March 17

I and the Father are one. — John 10:30 BSB

Some people object to the expression “the blood of God,” saying, “How could the Godhead bleed? How could God suffer?” But if the blood shed at Calvary was not the blood of Him who was God, then it might as well have been the blood of one of the thieves crucified with Him. What is Christ’s human nature? This is the question on which many fall. Christ’s human nature is not a separate person with its own existence apart from His Deity. It is a nature—a “Holy Thing,” as the Holy Spirit calls it (Luke 1:35); a body prepared by God for Him (Hebrews 10:5), taken into an intimate, mysterious, and incomprehensible union with the Person of the Son of God. So, whatever Christ’s human nature did or suffered, because of its union with the Son of God, it was the Son of God who did and suffered those things.

Did Christ’s human nature bleed? It bled because it was united with Deity, acting as the instrument of Deity. To use an analogy: my soul touches an object through my hand, or speaks its thoughts through my tongue. In the same way, Deity, unable to bleed itself, bled through Christ’s humanity. Did Christ’s human nature suffer? It was not merely the suffering of a human person, but the suffering of a holy nature united with the Person of the Son of God. Did Christ’s human nature obey? The Son of God obeyed through that nature.

To reject the expression “the blood of God” is to strike at a foundational truth. It would be like rejecting the expression “God our righteousness,” spoken of in Jeremiah 23:6: “This is the name by which He will be called: The Lord our righteousness.” Who is our righteousness but the Son of God? And what was His righteousness but the obedience of His human nature? For just as God cannot bleed, neither can God obey. Yet, we call Him “Jehovah our righteousness.” So, if we accept the expression “the righteousness of God,” why should we reject “the blood of God”?

This is the grand mystery that faith embraces and is dear to every God-taught soul. When faith removes the veil from the heart, we see the immense power and efficacy of the sacrifice made for sin by the blood of the Son of God. Faith does not view it as merely the blood of man, for can the blood of man put away sin? But when we see it as the blood of the Son of God, we behold its immense value, power, and glory. Yet, until the Spirit of God removes the veil from our hearts, we cannot see this truth. Only when the Spirit makes it personally and experientially known can we grasp the divine reality of how this blood cleanses the guilty conscience.