The following "Question" was asked by a member
of the congregation at
Grace
Community
Church
in
Panorama City
,
California
, and "Answered" by their pastor, John MacArthur Jr. It was
transcribed from the tape, GC 70-9, titled "Questions and Answers" --
A copy of the tape can be obtained by writing, Word of Grace, P.O. Box 4000,
Panorama City, CA 91412 or by dialing toll free 1-800-55-GRACE. Copyright
2001 by John MacArthur Jr., All Rights Reserved.
Question
to John MacArthur
:
"I
see that someone is speaking on MacArthurism. Could
you let us know from
the
pulpit, what your belief is on the Blood of Christ?"
Comment from webmaster of Jesus-is-Savior.com
(David J. Stewart)...
My responses to John MacArthur's heresy will be in
bold RED type.
Answer
from John MacArthur:
I
have done that in the past, and just in order to "touch base" with
the fact
that
he
may have created some questions in your mind, [let me say].
Through
the
years there has been no question about what I believe, regarding the Blood of
Christ, none at all. For twenty
years that I have been preaching here, and all the myriad of books
and tapes, and things that have come out of
the
Church, and out of my ministry, no one needs to question anything that I
believe about the Blood of Christ.
I
believe that Jesus died on the cross and literally shed His physical blood.
Yes, but you
also believe and teach that Jesus' shed blood soaked into the ground at
Calvary (Read: "Our sufficiency in Christ" by John MacArthur)
He
died as
a
sacrifice for sin. I saw a
letter, the other day, from someone
who
said, that Christ could have died "any other way," as long as He
died. That is not correct, that is not true, I do
not believe that. He had to die
by being lifted up. He had to
die
shedding
blood in a sacrificial way to
fulfill
the pattern of Old Testament prophetic truth.
MacArthur has followed in the footsteps of R.
B. Thieme Jr., a heretic on the blood also. Both of these men believe
that Jesus' blood soaked into the ground at Calvary and that it is Jesus'
death that is truly important, not the blood. Read John MacArthur's study Bible on the
blood. Look in MacArthur's reference Bible under Hebrews 9:22 and see
what he says about the blood. The proof is right there. MacArthur
teaches that the death of Christ is what really matters, not the blood.
I
believe what the Church has always believed.
And somebody always says to
me,
"Well, why are they always attacking you on the Blood of Christ?"
And I
need
to tell you what I have mentioned before, that this basically has very
little
to do with theology. It has
very little to do with the Blood of Christ and everything to do with trying to
discredit me.
This is a big lie! MacArthur
is evading the issue. He knows exactly why Bible-believing,
Christ-honoring Christians are upset with him--Because He denies that Jesus
applied His shed blood to the mercy seat in Heaven. Listen my friend,
Jesus (just as the Old Testament high priest) had to enter into the holy of
holies and apply the shed blood to the mercy seat.
Read
more by clicking HERE!!!
And
so, they are trying pick an issue that is
volatile, misrepresent
what I believe, just for
the
sheer sake of attacking me.
MacArthur is attacking the blood atonement of
Jesus Christ.
I
will never forget, of course, when this first came out.
It came out in a
magazine
put out by
Christian
College
,
that I denied the Blood of Christ. I
called the president
of the school, and I said, "You know better than that,
you
know me, you know exactly what I believe, you know what I teach.
Why would you do that?" He
said to me on the phone, "We have made a terrible mistake."
I sincerely
doubt this! Besides, I am not making a mistake--This man is a
heretic! It's a wonder how a man can be right on so many areas of God's
Word, and then utterly wrong on something this critical. Then again,
that's true of the Jehovah Witnesses as well. Much of the literature
that the Jehovah witnesses' put out has good stuff in it (lies mixed in with
truth). Most of the "Watchtower" magazine is truth, but it's that
small amount of heresy that kills, steal and destroys. To the
unsuspected soul, it all appears as truth. This is how I feel about John
MacArthur; He has written MUCH good material (and is a suave and likeable
guy); however, he is a heretic on the matter of Christ's blood. I
sincerely doubt this man's salvation.
I
said, "Well, is there some way
that you could correct it?" He
said,
"No, we could never do that."
So,
he admitted to me it was a mistake, personally to me, over the telephone.
But
what was curious about it was, that I heard from a
faculty member, that there was a faculty
prayer
meeting there, a prayer meeting with the
administration,
in which the request that was given for the prayer meeting was, "Lord,
help us to find a way to discredit the ministry of John MacArthur."
Now, that was the prayer request.
Now if you are
seeking to do
that,
you can find some way, I suppose, to do it.
This matter did not simply begin with one
school. Every born-again, blood washed, Christ-honoring, sin-hating,
soul-winning and Bible-studying believer would puke over such heresy as John
MacArthur and R. B. Thieme have been teaching.
For
some reason, perhaps unknown to me, these people have decided to try to
discredit our ministry, and to attack our belief in the Blood of Christ, that
is,
the sufficiency of the atoning
work of Christ for salvation, would
definitely
be a way to upset people and that's what they have done.
The blood had to be applied Mr. MacArthur!!! Just as the
Passover lamb's blood had to be applied to the door posts of the home, lest
the first-born die when the death angel came over Egypt. If the dead
lamb's blood remained in the ground, then the first-born died!
Please read,
"The Blood applied" and
The Importance
of the Blood
But
what we believe about the Blood of Christ is available for all to see,
in
fact, I gave a special communion message on that, a number of
months ago.
And
I believe exactly what the Bible teaches and what the church has always
believed. And I just think,
that we have to just keep dealing with this onslaught, because of the effort
to discredit. And I realize there
are ramifications of this,
I realize that. I realize that
people have left our
church
over the last couple of years. It
has been a tough two years, and part of it has been the endless attacks on our
church. I know there have been
attacks on our church, but we just keep trying
to be faithful to the Word of
God
and moving ahead. If you have
question about what we believe on the Blood of Christ, you can read the New
Testament and we believe that. Exactly
what it says.
Added to Bible
Bulletin Board's "MacArthur’s Questions and Answers" by:
Tony Capoccia
Bible Bulletin Board
Box 119
Columbus
,
New Jersey
,
USA
, 08022
Websites: www.biblebb.com and www.gospelgems.com
Email: tony@biblebb.com
Online since 1986
John MacArthur Exposed!
