what does it mean to be cleansed by the blood of Jesus?
If this is not a literal expression, what is its meaning?
Or does it refer to literal imagery???
Want to know,
straightdoper
As I understand it, the death of Jesus was the ultimate sacrifice for the sins of mankind, thus reconciling sinful man to a perfect and sinless God. This is the “cleansing” part. A person’s life, “dirty” with sin, is now “clean” in the eyes of God.
Why blood? Theologians might be more help with that. I only know that Old Testament sacrifices required blood (I assume for the “ultimate” nature of the sacrifice). This goes back as far as Cain and Abel, the former offering fruits and vegetables to God and the latter offering an animal. Abel’s offering was accepted, Cain’s was not, and Cain killed Abel.
The practicing of offering blood sacrifices to God for sin is part of Old Testament law. Here again, the Dopers who know more about O.T. law can hop right in and clarify.
The Christian Church recognizes Jesus as the fulfillment of those blood sacrifices (see above). Hebrews 9 makes this clear, and elsewhere in the New Testament it states specifically that without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin.
Being cleansed by the blood of Jesus is spiritual imagery, then.
As for a possible literal application…When I was made to go to Catholic services growing up, the congregation drank wine and ate an awful tasting little wafer during Holy Communion. These were supposed to represent the body and blood of Christ. So one literally ingests the wine(it does actually ‘cleanse’ the pallate after that wafer…), which represents the blood of Christ, and that leads us to the aforementioned ‘spiritual imagery.’
Theological nitpick, and broad generalization to explain.
Catholics don’t believe that the bread and wine represent the body and blood of Christ, they believe that through the miracle of transubstantiation the bread and wine actually become the body and blood of Christ. Protestants consider the bread and wine to be symbolic.
In my experience, references to ‘bathing’ or being ‘cleansed’ in the blood of Jesus tend to be seen in more fundamentalist interpretations of Christianity
That reminds me of the tape I have of my founding pastor’s testimony. He was just a working musician (he put together the Righteous Brothers - really!) who at the age of 26 had never heard any of this religious stuff.
His wife dragged him to Bible studies, and pretty soon some guy asked him, “Have you been washed in the blood, brother?”
That really made him take a step back. “When do they do THAT?”
The point is that it’s all figurative, with the idea being that the blood sacrifice of Jesus has provided a way for people to be permanently “clean” of sin, both in being free to not repeat it, and in being seen as “clean” when judged after death.
I understand it is not real blood, but do Fundamentalists visualize real blood pouring over them when they speak of being washed in the blood of Jesus?
I’m not sure exactly what they visualize, but I do remember this snatch of song from my childhood fundalmentalist Sunday school:
There is a fountain
Filled with blood
Flowing from Emmanuel’s veins.
A sinner plunged
Beneath that flood
Loses all his guilty stains.
jm
Jesus turned water into wine
And his blood into 409.
And if you think he shouldn’ta aughta
Why do you dunk babies into water?