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Tag: Christian Blood Cult

It Only Took One Drop of Jesus’ Blood to Save Us

blood of jesus

Several years ago, I listened to a southern gospel song by the Mark Trammel Quartet titled, One Drop of Blood. The premise of the song is this: it only took one drop of blood to save our souls.

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Ray Boltz, a contemporary Christian artist, also sang a song titled, One Drop of Blood.

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The premise of Boltz’ song is the same: it only takes one drop of blood to save us from our sin (and defeat Satan). Is this notion of human salvation only requiring one drop of blood theologically correct? Was all that was required of Jesus the equivalent of a blood glucose level test finger stick? Why all the savagery and violence if all that was required was a boo-boo on Jesus’ finger?

Lurking behind the “one drop of blood” idea is the belief that Jesus’ blood was magical, unlike human blood. This idea was popularized years ago by Fundamentalist radio preacher M.R. DeHann in the book, The Chemistry of the Blood. DeHaan wrote:

It is not Eve’s blood which flows in the veins of mankind but ADAMS. That is why it is ADAM’s sin and not Eve’s which all men inherit. Sin is in the blood, and transmitted in the blood of man and in the flesh. Since the LIFE is in the blood according to the Scriptures, and the wages of sin was death, sin affected the blood of Adam and caused him to die. Because sin is a disease of the blood, it can be cured by the application of sinless blood, for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul. As the first Adam’s sin corrupted the blood of the entire human family, so the pure sinless blood of the last Adam makes atonement for the sin of the world. “For without shedding of blood is no remission . . .” “It is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.” It was not  Eve’s sin which affect us although Eve sinned before Adam did. It was the SIN of ADAM which brought death upon the whole race because it is ADAMS blood that transmits original sin and it is for this reason we are not called the SEED OF THE WOMAN but we are ADAM’S SEED. ONLY  Jesus is called the Seed of the woman, because He was born of a woman without one drop of human blood in His veins, and thereby could avoid the sin of Adam which is only transmitted through the blood which the male contributes to his offspring. Jesus could have a human body, but one drop of Adam’s blood would have made Him a sinner just as you and I. There was then only one remedy for SIN and that was sinless blood and only one could supply this, even the sinless Son of God.

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The blood of the Lord Jesus is sinless blood, and since it is sinless, it is incorruptible, for sin brought corruption, and where no sin is there is no corruption. In our next message, we shall point out how the blood which flowed in Jesus’ body was sinless and how He escaped having one single drop of Adam’s human blood within Him. Every drop of blood which flowed in Jesus’ body is still in existence just as fresh as it was when it flowed from His wounded brow and hands and feet and side. The blood that flowed from His unbroken skin in Gethsemane, the blood that was smeared about His back as the cruel, weighted thongs cut through His flesh as the flagellator scourged Him, the blood that oozed out under the thorny crown and flowed from His hands, His head, His feet was never destroyed for it was incorruptible blood.

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Although the body of the Lord Jesus Christ lay in the tomb in death for three days and three nights, no corruption had set in for that body contained incorruptible blood. Lazarus being dead only one day more was said by his sister to be STINKING with corruption, but this one saw no corruption because the only cause of corruption, SINFUL BLOOD, was absent from His flesh. That blood, every drop of it, is still in existence.

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After Christ had made the atonement, He arose from the tomb, and then as the eternal High Priest, ascended into heaven to present the blood in the Holy of Holies where God dwells, and that blood is there today pleading for us and prevailing for us. The priest in the Tabernacle never spoke a word. All he did was PRESENT THE blood, and that was enough. MAYBE there is a golden chalice in heaven where every drop of that precious blood is still in existence, just as pure, just as potent, just as fresh as two thousand years ago.

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How wonderfully God prepared for the virgin birth of His Son. When He created woman He made her so that no blood would be able to pass from her to her offspring. That blood is the result of the male. Since Adam was the federal head of the race, it is HIS BLOOD which transmits Adam’s Sin. In order to produce a sinless man and yet be the son of Adam, God must provide a way whereby that man would have a human body derived from Adam but have not a drop of Adam’s sinful blood. Right here is the scientific biological reason for the sinlessness of the Man Christ Jesus. Some have tried to answer the question, “How could He be sinless and yet born of a woman?” by making Mary the “Immaculate Virgin.” That, however, does not answer the question of how JESUS was sinless since it is through the male that the bloodline runs.

Not only is this a scientific fact, but it is plainly taught in Scripture that Jesus partook of human flesh without Adam’s blood.

