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How the blood of Jesus Redeems and Rescues Humanity (Ephesians 1:7; 2:13)

By Jeremy Myers
6 Comments

How the blood of Jesus Redeems and Rescues Humanity (Ephesians 1:7; 2:13)
http://media.blubrry.com/one_verse/feeds.soundcloud.com/stream/424846548-redeeminggod-113-how-the-blood-of-jesus-redeems-and-rescues-humanity-ephesians-17-213.mp3

In Ephesians 1:7, Paul writes that “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace.”

I have written previously that the blood of Jesus does not purchase forgiveness of sins for us from God. But does Ephesians 1:7 refute this idea? No. In fact, it supports it. Let me show you why.

Ephesians is a book that has been widely misunderstood, especially in light of what it teaches about salvation. Some of my sermon manuscripts on Ephesians might help clarify the book as a whole, but most of the main ideas can also be found in various entries in my Gospel dictionary.

The Basic Summary of Ephesians

redeemed by the blood of JesusThe basic message of Ephesians is that due to religion, humans have lived in rivalry and violence with each other since the foundation of the world, but now, in Jesus Christ, we have been shown a new way of living life so that all the hostilities can now cease.

There is still a struggle, but it is not against each other, but against the forces which seek to drag us back into rivalry, accusation, and scapegoating violence.

The Introduction to Ephesians

Paul introduces some of these themes with one long sentence in Ephesians 1:3-14.

Leading up to Ephesians 1:7 where Paul refers to redemption through the blood of Jesus, it is important to also understand what Paul means when he writes about adoption and election as these words also form a foundation for Paul’s ideas about the blood of Jesus. These words are also carefully defined in my Gospel Dictionary online course.

The basic idea in Ephesians 1:3-14 is that God made us His heirs so that we can have the resources necessary to fulfill our purpose and role within His family.

So what is Paul teaching in Ephesians 1:7?

It is in the context of these ideas that Paul mentions redemption through the blood of Jesus (Ephesians 1:7).

Redemption is when God takes something that is already His, and buys it so that it is twice His. So redeemed us, or bought us back, through His blood.

redemption through his blood Ephesians 1:7

When Paul writes about Jesus redeeming us through His blood, however, we must not think that Jesus was paying off God or Satan with His blood. It is not as though there was a debt of sin to God or to Satan which could only be paid with the blood of Jesus. This is not a biblical idea. (We’ll look at Hebrews 9:22 next week.)

So what did Jesus redeem us from? What did He buy us back from?

The redemption that Jesus accomplished through His blood was a rescue or deliverance of humanity from humanity.

We had enslaved ourselves to an endless cycle of sacred violence and the spilling of blood in God’s name.

By dying as He did, Jesus exposed the myth of redemptive violence and the lies of sacred violence for what they were so that we can be redeemed, bought back, or rescued from this endless cycle of violence and bloodshed once and for all.

We know that this is what Paul means because he explains the phrase “redemption through His blood” with the phrase “the forgiveness of sins.”

The two phrases explain each other, so let’s look at the forgiveness of sins first.

The Forgiveness of Sins

As we discussed previously, there are two main types of forgiveness sin the Bible, one that is free and one that is conditional. The type of forgiveness Paul mentions here is the conditional forgiveness (aphēsis). A good synonym for this type of forgiveness is “release.”

Furthermore, the term “sin” in the Bible primarily refers to the sacred violence that has enslaved all of humanity in a never-ending cycle of rivalry, accusation, and scapegoating sacrifice. I defend this idea in my book, Nothing but the Blood of Jesus.

So when Paul writes about “the forgiveness of sins,” he is referring to our release from the cycle of sacred violence.

And since this phrase explains or defines the first phrase about the redemption through the blood of Jesus, it too can be understood similarly.

Redemption through His blood

Jesus redeemed us, bought us back, rescued us, released us from the never-ending cycle of sacred violence and sin by subjecting Himself to it. He went to the cross and shed His blood for us, not as a payment to God or to Satan, but as a revelation to humanity about the sin which had enslaved humanity since the foundation of the world.

Now that we have this redemptive revelation through the sacrificial death of Jesus, we are able to live in a new way with other human beings.

We can now live at peace, no longer subjecting ourselves to the ways of death and violence founded upon religion, but instead follow Jesus by faith into the ways of love and grace.

If some of this sounds similar to what Paul writes in Ephesians 2, that’s because it is. Paul takes this theme of how humanity has been delivered from violence and death through the blood of Jesus and expands upon it in Ephesians 2.

How Paul Elaborates on this Theme in Ephesians 2:13

Here is what Paul writes in Ephesians 2:13: “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.”

Ephesians 2 is a powerful chapter, but it has been terribly misunderstood and misapplied by the church today. The traditional understanding of Ephesians 2 goes something like this:

We humans are evil sinners, under the control of the devil and our sin nature. We were dead and unable to do anything to change. Worse yet, because of sin, God’s wrath burns against us, and He wants to send us all to hell (Ephesians 2:1-3).

But God also loved us, and so wanted to do something to fix what had gone wrong. Someone had to pay the price for our sin, and God knew we couldn’t, so He sent His Son Jesus to die in our place and pay for our sin. Now, if we believe in Jesus, we get eternal life. But this still doesn’t get us off the hook. God still wants us to obey Him and do the good works He prepared for us to do (Ephesians 2:4-10).

But these good works don’t involve keeping the law and commandments, because those have been done away with. Instead, let’s just live in peace and unity with each other (Ephesians 2:11-22).

Yet this sort of summary of Ephesians 2 does not logically follow what Paul wrote in Ephesians 1, nor does it fit well with the rest of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians.

Furthermore, it does great injustice to the expanded discussion about peace in Ephesians 2:11-22. Most Christian sermons and messages on this chapter focus an inordinate amount of time and space on Ephesians 2:8-9, and very little on Ephesians 2:11-22, which is where Paul focuses his time.

The best way to approach Ephesians 2 is to “reverse engineer” it. By beginning where Paul concludes, we can better understand how Paul starts.

Reverse Engineering Ephesians 2

Paul has a clear progression in Ephesians 2, following the “Problem (Ephesians 2:1-3)—Solution (Ephesians 2:4-10)—Application (Ephesians 2:11-22)” format. By starting with the application, we can better understand the solution and the problem.

The Application (Ephesians 2:11-22)

In Ephesians 2:11-22, Paul explains how groups of people who formerly were hostile enemies can now live together in peace and unity because of what Jesus Christ has done. Feuding groups throughout history have used race, religion, and politics (the Jew-Gentile division was a toxic combination of all three) to look down upon each other and accuse one another of being less than human and less-loved by God.

But now Jesus has broken down the walls of hostility and brought everybody into one family where we live by new rules. This new way of living was revealed and explained through the life and death of Jesus Christ.

When we build upon the foundation He laid, we grow into the people that God has always wanted and desired, and it is then that God is truly manifested in us, just as He was in Jesus.

The Solution (Ephesians 2:4-10)

So if Paul’s concluding “Application” is that people who were formerly at odds with one another (in an accusatory violent way) can now live at peace by following the example of Jesus, it only makes sense that in the “Solution” section, Paul talks about how Jesus brought the warring groups together and showed us how to live in peace.

Not surprisingly, this is exactly what Paul explains in Ephesians 2:4-10. These verses, though quite popular as texts about how to receive eternal life by grace alone through faith alone, are actually about what God has done to rescue us from the condition described in Ephesians 2:1-3 (see below), so that we can become what is described in Ephesians 2:11-22.

blood of Jesus redeems usPaul’s point in these verses is that even though we humans accusation, blame, condemn and kill others in God’s name (Ephesians 2:1-3), God Himself does not behave that way toward us.

God does not bring an end to life, but raises us up to new life in Jesus Christ. Beyond that, He also raised us up with Jesus Christ and seated us with Him in the heavens so that we can live according to the heavenly rules, rather than the ways of this world.

God acted this way toward us by grace. And by grace, we can act this way toward others since we now are seated with Christ in heavenly places.

But we can only live this way if we follow Jesus by faith. Ephesians 2:4-10 is not talking about how to receive eternal life, but is instead talking about how God rescued us from our enslavement to the sin of death and showed us a new way of life in Jesus Christ.

This new way of life is what we were made for originally, and what God has always modeled for us, and what we are now to walk in, as we follow Jesus by faith. In other words, this text is not about how to go to heaven when you die, but rather about how to go from slavery to death in this world as we war against others (Ephesians 2:1-3), to unity and peace with others as we live in the family of God (Ephesians 2:11-22).

The Problem (Ephesians 2:1-3)

This brings us back to the beginning of the argument in Ephesians 2:1-3 where Paul presents the human “Problem.”

A proper understanding of this passage requires us to accurately define the words “dead,” “flesh,” “sin,” and “wrath” (which I will do in the Gospel Dictionary course), and to understand what Paul means when he refers to the ruler of the kingdom of the air.

When all of these concepts are understood, we see that Paul begins Ephesians 2 by teaching that we humans live in a world of sin and death, which we inflict upon ourselves by accusing, condemning, and killing one another, and justifying it all by doing these things in God’s name. We do these things because in our flesh, we know of no other way to live.

