Hi Newlife. I have a friend who is a phlebotomist (sic), who draws blood for a living. She is a new Christian and it makes totally, perfect sense to her that the life is in the blood. She started going on about how it carries oxegen, it does this and that - she definitely knows her topic.
From God's Word, he places a huge amount of importance on blood, for reasons I don't understand, but he does. God says it cleanses, it makes pure, it has a voice and cries from the ground, it is used as an atonement for sin in lieu of a man's life, but mostly, it cleanses and washes.
Adam's blood was created by God - was perfect. Adam was a totally "new creation" of God's. No one, or anything like him had ever before been created. I believe he was an earthly shadow, or type, of a Heavenly being.
Christ, as the second "Adam" - the one who would redeem mankind from their error or separation from God, or sin as its also called, must also have had "perfect" blood.
We read, when Christ was killed and he was ordered to death by the high priest Pilate, he was in actuality the atoning lamb, the lamb who's spilled blood atoned for sin. His spilt blood now cleanses us and washes us when we believe.
When he rose, his blood cleansed the heavenly temple and places that had been defiled by the adversary (Hebrews).
To redeem mankind, as the second Adam, Christ's blood had to be as pure as the first Adam's. Christ's blood had to be a new creation of God. Merely human blood would never have been sinless or righteous enough to pay for man's separation from God and to wash mankind of its sin. Mankind is a fallen race, its blood polluted.
I love the verse, "A body thou hast prepared me" speaking of Christ. The body he inhabited on earth was made for him by God, as was Adam's made for him also.
But, the blood is holy, pure, cleaning, washing - someday we'll know why and understand it from God's perspective and not ours.
Does the body's life residing in the blood necessarily translate into "soul life" being transmitted via the sperm?
I think you have pretty much cut straight to the chase, Oak.
Wierwille used Lev. 17:11 (The life of the flesh is in the blood) as the basis for his theology on this subject.
He coupled that with the biological idea which states that the "blood component" of a conception is contributed by the sperm, not the egg. A fetus has its own circulatory system, separate from the mother's circulatory system.
Therefore (per VPW) Christ could not have been the result of a conception that involved human (blood generating) sperm because the blood of mankind had become tainted over time. Thus, his conception had to result from Mary's egg being fertilized by something other than impure human sperm.
But, as you pointed out, this begs the question," Does the body's life residing in the blood necessarily translate into "soul life" being transmitted via the sperm?" Maybe we should have examined Lev. 17:11 a bit more closely.
Now if this is accurate, at least from a theological viewpoint, it certainly puts a big wrinkle in Wierwille's assertion that life begins with the first breath, which is a position we were primed to take in PLAF (The Wonder Class).
That was the basis for the insistence that we always include the name "Christ" whenever we prayed.
Wouldn't want to be inadvertently tricked into praying to The Boogieman, now would we? <_<
It does seem a bit ludicrous that a God who is supposedly is all-knowing, all-powerful, ever-present, cognizant of the deepest issues of our heart, a God who "knows every hair on our head", could be so easily confused by the exact verbiage of a prayer.
But, hey, what do I know?
My conception was accomplished in a more typical fashion.
Does the body's life residing in the blood necessarily translate into "soul life" being transmitted via the sperm?
Soul is formed or comes into being when the spirit being takes its first breath. Soul is the byproduct of the intermeshing of spirit and body.
I think you have pretty much cut straight to the chase, Oak.
Now if this is accurate, at least from a theological viewpoint, it certainly puts a big wrinkle in Wierwille's assertion that life begins with the first breath, which is a position we were primed to take in PLAF (The Wonder Class).
The first breath of the spirit being does produce soul, WS. However, the SPIRIT is LIFE and therefore should not be terminated via per se abortion. I think this was VPW was setting up every female around, so that if life sprung from any of the leadership encounters, there would be no remorse of ending the pregnancy since after all it REALLY wasn't alive yet. GAG ME!-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Re: the "other Jesus" teaching.
I, too, remember being taught that.
That was the basis for the insistence that we always include the name "Christ" whenever we prayed.
Wouldn't want to be inadvertently tricked into praying to The Boogieman, now would we? <_<
It does seem a bit ludicrous that a God who is supposedly is all-knowing, all-powerful, ever-present, cognizant of the deepest issues of our heart, a God who "knows every hair on our head", could be so easily confused by the exact verbiage of a prayer.
But, hey, what do I know?
My conception was accomplished in a more typical fashion.