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Conception by the Holy Ghost then was the only way the Virgin Birth could be accomplished. Mary contributed the body of Jesus and He became the “seed of David according to the flesh.” The Holy Spirit contributed the Blood of Jesus. It was sinless blood. It was Divine blood. It is Precious Blood for there has never been any other like it.

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There is a Second and a more potent reason still. The blood was God’s only purchase price of redemption. When man sinned, something happened to his blood, for “the life . . . is in the blood.” Instead of incorruptible and, therefore, deathless blood, Adam’s blood corrupted through sin and became subject to death. To redeem this DEAD sinner, life must be again imparted. The only remedy for death is LIFE. This life is in the blood and so blood must be furnished which is sinless and incorruptible. Now none of Adam’s race could do this. For in “Adam all died.” “All have sinned and come short.” The angels could not furnish that blood for they are spirit beings and have neither flesh nor blood. There was only one, yes, ONLY ONE, who could furnish that blood, the virgin-born Son of God, with a human body, but sinless supernatural blood, inseminated by the Holy Ghost. In a previous message we showed scientifically that every drop of blood in an infant’s body is the contribution of the male parent, while the mother furnished all the flesh of that little body. Jesus’ body was of Mary; His blood was by the Holy Ghost. This sinless, supernatural blood was the only price of redemption God could accept, without violating the integrity of His holy nature. Death can only be banished by life. A blood transfusion must be performed and provided.

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This is not one millionth as wonderful as what God did nineteen centuries ago. Then there was one Man who gave ALL His sinless blood on the Cross of Calvary. There a BLOOD BANK was opened and into that bank went the blood of the Lord Jesus. It suits every type, avails for everyone and is free to all who submit to its “transfusion” by the Holy Spirit. All you need to do is apply for it by FAITH. We must add chemicals to the blood in our blood banks to preserve it, and then it eventually deteriorates just the same, but no preservatives need be added to His Precious blood, for it is INCORRUPTIBLE and sinless. Not one drop of that blood was lost or wasted. It is INCORRUPTIBLE.

DeHaan, a medical doctor, founder of the Radio Bible Class, and co-editor of the monthly devotional guide Our Daily Bread, believed that the blood of Jesus was not human, but some sort of supernatural blood given to Jesus through Eve by the power and agency of the Holy Spirit. Got all that? I suspect that it is this thinking that lies behind the idea that our salvation only requires one drop of Jesus’ blood.

In the 1980s, John MacArthur, pastor of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, got into a brawl with Bob Jones University and numerous Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (among others) preachers over his claim that it was Jesus’ death, and not his blood that was necessary for our redemption. Man, it was a wonderful time. I heard numerous sermons about MacArthur’s liberalism and apostasy — ironic since MacArthur remains a hardcore Fundamentalist to this day. MacArthur and his critics went back and forth for years on the matter, leading MacArthur loyalist Phil Johnson to write the following:

Does John MacArthur “deny the blood of Christ?”

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No, it is not true, and it never has been. The allegations are ridiculous—perhaps originally based on a thoughtless misunderstanding, but now clearly fueled by a deceitful malevolence.

The controversy was originally ignited by a supposed “news” item written by Bob Jones, Jr. in the April 1986 issue of Faith For The Family (a Bob Jones University-sponsored magazine). Jones quoted some remarks MacArthur had originally made in a live Q&A session at Grace Community Church sometime in the early 1970s. MacArthur’s comments had been transcribed and published in the May 1976 issue of the Grace Church newsletter “Grace Today.” The Jones article cited the comments without any documentation, and without noting that they were from a ten-year-old source.

In the BJU article, Jones quoted MacArthur as saying, “It is not His bleeding that saved me, but His dying.” Jones then cited Hebrews 9:22 (“without shedding of blood is no remission”) and intoned, “MacArthur’s position is heresy.”

On June 13, 1986, MacArthur wrote to Bob Jones III, complaining that the magazine had taken snippets of his remarks out of context and deliberately made them seem sinister. MacArthur assured the magazine’s editors that he absolutely affirms the necessity of the shed blood of Christ for atonement and explained that the point he was trying to make in the quoted excerpt was merely that the saving efficacy of Christ’s blood is not because of some property in the blood itself, but rather because Christ had poured it out in death as a substitute for sinners.

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Plainly, MacArthur was not denying that Christ literally shed His blood. He was not denying that the literal shedding of blood was a necessary aspect of the atonement. His only point was that the efficacy of Christ’s blood lies not in some property of the blood itself, but rather in the fact that Christ shed it in death, and such a death was the price of atonement for our sin.
Moreover, if the blood of Christ is in any sense “eternally preserved” in heaven, it would be in the glorified body of the risen Lord, not in a bowl or a vial where it is perpetually offered or literally applied to sinners in some way.

