relics. My Presbyterian upbringing cringes at the very thought of Christ's infused righteousness going into anything of this world other than the spiritual hearts and minds of His sheep.

I disagree with MacArthur over his dispensationalism, although generally he's not rabid in that belief.

I've admired him on Larry King's show several times when he's on a panel of idolators, goats and New Age fools who preach universalism and the voodoo economics of salvation. He's the ONLY one to stand up for Biblical truth and declare that ONLY Christ saves. For that, he's targeted as an enemy to many.

The following CNN Larry King transcripts are very telling -- they portray precisely the world in which we live.

WHAT HAPPENS AFTER WE DIE?

and...

GOD AND GOOD VS. EVIL

and...

ThE WAR IN IRAQ

[P-Marlowe]

I Believe in the Precious Blood

By John MacArthur

He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses: Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing.

Dear Beloved Friend,
The blood of the Lord Jesus Christ is holy and precious. The shedding of His blood in death was the price of atonement for our sins. As He literally poured out His blood in a sacrificial act, He sealed forever the New Covenant and purchased our redemption.
Those of you familiar with my teaching know that I have always believed and affirmed those things. For the past two or three years, however, I have been under attack by a small but vocal group of men who are eager to discredit my ministry. They have charged me with denying the blood of Christ and have called me a heretic in several nationally distributed publications.
My first response was to write many of those men privately, believing their attack on me grew from a misunderstanding. None of them had spoken to me personally before attacking me in print. Only a handful have yet replied to my letters. Still, I expected the public controversy to die away. My teaching is certainly no secret, and I knew that those who listen regularly to our radio broadcast would know I am a not teaching heresy.
Nevertheless, for nearly three years a small core of zealots have kept the issue swirling around every ministry I'm involved with. One man has literally made a career of going to any church in the country that will pay his way and giving a series of messages on the error of "MacArthurism." Recently, a couple of key radio stations dropped "Grace to You," not because of anything we taught on the broadcast, but because they did not want to continue to deal with the controversy being generated by rumormongers.
Over the past couple of years we have received thousands of letters from all over the country, ranging from those supporting our biblical view, to those who are confused, to some who blindly echo the accusation that we are trampling underfoot the blood of Christ. For the sake of all of them, and so that you can better understand what I have taught about the blood of Christ, let's look at three truths that I and all other genuine believers affirm about the blood of Jesus Christ.

1. Jesus' Blood Is the Basis of Redemption

Peter wrote, "Ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, [like] silver and gold . . .but with the precious blood of Christ" (1 Pet. 1:18-19, KJV). Scripture speaks of the blood of Christ nearly three times as often as it mentions the cross, and five times more often than it refers to the death of Christ. The word blood, therefore, is the chief term the New Testament uses to refer to the atonement.
Peter wrote that election is "unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ" (1 Pet. 1:2). The "sprinkling of the blood" was what sealed the New Covenant (cf. Heb. 9:1-18). "Without shedding of blood is no remission" (v. 22). If Christ had not literally shed His blood in sacrifice for our sins, we could not have been saved.
This is one reason crucifixion was the means God ordained by which Christ should die: it was the most vivid, visible display of life being poured out as the price for sins.
Bloodshed was likewise God's design for nearly all Old Testament sacrifices. They were bled to death rather than clubbed, strangled, suffocated, or burnt. God designed that sacrificial death was to occur with blood loss, because "the life of the flesh is in the blood" (Lev. 17:11).

2. Jesus Shed His Literal Blood When He Died

The literal blood of Christ was violently shed at the crucifixion. Those who deny this truth or try to spiritualize the death of Christ are guilty of corrupting the gospel message. Jesus Christ bled and died in the fullest literal sense, and when He rose from the dead, he was literally resurrected. To deny the absolute reality of those truths is to nullify them (cf. 1 Cor. 15:14-17).
The meaning of the crucifixion, however, is not fully expressed in the bleeding alone. There was nothing supernatural in Jesus' blood that sanctified those it touched. Those who flogged Him might have been spattered with blood. Yet that literal application of Jesus' blood did nothing to purge their sins.
Had our Lord bled without dying, redemption would not have been accomplished. If the atonement had been stopped before the full wages of sin had been satisfied, Jesus' bloodshed would have been to no avail.
It is important to note also that though Christ shed His blood, Scripture does not say He bled to death; it teaches rather that He voluntarily yielded up His spirit (John 10:18). Yet even that physical death could not have bought redemption apart from His spiritual death, whereby He was separated from the Father (cf. Mat. 27:46).

