Continuing a series of several posts this week on the Atonement… In a Living Church Reader’s View article, Betty Streett, a Mississippi laywoman writes about the power in Christ’s blood.
Real Power
07/08/2007
The image of Christ’s blood has surrounded me lately. My daughter gave me a Charlie Daniels’ gospel music CD. Throughout it are images of blood: “What can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus,” and “There’s power in the blood, power in the blood.”
Not long ago, I attended a Southern Baptist church and sang such songs, reminding me of my childhood at church in the Tennessee hills. Many Christians, and I must include myself in this, find the words describing salvation through Jesus’ blood old-fashioned, unsophisticated, a little embarrassing, even somewhat offensive. There are at least two reasons for this.
In the first place, we don’t accept the concept of sin, so we find the concept of redemption unnecessary. We see the sacrifice of animals in the Old Testament as a quaint practice, acts done by primitive people, and we really don’t know why God seemed to have required it. We don’t want to consider anything or anyone paying for our transgressions because we don’t think we have any ”” at least not any that are serious. We are, for the most part, kind and generous, honest and faithful. We are for the most part pretty nice people. What more could anyone want? We certainly don’t want or need any blood atonement, any sacrificial death.
In the second place, the human soul can’t conceive of God stepping into history, into creation, and allowing himself to be tortured and killed, to bleed and die. The whole concept of a true, real God is that of power. And no being with power would assume a position of powerlessness to be abused and beaten, tortured and killed.
A suffering, bleeding Christ defies what we think power is and what it’s for. Political power, military power, corporate power, even personal power is all about getting its own way, by force if necessary. Power doesn’t suffer. Power causes suffering whenever and wherever it’s seriously questioned. Power doesn’t bleed. It draws blood if it’s severely challenged. What else could power be for? What good would it be if not to shape the unwilling into willingness?
The idea of the suffering, bleeding God being offensive is not new. It is not a 21st-century invention. Jesus himself saw it clearly. He said he was a stumbling block, an offense. He saw that people would be ashamed of his blood, offended by his death on a cross, and would misunderstand both sin and power.
OK, I’m trying hard to follow the author’s argument here. I’ve written Viewpoint articles for TLC many times over the years and I know that it is often very hard to squeeze the essence of an argument down to 1000 words or so and so it may be that this individual simply isn’t very good at it. I hope so. She seems to be saying that Christ did not die to atone for our sins but rather to show up weakness of earthly power and the ability of the “Christ ethic” or “God ethic” to transcend it. It’s hard to figure out, though. She appears to reject salvation through Jesus’ sacrifice early on but may be trying to describe the modern godlessness that she may then contrast with Christian faith, but never really returns to the point and so gives the impression that she rejects fundamental Christian beliefs out of hand in favor of a tediously thin deification of elements of the Civil Rights Movement. She seems also early on to reject the Incarnation but then refers to it in terms that seem to indicate that she accepts it. Add in the shallow and inaccurate discussion of Christ’s supposed rejection of anger, and this essay appears to these eyes to be a muddled mess that one can only hope had higher aims. Maybe somebody else can puzzle this one out more clearly than I can.
I actually thought this article was so well written, I shared it with my congregation
Daniel, I read the piece just the opposite as you. I see a believer that had grown insensitive to the Blood of Christ thanks to the culture around us. So, when given a musical cd with old and new song texts relating different gifts in the “all other benefits of his passion,” she truly listened.
I believe her words, [i]Christ’s death and resurrection shows the power of life and love overcomes everything the illusory power of evil and death can throw at it. Yes, as the old song says, there is power in the blood. In fact, it’s the only power that is real.[/i] state the effect of that cd on her quite clearly.
[b]And if unfamiliar with the text. . .
Would you be free from the burden of sin?
There’s power in the blood, power in the blood;
Would you o’er evil a victory win?
There’s wonderful power in the blood.
Refrain
There is power, power, wonder working power
In the blood of the Lamb;
There is power, power, wonder working power
In the precious blood of the Lamb.
Would you be free from your passion and pride?
There’s power in the blood, power in the blood;
Come for a cleansing to Calvary’s tide;
There’s wonderful power in the blood.
Refrain
Would you be whiter, much whiter than snow?