Even we religious people kill and are killed, just like everyone else (Ephesians 2:1-3). This is the human problem, and we are enslaved to it because we know of no other way to live (though such life is ruled by death).

So the overall summary of Ephesians 2 is that while we humans tend to live in hatred and violence toward one another (thinking that this was also God’s way), now Jesus has revealed a better way, and we can follow Him in this way by faith.

If we do, we will live at peace with one another and in so doing, truly reflect God to a watching world.

What is Paul teaching in Ephesians 2:13?

So then, with all this in mind, the explanation of Ephesians 2:13 is quite simple.

The violent death of Jesus on the cross revealed the truth about religious-political violence: that it is we humans who want and desire it; not God.

The blood of Jesus reveals that God never wanted or needed blood sacrifice or sacred violence of any kind in order for people to draw near to Him. All people were always welcome.

As a result, Gentiles are just as near to God as anyone else. Gentiles are not to be kept at a distance from God, nor are they more sinful or less pure in God’s eyes. There is no dividing wall of separation or religious commandments and ordinances which keep some people cut off from God’s love and grace.

No, all are invited in. All are welcome.

The blood of Jesus has brought everyone near, by proving that no one was ever kept at a distance.

All divisions of men are nothing more than man-made divisions, and now Jesus has torn them all down.

So how does the blood of Jesus Redeem us?

Ephesians 1:7 redemption through his bloodBy looking at Ephesians 1:7 and Ephesians 2:13, we now understand how the blood of Jesus redeems us.

Jesus did not buy off God or pay the debt of our sin to God. After all, if God had been “paid for our sins” then He would not be able to forgive us. (When someone owes you a debt, you can either get re-paid or forgive their debt, but you cannot do both. Payment of debt and forgiveness of debt are mutually exclusive.)

But Jesus did need to die, and He needed to die in a bloody, violent, sacrificial way. Why? To redeem, rescue, and deliver humanity from the sin and violence that we have always committed against each other (but blamed God for doing).

Jesus wanted us to be released from our sin, and so He died to reveal our sin to us.

Now that our eyes have been opened, we can live in a new way with God and with others. We can live in peace, without the dividing walls of hostility, and without the blame, violence, and scapegoating that we perform in God’s name.

Jesus came to show us a new way to live, which is exactly what He did through His life, death, and resurrection.

We have redemption through His blood because He redeemed us from our sinful and violent way of living and revealed to us God’s way of living. His bloody death released us from addiction to sin and scapegoating, and showed us how to live in the way of love and forgiveness.

Here is how to understand Ephesians 1:7 and Ephesians 2:13:

Through the blood of Jesus, we have been bought back from our slavery to sin and violence. We have been released from our addiction to scapegoating others in God’s name. He did this out of His great love and grace for us. Therefore, now we who were once far off from God have been brought near to God through the blood of Jesus. Through Him we see a new way to live, a way which leads to peace with God and peace with one another.

If you want to learn more about this entire idea, read my book Nothing but the Blood of Jesus.

The Gospel DictionaryUnderstanding the Gospel requires us to properly understand the key words and terms of the Gospel. Take my course, "The Gospel Dictionary" to learn about the 52 key words of the Gospel, and hundreds of Bible passages that use these words.

This course costs $297, but when you join the Discipleship group, you can to take the entire course for free.

God is Redeeming God, Redeeming Scripture, Redeeming Theology, z Bible & Theology Topics: blood of Jesus, Ephesians 1:7, Ephesians 2, Ephesians 2:13, forgiveness, forgiveness of sins, Nothing But the Blood of Jesus, peace with God, redemption

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Greg Boyd reviews “Nothing but the Blood of Jesus” and I Respond

By Jeremy Myers
13 Comments

Greg Boyd reviews “Nothing but the Blood of Jesus” and I Respond

Greg BoydIn one of his recent email newsletters (which you can read here), pastor and world-renowned theologian Greg Boyd included a review of my book, Nothing but the Blood of Jesus. Below is his review, interspersed with my comments and responses.

Before we get started however, let me state a critique of Greg’s critique. The vast majority of Greg’s critique of my book is focused on one-fifth of the book, namely, the two chapters on scapegoating. Yet the ideas in these two chapters were built on the ideas from the previous six chapters (two each on sin, law, and sacrifice). And as I read Greg’s critique of what I wrote about scapegoating, I gained the distinct impression that he had not seriously read the previous six chapters, where many of his concerns are addressed.

Even then, as I read Boyd’s critiques of scapegoating, I once again had the distinct impression that what I wrote was being misunderstood and misrepresented. For example, some of what Greg says I wrote about Achan in Joshua 7 is not actually found in my book. Yes, if certain statements are read out of context, I could see how Greg could get his ideas from what I wrote.

I feel that if Greg had let go of some of his presuppositions and had considered the five themes of my book as a whole, some of his critiques below would not exist.

All authors deal with this. Greg has said the exact same thing to me about my critiques of his cruciform thesis. In response, I have tried to listen more closely and read his books more deeply so that I might better understand. I also appreciate him taking the time to engage with me in dialogue.

So here is his review with my responses. His review is in the blockquotes.

I met Jeremy Myers at the ReKnew Cross Vision Conference and he graciously gave me a copy of his book, Nothing But the Blood of Jesus. I had read Jeremy’s review of my book, Crucifixion of the Warrior God (CWG) as well as other reflections of his on a Facebook page dedicated to discussing this book, so I was aware that our views overlap on certain points and diverge sharply at others. Reading Nothing But the Blood of Jesus clarified these points of agreement and disagreement.

It was great meeting Greg. I especially enjoyed meeting many of the other people who attended the conference, some of whom already knew me from my books and podcast.

Greg mentions the Facebook group, which he also mentioned at the conference in the Saturday morning session where he and I talked on stage for a couple minutes. At that time, I think he said the group was vitriolic. I never saw any vitriol there, but that might be due to the fact that I was not really active in this group. I never once made a post, and I commented a grand total of 12 times. So I find it strange that Greg associates me with the group. I hope he doesn’t think I am vitriolic.

Crucifixion of the Warrior GodHe probably associates me with the group because someone in the group created a post which contained my review of Greg’s book. They pulled the review from my site at RedeemingGod.com, which can be found here. I reviewed the follow-up summary volume, Cross Vision here.

Anyway, it’s not a big deal, but I was surprised at the conference (and here again) that I am associated with a Facebook group in which I had almost no involvement. Still, it’s a great group, and if you want to discuss the themes of Greg’s book, or non-violence in general, you can go request to join the group here. If you join, just don’t be vitriolic! Ha!

The central thesis of Jeremy’s work is that “the blood of Jesus” is the solution to the problem of sin not because it placates the Father’s wrath or somehow magically washes away our sin, but because Jesus’ death on the cross exposes the true nature of sin and calls us to live free from it. But before we can understand, let alone critique, Jeremy’s thesis, we need to know something about René Girard (1923-2015), a French historian and philosopher of social science whose work has proven increasingly influential in Western theological circles over the last several decades. The reason we need to first understand Girard is because Jeremy’s thesis is heavily reliant on the work of Girard.

I don’t know if “heavily reliant” is the right term. As any honest theologian will admit, my ideas are built on the shoulders of numerous scholars and authors who have influenced my thinking over my years of study and research. So, for example, at various places in the book, I give credit to Fleming Rutledge, John Sailhamer, Mark Biddle, and several others.

Furthermore, while Girardian thought did indeed influence my thinking on some areas, it is not actually his books that influenced me most, but the books of several other Girardian scholars, such as Mark Heim, Robert Hamerton-Kelly, and Gil Bailie. But regardless, I fully admit that Girardian insights into anthropology and sociology have influenced my thinking about life and Scripture, as have the views of Greg Boyd, C. S. Lewis, N. T. Wright, Sharon Baker, Robert Farrar Capon, Zane Hodges, Brian Zahnd, Brad Jersak, and numerous others. (Reading these people’s books will transform your life and theology!)

As Jeremy makes clear in his book (155-64), the core of Girard’s theory is that humans are by nature imitators. We thus find ourselves desiring what others desire, which leads to rivalry and, inevitably, to violence. Since everybody is subject to this process, all social groups would eventually descent into total anarchy were there not some mechanism for channeling our violence away from the group toward another. Girard argues that throughout history social groups have survived by placing the blame for the group’s inner conflict on a “scapegoat,” which typically is a person or group that is vulnerable and “different” from the majority within the group (164).

The inner conflicts of the group are overcome as they unite against this common enemy and punish them for their alleged crimes, usually by killing them. What they are actually doing, however, is projecting their own guilt onto this scapegoat and punishing this scapegoat as a means of saving themselves. One dies so that the others may live. This scapegoating process, argues Girard, is most frequently justified by claiming it reflects God’s (or a god’s) will, and the fact that the death of the scapegoat succeeds in temporarily restoring peace to the group is interpreted as a confirmation this conviction.

