Sunday, August 01, 2010

"See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” Jesus, risen


Caravaggio 1573 – 1610


When Cain killed Abel, God spoke to Cain: "“What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground." Cain shed his own brothers blood, and caused him to die. It's the blood which is life itself really. God created blood when He created life, and the blood was good, and life was good.
But Adam and Eve disobeyed the Lord, and so this world was cursed, and the blood in humans, from that day on, would not be able to sustain eternal life. It had become tainted under God's curse. Each human that is born into this world, is born with sin, and under a curse. Our blood is our life, but it can not give us eternal life. We all die. And there is the second death as well, which is the separation from God in hell-fire. But hell is for another post.

God sent His own Son, Jesus Christ, who was born of a Virgin by the Holy Ghost, so that God would become Man.
Jesus' blood was perfect. No flaws in His blood. He was the second Adam, and a perfect man, and yet, also God.

Later on, as our Lord began His teaching ministry to the people of Israel, Jesus said to Jews, and His own disciples: "...my blood is drink indeed."
I believe He was speaking of His perfect blood being shed for sinners, and we drink it by faith. Just as Jesus said His flesh is true meat and we must eat it, which is also a spiritual thing we do when we trust in Christ's death, and His crucified body as our salvation from our sins. We don't literally drink Jesus' blood, as some teach.

"We must take hold of Christ's flesh and blood, not with our hands, but with our faith. He therefore that believes that Christ has given up His body for us, and has shed His blood for the remission of our sins, and through this places all his hope and confidence in Christ crucified, that man really eats the body and blood of Christ." -Ferus, From JC Ryle's Expository Thoughts on the Gospels

Jesus also said to the woman at the well that she should ask Him to give her water to drink. This water is His Spirit of truth and love, who comes and abides in all who trust in His death and resurrection, and who are born again. It's not literal water from a well, as the woman thought. (John 4:7-26)

So, Jesus shed His precious blood, so that when our blood finally gives out, or stops pumping, or is shed perhaps --as some martyrs are even in our day--, and we die, we shall live nevertheless. We shall not have blood in our new bodies, I don't believe. We will have flesh and bone though. Not like our flesh now, nor even bones as now, and yet we will have bodies.

As Jesus said to His disciples in Luke 24:39, "a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.

Jesus gave His precious blood, and died, so that when we die, we will live in our new bodies someday, and these bodies will be the same as His. Amazing. What a Lord! What a Savior! What a Father! What a God! What a Friend!

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