The Wednesday Word - 24MAY23 A.D.

 God’s Blood

by preacher D.G. Miles McKee

 
“Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which He hath purchased with His own blood.” Acts 20:28.
 
Since when we must ask, does God have blood?  Surely God is a Spirit and a Spirit does not have blood?  Exactly right! But that does not mean God does not have blood.  Jesus Christ, the man, had blood which blood is expressly called ‘God’s blood’ proving once more that Jesus is God. 
 
Let me say the same thing another way: since this scripture plainly tells us that God purchased the Church with His own blood and we know that it was Christ Jesus who shed His blood for the purchase, then we must conclude once more that Jesus Christ is God.
 
To know that He who hung upon the cross was our Lord and God must surely move us to a life of dedication to His plans and purposes. It is this knowledge that has motivated countless numbers of missionaries and Christian workers through the ages. Their theme song could well have been,
 
“There is a fountain filled with blood,
Drawn from Emmanuel's veins,
And sinners plunged beneath that flood,
Lose all their guilty stains;”
 (William Cowper, 1731-1800 A.D.) 
 
But of course, the detractors say Acts 20:28 is not really in the Bible or it is a mistranslation and surprise, surprise, according to them, it means something entirely different than what it says. We need, they say, a thorough working knowledge of the Greek language before we attempt to understand this verse for ourselves.
 
Nonsense!
 
This verse plainly tells us that God and Jesus are One and the same.  We would do well not to listen to those who are so confused that they tell us that Paul never called Jesus God.  He just did it in Acts 20:28.
 
Think of it, the Eternal God came here to go to the cross and buy us back with His own blood … who could possibly conceive of such a thing?
God nailed to a cross?  What madness of judgment on the part of those who put Him there! 
God nailed to a cross?  What a journey from the glory to the gory!
God nailed to a cross?  What amazing restraint on the part of the Almighty to allow His creatures to nail Him to the wood!
God nailed to a cross?  “Humanity at its worst, Deity at its best!”  As Henry Law said, “… look then from other things towards this cross. Look with assured faith. He, who there hangs, is verily the mighty God. Therefore, divinity belongs to those deep wounds. He wears your form. He bears your nature—that His sufferings may be accounted, as your own. In Him all power—all fitness—all sufficiency combine. God sends—accredits—appoints—accepts Him. In Him all attributes are more than satisfied. He is salvation to the uttermost. He is God’s glory in the highest.”
 
That which gives the blood its authority and worth is that it is God’s blood.  If Jesus had been merely a good, upstanding man, a noble martyr or saintly person the shedding of His blood would not have accomplished one thing redemptively.  If He had been merely man, His blood would have been worthless because all men of Adam’s line are born sinners. An old time preacher takes this up saying,
 
“If Christ were a mere man … there would be no power in His blood to save; but Christ was "very God of very God;" the blood that Jesus shed was God-like blood  … Oh! when we think that Christ was the Creator of the world, and that on His all-sustaining shoulders hung the universe, we cannot wonder that His death is mighty to redeem, and that His blood should cleanse from sin… Because He is divine, He is "able to save to the uttermost, them that come unto God by Him." His blood is the blood whereby ye may escape the anger and the wrath of God” ("The Blood," The New Park Street Pulpit, Pilgrim Publications, 1981 reprint, volume V, pages 27-28).
 
And that’s the Gospel Truth!