Jeremy shows how imitative (or mimetic) rivalry led to the first act of violence recorded in the Bible, when Cain killed Able (Gen 4). Jeremy finds it highly significant that this episode also happens to contain the first mention of “sin” in the Bible (42). For this and other reasons, Jeremy argues that mimetic rivalry and the violence and scapegoating that follows it is the “foundational sin” of the Bible (217), and it expresses the essence of sin throughout Scripture. Indeed, Jeremy claims that “[e]verything in Scripture is focused on revealing this one truth to us,” namely, that throughout history humans have “engaged in rivalry, accusation, and violence” (119, cf. 152, 179). In Jeremy’s view,

“This is why the Bible contains more violence than any other ancient religious text. The Bible places so much emphasis on war, violence, bloodshed, and sacrifice because God wants to reveal the true source of violence and sacrifice, and in so doing, put a stop to it. The Bible emphasizes sacred violence, not because God is violent, but because we are” (121).

As is true for Girard, Jeremy holds that Jesus is God’s solution to this foundational sin. God became a human and died as an innocent scapegoat on the cross to expose the lie that our scapegoating reflects God’s will. “He died to take away and bring an end to sacrifice…by revealing through His own sacrifice at the hands of men that God does not want sacrifice; we do” (151). Since “the sin of scapegoating is the primary sin of humanity since the foundation of the world…the primary task of Jesus [is] to deliver us from our slavery to this sin by both exposing it to us and showing us how to live differently” (197). Hence, Jeremy argues, Jesus “is the perfect revelation about the truth of scapegoating” (173).

Overall, this is not a bad summary … of about one-fifth of the book. The two chapters on scapegoating in the book are heavily dependent upon the six chapters about sin, law, and sacrifice, which are barely mentioned above. But as I well know, a book review cannot include every detail lest it become a book itself.

However, I feel that most of Greg’s criticisms below could have been avoided if the 40 pages he summarizes above were read in light of the other 220 pages.

There is a great deal to praise about this insightful work. The conviction that God’s nature is love and, therefore, that God is opposed to all forms of violence is beautifully expressed throughout this work. Related to this, Jeremy insightfully expresses the understanding that Scripture’s violent portraits of God are the result of people projecting their own sin (including their fallen conceptions of God) onto God. In the process of making a scapegoat out of others, he argues, we make scapegoat out of God, and God, in his patient love, allows us do it. Readers of my CWG and/or Cross Vision (CV) will have no trouble understanding why I appreciate these views of Jeremy.

On top of this, Jeremy does an excellent job showing how the cross exposes the sin of scapegoating and how it calls us to an altogether different way of resolving conflict, namely, forgiveness. Moreover, his several discussions of the law and sacrificial system as divine accommodations to the fallen state of God’s people were astute, as were his many trenchant critiques of the Penal Substitution model of the Atonement that run throughout this work. I also think most readers will be aided by Jeremy’s discussion of two different kinds of forgiveness in the New Testament (231-32) as well as by his discussion of Hebrews 9:22 (244-47), which has wreaked so much havoc with atonement theories, to be informative and helpful.

Particularly helpful to me was Jeremy’s argument that the reference to “the lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev 13:8) “reveals that this is the way God has always been. He has always been an innocent Lamb who allows Himself to get slain for the sake of others” (203). I find this interpretation to be compelling, no doubt in part because it provides solid support for my claim (defended in CWG and CV) that God has always stooped to bear the sin of people, thereby taking on an ugly appearance in the biblical narrative that reflects that sin, just as he does on the cross. And finally, readers of Nothing But the Blood of Jesus will find they are given a clearer understand of what “the blood of Jesus” actually means – and, just as importantly, what it does not mean. For these and a multitude of other reasons, I recommend reading Nothing But the Blood of Jesus.

Thank you for the kind words, Greg! Now, let’s dive into the disagreements!

Of course, this is not to say the book is not without its shortcomings or that I agree with everything in it. Truth is, I consider several of our differences to be rather stark and quite important. Nevertheless, given our core agreement on God’s loving, non-violent nature and on the correct non-violent way to interpret Scripture’s violent portraits of God, my critiques should be understood along the lines of a friendly “in-house” debate. I’ll make two critical comments concerning the style of Jeremy’s work and four critical comments concerning its content.

First, while Jeremy has a very readable writing style, this book is frankly quite repetitive. Part of this is inevitable given that the book is organized around a discussion of five words (“Sin,” “Law,” “Sacrifice,” “Scapegoat,” and “Blood”) and, as Jeremy himself acknowledges, the meaning of each one is wrapped up with all the others. But much of the repetition is unnecessary. Repetitions are not only found throughout the book, but often in a single paragraph. To pick out one random example, Jeremy at one point says that Jesus

“…was innocent of all wrongdoing. Even though most scapegoats are guilty of some of the things for which they are accused, Jesus was completely innocent….Though the best scapegoat is a guilty scapegoat, the perfect innocence of Jesus reveals that scapegoats are typically not guilty of everything for which they are accused….Though Jesus did serve in the function of a scapegoat, He is not called a scapegoat because He could not justifiably be accused of any wrongdoing. Jesus was a scapegoat, but He was an innocent scapegoat.”

To this, I say, “Guilty as charged.”

I am intentionally repetitive, because I seek to explain new concepts to people in different ways using different words so that they understand what I am (and am not) saying. Only professional theologians and scholars are likely to quickly grasp the nuances of a particular statement, and so I hope that by stating the same idea in different ways, the point becomes clear.

On the other hand, maybe this is just a fault of all theology books. I personally found CWG to be quite repetitive, including numerous sections (even entire chapters) that could have been cut from the book without any detriment to the overall argument.

So could the book have been more succinct? Of course. Should it have been shorter? Maybe. Will the point of the book have been as clear with these subtractions? It all depends on who you ask.

I think an editor’s razor could have tightened up this paragraph as well as the entire book.

I paid for editorial services on this book. But again, this is a subjective criticism that I am not certain all share with Greg.

Second, and more significantly, with only a couple of exceptions, Jeremy doesn’t cite his sources. Now, this book is intended for a popular audience, so heavy footnoting is not to be expected. But even in popular works it’s customary for authors to cite sources from which they got their information and/or ideas. The most glaring example of this is that, even though Jeremy’s work is thoroughly indebted to Girard, he never once mentions him or cites any of his works. I am certain this is not intentional on Jeremy’s part, and it likely wouldn’t bother most lay readers. But protecting “intellectual property” is a huge deal among academics, and this omission would cause suspicion. Citation of sources would also help readers check out some of Jeremy’s more controversial claims and engage in further reading instead of just take his word for it.

I take great effort and care to cite my sources. I always cite a source when I know I am referring to them. I never cited Girard because although some ideas in my book are “Girardian” I have not found his books to be all that helpful for understanding his theory. Sorry, René!

Maybe a quick summary of my approach to writing will help shed light on the lack of footnotes. When I want to study a topic, I buy and read every book I can think of on the subject. Then to solidify the ideas in my own mind, I sort through the ideas and arrange them in a logical order (at least to me). Then I write it all down. I rarely go back to look at the books I read. I say this with apologies to all the authors I have read that didn’t get mentioned in the book. I know it is a weakness to my writing approach … especially with this book.

Probably what I should have done (and will do in future editions) is include a list of suggested resources at the end of the book. This list would have begun with a statement that the following books were highly influential in helping shape my views and ideas in the book.

Part of problem with this book in particular, however, is that I never planned to write it. During my reading and research on the problem of divine violence in Scripture, I planned to write a book titled When God Pled Guilty. Currently, that book sits on my computer hard drive at 200,000 words with several hundred footnotes. I shelved that book about five years ago to write a different book, which became seven books, which I am now in the process of writing. I never planned to write Nothing but the Blood of Jesus.

But one night, in my weekly discipleship group study, as I was explaining some of the content from one of those seven forthcoming volumes, the outline for Nothing but the Blood of Jesus popped into my head, and I knew I had to write it. So I did. It took a couple weeks of frantic writing, pouring out the “fire in my bones” onto the written page, but the entire book was written in a very short span of time. This accounts for most of the lack of footnotes in the volume. But ample citations are in the original volumes, which will be published (hopefully) in the next several years.

Nevertheless, numerous citations do not prove the accuracy of an argument. Anybody can quote dozens of sources, just as anybody can quote dozens of verses. Arguments must be dealt with on their internal logical and merit, and nothing else.

My approach to writing also suffers from one other drawback. Unlike Greg (and most other scholarly authors), I don’t have a team of research assistants to help me track down resources. I don’t have a Paul Eddy. I don’t have any grad students. It’s just me. And while I do try my absolute hardest to give credit where credit is due, I often forget where an idea might have come from, and so fail to provide a citation.

However (and this is not an excuse), all authors neglect to cite sources … even Greg. What I find most interesting about Greg’s critique on this point is that although he himself included hundreds of footnotes in his book, he did not include various resources which he himself had referred to elsewhere in his writings as helpful. For example, Greg wrote on his blog that he had enjoyed reading the insights of Marilyn Campbell’s book, Shedding Light on the Dark Side of God (which is now titled Light Through Darkness).

Yet Greg never once cites Marilyn in his book. Does this mean he didn’t learn anything from her after all? Or maybe Greg doesn’t feel that he needs to cite self-published authors? Is it because she’s a woman or doesn’t have a Ph. D.? I know enough about Greg to know that none of these suggestions are remotely possible. The truth is that no author can ever adequately cite every source and resource to which they are accountable. We try as best we can, but we always fail.