After an exchange of correspondence in which MacArthur thoroughly and carefully explained his original remarks, Jones wrote on October 16, 1986, saying, “I believe the position [MacArthur] has taken in this matter is a heretical position, and all the correspondence in the world is not going to affect my convictions on that point.”

Nonetheless, BJU officials soon began trying to downplay the controversy. They were clearly embarrassed by some of the squalid half-truths that were beginning to circulate among fundamentalists. They also now had a file of correspondence from MacArthur clarifying his position, making it clear that he was orthodox. Even Jones, Jr. declined to give any rational or biblical reasons for continuing to regard MacArthur’s view as “heresy.” But he was obstinately committed to his original verdict, and by his own admission, “all the correspondence in the world [was] not going to affect” his thoughts or public statements on the matter. Instead, BJU as an institution attempted a quiet retreat from the fray.

Look again at the point MacArthur was attempting to make in the first place: When Scripture speaks of Christ’s “blood,” the expression is normally a reference to His sacrificial atoning death, not the actual red and white corpuscles. And the vivid language in our hymns about the cleansing ability and “wonder-working power” of the blood and “a fountain filled with blood” is not meant to be taken literally. There is no magical or mystical cleansing property in the red fluid, and there is no container of blood in heaven that is somehow literally applied to sinners. Such language is meant to speak of Christ’s sacrificial atonement—just as when Paul spoke of “the preaching of the cross” he had in mind the death of Christ, not the literal wooden instrument on which the Savior died. We’re not to think a piece of wood is the point of our preaching. What happened on that cross is what is efficacious for our salvation, not some magical power in the wood itself. Similarly with the blood of Christ: it is the violent pouring out of blood in Christ’s sacrificial death that saves us, not some supernatural property of the fluid itself—just what MacArthur said in the first place.

The obvious truth of all that has escaped a few militant fundamentalists who have no clear concept of the biblical notion of blood atonement, but who revel in labeling anyone who is not part of their group a heretic. They continue to insist that MacArthur is actually denying the efficacy of Christ’s blood.

My take at the time as a young IFB preacher was that MacArthur was right: that it was the death of Jesus and not his blood that provided salvation for sinners; that yes, Jesus shedding his blood was essential to salvation, but without his death — also known as a three-day vacation — the shedding of his blood was in vain. Of course, I didn’t utter out loud or preach about my agreement with MacArthur. Doing so would have been ecclesiastical and personal suicide. (Please see I Wish Christians Would Be Honest About Jesus’ Three Day Weekend)

In a 1988 letter to his followers, MacArthur wrote:

Clearly, though Christ shed His literal blood, many references to the blood are not intended to be taken in the literal sense. A strictly literal interpretation cannot, for example, explain such passages as John 6:53-54: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”

It would be equally hard to explain how physical blood is meant in Matthew 27:25 (“His blood be on us, and on our children”); Acts 5:28 (“[You] intend to bring this man’s blood upon us”); 18:6 (“Your blood be upon your own heads”); 20:26 (“I am innocent of the blood of all men”); and 1 Corinthians 10:16 (“The cup of blessing . . .is it not the communion of the blood of Christ?,” KJV).

Clearly the word blood is often used to mean more than the literal red fluid. Thus it is that when Scripture speaks of the blood of Christ, it usually means much more than just the red and white corpuscles—it encompasses His death, the sacrifice for our sins, and all that is involved in the atonement.

Trying to make literal every reference to Christ’s blood can lead to serious error. The Catholic doctrine known as transubstantiation, for example, teaches that communion wine is miraculously changed into the actual blood of Christ, and that those who partake of the elements in the mass literally fulfill the words of Jesus in John 6:54: “He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”

Those who have attacked me seem to be espousing the same kind of mystical view of the blood that led the Catholic Church to embrace transubstantiation. They claim that the blood of Christ was never truly human. They insist on literalizing every New Testament reference to Jesus’ blood. They teach that the physical blood of Christ was somehow preserved after the crucifixion and carried to heaven, where it is now literally applied to the soul of each Christian at salvation.

We are not saved by some mystical heavenly application of Jesus’ literal blood. Nothing in Scripture indicates that the literal blood of Christ is preserved in heaven and applied to individual believers. When Scripture says we’re redeemed by the blood (1 Pet. 1:18-19), it is not speaking of a bowl of blood in heaven. It means we’re saved by Christ’s sacrificial death.

In the same way, when Paul said he gloried in the cross (Gal. 6:14), he did not mean the literal wooden beams; he was speaking of all the elements of redeeming truth. Just as the cross is an expression that includes all of Christ’s atoning work, so is the blood. It is not the actual liquid that cleanses us from our sins, but the work of redemption Christ accomplished in pouring it out.