There’s power in the blood, power in the blood;
Sin stains are lost in its life giving flow.
There’s wonderful power in the blood.
Refrain
Would you do service for Jesus your King?
There’s power in the blood, power in the blood;
Would you live daily His praises to sing?
There’s wonderful power in the blood.
Refrain[/b]
Re #2 and #3 – You all are probably right and I’m being too hard on this lady. It is certainly not inappropriate to make a valid albeit limited point in a brief article like this. However, I still think her claim that love’s triumph over evil is *the* reason for the blood is a gross and, I regret to say, sloppy overstatement. There’s too much more to it and too much deep thought and contemplation has gone into the matter over the centuries for so breezy a statement to to be close to adequate. I also think she could have edited better and added some economical verbiage regarding her own transformation, if that was her point, but maybe that’s just me.
[blockquote]Many Christians, and I must include myself in this, find the words describing salvation through Jesus’ blood old-fashioned, unsophisticated, a little embarrassing, even somewhat offensive. There are at least two reasons for this.
In the first place, we don’t accept the concept of sin, so we find the concept of redemption unnecessary. . . .
In the second place, the human soul can’t conceive of God stepping into history, into creation, and allowing himself to be tortured and killed, to bleed and die. [/blockquote]
It looks like revisionist theology to me. I’m wondering why TLC printed it.
It’s a very interesting piece in that it does seem almost contradictory in places. I saw the section about finding the blood imagery “offensive” or struggling to truly accept the reality of sin and need for redemption to be confessions re: the temptations our modern culture throws at us.
Especially for us Episcopalians, a denomination known for our “sophistication” and being the “thinking people’s church” (true confession: things I’m not usually proud of and find to be too often our WEAKNESS, not our strength), the temptation to be in step with our culture and “modernity” is real. I thought the author was reflecting that well in her writing, and ultimately declaring her trust in the power of Christ’s blood and the need for atonement, no matter how foolish it may seem in the world’s eyes.
The part about the “Christ ethic” was VERY frustrating however. I wonder if this is how her clergy speak and if she was using their language again (perhaps in an attempt to show she is modern and intellectual not some poor “neanderthal fundamentalist”??) In any event, that language did detract from the piece for me, but I nonetheless thought her ultimate conclusion was powerful and important.
Why did we post it some might ask? Partly to show how difficult it can be to talk about the atonement. The the idea of a blood sacrifice DOES raise all sorts of uncomfortable imagery, DOES appear (at least to some) to bring us into conflict with “modernity.”
I debated including some of these thoughts in an introduction to the post, but then decided against it, preferring to see how readers would react first. But what I hoped this article might do is spur each of us to consider what we believe about the Atonement, about Christ’s death and His shed blood. How would you write about it? As upcoming posts in the next few days will show, it is a doctrine that is being reassessed and even attacked in some corners of the church. How would you answer objections unbelieving or agnostic friends might raise? Please consider those things as you read this piece.
–elfgirl
I understood her to be wrestling with her feeling repulsed by the foolishness of the cross and the power of the blood, but coming to see the shed blood on the cross and the power of God and the wisdom of God. In the end she debunks the revisionist criticism of atonement theology.
Wehave had a spate of ferociouslybad writing here recently, but this may win the prize. There is something not quite sane here, something incoherent. IN short, it looks as if she has had too much of the wicked weed; and she should stay away from the keyboard whilst floating in space.
Her revulsion re blood in the first part is clearly real. Her argument in the second that love is power and only blood has power is more than a little frightening. This is not merely emotional, nor is it merely emotions in conflict, but emotions out of control; this writing is psychiatric.
Actually, I am surprised it was posted, for its unbalanced prose has, at last, nothing to say worth responding to, except that she needs a psychiatrist.
LM
Oh, please…..
Since WHEN has TitusOneNine been a site of monochrome postings?! The argument “Why has this been posted?” is an inappropriate comment and a waste of words for this weblog. If you’ve got something to say about the CONTENT – which in this case might also include the FORM – then that’s what this is all about.
But that we all were as air-u-dite as Daniel and Lawrence, or all postings (including testimonies) were as easy to read as the Summa.
: )
RGEaton