Oh, and as for my more my “more controversial claims,” I take full blame for those. There is no one to cite, because these ideas came from my own research and study of the biblical text in light of the crucified Christ. I hoped that readers would consider the logic and reasonable arguments of my position based on the other ideas presented in the book, and then study them further on their own to see if these things are so.

Once again, Greg himself makes many controversial claims in CWG and CV, many of which have no citations because they originated with Greg. Readers are invited to consider the weight of his arguments and decide for themselves if what he says makes sense.

But we better move on. This is too long of an explanation about citations and footnotes.

Turning to the content of this work, my first and most substantial comment concerns the Girardian framework Jeremy uses to interpret Scripture. I confess that I am always suspicious whenever anyone tries to interpret the Bible through the lens of an extra-biblical idea, philosophy, or theory. So when Jeremy claimed that “[a]lmost every passage in the Bible teaches the truth about scapegoating in one fashion or another”(179) and that “[e]verything in Scripture is focused on revealing [that] [f]rom the beginning…humans have engaged in rivalry, accusation, and violence” (119), I was immediately concerned that everything in the Bible was being forced into the Procrustean bed of Girardian theory.

It is strange that Greg seems to be unaware of his own Procrustean bed which forms the foundation of his own thinking and theology. Or maybe he is, and he just wants to point out mine? I hope Greg doesn’t make the mistake of thinking that he has a purely exegetical theology. Every theological position is influenced by history, culture, education, family, emotional state, psychological background, traditional practices, and a vast constellation of other factors.

I am happy to do my best to own up to mine and agree that mimetic theory has been influential in my thinking and writing. However, if Greg does not like the Girardian framework, that is completely fine, but he must show why it is faulty before telling me I depend on it too much. Also, Greg must also admit that he himself interprets the bible through the lens of extra-biblical ideas. It is better by far to know what forms the foundation of your thinking than to be ignorant of such presuppositions or to claim you are not subject to them. I admit and am aware of being influenced by Girardian thought. If Greg wants to disabuse me of it, he should disprove it rather than simply point it out.

There were points in this work that I saw this happening. For example, we’ve seen that Jeremy regards scapegoating as the “foundational sin” of Scripture, and he makes quite a big deal over the fact that “sin” is first mentioned when Cain kills Abel. But it seems to me that the “foundational sin” in Scripture takes place prior to this, when Adam and Eve believe the serpent’s lie about God and when they therefore proceed to violate the divine prohibition against eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (Gen 3:1-5). This sin certainly leads to Adam blaming God and Eve while Eve in turn blames the serpent (Gen 3:12-13), and one could argue that this indicates they are heading down the Girardian path of violence and scapegoating. But the foundational sin that sets this process in motion is mistrusting God and trying to be wise like God, not violence.

I don’t know that this is a Girardian idea. Yes, Girard says that there is a founding murder at the root of all civilization, and he does indeed point to Cain and Abel as a founding murder, but does he ever equate this with sin? I do not recall if he does. I think that this might be one of my more controversial claims in the book, for which I take full blame (or credit, as the case may be).

However, here again, if Greg disagrees, then I invite him to present exegetical arguments to the contrary. Just because traditional theology assumes that “sin” occurred when Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden tree, this does not mean that traditional theology is correct. The Bible doesn’t define their actions as sin, and so why should we? And yes, I discuss Romans 5:12 in the book.

So once again, if Boyd doesn’t like Girard, that’s fine. But rather than discount an idea because of its origin, ideas must be dealt with on their own terms, regardless of who else believes them.

Similarly, throughout this work Jeremy virtually equates sin with violence and/or scapegoating (e.g. 52, 204, 222, 250). It seems to me, however, that the biblical conception of sin is a good bit broader than this, the above-mentioned sin of Adam and Eve being a case in point. Jeremy several times says that sin is anything that makes us less human, which I fully agree with. But it seems to me that there are many things other than violence that can do this. If a person is a chronically lazy glutton, for example, this is sin (Tit 1:11-13), and I am certain it is so because this person is not living up to their human potential. Yet I don’t see how laziness fits into the Girardian schemata of sin.

Again, I don’t exactly know how Girard defines sin. I take blame for this definition. Well, Mark Biddle’s book on sin was helpful as well. But not Girard, if I recall correctly.

Anyway, while I admit that my definition of sin is new to some, it must be considered on its merit, and on the revelation from Scripture. “Sin” is not necessarily “the bad things we do” as Greg seems to believe. (I don’t actually know what he believes. How does he define “sin”?) While the passage he quoted, Titus 1:11-13, does mention lying and lazy gluttons, it doesn’t mention sin. So I am unsure why he cited that text as a way to disprove what I argue about sin in the book. Similarly, Greg eisegetically reads the concept of “sin” into Genesis 3. It is not found there exegetically

Most of the time, in Scripture, when “sin” is explicitly mentioned, it is usually mentioned in the context of violence, or the types of actions that lead to violence (e.g., rivalry, blame, accusation, etc.).

Another example where I felt Jeremy’s Girardian framework was distorting Scripture was when he claimed that “the main point”’ of the book of Job “is that we humans often engage in the satanic activity of accusing and blaming others and that we do so ‘in the name of God’”(197). While I grant that this is one of the points of Job, I am quite certain it is not the main point.

Consider the fact that Job blames God just as much as Job’s “friends” blame Job, which is why God has to put Job in his place in the three chapter monologue toward the end of the book (chs 38-41). And in this case, Job is not projecting his guilt onto God. Indeed, the main point of the book of Job hinges on the fact that Job is suffering as an innocent man (Job 1:1-5, 8). Job’s blaming God for his troubles thus has nothing to do with mimetic rivalry or violence. As God points out, it rather has to do with Job’s complete ignorance of the unfathomable cosmos (chs.38-39) and of the forces of chaos (Behemoth, Leviathan) that God must contend with (chs.40-41). I would thus argue that the main point of the book of Job is that humans shouldn’t blame God for our misfortunes, because we don’t know much about anything (which, by the way, is illustrated by the fact that neither Job nor his “friends” ever learn about the random wager in the heavenly realms that led to Job’s sufferings). But if one is reading with Girardian glasses, one is going to miss this because it doesn’t fit into the Girardian framework.

I must confess that I am a little confused by Greg’s objection here. Greg agrees that Job blames God for what happened to him. And what happened to Job? A lot of violence. His crops were destroyed, his servants and children were killed, and Job suffered great sickness. And then Job blames God for all this violence. Since this is so, how can Greg then say that “Job’s blaming God for his trouble has nothing to do with … violence”? It has everything to do with violence. Then when God shows up, He tells Job He had nothing to do with it.

Job's Friends in a Crisis“But” (as my wife pointed out to me once), “What about God’s deal with the devil at the beginning of the book? Didn’t God allow Satan to do all these bad things to Job? How is this not divine violence?” Excellent point, Wendy! My answer is that this proves that the book of Job is actually about the satanic activity of accusing and blaming others in the name of God. Satan is there in the beginning as the accuser, and the satanic presence is seen throughout the book as everyone is accusing Job, and Job is accusing God.

Yes, Job and his friends never learn about this divine “wager.” But this is because the story is not for them, but for us. As a result, it is my belief is that the “divine wager” never actually happened. I believe the story of Job actually happened, but I do not believe that God makes deals with the devil which treats humans as “acceptable losses” in a cosmic game of “chicken.” The account of God’s deal with the devil at the beginning is the narrative framework that sets up the scene, and is then disavowed at the end of the story. In other words, Job 1 is the “human perspective” of what we humans think goes on in the heavens, and Job 38-41 is “God’s perspective” of what is actually happening.

A more detailed explanation will have to wait for a future book. The point is that in the book of Job, “there is something else going on” than what most people assume.

As a final example, Jeremy argues, in good Girardian fashion, that Achan and his family were scapegoated when they were burned alive (Josh 7:10-16). Now, the text says that this burning was commanded by Yahweh because Achan kept spoils when the Israelites vanquished the city of Ai. From a Girardian perspective, however, this killing must have been carried out to resolve some social conflict that had been building up. Jeremy thus argues that there was “rivalry among the people of Israel regarding the leadership of Joshua and the divisions of the land in Canaan,” and the slaughter of Achan and his family was carried out to resolve this rivalry (192).

The trouble is, there is no evidence of such a “rivalry” in this passage. So far as I can see, it is postulated only because Girardian theory requires it. Yet, Jeremy is so convinced of its truth that he claims that this is “the most obvious reading” (194) of this passage. Indeed, he argues that the whole “book of Joshua, like much of the Bible, is written to expose such thinking (viz. scapegoating) for the lie that it is” (195). I grant that some stories in Joshua and throughout the Old Testament can be interpreted as illustrations of Girard’s scapegoating process, but to claim this for the book as a whole is a bit much. But Jeremy goes so far as to suggest that this is what the original ancient author(s) of this book had in mind! To me, this simply reflects how thoroughly Jeremy’s reading of Scripture has been fused with his Girardian perspective.