MacArthur believed that behind the venomous attacks from Fundamentalist preachers was DeHaan’s “miracle blood” teachings found in the book The Chemistry of the Blood. IFB preachers are noted for their rabid hatred of Roman Catholicism. MacArthur does a good job of connecting the “supernatural” blood belief of DeHaan with that of Catholics and their belief in transubstantiation — where communion wine and wafer actually become the literal blood and body of Jesus. That said, MacArthur and his followers have plenty of their own absurd beliefs in connection with the blood of Jesus. While MacArthur says that many of the Biblical mentions of Jesus’ blood are metaphorical in nature, it is, last I looked, through Christ’s bloody sacrifice, death, and subsequent resurrection from the dead, that the elect (MacArthur is a Calvinist) are washed of their sins. The whole notion of original sin and our need for salvation is absurd. The squabble between MacArthur and the “miraculous blood of Jesus” crowd is just Kabuki theater. The bigger issue is that Evangelicals of all stripes continue to debase their fellow humans, demanding they submit to the teachings of an ancient blood cult lest their vengeful God torture them in Hell for eternity.

I am left wondering what Christian Mark Trammel would say to Christian Ray Boltz about “one drop of blood” saving humans from their sins. I assume Trammel, an Evangelical, believes homosexuality is a sin. Boltz, an out-and-proud gay man, does not. (Please see Evangelicals and the Gay Closet: Is Ray Boltz Still a Christian?) I wonder, “which” drop of the blood of Jesus saved whom? Is it the same miraculous blood that saved Trammel that also saved Boltz? Or does being gay disqualify someone from the application of Jesus’ blood? Must Boltz repent of his “sin” to have one drop of the blood of Jesus applied to his sin account? Or is Jesus cool and okay with LGBTQ people worshiping him? I guess we will never know since all we are left with are the ancient contradictory writings of the Bible. When it comes to the blood of Jesus, YMMV (your mileage may vary).

Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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Why Evangelicals Wear Jesus-Themed Clothing

jesus is my savior

I live in the United States of Jesus H. Christ. The Christian blood cult has over 300,000 temples scattered across America. Every temple has at least one high priest who performs weekly rituals and instructs members in the tenets of the one true religion. These temples are subdivided into sects. Evangelicalism is one such sect.

In 2016, the Evangelical blood cult was largely responsible for electing Donald Trump as president of the United States. Eighty-one percent of voting white Evangelicals voted for Trump. If another presidential election were held today, most of these people would likely vote for Trump again. The president is a lying narcissist who committed impeachable acts against the United States. He has the sexual morals of an alley cat in heat and has been accused of rape and sexual assault by numerous women. You would think, then, that the Evangelical cult would oppose Trump on moral grounds alone. Sadly, Evangelicals have sold their souls for a bowl of pottage, and they go to great lengths to defend Trump, even if it means lying or distorting the truth. Evangelicals have, in effect, become whores for their pimp, Donald Trump. The president pretends to care about Evangelicals, supporting their social agenda, but make no mistake about it, Trump sees Evangelicals as a means to an end. Once they are no longer useful, he will cast them away like an empty Whopper wrapper.

This unholy alliance between the Evangelical cult and the Republican Party is on display everywhere. One need look no farther than the t-shirts and other apparel Evangelicals wear. Much like LGBTQ people, Evangelicals want non-believers to know that they are out, loud, and proud. Evangelicals want people to know that they are on Team Jesus® or that they resolutely support God’s anointed man, modern-day King Cyrus, Donald Trump. Why do Evangelicals wear such clothing?

Virtually everyone in the United States knows about Jesus and the Christian blood cult. I live in a tri-county area that is home to over 300 hundred Christian temples. I doubt Sir Henry Stanley, of Stanley and Livingstone fame, could find one person in this area who has never heard about Jesus or doesn’t know that “Jesus is the Reason for the Season.” Yet, everywhere I look I see Evangelicals wearing Jesus-themed shirts. Some local Evangelical churches have custom t-shirts printed advertising their temple for congregants to wear. Surely, congregants know one another, so why the shirts?