3. Not Every Reference to Jesus' Blood Is Literal

Clearly, though Christ shed His literal blood, many references to the blood are not intended to be taken in the literal sense. A strictly literal interpretation cannot, for example, explain such passages as John 6:53-54: "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day."
It would be equally hard to explain how physical blood is meant in Matthew 27:25 ("His blood be on us, and on our children"); Acts 5:28 ("[You] intend to bring this man's blood upon us"); 18:6 ("Your blood be upon your own heads"); 20:26 ("I am innocent of the blood of all men"); and 1 Corinthians 10:16 ("The cup of blessing . . .is it not the communion of the blood of Christ?," KJV).
Clearly the word blood is often used to mean more than the literal red fluid. Thus it is that when Scripture speaks of the blood of Christ, it usually means much more than just the red and white corpuscles—it encompasses His death, the sacrifice for our sins, and all that is involved in the atonement.
Trying to make literal every reference to Christ's blood can lead to serious error. The Catholic doctrine known as transubstantiation, for example, teaches that communion wine is miraculously changed into the actual blood of Christ, and that those who partake of the elements in the mass literally fulfill the words of Jesus in John 6:54: "He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day."
Those who have attacked me seem to be espousing the same kind of mystical view of the blood that led the Catholic Church to embrace transubstantiation. They claim that the blood of Christ was never truly human. They insist on literalizing every New Testament reference to Jesus' blood. They teach that the physical blood of Christ was somehow preserved after the crucifixion and carried to heaven, where it is now literally applied to the soul of each Christian at salvation.
We are not saved by some mystical heavenly application of Jesus' literal blood. Nothing in Scripture indicates that the literal blood of Christ is preserved in heaven and applied to individual believers. When Scripture says we're redeemed by the blood (1 Pet. 1:18-19), it is not speaking of a bowl of blood in heaven. It means we're saved by Christ's sacrificial death.
In the same way, when Paul said he gloried in the cross (Gal. 6:14), he did not mean the literal wooden beams; he was speaking of all the elements of redeeming truth. Just as the cross is an expression that includes all of Christ's atoning work, so is the blood. It is not the actual liquid that cleanses us from our sins, but the work of redemption Christ accomplished in pouring it out.
That is not heresy; it is basic biblical truth.
If you've been troubled by these issues and you'd like to study them more in depth, please write to us. We'll send you free of charge a cassette tape containing virtually everything I've ever said about the blood of Christ. We've compiled this tape from nearly twenty years of messages given at Grace Community Church. We also have some written material that explains our position, which we will send you again at no charge.
I hope you'll be like the noble Bereans and study God's Word for yourself to see if these things are true. Please don't be influenced by careless charges of heresy.
Also, please pray for me. These attacks have been relentless, and I confess that at times it is discouraging. Yet I know one cannot be on the front lines without constant battles, and it is a privilege to suffer wrong for the Lord's sake (cf. 1 Pet. 4:19).
Thank you for your prayers and support. Please pray that God will protect us as we seek to minister His truth with boldness.
Yours in His Service,

John MacArthur
Pastor-Teacher

[1000 silverlings]

Very good post Dr. Eckleburg. By grace you are saved, through faith and that not of yourselves....

Full Court I'm glad to see you are back, yet I can't help but wonder why you would post an article attacking John MacArthur.

[1000 silverlings]

Thank you Marlowe.

[P-Marlowe]

The blood of Jesus Christ is just a talking point?

Does it not give you pause to wonder why it is that the Catholics are praising you for posting this thread?

Perhaps if you read exactly what it was that MacArthur said instead of relying on those who attack him because they disagree with his soteriology. MacArthur is one of the best Bible teachers of the 20th Century. I suspect he will go down as one of the best of the 21st Century. When you see accusations against him for being heretical and you see the rabid Catholics jumping on the bandwagon, perhaps it is time to take pause and actually read what it is that MacArthur wrote rather than what other say he wrote.

He has made himself clear in post number 52. Why don't you address that post and let everyone know where he is being heretical there. That is his actual teaching on the subject.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

Does it not give you pause to wonder why it is that the Catholics are praising you for posting this thread?

That was my first thought, too, P-M, but I feared saying it. Thanks for doing so.

[P-Marlowe]

That was my first thought, too, P-M, but I feared saying it. Thanks for doing so.

Well you've said it now. Prepare to be zotted.

[1000 silverlings]

My thought as well. Unless Full Court can respond to our posts, I am no longer calling her "friend".

[Dr. Eckleburg]

Amen. Grace saves. Only grace.

[Alex Murphy]

Full Court I'm glad to see you are back, yet I can't help but wonder why you would post an article attacking John MacArthur.

Please do not take issue with Full Court - the responsibility for this thread/topic is solely mine. Note Full Court's acknowledgment to me in post #2 of this thread.

Full Court posted the MacArthur article(s) quite simply because I had requested it in an earlier thread. I had posted a "rebuttal" to that thread, written by Philip Johnson (a MacArthur employee?), and it had the unfortunate effect of sidetracking that topic. Curious to know more, I requested additional information about the alleged heresy, and this thread was opened in response.