IMO, this teaching enabled him to avoid dealing with the Lord Jesus Christ, because he knew that CONVICTION from the HOLY SPIRIT awaited him.
The blood of a person is determined by both the father and mother. Otherwise your blood type would always match your fathers, which would present another whole array of questions and problems. No blood is transmitted from mother to baby in utero, but what did we expect that there was father to child transmission? LOL The baby has it's very own unique blood. Just like virtually everything else about us, we are made up of DNA from both mom and pop. It gets a little complicated form there. Take this from someone whose wife just got an A in Genetics in med school.
Why we bought this line of BS, I don't really know. I would have known this had I payed more attention in high school biology.
"The life of the flesh is in the blood." What does that really mean anyway. Without blood you would not have life? Well, duh. Although, without lymph you wouldn't live either. Without Oxygen you wouldn't live either and that exists outside the body as well. If blood were the life of the flesh because it carried oxygen then the life of the flesh would be that oxygen. The blood would just be the vehicle. Anyway. Without Nitrogen, you would die. Without extracellular fluid, you would die. Without water you would die. Without salt you would die. Without a brian you would die. Without a functioning brain you would die. Without a normally functioning brain you could die and wouldn't know the difference between body and spirit, much less blood and pea soup. I could go on and on and on. The body is made up of systems and no one thing is the complete life giver... EXCEPT.... DNA. No living thing known exists without it. It is the basic component of all life. The life of the flesh is really in deoxyribonucleic acid. That is not just found in blood cells but in every cell in you body.
When I hear stuff like this, the history/anthropological side of me itches. It sounds so much like ancient myth from so many cultures. Blood cleansing. Blood sacrifice. Blood letting. Yadda yadda yadda. Hey wasn't that "life in the blood" bit written in ancient times? Go figure!
After reading you again, I think I understand your biologist friend's answer actually. If you asked him "does the BLOODLINE come from the man" then his answer would make sense (at least in a matriarchal society like our Judeo-Christian one). Yes, it is determined by the male. The only biological component to that is that the father's genes determine the sex of the child because of our weak Y chromosome. Bloodline is far from bloodstream though, or just blood in general. You can track your lineage through your mothers side as well using mitochondrial dna.
When you get the facts straight Weirwille's bizarre ideas on the perfect half man, half god, son fall apart. There was no perfect blood if, in fact, Mary was Jesus's actual biological mother. If you want to get biological with it, it would have to be some sort of pick and choose spiritual test tube sort of thing, not one sperm and one egg.
This idea of perfect blood (whatever that really means) making you a perfect person... without sin... is an interesting one. When you look at separated twin studies it makes you scratch your head. There have been studies of twins separated at birth or shortly after and they have found them liking the same music, having the same taste in women, having the same profession, even marrying the same number of times to women with the same names! That again is about genetics though and not just blood. An interesting topic though... nurture vs. nature.
You did hear that the Jesus of any trinitarian church was a devil spirit. Of course, I've heard that from trinitarians about unitarian churches. "If you got the wrong Jesus you could be missing out on eternal life!" :blink:
The life of the flesh is really in deoxyribonucleic acid.
I dunno Lindy. Somehow that just doesn't have the same panache. You've got to use shorter words, maybe make 'em rhyme, and dumb it down considerably if you're ever gonna make it in the cult-leader biz. C'mon, perk up man! There's marks to be fleeced out there! Times a wastin'...
I have a different blood type than both my parents. I am also neg--they are positive. I always figured something wasn't right. I look just like my dad, so .. . . . .
But, I just have something that popped up---recessively. It came from both sides.
As for life in the blood? I have no idea about all that. However, last year--my husband almost bled to death. I sat there for 18 hours watching him bleed and the doctors trying to stop it. The first little hospital we were at did not give him blood--they gave him a teabag(thank-you very much)--and tried to stop it that way--after he lost a couple of pints they transfered him to a medical center--sent him WITHOUT a transfusion. The bleeding started slow--and then got heavier.
By the time we got to the "Real" hospital 30 minutes by ambulance----he had lost 5 pints--by the time they got him type crossed and matched--6 pints.
Called the kids to come down and say goodbye to him.
I literally watched the life draining from his body. I saw him curl up as his legs went cold. His body taking blood from his extremities to keep his heart pumping.
We only have around 8 pints of blood in our bodies. It is not a pleasant way to go. His legs hurt and shook from the lack of blood.
I held the pan while he vomited the blood he had swallowed--it was EVERYWHERE--never seen so much blood.