Let me beat the same drum once again … I didn’t get this from Girard, or from any Girardian scholar that I recall. But I suppose it is true that a Girardian framework influenced my explanation of this passage. Regardless, the steps to reduce rivalry are quite obvious in Joshua 2–5, especially when compared to the problems Moses faced in his leadership of Israel. This is the point I make in the book. The opening chapters of Joshua must be read contextually, in light of the exodus and wilderness wanderings.

However, all of this is only prologue for the Achan story. I should have more clearly made this point about “prologue” in the book. Regardless, I nowhere suggested, as Greg implies, that the original author(s) of Joshua had Girardian theory in mind. Pardon me, but that’s preposterous. What I wrote is that that the book of Joshua, like much of the Bible, is written to expose the lie of human scapegoating.

Scapegoating is a biblical theme long before Girard picked it up.

To me, Greg’s comment simply reflects how little he understands the seriousness of scapegoating, or its universal pull on every human being. To Greg, and everyone else, I say, “Forget Girard, if you want. Let’s talk about scapegoating.”

My second critical comment about the content of Nothing But the Blood of Jesus is that, while Jeremy mentions Satan several times, neither Satan nor any other demonic cosmic agent plays a substantive role in his theorizing. I think his book suffers as a result. For example, Jeremy notes that, like so many today, biblical authors routinely blamed God for natural disasters. Since we know from the revelation of God in Christ that God is not behind violence, Jeremy argues that we should understand the violent portraits of God that include natural disasters to be projections of the biblical authors.

I completely agree, but in CWG and CV, I go further and argue, on the basis of the cross, that whenever the violence involved in a divine judgment cannot be attributed to humans, as is the case when the judgment takes the form of a natural disaster, we should attribute this violence to Satan and/or other demonic cosmic forces. Because Satan and demonic cosmic forces play no role in Girardian theory, however, Jeremy doesn’t take this option. As a result, he leaves the natural disasters that function as divine judgments completely unexplained.

For example, who or what caused the Flood (Gen 6-9)? While Jeremy is clear that it wasn’t God, he offers his readers no other alternative. He comes close to providing an answer when he notes that the violence involved in the Flood is attributed to the flood waters, not to God (184). But he fails to identify these flood waters as the Ancient Near Eastern way of referring to hostile cosmic forces that perpetually threaten the earth and that Yahweh (or, in other cultures, some other deity) must hold at bay. The result is that the undoing of creation that took place with the Flood is left unexplained.

And the same holds true for all other judgments of God in the Old Testament that involve violence that can’t be attributed to humans. By contrast, if we read Scripture through the lens of the cross, which is depicted in the New Testament as God’s culminating battle with the kingdom of darkness, then we will intentionally look for – and we in fact find – that demonic cosmic forces were at work in bringing about these sorts of judgments.

the flood and total depravityI had a very similar conversation with Greg at the ReKnew conference, in which he stated that he also leaves natural disasters completely unexplained. He says, and I agree, that there are too many variables to determine the cause of any natural disaster. The only exception, Greg says, are the natural disasters found in the Bible. The Bible claims that these (in some way) came from God, and so therefore, they did. Call it Satan, the destroyer, or God withdrawing, these, and only these, natural disasters have some sort of divine origin. For many reasons, I find this explanation highly troubling, and extremely unhelpful. After all, if the CWG thesis helps us understand the Bible but not life, then it is not helpful and cannot be accepted.

But I am not writing this post to critique Greg’s views (though a few more will come below). I just want to point out that while it is true that I do not talk about satan or natural disasters much in my book, this is not because I don’t have a view on them. I do. But my book was primarily focused on human sin and what Jesus did to fix it. I am not prepared, as Greg seems to be, to say that natural disasters are sometimes the result of human sin. One of the primary things we learn from Jesus is that we need to stop blaming God (and humans) for the bad things that happen in this life. This includes natural disasters.

If this is true now (as I think Greg would agree), then it also includes historical natural disasters, including those found in the Bible. The biblical accounts of natural disasters, then, are revelatory, just like much of the rest of Scripture, about how we humans blame God for violence, whether it is our own sinful violence or natural violence. A more detailed explanation is forthcoming in a future book.

This then also helps us understand satan and the cosmic powers. I am not going to get into it here, but just as Greg thinks I have too weak a view of satan and demonic cosmic forces, I think he gives them way too much “personhood.” I heard Greg’s defense of his views at the conference. I have also read God at War and Satan and the Problem of Evil, and highly recommend both books. I completely agree that satan and the fallen powers threaten the world and the existence of humanity. But I have a completely different view than Greg does of what satan and the demonic forces are, where they came from, and how they interact with humans. And no, I didn’t get any of my views from Girard. Ha!

Yet, an even more fundamental problem with Jeremy’s book is that his way of interpreting Scripture has no room for the concept of God judging people, and this is my third critical comment. At a number of points in this book Jeremy says things like: “God doesn’t punish us for sin.” Rather, “Sin carries its own punishment” and God “works to rescue us from the punishment of sin” (51). Now, I fully agree that “sin carries its own punishment” and that God “works to rescue us from the punishment of sin,” but from this it doesn’t follow that “God doesn’t punish us for sin.” For as I argue in CWG and CV, when God sees that his merciful work to protect us from the natural consequences of our sin is harming us by allowing us to get further entrenched in our sin, God has no other choice but to withdraw this protection and allow us to suffer the destructive consequences of our sin. And this, I contend, is supremely illustrated when Jesus stood in our place as a condemned sinner on the cross. The Father withdrew his protection of Jesus and delivered him over to violent people, and Jesus experienced the God-forsakenness that is intrinsic to all sin.

I believe, which I thought I stated in the book, that we see God’s judgment of sin, death, and satan in the crucifixion Jesus. There are future judgments as well. But in all cases, these judgments are not God negatively punishing anybody for sin. Instead, the judgments of God are when God acts as judge to pronounce right judgments. That is, He names things as they really are. He exposes false testimony so that He might instead reveal the truth. Again, this is not from Girard, and a more detailed explanation will be provided in future volumes, though I believe I wrote some preliminary ideas about this in my book The Atonement of God.

As for this entire idea of God withdrawing from people when sin gets bad enough so that God lets sin, death, the devil, and the destructive cosmic forces have their way with humanity, I cannot object to this view strongly enough. Here is what many people (myself included) hear Greg to be saying about God:

You see? When Greg says that God simply “releases the destroyer” this is similar to Zeus saying “Release the Kraken.” In Greg’s view, God is not sending the destroyer, or even doing the destroying. He is just withdrawing His protective hand which holds the destroyer back. God is releasing the destroyer to let the destroyer do what the destroyer does. I am sorry, but this concept comes straight out of pagan mythology.

Yes, I know this idea is found in various places in Scripture, as laid out in Greg’s books, but Jesus repudiates all these ways of reading such passages when He shows that God will never leave us nor forsake us and will always be with us, no matter what.

If Jesus reveals anything at all to us, it is that God is Immanuel; not Zeus.

In his critique of CWG, Jeremiah [My name is Jeremy! But thanks for equating me with my namesake. ;)] objects to this withdrawal conception of divine judgment, both as applied to the cross and to biblical accounts of divine judgment. But what then are we to do with the vast multitude of passages that depict God bringing judgment on people by withdrawing his protection to turn people over to the destructive consequences of their sin (see CWG,vol II, 767-890)? If the Flood wasn’t a judgment of God, what was it? Just a random and wholly unexplainable disaster? And what could be said about (say) the biblical accounts of the killing of the firstborn in Egypt, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the parting and closing of the Red Sea, or the earth swallowing up the followers of Korah’s rebellion? If God never punishes sin, these biblical judgments become not only unexplainable, but unintelligible. Not only this, but inasmuch as the coherence of the biblical narrative hinges on divine judgments such as these, denying that God ever punishes sin renders the entire Old Testament narrative incoherent.

No, they are not unintelligible at all. Each can be easily understood when we see the glorious revelation of God in Jesus Christ on the cross, and recognize that in these terrifying and violent portrayals of God, “something else is going on.” I actually think Greg would see what this “something else” is if he discarded the “divine withdrawal” element of his cruciform thesis while keeping every other element. When God stays with us like Jesus, rather than releasing the destroyer like Zeus, we are then forced to read all the violent texts of Scripture in light of the crucified Christ, and something beautiful emerges.

If God doesn’t punitively or painfully withdraw from sinners, but sticks with us through the pain of sin, then this requires us to say that “something else is going on” in the passages that seem to indicate that God does withdraw. What is it that is going on? Well, to see it, Greg would have to adopt a little Girardian perspective. (That’s a joke!) No, the truth is that Girard is not needed at all. Jesus reveals quite clearly on the cross what else is going on.

On the other hand, if we set Girardian theory aside and instead allow the cross to serve as the paradigm for how God brings judgments as well as the paradigm for who God battles (viz. Satan and other demonic cosmic forces), then we are able to affirm that, while God is altogether non-violent, God nevertheless had to sometimes allow judgments to come upon people by withdrawing his merciful protection, which sometimes meant that cosmic agents who come “only to kill and to steal and to destroy” (Jn 10:10) were allowed to have their way.

I ache for the people who hear this ideas from Boyd and God sometimes allows judgments to come upon people by withdrawing His merciful protection. I truly do.

It is no good for anyone to hear that “the thief comes to kill, steal, and destroy … but God allows him to come.”

