The following "Question" was asked by a member of the congregation
at
Question
"I see
that someone is speaking on MacArthurism. Could you let us know from the
pulpit, what your belief is on the Blood of Christ?"
Answer
I have done
that in the past, and just in order to "touch base" with the fact that
he may have created some
questions in your mind, [let me say].
Through the years there has been no question about what
I believe, regarding the Blood of Christ, none at all. For twenty years that I have been preaching
here, and all the myriad of books and tapes, and things that have come out of the
Church, and out of my ministry, no one needs to question anything that I
believe about the Blood of Christ.
I believe
that Jesus died on the cross and literally shed His physical blood. He died as a sacrifice for sin. I saw a letter, the other day, from someone who
said, that Christ could have died "any other way," as long as He
died. That is not correct, that is not true, I do not
believe that. He had to die by being
lifted up. He had to die shedding blood in a sacrificial way to fulfill
the pattern of Old Testament prophetic truth.
I believe
what the Church has always believed. And
somebody always says to me, "Well, why are they always
attacking you on the Blood of Christ?"
And I need to tell
you what I have mentioned before, that this basically has very little
to do with theology. It has very little
to do with the Blood of Christ and everything to do with trying to discredit
me. And so, they are trying pick an issue that is
volatile, misrepresent what I believe, just for the sheer sake of
attacking me.
I will never
forget, of course, when this first came out.
It came out in a magazine put out by
So, he
admitted to me it was a mistake, personally to me, over the telephone. But what was curious
about it was, that I heard from a faculty member, that
there was a faculty prayer
meeting there, a prayer meeting with the administration, in
which the request that was given for the prayer meeting was, "Lord, help
us to find a way to discredit the ministry of John MacArthur." Now, that was the prayer request. Now if you are seeking to do that, you can find some way, I suppose,
to do it.
For some
reason, perhaps unknown to me, these people have decided to try to discredit
our ministry, and to attack our belief in the Blood of Christ, that is,
the sufficiency of the atoning
work of Christ for salvation, would definitely be a way to
upset people and that's what they have done.
But what we
believe about the Blood of Christ is available for all to see, in
fact, I gave a special communion message on that, a number of months ago. And I believe exactly
what the Bible teaches and what the church has always believed. And I just think,
that we have to just keep dealing with this onslaught, because of the effort to
discredit. And I realize there are
ramifications of this, I
realize that. I realize that people have
left our church over the last couple of years. It has been a tough two years, and part of it
has been the endless attacks on our church.
I know there have been attacks on our church, but we just keep trying to be faithful to the Word of God
and moving ahead. If you have question
about what we believe on the Blood of Christ, you can read the New Testament
and we believe that. Exactly
what it says.
Added to Bible Bulletin Board's
"MacArthur’s Questions and Answers" by:
Tony Capoccia
Bible Bulletin Board
Websites: www.biblebb.com and www.gospelgems.com
Email: tony@biblebb.com
Online since 1986