After they started pumping it in--as it was still coming out--I watched him turn an ugly color gray. By then he was unconcious and I was using the suction machine to try and clear the blood.
After three bloodclotting medicines and factor 8--He stopped bleeding. I remember it so well. It just stopped-I looked at the clock--it was 10:20 am. I cried like a baby.
Once the blood was going back into his body and staying--I watched the life come back into him--eventually he woke up--uncurled his body and sat up and even smiled.
Seems as the blood slowly drained-the life slowly drained--the faster he bled-the faster he was dying---as the blood came back--the life came back.
I was watching his life and all he was bleed away.
There are actually two different issues here (three when you count the "other Jesus" question).
The phrase "the life of the flesh is in the blood" in Lev. 17 was in the context of shedding blood in a sacrifice. Whether it meant there is a literal "life force" that resides in the blood, or that the blood gives a living creature "life" or vitality (as witnessed by the lack of life when the blood is drained, as in Geisha's story) is not the point. Blood was considered sacred regardless of why, and that's why it was the price for atonement, first in animals in the OT, and ultimately Christ's blood.
The other question is whether the blood is passed on from the mother or the father. It's actually not directly passed on from either one, which is why a baby can have a different blood type from both parents. As I understand it, the actual blood is formed within the fetus, but the "life force" that makes it alive comes from the father's sperm. It has more to do with one's nature, at least figuratively if not literally. Even today we speak of someone having Irish or Italian blood in them. It doesn't mean there are physical elements in their literal blood that are Irish or Italian (tiny shamrocks or meatballs?), it has to do with their nature.
This is why it's significant that Jesus was conceived in Mary by the power of the holy spirit. Whatever is in a human father's genetic makeup that makes him a partaker of Adam's sin nature was not involved in Jesus's formation. Thus he had sinless blood, which was shed for us to pay for our sins. It's more about what the blood represents than about the literal liquid that flows through our veins.
As for the "other Jesus" being a demon (or devil spirit as they used to say), I remember hearing that too, but no Scripture was ever given to support it. There was also the erroneous doctrine that the name "Jesus" emphasized his humiliated side while "Christ" emphasized his exalted side. There is no indication of such a thing in the Bible, however. For years I would cringe when I heard the name of Jesus by itself, but in the last few years I've been able to happily refer to him as "Jesus" without always having to add "Christ." It really got awkward when they tried to change the lyrics to songs!
This is why it's significant that Jesus was conceived in Mary by the power of the holy spirit. Whatever is in a human father's genetic makeup that makes him a partaker of Adam's sin nature was not involved in Jesus's formation. Thus he had sinless blood, which was shed for us to pay for our sins. It's more about what the blood represents than about the literal liquid that flows through our veins.
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cheranne
Nothing but the blood of Jesus!
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Sunesis
Hi Newlife. I have a friend who is a phlebotomist (sic), who draws blood for a living. She is a new Christian and it makes totally, perfect sense to her that the life is in the blood. She started going on about how it carries oxegen, it does this and that - she definitely knows her topic.
From God's Word, he places a huge amount of importance on blood, for reasons I don't understand, but he does. God says it cleanses, it makes pure, it has a voice and cries from the ground, it is used as an atonement for sin in lieu of a man's life, but mostly, it cleanses and washes.
Adam's blood was created by God - was perfect. Adam was a totally "new creation" of God's. No one, or anything like him had ever before been created. I believe he was an earthly shadow, or type, of a Heavenly being.
Christ, as the second "Adam" - the one who would redeem mankind from their error or separation from God, or sin as its also called, must also have had "perfect" blood.
We read, when Christ was killed and he was ordered to death by the high priest Pilate, he was in actuality the atoning lamb, the lamb who's spilled blood atoned for sin. His spilt blood now cleanses us and washes us when we believe.
When he rose, his blood cleansed the heavenly temple and places that had been defiled by the adversary (Hebrews).
To redeem mankind, as the second Adam, Christ's blood had to be as pure as the first Adam's. Christ's blood had to be a new creation of God. Merely human blood would never have been sinless or righteous enough to pay for man's separation from God and to wash mankind of its sin. Mankind is a fallen race, its blood polluted.
I love the verse, "A body thou hast prepared me" speaking of Christ. The body he inhabited on earth was made for him by God, as was Adam's made for him also.
But, the blood is holy, pure, cleaning, washing - someday we'll know why and understand it from God's perspective and not ours.
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Oakspear
Does the body's life residing in the blood necessarily translate into "soul life" being transmitted via the sperm?
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cman
I don't see anything in the scriptures about pure blood.