Go to Evangelical homes and what do you find? Automobiles sporting religious bumper stickers, anti-abortion or religious cliché signs in their yards; and inside, walls and tables covered with Evangelical kitsch. What’s with all the Jesus Junk®? On one hand, who cares, right? Evangelicals are free to wear whatever they want. Want to show your support of our Pervert In-Chief? Have at it. Want to advertise the local temple you attend? Go ahead. Want to identify yourself as a follower of a virgin-born, resurrected-from-the-dead miracle worker named Jesus Christ? Fine, by me.  All that I ask is that you don’t delude yourself, believing that you are all decked out with Jesus so the lost, dying world will hear the gospel and be saved. You see, the unwashed, uncircumcised Philistines of the world don’t care about you being a walking billboard for Jesus or your temple. What matters to them is how you treat others. What matters is what you say about LGBTQ people, immigrants, Democrats, liberals, mainline Christians, Catholics, atheists, Muslims, people of color and anyone else who is different from you. What do your social media pages say about your “love” and “compassion” for others? Your behavior tells us everything we need to know about you and your beliefs. Is it any surprise that Evangelicalism is one of the most hated religions in America? You reap what you sow, Evangelicals.

Why, then, do Evangelicals wear Jesus-themed clothing? The same reason any of us wears themed clothing. When I wear a Cincinnati Reds or Cincinnati Bengals hat/shirt, I do so because they are my teams. It’s my way of saying to fellow Reds and Bengals fans that I am on their team. Evangelicals wear what they wear because they want other Evangelicals to know that they are on the same team. I am sure readers are wondering if I wore Jesus-themed clothing back when I was an Evangelical Christian and pastor. The short answer is no. I have never worn a Jesus shirt, put Christian cliché bumper stickers on my cars, or hung religious kitsch on the walls of our home. I preferred to let my life do the talking. Besides, if I was driving like a maniac, I didn’t want anyone to know there was a Christian behind the wheel. Just saying . . .

All of us are free to advertise the people and groups we identify with. Want to be an out-and-proud Trump supporter or atheist, by all means, do so. We live in a country where citizens are free to proclaim their beliefs. Oh wait, not really. You see, Evangelicals believe their cult is the one true faith. Jesus is THE WAY, THE TRUTH, and THE LIFE. In their minds, the United States is a Christian nation, founded and governed by the triune God and the Protestant Bible. They expect and demand preferential treatment for their cult (and scream PERSECUTION when denied). That’s why Evangelicals love Donald Trump. He is willing to trample over the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Civil Rights Acts, and the separation of church and state so Evangelicals can have their way. Evangelicals want to be free to advertise and promote their blood cult; but let non-Christians do the same, and there’s no end to their faux-offense and outrage. Evangelicals want the freedom to push their beliefs anywhere and everywhere, yet when atheists and other non-Christians ask for the same rights, Evangelicals scream bloody murder. “How dare they attack our precious Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!” “How dare they mock Christianity.” “How dare they want to put up a winter solstice display next to the créche on the courthouse square.” One need only watch Evangelical outrage over the Hallmark Channel’s pro-gay wedding advertisement or Chik-Fil-A’s change of heart about supporting anti-LGBTQ groups to see how Evangelicals view the world. The U.S. Supreme Court settled the issues of prayer in secular public schools decades ago, yet Evangelicals continue to infiltrate our schools and push their sectarian agenda. Evangelicals continue to demand that public school children be taught “Biblical” sex education and creationism. Evangelicalism may be dying — and it is — but they have no intention of going quietly into the night.

As Evangelicals continue to push their theocratic demands in the public square, it’s hard not to see people wearing Jesus-themed apparel as enemies of secularism, pluralism, and freedom. History tells us that when church and state are one, freedoms are lost and people die.  I try to look on a person’s heart, and not their clothing when sizing them up, but I am tired of dealing with self-righteous, prattling Evangelicals. There are times, I admit, when I see someone wearing a Jesus shirt or some other flashing neon sign advertising their peculiar beliefs, that I just say to myself, “there’s another asshole for Jesus.” When I see an Evangelical sitting in a coffee shop wearing a Jesus or Trump shirt and reading the Bible or a religious book, I want to say to them, “Dude, don’t you know you should wear pants in public?” Without saying a word, this person is telling me all I need to know about them. He might be a “good” person, a great father, an awesome husband, and help the poor, but all I see is his Bible-approved circumcised dick hanging out.

Put your dick away, Evangelicals, and focus your attention on following the Jesus who preached the Sermon on the Mount. (A sermon, by the way, in which Jesus declared what was required of those who said they were his followers.) Jesus said in that sermon: Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. (Matthew 5:16) That they (the world) may see what? Your good works, not your Jesus shirt. Do you really think that Jesus would have worn a t-shirt that said “This Blood is for You” or some other nonsensical Evangelical cliché? I think not.

About Bruce Gerencser

Bruce Gerencser, 62, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 41 years. He and his wife have six grown children and twelve grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist. For more information about Bruce, please read the About page.

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Bruce Gerencser