Frankly, most people, myself included, would rather have the pain and punishment come directly from God. If God is going to let satan kill people, God should have the respect for humanity to just do it Himself. If Greg’s view of God is correct, then I say this to God, “Hey God, man up. Don’t send a hit man to do your dirty work.”

There is no real logical difference at all between God allowing a disaster to fall upon someone (however regretfully He might allow it) and just performing the disaster Himself. So in Greg’s view, God is simply allowing satan to do God’s dirty work so that God can have someone to blame. “It wasn’t me!” says God. “It was Satan!” Meanwhile, God is the one who let Satan do the killing and destroying. God “Released the kraken.” I find it odd that in Greg’s view, God is using satan as the ultimate scapegoat, and yet Greg then turns around and says that my view overemphasizes the scapegoat theme.

The cross of Jesus reveals that God does not scapegoat satan, but it is satan that scapegoats God, and we humans follow satan in these accusatory ways.

My fourth and final comment is that, because Satan plays no substantive role in Jeremy’s Girardian understanding of the cross, his understanding of what the cross accomplishes is inadequate. I completely agree with Jeremy (and Girard) that the cross exposes the sinfulness of our scapegoating tendencies – especially our fallen inclination to scapegoat God. As I argue in CWG, this is why God mirrored the ugliness of sin as a victim of violence when he stooped to bear our sin on the cross, in contrast to the sin-mirroring violent portraits of God as a propagator of violence in the OT. But if we stop here, we are left with a cross that is merely pedagogical and ethical in nature. The cross instructs us, but it doesn’t change anything about the reality of the human situation. To use traditional terminology, this understanding of the cross results in a subjective, but not an objective, understanding of the Atonement.

Honestly, the biblical concept of satan is everywhere in my book, as I just hinted at above. Since “satan” means “accuser” every time I talk about accusation, this can be understood as a reference to satan. Therefore, what Jesus did on the cross is the greatest, objective, universal defeat of satan that can ever be imagined.

In the view Greg presents in his books, satan might be “defeated” but he is still very much active and powerful so as to make no real difference in the world. Theoretically, in Greg’s view, God still occasionally unleashes satan to have his way with us.

But in my view, satan truly was defeated — objectively defeated for all humanity — and evidence of this defeat is found everywhere in life, culture, politics, art, music, movies, and every other sphere of life. The death of Jesus on the cross wasn’t just the death of the son of God, so that He accomplished something mystical in the spiritual realm which no one can see or understand. Instead, the death of Jesus turned the world upside down, and the furniture is still all tumbling to the ground.

Satan was defeated by Jesus on the cross, so that the accuser has no more power.

The core problem is that, in Jeremy’s view, Jesus came because we were merely “in bondage to sin” (248), whereas the New Testament goes further and depicts us as also being in bondage to Satan. In fact, “[t]he Son of God was revealed for this purpose,” John says, “to destroy the works of the devil” (I Jn 3:8). So too, the author of Hebrews tells us that the reason the Son became incarnate and died was, “so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil” (Heb 2:14, cf. Col 2:15). On the cross, God solved a cosmic problem (defeating the kingdom of darkness) so that he could solve the anthropological problem (free us from our bondage to sin and Satan). And it is only because God did the first that he could do the second.

This is only a core problem for those who do not understand what I argued in the rest of book. Well, and maybe also what I wrote in my previous volume, The Atonement of God. … (Which, by the way, was dedicated to René Girard. Ha! So Greg probably wouldn’t like that book either.)

Jesus on the cross - YeshuaAnyway, the death of Jesus is the center of Scripture and theology, and I base everything I think and teach on what Jesus accomplished on the cross. Or at least, I try to. I believe every word of Scripture; I just believe some of these words differently than Greg does. This doesn’t mean I’m wrong, or that he is. It just means there is room for further discussion and humble learning. If Greg decides to continue this conversation, I promise not to mention Girard.

Not only this, but because of the cross, we have been transported from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God’s Son (Col 1:13). Moreover, because of the cross, we are placed in Christ Jesus in heavenly realms, “far above all rule and authority and power and dominion” (Eph 1:21). Here we are “blessed with every spiritual blessing” as we share in the life and love of the Triune God (Eph 1:3). So while I agree with Jeremy that the cross isn’t what allowed God to love and forgive us, as the Penal Substitution view holds, I nevertheless believe the cross did much more than expose the lie of our scapegoating and point us in a new direction. It radically altered our situation.

I agree (numerous Bible references go here [also a joke!]). I believe that while the cross did expose the lie of scapegoating and point humanity in a new direction, the crucifixion also radically altered our situation, and this changed situation is evident everywhere in life. I thought I made this clear in the book, but again, it is also made clear in The Atonement of God.

In sum, Nothing But the Blood of Jesus is filled with insights that make it well worth reading. But I would encourage my friend to loosen his commitment to Girardian theory and to instead anchor his reading of Scripture in the crucified Christ. This would allow him to have a more robust understanding of what the cross accomplished and would allow him to affirm God’s judgments in Scripture, but in a way that points to the supreme revelation of God’s self-sacrificial, enemy-embracing, non-violent love on Calvary.

This is interesting.

Earlier Greg stated that he wanted me to cite my sources as evidence for how I relied upon other scholars and theologians. But now I see that he does not want me to depend on human sources, but instead look only to Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Which is it?

Maybe we could say the great flaw with Greg’s CWG is due to his over-dependence on the wisdom of men (as evidenced by the numerous footnotes), and not enough on the cross of Christ, as I sought to do with my book.

I am being facetious, but I think you get the point. It is simply silly to say that because I talk about themes that come from Girard, this means that I don’t anchor my reading of Scripture in the crucified Christ.

I could ignorantly say the same thing about Greg’s heavy reliance upon Origen, or various scholars who hold to the Theological Interpretation of Scripture. But I don’t do this. I know that Greg depends and relies on the best research and scholarly input he can find to help inform, guide, and support the exegetical evidence and ideas he has gleaned from Scripture as he reads and studies the Bible in light of Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

I do the exact same thing. I hope that Greg can assume for my writing what he wants others to assume for his.

In the end, it has been a pleasure reading and interacting with Greg’s books, and it appears he would say the same for mine. Most of all, I appreciate him taking the time to respond to some of the ideas in my books, and I hope that we will be able to continue this conversation in the future as we both seek to live, write, and teach in light of Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

Do you want to weigh in on this discussion?

If you haven’t done so already, I invite you to get our books, read them, and then provide your own feedback as well! Click the images of the books below to learn more about each on Amazon and buy your copies.

God is Redeeming Books Bible & Theology Topics: blood of Jesus, book reviews, Books by Jeremy Myers, Books I'm Writing, cross, crucifixion of Jesus, crucivision, Greg Boyd, mimesis, mimetic rivalry, mimetic theory, Nothing But the Blood of Jesus, Rene Girard, scapegoat

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By Jeremy Myers
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Buy my new book, and get BONUS Materials

Nothing but the Blood of JesusMy new book, Nothing but the Blood of Jesus, is out, and people are loving it!

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Nothing but the Blood of Jesus Stack

God is Redeeming Books Bible & Theology Topics: Books I'm Writing, Nothing But the Blood of Jesus, violence of God, violence of Scripture

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By Jeremy Myers
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Here is how you can start reading my new book for free

My new book is out, and I want as many people to read it as possible, which means I want to make it as easy as possible for you to read.

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1. Have a way to Read Kindle books from Amazon
If you have a Kindle eReader, then you’re already set. Move to step 2 below.

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3. Go download my new book and start reading

I put my book on Kindle Unlimited for the next couple months, so after you join Kindle Unlimited, you can start reading my book for free. Go get it here and start reading today.

Note: This is just to try out the book for free

My book will not be on Kindle Unlimited forever, so if you start reading the book and really like it, you might want to purchase the Kindle version for yourself (it’s only $8.99 right now), since you already have the free Kindle Reading App.

If you prefer paperback books like I do, you can get in on Amazon as well for less than $15 (And if you want the paperback, you can get free shipping by joining Amazon Prime for free for 30 days!)

No matter which option you choose, if you like the book, I would greatly appreciate it if you would buy a copy, since that helps encourage me and financially support my writing and online teaching ministry.

As you read, let me know what questions you have…

Now, here is the first chapter to get you started…

Nothing but the blood of Jesus book stack

How Precious is the Flow?

Have you ever stopped to listen to what we Christians say and sing about the blood of Jesus?

Try to imagine what you would think about a group of people who regularly sang songs about founts of blood, washing in blood, and needing blood to be made whole? Imagine you are walking through a forest on a dark night and as you stumbled along, off in the distance you saw the light of a fire with people dancing around it. As you drew closer, you heard them singing the following song:

What can wash away my sin?
Nothing but this bloody sacrifice.
What can make me whole again?
Nothing but this bloody sacrifice.

O precious is the flow that makes me white as snow;
No other fount I know; nothing but this bloody sacrifice.

I imagine that if you heard people singing this in the woods on a dark night, you would turn around and head the other direction. What if, however, you kept going, and as you drew closer, the song changed to this one:

Have you been to the altar for the cleansing power?
Are you washed in the blood of this man?
Are you fully trusting in his grace this hour?
Are you washed in the blood of this man?

