Hi All,

Please, someone explain to me in a nutshell how the blood of Jesus "washes" away my sin?

Peace & Love,

Stacie

WOW, have you ever asked a loaded question. The answer to this question greatly depends on your view of hell. In the Bible the cross was seen in some basic ways, such as compared to the Passover lamb and freedom from slavery, and substitute. Theories as to how it worked did not develop until after the New Testament closed.

A good place to start, and your nutshell answer is C. S. Lewis' statement from "Mere Christianity"

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Now Before I became a Christian I was under the impression that the first thing Christians had to believe was one particular theory as to what the point of this [Jesus’] dying was. According to that theory God wanted to punish men for having deserted and joined the Great Rebel, but Christ volunteered to be punished instead, and so God let us off. No I admit that even this theory does not seem to me quite so immoral and so silly as it used to; but that is not the point I want to make. What I came to see later on is that neither this theory nor any other is 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 is another matter. A good many different theories have been held as to how it works; what all Christians are agreed on is that it does work. I will tell you what I think it is like. All sensible people know that if you are tired and hungry a meal will do you good. But the modern theory of nourishment –all about vitamins and proteins—is a different thing. People ate their dinners and felt better long before the theory of vitamins was ever heard of: and if the theory of vitamins is some day abandoned they will go on eating their dinners just the same. Theories of Christ’s death are not Christianity: they are explanations about how it works. Christians would not all agree as to how important those theories are. My own church—the Church of England—does not lay down any one of them as the right one. The Church of Rome goes a bit further. 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.
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As for these theories as to how the cross works, there has been four major theories that I'm aware of. The first was by a Church Father, I'll probably greatly misspell his name if I tried to spell it now, but most of us would recognize it when we hear it or see it, his name starts with a "T"

Anyway, he was also a student of Nature. I don't know how true this is, but he said that mother Pelicans, if her young were starving, would peck a hole in her stomach so that they could eat her food and not die. He compared that to Jesus who took the results of what we have done so that we can have his life.

Sadly, this theory did not last long and was soon replaced by what is called the "Bait Theory." Interestingly, the "Bait Theory" is sort of what C. S. Lewis used in "The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe." even though it was seen as an old discarded theory by the church. Of course I don't know what he was thinking, but I'd like to think that he went for this old view to keep open the possibilities as to theories of the atonement, as he presented in the above quote.

The "Bate Theory" was that since man sinned, that Satan had claim over men's souls. God made a deal with Satan saying that if he would let man go that he could kill Jesus instead. Since the death of Jesus was a much bigger prize than men were, Satan gladly accepted the deal, but he did not foresee the resurrection and thus not only lost mankind but Jesus as well.

For about 1,000 years this was the official view of the church and what they believed that the Bible taught. Then in the 1200s this view began to be questioned. The church at this time believed in an eternal burning hell, and that when you died you came to judgment, standing trembling before God's throne, your records were gone over and God would either say that you could go into heaven, in which you'd breathe a sigh of relief and enter with joy. Or else God would say you could not go in and had to enter hell, or at least purgatory and you'd leave kicking and screaming "No! No! Please let me into heaven!"

At this time two views of the Atonement were suggested. The first was the forensic view, which said that we owe God a perfect life. Since we can not meet this payment we have to go to hell. But Jesus loved us so much that he came, took God's wrath so that if we let him suffer God's wrath in our place, then we can go into heaven under his perfect life. Christ's record covers ours so that God can't see our records but only Jesus'.

(As a child, after a third grade week of prayer in my one semester in an Adventist school, I use to pray something like "Father, can I talk to Jesus for a moment please-- ah, I mean in private-- No, it's not that I don't enjoy talking to you, Please don't feel hurt, but this is something that has to be just between me and my older brother. Jesus, is the Father not listening? -- Good! Now, when you get a chance can you sneak in and cover my record with yours? Thank you, now you can let the Father back into this prayer..." Now what made this even more confusing for me was that a few years before we had gotten some records of Bible Stories, all Old Testament stories. I came to love the God of the Old Testament. He was like a super hero that came through at the last minute, and also was loving and willing to work with people. Then after the third grade I got more of these records with New Testament stories, and one was of the 10 virgins. At the end was the line "I don't know you" was very haunting. I though that Jesus was going to come ready or not, and if I was doing something wrong at that moment, He would make that haunting announcement "I don't know you" while the God of the Old Testament seemed more like someone who would come, find me doing something that I should not be doing, pause with a sad look and say "I guess you are not ready. Hmmm, well, I know that you love and want to be with me, so let's forget about this and come along anyway" and was less afraid of the Father seeing my record than I was of Jesus seeing it, but sadly it was Jesus, not the Father who was coming for us, so I had to play by his rules.)

