05/20/2022
In an Internet dialogue Bahá’í Ruhi9 (pseudonym) writes: “I believe Christ’s blood has nothing to do with it [salvation]. I must admit it upsets and angers me that Christians plant their whole faith in Christ on His crucifixion and His resurrection … He didn’t come to die on the cross.”
Actually, Christ did come to die on the cross, fulfilling prophecy and the condition of Leviticus 17:11. Shedding His blood had everything to do with Jesus’ mission. Hebrews 10:28–29 has a stark warning for those who regard Jesus’ blood as less than obligatory and efficacious for salvation: “Anyone who has rejected Moses’ law dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. (29) Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled [figuratively, “to reject with scorn”] the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common [literally, “unholy or unhallowed”] thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace?” (Brackets added).
Jesus and Paul cite the necessity of His suffering and death. Jesus said, “… thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day” (Luke 24:46; emphasis added); Then Paul went in and “…reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and demonstrating that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead … saying, ‘This Jesus whom I preach to you is the Christ’ ” (Acts 17:2–3; emphasis added).
Jesus said His blood is the symbol of the new covenant: “For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for the remission of sins” in Matthew 26:28; as did the writer of Hebrews: “Now may the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you complete in every good work to do His will …” (Hebrews 13:20; emphases added). His blood redeems believers from their sins, removing the enmity between God and man:
• Acts 20:28 ... and to all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God, which He has purchased with His own blood (brackets and all emphases added).
• Romans 3:24–25 … being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness ...
• Romans 5:9 ... having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him.
• Ephesians 1:7, 2:13 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace. (2:13) … you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
• Colossians 1:14,19–20 ... in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins. (19) For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, (20) and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on the earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross.
• Hebrews 9:12,14–16, 22 Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption ... (14) how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? (15) And for this reason He is the Mediator of the new covenant, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance. (16) For where there is a testament, there must also be the death of the testator. (22) ... according to the law almost all things are purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no remission.
• 1Peter 1:2,19 ... elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. (19) ... with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.
• 1John 1:7 But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.
• Revelation 1:5 ... Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead ... ruler over the kings of the earth. To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood.
• Revelation 5:9 You are worthy to take the scroll, and to open its seals; for You were slain, and have redeemed us to God by Your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation.
• Revelation 12:11 And they overcame him [Satan] by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death.
Let us compare Ruhi9 words about Jesus’ sacrifice with those of Clement of Rome in his Letter to the Corinthians (A.D. 80), a few years after Christ’s death: “Let us look steadfastly to the blood of Christ, and see how precious that blood is to God, which, having been shed for our salvation, has set the grace of repentance before the whole world.”
Polycarp writes in Second Letter to the Philippians (A.D. 135): “For whosoever does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, is antichrist;” and whosoever does not confess the testimony of the cross, is of the devil; and whosoever perverts the oracles of the Lord to his own lusts, and says that there is neither a resurrection nor a judgment, he is the first-born of Satan ... let us return to the word which has been handed down to us from the beginning; “watching unto prayer.”