Are you washed in the blood,
In the soul cleansing blood of this man?
Are your garments spotless? Are they white as snow?
Are you washed in the blood of this man?

As your skin crawled with the implications of that song, the people then began to sing about plunging one another beneath a fountain of blood.

There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from our victim’s veins;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.

I think that instead of happily join this group of blood-crazed murderers, you would likely get out of the woods as fast as possible and then call the local police to report what you had heard. I can see the newspaper headline now: “Lone Hiker Discovers Ghastly Cult Bathing in the Blood of a Human Sacrifice.” When read outside of their Christian context, that is indeed what these songs bring to mind, is it not? These sorts of songs sound more like a gruesome and gory scene from a Freddy Krueger movie than from something to be joyfully celebrated. Yet when the words of the three songs above are sung as originally written so that they talk about the blood of Jesus Christ as the Lamb of God, we Christians happily sing them with gusto, and think that nothing is amiss.

Why is that?

ARGUING WITH MYSELF
If you have been brought up in the church as I have, you may not have ever stopped to consider what the songs we sing sound like to an outside observer. Just listen to yourself sing sometimes, especially around Easter, and ask yourself what the “uninitiated” might be hearing. I myself have done this, and here is how the conversation went in my head:

Me: What is this about washing in the blood of the Lamb? This sounds like some sort of ancient pagan ritual where the worshippers splashed blood on themselves as they went into the temple to worship their pagan god. Is this really what God wants from us? To bathe in the blood of Jesus. To swim in rivers of blood? To dance around fountains of blood? What’s the deal with all this blood?
Myself: Don’t take it all so literally! It’s only symbolic. It’s figurative. Nobody actually bathes in blood or dances in fountains of blood.
Me: I know that! But then why sing about it? Symbolic language must symbolize something, right? Figurative language points to some figure. So what is it? What does the blood of Jesus symbolize? And before you answer too quickly, if it’s only symbolic, are you saying that the death of Jesus was only symbolic? That He only died a figurative death?
Myself: Of course not. That would be heresy. Jesus died a real death in a real body. He shed literal blood. The symbolic part of those songs is in the washing and the bathing. We don’t literally wash and bathe in the blood of Jesus. We just symbolically imagine that His blood is cleansing and washing us from our sin.
Me: Okay … so we’re symbolically washing in literal blood? That still makes no sense to me.
Myself: Sigh. This is why I never debate theology with people who didn’t go to Seminary.
Me: What? You’re me. I’m you. We went to Seminary together.
Myself: Oh, right. Well, that must be why your theology is so messed up. What did they teach you at Seminary, anyway?

The conversation went on like this for quite some time—several decades, to be honest. During that time, Me, Myself, and I also read scores of books on the death of Jesus and engaged in numerous hours of conversation with other people about this subject. And do you know what I found? The books and the people that were most helpful and illuminating were those who were outside observers (even critics) of Christianity. They responded in horror to the Christian infatuation with the blood of Jesus. They view our songs and sermons about His blood in a way that is similar to how you or I might view a cultish sacrificial ritual deep in the woods on a dark night. It seems excessively gruesome and quite alarming to hear people celebrate the bloodletting of someone else.

To such critics, no answer we give, no verse we quote, no explanation we provide can ever do away with the fact that Christianity seems to worship a bloodthirsty deity who required the death of others in order to forgive sins and cleanse people of their iniquity. They complain that God is a cosmic child abuser who tortured His own Son in a twisted display of justice. They criticize God as being less loving and forgiving than regular humans, who can forgive others without the need for death and bloodshed. They point out that the Bible contains more commands for blood sacrifice and warfare against the enemies of God than any other religious book in history, including the Muslim Qur’an. They charge that no matter how much we claim that our God is loving and kind, He is really a God of bloody sacrifice, warfare, violence, and death.

CRITICIZING CHRISTIANS
I imagine you have heard some of the criticisms mentioned before. Most Christians have. And when confronted with these sorts of criticisms, we Christians typically make the situation worse by quoting Scripture. Forgetting that none of these critics consider Scripture to be authoritative, we sometimes think that a few Bible verses will solve the debate. We point out that since all have sinned and the wages of sin is death, everyone must die (Rom 3:23; 6:23). But God loves us, we say, and so He decided to pay the penalty for our sin Himself, which He did by sending Jesus, His own Son, to die in our place on the cross (John 3:16; Rom 6:10; 2 Cor 5:21; 1 Pet 3:18). After all, without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins (Heb 9:22). We say that someone must die for the sins of the world, and it was either us or God. Since God loves us, He took the bullet on our behalf and sent Jesus to die on the cross for the sins of the whole world.

When the non-Christian response to our “biblical answer” is less receptive than we would like, we shrug our shoulders and quote another verse. We say, “The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing” (1 Cor 1:18), and then head off to our Bible studies and Sunday services where we continue to talk and sing about the blood of Jesus while avoiding or ignoring the hard questions that the watching world is asking.

But if we stick around, the follow-up questions to our “biblical answer” get even harder to explain. For example, if we say that the death of Jesus was necessary to forgive sins, people want to know why Jesus had to die in such a gruesome and bloody way. If we say that the wages of sin is death and so God needed death as payment for sin, people want to know why God set it up this way in the first place (Isn’t He God? Can’t He do what He wants?) and even then, what would have been wrong with just letting Jesus die from old age? Did Jesus really need to get tortured to a bloody death on the cross? And if we argue that God needed the blood of an innocent victim in order to remove the stain of sin from the world, the critic wants to know how killing an innocent victim is not a sin itself, and how the blood of such a victim can actually do anything for the sin of all people throughout all time. And these questions keep coming, harder and harder at every turn.

DON’T ASK HOW IT WORKS?
Due to the number of difficult questions surrounding the death of Jesus and His blood shed for us, it might simply be best to accept that the death of Jesus did something to help restore our relationship with God, even if we cannot understand what it was. For many, rather than agonize over seemingly unanswerable questions, it is preferable to recognize that since we are not God and cannot really understand the nature or the depth of our sin or the character and breadth of His righteousness, we will never be able to understand exactly what Jesus did on the cross or how His death accomplished it. In other words, it is enough, for many, to simply know that Jesus accomplished something, even if we cannot know what it was or how He did it. If this seems like a cop-out, do not worry; this is the approach that C. S. Lewis argued for in his book, Mere Christianity:

The central Christian belief is that Christ’s death has somehow put us right with God and given us a fresh start. Theories as to how it did this are another matter. A good many different theories have been held as to how it works …

Theories about Christ’s death are not Christianity: they are explanations about how it works. Christians would not all agree as to how important these theories are …

But I think they will all agree that the thing itself is infinitely more important than any explanations that theologians have produced. I think they would probably admit that no explanation will ever be quite adequate to the reality. But as I said in the preface to this book, I am only a layman, and at this point we are getting into deep water. I can only tell you, for what it is worth, how I, personally, look at the matter. On my view the theories are not themselves the thing you are asked to accept …

We believe that the death of Christ is just that point in history at which something absolutely unimaginable from outside shows through into our own world. And if we cannot picture even the atoms of which our own world is built, of course we are not going to be able to picture this. Indeed, if we found that we could fully understand it, that very fact would show it was not what it professes to be—the inconceivable, the uncreated, the thing from beyond nature, striking down into nature like lightning. You may ask what good it will be to us if we do not understand it. But that is easily answered. A man can eat his dinner without understanding exactly how food nourishes him. A man can accept what Christ has done without knowing how it works: indeed, he certainly would not know how it works until he has accepted it. We are told that Christ was killed for us, that His death has washed out our sins, and that by dying He disabled death itself. That is the formula. That is Christianity. That is what has to be believed. Any theories we build up as to how Christ’s death did all this are, in my view, quite secondary: mere plans or diagrams to be left alone if they do not help us, and, even if they do help us, not to be confused with the thing itself.

If you are one who rarely asks “Why?” or “How?” something works, then the answer of C. S. Lewis regarding the death of Jesus might be enough for you. Yet as much as I love and admire C. S. Lewis (he is my favorite author), his answer is not enough for me. Prior to attending Bible College and Seminary my educational background was in engineering. I chose that field because my entire life has been consumed with pursuing answers to the question “How?” How does this work? How can it be improved? How can it be explained? How can it be fixed? While numerous people like C. S. Lewis are content with simply knowing that something works, I am never content unless I know how.

Nor is the answer of C. S. Lewis enough for the average critic of Christianity. Critics of Christianity will not accept Lewis’ logic on the death of Jesus. They will not simply jump with blind faith into worshiping a deity who, to them, appears to be bloodthirsty, vindictive, and cruel. They will not simply accept and follow Jesus because Lewis says we don’t need to know why Jesus died or how His blood works to save us from our sin. For many, including myself, the how is the critical question. If the how is not answered, then we cannot know why Jesus died, and therefore, what God is like. And if we cannot know what God is like, then we cannot know whether or not He is worthy of our worship.