Another theory proposed about the same time as the Forensic theory is the Moral Influence Theory. I'd invite you to cut and paste both theories into your search window and read up on them. The Moral Influence Theory says that Jesus came to earth to teach us how much God loves us. Seeing such perfect love brought out the worst in mankind so that they killed Jesus, but Jesus refused to stop loving us even with all that we were doing to him. And that this love awakens love in us, and therefore since Jesus was willing to go through all this for us, surely we can live for him. The song "When I survey the Wondrous Cross" is a beautiful description of the Moral Influence Theory.

While it does have some strong points, there are some very glaring weaknesses to this theory. Some of the weaknesses of the Moral Influence Theory include that instead of being a substitution death (as taught in the Bible) that Jesus only needed to show us God's love, and the death was a martyr’s death. Secondly, the cross became a coach, encouraging us to produce the good works in us that would save us. "If Jesus was willing to go through all that for me, surely I can do the good works for him." (which goes against the Biblical teaching that our works do not save us?)

Do to these weaknesses, the church accepted the Forensic view (which still has the substitution and sacrifice) for about 800 years has been saying that this is the view that the Bible teaches. It has become a strong tradition and we tend to subconsciously read this view back into scripture, and are willing to argue on and on that this was indeed the teaching of scripture, rather than admit (as C. S. Lewis did above) that we are reading the text through Forensic colored glasses.

With in Seventh-day Adventism, a new view of hell has developed (Please look up the thread about the wrath of God, where it is discussed in this forum) where hell fire is simply God's glory, God's love. God loves us all the same, but we respond to this love in two different ways, and the death of the sinner is the natural results of what happens when those who refuse to repent come into contact with God in all God's beauty and pull back from the only source of life. The death of Jesus is what makes it possible to heal our broken life giving relationship with God, and cements the unfallen worlds and angels into not breaking the lifegiving relationship. As the Chapter "It is Finished" in Desire of Ages teaches, that both the fallen and unfallen creatures are redeemed by the death of Jesus. (in fact to answer your question, read that chapter and try to get a hold of a Signs of the Times article Mrs. White wrote called "God made Manifest in Christ"! These articles can do much more than my feable words here can.)

Neither the Bate Theory, Forensic Theory, nor Moral Influence Theory fit this view of hell. All three of these theories require God to do two different things to people, one to the saved the other to the lost, and try to explain the secret on how to get God to do the nice thing to you and not the bad thing. But if God treats us all the same, and we either accept his love and forgiveness and find his presence to be heaven, or we reject it, find it to be hell and pull away, then we need to discuss a view of how Jesus' death makes it possible that fits with this view of hell.

This is still an open field for discussion and study. What is sad is that some who defend tradition refuse to look at the issue. They like to simply say "There are two theories of the Atonement, the Forensic view and the Moral Influence Theory. If your view is not the forensic view, then it is automatically by default the Moral Influence theory" they go on to show the obvious faults and weaknesses of the Moral Influence theory, and feel they have won their case. Sadly all they succeed in doing is barking up the wrong tree, as these theories are no way, no how, by the wildest streach of the imaginiation the Moral Influence theory. If you want to compare these new suggestions to any of the classical theory of the atonement I do see similarities between the new suggested views and the old Pelican theory, and the major difference with the Forensic view is that it is not an imposed pennalty.

My current understanding is that all the members of the trinity bore my sins. Jesus wanted to be with the Father and the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit and the Father wanted to be with Jesus. They wanted to be together, but refused, not for the same reasons that the wicked refuse at the end of time to come to God, but the trinity refused out of love for us. They knew that if they did not allow sin to separate them from each other, it would have eternally separated us from them and destroyed the whole universe.