It could be Jesus was a man just like all men.
Who said we could do what he did and more.
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waysider
I think you have pretty much cut straight to the chase, Oak.
Wierwille used Lev. 17:11 (The life of the flesh is in the blood) as the basis for his theology on this subject.
He coupled that with the biological idea which states that the "blood component" of a conception is contributed by the sperm, not the egg. A fetus has its own circulatory system, separate from the mother's circulatory system.
Therefore (per VPW) Christ could not have been the result of a conception that involved human (blood generating) sperm because the blood of mankind had become tainted over time. Thus, his conception had to result from Mary's egg being fertilized by something other than impure human sperm.
But, as you pointed out, this begs the question," Does the body's life residing in the blood necessarily translate into "soul life" being transmitted via the sperm?" Maybe we should have examined Lev. 17:11 a bit more closely.
Now if this is accurate, at least from a theological viewpoint, it certainly puts a big wrinkle in Wierwille's assertion that life begins with the first breath, which is a position we were primed to take in PLAF (The Wonder Class).
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Re: the "other Jesus" teaching.
I, too, remember being taught that.
That was the basis for the insistence that we always include the name "Christ" whenever we prayed.
Wouldn't want to be inadvertently tricked into praying to The Boogieman, now would we? <_<
It does seem a bit ludicrous that a God who is supposedly is all-knowing, all-powerful, ever-present, cognizant of the deepest issues of our heart, a God who "knows every hair on our head", could be so easily confused by the exact verbiage of a prayer.
But, hey, what do I know?
My conception was accomplished in a more typical fashion.
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brideofjc
The Lord Jesus was the "the innocent blood that was slain."
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brideofjc
Soul is formed or comes into being when the spirit being takes its first breath. Soul is the byproduct of the intermeshing of spirit and body.
IMO, this teaching enabled him to avoid dealing with the Lord Jesus Christ, because he knew that CONVICTION from the HOLY SPIRIT awaited him.
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cheranne
Reminds me of one of my favorite books "The Healing Image"by Dr.Paul Brand and Phillip Yancey.
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lindyhopper
Good gobbelly-gook goodness!
Who was this Biologist?
The blood of a person is determined by both the father and mother. Otherwise your blood type would always match your fathers, which would present another whole array of questions and problems. No blood is transmitted from mother to baby in utero, but what did we expect that there was father to child transmission? LOL The baby has it's very own unique blood. Just like virtually everything else about us, we are made up of DNA from both mom and pop. It gets a little complicated form there. Take this from someone whose wife just got an A in Genetics in med school.
Why we bought this line of BS, I don't really know. I would have known this had I payed more attention in high school biology.
"The life of the flesh is in the blood." What does that really mean anyway. Without blood you would not have life? Well, duh. Although, without lymph you wouldn't live either. Without Oxygen you wouldn't live either and that exists outside the body as well. If blood were the life of the flesh because it carried oxygen then the life of the flesh would be that oxygen. The blood would just be the vehicle. Anyway. Without Nitrogen, you would die. Without extracellular fluid, you would die. Without water you would die. Without salt you would die. Without a brian you would die. Without a functioning brain you would die. Without a normally functioning brain you could die and wouldn't know the difference between body and spirit, much less blood and pea soup. I could go on and on and on. The body is made up of systems and no one thing is the complete life giver... EXCEPT.... DNA. No living thing known exists without it. It is the basic component of all life. The life of the flesh is really in deoxyribonucleic acid. That is not just found in blood cells but in every cell in you body.
When I hear stuff like this, the history/anthropological side of me itches. It sounds so much like ancient myth from so many cultures. Blood cleansing. Blood sacrifice. Blood letting. Yadda yadda yadda. Hey wasn't that "life in the blood" bit written in ancient times? Go figure!
After reading you again, I think I understand your biologist friend's answer actually. If you asked him "does the BLOODLINE come from the man" then his answer would make sense (at least in a matriarchal society like our Judeo-Christian one). Yes, it is determined by the male. The only biological component to that is that the father's genes determine the sex of the child because of our weak Y chromosome. Bloodline is far from bloodstream though, or just blood in general. You can track your lineage through your mothers side as well using mitochondrial dna.
When you get the facts straight Weirwille's bizarre ideas on the perfect half man, half god, son fall apart. There was no perfect blood if, in fact, Mary was Jesus's actual biological mother. If you want to get biological with it, it would have to be some sort of pick and choose spiritual test tube sort of thing, not one sperm and one egg.