For if the Christian God truly is bloodthirsty, vindictive, and cruel, it is more of an act of pure worship to reject such a God than it is to worship Him in blind faith. Why? Because people become like the God they worship. If God is bloodthirsty and vindictive, and if God cannot love and forgive unless He receives payment with blood, then this is also how His followers will live and act toward others. Rather than live in love and forgiveness toward others, we will cry out for the death of our enemies, and will demand that “justice” be obtained through the price of bloody vengeance upon all who oppose us. And sadly, this is exactly how some Christians behave, as they pray for bombs to fall on Muslims and for Gays to go to hell.

The watching world sees this behavior by Christians, and understands that such behavior is nothing more than a logical extension of our theological belief in a God who demands blood payment for the forgiveness of sins. But we Christians don’t know where to turn. Though we recognize, and even condemn, the bad behavior of some groups within Christianity, and though we see how certain passages from a bloody Bible and certain ideas from traditional theology can lead these Christians to think that calling for the death of their enemies in truly within God’s will, few Christians have actually found a way out of the dilemma posed by the blood of Jesus.

We cannot, after all, deny the righteous justice of God. Nor can we deny the reality of human sin. And we definitely cannot deny that Jesus bled and died. But as long as we fail to adequately explain how all of these truths fit together, the Gospel message will never be good news to a dying world. Christianity needs better answers to the questions the world is asking, and this failure to explain how the blood of Jesus saves us from our sin is one of the main reasons so many people have abandoned Christianity over the last few decades.

A BETTER ANSWER
My hope is that the book you now hold in your hands provides a better answer. This book shows how God can be both just and the justifier of those who believe. It shows how sin truly is the problem of the world, and how the death of Jesus—even the violent and bloody death of Jesus on the cross—provides the solution and the answer for sin that the world is looking for. This book also shows how the non-Christian rejection of a bloody and violent deity is right in line with what Jesus revealed about God. In other words, when the world rejects a bloodthirsty god as being unworthy of our worship, they are not following Satan into error and evil, but are instead following Jesus into what He revealed to us about God. Much to our shock and chagrin, the non-Christian who follows his or her own heart into love for all people might be doing a better job worshipping the God revealed in Jesus Christ than the Christian who quotes Scripture and prays to God for the death of our enemies.

I understand that what I have just written might be a shocking statement to some. But it is not a statement I make lightly. It comes as the result of decades of research, study, reading, writing, and prayerful consideration of the biblical text. It also comes more recently from spending time outside the institutional church with so-called “non-Christians.”

When I first read Mere Christianity about thirty years ago, while I fully agreed that how the death of Jesus works was not nearly as important as the truth that it works, I intended to do my best in learning how. This is, after all, how my mind is wired. So I embarked on my investigation. I read and studied everything I could about the death of Jesus, the atonement, and the gospel. I studied Scripture constantly. I attended Bible College and Seminary. I pastored churches, preached sermons, taught Bible studies, and wrote books. I engaged in conversations about these topics with numerous different people from dozens of different backgrounds, beliefs, and perspectives.

Through it all, I followed a trail of breadcrumbs left by Scripture and the illuminating Holy Spirit so that every few months, I uncovered another piece of the theological puzzle. Many of these pieces were shocking or surprising, challenging everything I thought I knew. Some of the truths I learned were utterly inspiring, opening up whole new vistas of theological research and inquiry, and helping me see God in a whole new light. In the process of digging through the pages of Scripture for an understanding of how the death of Jesus saves the world from sin, I discovered a God I never knew existed, as well as some truths about Scripture, sin, and humanity that I never would have found in any other way. The quest for how led to some surprising discoveries about the who, the what, and the why.
If you are like me and want to know the how of things, the best approach would be to retrace with me the slow and steady slog through theological research of the last thirty years. But that would take too long and be too boring. It would read like the snippet of conversation I had with myself earlier in this chapter. Besides, I spent many of those years in theological missteps, exegetical rabbit trails, and, like Winnie the Pooh, retracing my own steps around and around in the snowy woods searching for a mythical beast of my own imagination.

So rather than take you on that long and circuitous journey, let me instead give you some of the central signposts which will point you in the right direction. This book contains those signposts. The ideas of this book are not everything I learned or discovered in the past thirty years of research, but they do explain where I am at now and what I have discovered. This book contains my best explanation so far for how the death of Jesus saves the world from sin.

And just as a preview, do you know what I have discovered so far? I have discovered that the blood of Jesus is more precious than I ever imagined. I have discovered that the blood of Jesus reveals certain truths to humanity that could never have been revealed to us in any other way. I have discovered that there is very good reason for the Bible to emphasize blood so much, that there is good reason for the New Testament writers to focus our attention on His blood shed for us. I have discovered that it was not just Jesus’ death, and not just Jesus’ blood, but that it was necessary for His blood to be shed violently.

I have discovered some truths that nothing but the blood of Jesus could have revealed to us. I have discovered how the blood of Jesus rescues and delivers us from sin like nothing else ever could. Once we understand how the blood of Jesus rescues the world from sin, we see why it was necessary for Jesus to suffer and die on the cross as He did, and how the entire bloody spectacle of the cross reveals a God who is more deeply in love with us than we ever before imagined. In the end, we see that there truly is something special about the blood of Jesus. The blood of Jesus truly does lead us to worship God and follow Him in love and forgiveness for the world.

If you join me in this journey by reading this book, you will discover the meaning of five words. These five words are Sin, Law, Sacrifice, Scapegoat, and Blood. If you understand these five terms, you will better understand the work of Jesus on the cross and how His death rescues us from sin. But as indicated above, these five words are not the only things I have discovered over the last several decades of research. As you learn about these five words, there are many related words that you might have questions about as well. Words such as salvation, wrath, forgiveness, justice, Kingdom of God, grace, world, satan, and gospel are also within the sphere of terms one might need to learn in the quest for understanding the crucifixion of Jesus. If you would like to learn more about these other words, all of them are found in my online theology course, The Gospel Dictionary, from which the ideas for this book were pulled. While this book only looks at five words, The Gospel Dictionary course looks at 52 key words of the gospel, all of which further support the themes of this present volume and provide greater understanding about what God has done for us in Jesus Christ and how we are to live in response. Understanding these 52 key words of the Gospel truly help make the Gospel “good news” again.

So are you ready to learn how the death of Jesus rescues the world from sin? If so, the journey begins with a look at everybody’s favorite subject: sin. But don’t skip the chapter because you think you already know everything about sin (maybe from personal experience). When it comes to sin, the phrase made famous by Inigo Montoya in The Princess Bride is quite appropriate: “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

Want to Keep Reading?

Nothing but the blood of Jesus ebookThat is the first chapter in the book. Do you want to read the rest?

It’s simple, just follow the three steps from above:

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God is Redeeming Books, Redeeming Scripture, Redeeming Theology Bible & Theology Topics: atonement, Books by Jeremy Myers, Books I'm Writing, crucifixion of Jesus, death of Jesus, Kindle, Nothing But the Blood of Jesus

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I have a new online course available that goes along with my new book.

By Jeremy Myers
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I have a new online course available that goes along with my new book.

I have a new online discipleship course that goes along with my new book. The new book is titled Nothing but the Blood of Jesus, and the course is The Gospel Dictionary.

The Gospel Dictionary Course

The book is based on the course, but the course is about 10x longer than the book…

The book looks at five key words from the Bible, sin, law, sacrifice, scapegoating, and blood, to show how the sacrifice of Jesus saves us from our sin. After defining each of the five words, I then look at various passages from Scripture that can now be better understood once we have properly defined the words. In the book, I looked at 56 passages that were related to these 5 words. The book also ended up being 93,000 words.

The only reason I am sharing this is because the new course doesn’t just look at five words … it looks at 52. And just as with the book, every entry looks at several texts from the Bible to help you better understand them.

So just think about this … My book, Nothing but the Blood of Jesus, looked at 5 words, and 56 texts (averaging 11 each). It took me 93,000 words.

The Gospel DictionaryMy course looks at 52 words, with each entry looking at various texts from the Bible. This is going to be a MASSIVE course. Yes, some of the entries are much shorter than what I had in the book, but still, this is going HUGE.

Right now, there are about 10 lessons up and ready to go. My goal is to add a few more each month as I get them written and recorded. It will probably take me at least the rest of the year to finish it. But you can begin taking it right now.

Now, the price for the course is $299, which is actually a screaming deal, considering how much information is in the course, but if you join my “Hope” or “Love” discipleship group, then you can take the course (and all my other courses) at no additional cost. Just go here to learn more about the various discipleship levels.

Of course (pun intended!), if you are not sure about taking the course, I recommend you get a taste for what is in it by reading my new book. If you like what is in the book and how I explain the five words and the various Scripture texts, then you will LOVE learning about the 52 words in the course.

So here’s the plan:

1. Buy and read the book.
2. Then, if you like it, come back here and join either the “Hope” or “Love” discipleship groups.
3. Take the Gospel Dictionary course.

Buy Your Copy on Amazon Today

The book is 292 pages, and I am super excited to hear what you think about it. It is available for the Kindle or in Paperback on Amazon. Just choose which version you prefer to be taken to the appropriate page:

Nothing But the Blood of Jesus Paperback
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Nothing but the Blood of Jesus Kindle
Kindle Version

God is Redeeming Books Bible & Theology Topics: Bible Study, blood, gospel dictionary, law, Nothing But the Blood of Jesus, sin

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