Had Jesus given up bearing sin, Moses, Enoch and Elijah would not be called before a divine firing squad, but the entire universe would have given up it's righteousness by faith relationship with God and the entire universe would have been destroyed

Sort of a summery of the three currently debated theories (Forensic, Moral Influence, and some of the new ideas):

1. Forensic: You are found guilty in court, the judge sentences you to be excututed, but the Judge's son goes to the electric chair in your place so you get to go free.

2. Moral Influence: You are trapped in a burning building. Someone feels sorry for you and goes into the building, burns up in front of you to show how horrible it is to get burned so that you would do all you can to get out of the building before you are burned. (sadly it does not help with the fact that you are trapped in the building)

3. A generalized summery of some of the new views being proposed based on what we are stating to see as what the Bible and Mrs. White really teach about hell: You have fallen off a cliff and are falling towards a rocky ground which would break your bones, damage your organs and thus kill you. You land on a sheep, the force of your fall ends up killing the sheep while you end up brused but very much alive.

But once again how I understand it is just another theory. Elder E. Heppenstall was a brilliant theologian in our church, but he could not decided whether to believe in the Forensic view or some of these new views and went to his grave trying to hold both views but knowing that the two were incompatable with each other. Once he said to Graham Maxwell "The first thing I want to ask Jesus in heaven is which one of these two theories of the Atonement are correct." to which Graham Maxwell replied "Don't be surprised if Jesus replies, "Neither" and shares with us a completely new theory of the atonement unlike any we have suggested." In as far as we can go I'd refere you to "It is Finished" "God made Manifeset in Christ" and the C. S. Lewis quote above.

Sorry I can't be any more helpful.

For an inspired take on what the blood of Christ means to us, and the mechanics of how it saves us, it's good to have a look at the Old Testament sacrifices, from Adam's time through the sanctuary services. Those shadowy types can tell us a lot about what Christ actually does in antitype.

There are some good 'starter' explanations of all this at

Patriarchs and Prophets pp. 63-70
( http://www.whiteestate.org/books/pp/pp4.html ) and

Great Controversy pp. 417-422
( http://www.whiteestate.org/books/gc/gc23.html ).

Good question Stacie.
God reveals to us in His Word how the blood of Christ cleanses us from our sins even though they be as scarlet they will white as snow (Isaiah 1:18).

In the old testament God showed moses a pattern of things in which to make on earth what is known as the earthly Sanctuary. This earthly Sanctuary is a copy of the Heavenly Sanctuary.
All the services which lead up to the atonment of the sins of Israel correspond directly with the death of Christ at the Cross and the atonment of His blood before the Father in the Heavenly Sanctuary, since He (Jesus) is the Lamb that was slain before the foundation of the world.
The book of Hebrews discusses this as well. If you really want to learn about this I would do the following:
1. Pray and ask for Wisdom and understanding.
2. Have your Bible ready.
3. Read what John has posted.
4. Read the book titled The Cross and it's Shadow.
It is available online and is excellent!
God Bless,
Will

I think it's a metaphor. The blood of Jesus refers to His death on the cross, which reveals the truth to us about:

1) God the Father
2) Jesus Christ
3) sin
4) the devil
5) ourselves

It washes us from sin because when we learn the truth about God, that truth transforms us, changes us from rebels into friends. It becomes our desire to be like Him, and to follow the principles of His government, which are principles of love and truth.

bump for Mike. (thanks Daniel)

How does the blood of Jesus wash away our sins? In a nutshell, the perfect life and death of Jesus gives God the legal right to substitute Christ's righteousness for our sins when we confess and forsake our sins. We may never know all the reasons why it works, but, in light of Satan's accusations, God couldn't just blow off our sin and rebellion, and then tell us to - Go, and sin no more.

Somehow the life and death of Jesus motivates us to hate sin enough to trust Jesus enough to empower us to - Go, and sin no more, to imitate His sinless example. The blood of Jesus was required to make atonement for our sins, and to motivate us to turn from our sins. Without the shedding of blood there can be no forgiveness of sins. Exactly why this is so is not something we can readily explain now. Perhaps not even eternity is long enough to completely understand it.

Good comments Mike!