This idea of perfect blood (whatever that really means) making you a perfect person... without sin... is an interesting one. When you look at separated twin studies it makes you scratch your head. There have been studies of twins separated at birth or shortly after and they have found them liking the same music, having the same taste in women, having the same profession, even marrying the same number of times to women with the same names! That again is about genetics though and not just blood. An interesting topic though... nurture vs. nature.
You did hear that the Jesus of any trinitarian church was a devil spirit. Of course, I've heard that from trinitarians about unitarian churches. "If you got the wrong Jesus you could be missing out on eternal life!" :blink:
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George Aar
I dunno Lindy. Somehow that just doesn't have the same panache. You've got to use shorter words, maybe make 'em rhyme, and dumb it down considerably if you're ever gonna make it in the cult-leader biz. C'mon, perk up man! There's marks to be fleeced out there! Times a wastin'...
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geisha779
I have a different blood type than both my parents. I am also neg--they are positive. I always figured something wasn't right. I look just like my dad, so .. . . . .
But, I just have something that popped up---recessively. It came from both sides.
As for life in the blood? I have no idea about all that. However, last year--my husband almost bled to death. I sat there for 18 hours watching him bleed and the doctors trying to stop it. The first little hospital we were at did not give him blood--they gave him a teabag(thank-you very much)--and tried to stop it that way--after he lost a couple of pints they transfered him to a medical center--sent him WITHOUT a transfusion. The bleeding started slow--and then got heavier.
By the time we got to the "Real" hospital 30 minutes by ambulance----he had lost 5 pints--by the time they got him type crossed and matched--6 pints.
Called the kids to come down and say goodbye to him.
I literally watched the life draining from his body. I saw him curl up as his legs went cold. His body taking blood from his extremities to keep his heart pumping.
We only have around 8 pints of blood in our bodies. It is not a pleasant way to go. His legs hurt and shook from the lack of blood.
I held the pan while he vomited the blood he had swallowed--it was EVERYWHERE--never seen so much blood.
After they started pumping it in--as it was still coming out--I watched him turn an ugly color gray. By then he was unconcious and I was using the suction machine to try and clear the blood.
After three bloodclotting medicines and factor 8--He stopped bleeding. I remember it so well. It just stopped-I looked at the clock--it was 10:20 am. I cried like a baby.
Once the blood was going back into his body and staying--I watched the life come back into him--eventually he woke up--uncurled his body and sat up and even smiled.
Seems as the blood slowly drained-the life slowly drained--the faster he bled-the faster he was dying---as the blood came back--the life came back.
I was watching his life and all he was bleed away.
NEVER want to see anything like it again.
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Mark Clarke
There are actually two different issues here (three when you count the "other Jesus" question).
The phrase "the life of the flesh is in the blood" in Lev. 17 was in the context of shedding blood in a sacrifice. Whether it meant there is a literal "life force" that resides in the blood, or that the blood gives a living creature "life" or vitality (as witnessed by the lack of life when the blood is drained, as in Geisha's story) is not the point. Blood was considered sacred regardless of why, and that's why it was the price for atonement, first in animals in the OT, and ultimately Christ's blood.
The other question is whether the blood is passed on from the mother or the father. It's actually not directly passed on from either one, which is why a baby can have a different blood type from both parents. As I understand it, the actual blood is formed within the fetus, but the "life force" that makes it alive comes from the father's sperm. It has more to do with one's nature, at least figuratively if not literally. Even today we speak of someone having Irish or Italian blood in them. It doesn't mean there are physical elements in their literal blood that are Irish or Italian (tiny shamrocks or meatballs?), it has to do with their nature.
This is why it's significant that Jesus was conceived in Mary by the power of the holy spirit. Whatever is in a human father's genetic makeup that makes him a partaker of Adam's sin nature was not involved in Jesus's formation. Thus he had sinless blood, which was shed for us to pay for our sins. It's more about what the blood represents than about the literal liquid that flows through our veins.
As for the "other Jesus" being a demon (or devil spirit as they used to say), I remember hearing that too, but no Scripture was ever given to support it. There was also the erroneous doctrine that the name "Jesus" emphasized his humiliated side while "Christ" emphasized his exalted side. There is no indication of such a thing in the Bible, however. For years I would cringe when I heard the name of Jesus by itself, but in the last few years I've been able to happily refer to him as "Jesus" without always having to add "Christ." It really got awkward when they tried to change the lyrics to songs!
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cman
There are no scriptures to support this, Mark.
Though anything can be purified.
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