This past weekend my Mom, Dad & I had the privilege of
conducting a two day seminar on the Blood of Jesus. This was designed to be an
in-depth study of the blood. Both what it doesn’t do as well as what it does
do. It is unfortunate that we don’t hear many sermons on the blood of Jesus
anymore, and some of what we do hear isn’t always Biblically accurate.
There was a song by a Christian artist named Pam Thum that
came out in the mid 90’s called “Back To The Blood”: “We’ve got to get back
to the blood of the Lamb, Back to the blood where the power began. It’s time to
stand beneath the crimson flood once again. We’ve got to get back to the blood,
the blood of the Lamb.”
I believe we do need to get back to both teaching and preaching
about the blood of Jesus, but we need some good teaching. Sometimes poor or
wrong teaching about a subject can be just as detrimental to us as having no
teaching on a subject…and the blood of Jesus would certainly be included in
that.
You might be asking or thinking to yourself what could
possibly be considered poor teaching on the blood? One of the most religious,
well-meaning, good sounding practices of the church over the last forty years
or so that I am aware of and perhaps longer than that…Pleading The Blood!
If you have been around the church for any length of time I
am sure that you have heard well-meaning Believers ‘plead the blood’. Normally
this is done for one of two reasons, for protection or as a means of spiritual
warfare. I don’t really know where or how this started but folks have been
doing it for years. Did you know that ‘pleading the blood’ is not found
anywhere in Scripture?
The protection slant is normally derived from Exodus when
the death angel would pass over the houses in Goshen that had the blood on the
sides of and over the door of the house…so when he saw the blood he would pass
over. People take this and then say well we can plead the blood and be
protected from evil. Folks this thinking is so hermeneutically (the art& science of proper Bible
interpretation) poor it is astounding!
Number one, the death angel was either the Lord Himself or
an angel who was assigned this task, but still directed by the Lord. Number
two, this was an isolated incident and Scripture clearly teaches that things
must be in the mouth of two or three witnesses to be established. Number three,
the protection the blood here provided was from the judgment of God, not the
evil of the enemy. The picture symbolically is that as we enter through the shed
blood we are now free from God’s judgment! It was true for them in Goshen and
it is true for us as New Testament Believers.
So how is ‘pleading the blood’ going to protect us from
evil? The truth is…it isn’t! It is a religious practice that sounds good but
really serves no purpose whatsoever.
The second slant of why folks ‘plead the blood’ we said was
as a part of spiritual warfare. Can you tell me anywhere in the New Testament
where we are told to cast out devils by the blood of Jesus? How about laying
hands on the sick in the blood of Jesus? No, the New Testament is quite clear
that God has highly exalted the Name of Jesus, and given Him a name that is
above every name, that at the Name of Jesus, every knee shall bow and every
tongue shall confess that He is Lord to the glory of God.
The New Testament is full of talk about casting out devils
in Jesus Name. It speaks of laying hands on the sick in Jesus Name.
“Then Peter said,
‘Silver and gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth,
rise up and walk.’” Acts 3:6 NKJV
“And these signs will
follow those who believe: In My name
they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues; they will take up
serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them;
they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.” Mark 16:17&18 NKJV
“…let it be known to
you all, and to all the people of Israel, that
by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God
raised from the dead, by Him this man stands here before you whole.” Acts 4:10 NKJV
Notice that in none of these texts does it say that by the
blood of Jesus…rather in every one of these instances it says in the NAME OF
JESUS! The weapon of our warfare is not the blood…it is the Name! I believe the
enemy has deceived many into doing something that has no spiritual value at
all. All the while folks are ‘pleading the blood’ the devil is laughing at us
and we are wondering why we are not seeing the victory that we should be seeing.
Why do we sing songs like: “Satan the blood of Jesus is
against you?” We should be singing: “Satan the Name of Jesus is against you!” I
am not minimizing the blood by any stretch. I am just saying that in many cases
we have been sold a religious bill of goods that is useless and powerless to
help where we are trying to apply it.
The blood does have tremendous power in the life of the
Believer. The old hymn of the church: “There Is Power In The Blood” is in fact
a great song full of truth, but let’s not go beyond sound doctrine in anything,
especially, misapplying the blood.
In our next Blog we will delve into what the blood of Jesus
actually does do for us.
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