Jesus is not a Blood Donor
Jesus is not a Blood Donor
On Christian Hymnody, the Crucifixion, and the Gift of the Holy Spirit
About the author: Tim Hartman is Associate Professor of Theology at Columbia Theological Seminary. He is the author of two books: Theology after Colonization: Kwame Bediako, Karl Barth, and the Future of Theological Reflection, and Kwame Bediako: African Theology for a World Christianity. He is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA). His scholarly interests include: contemporary Christian theologies worldwide, Christology, Lived Theology, Election/Predestination, antiracist theologies, ecclesiology, postcolonial mission, and the work of Karl Barth, Kwame Bediako, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and James Cone.
Blood is often a prominent feature in Sunday morning worship music. Not literal blood, of course, but Jesus’ blood. According to the lyrics of various hymns and contemporary worship songs, this blood: “washes away my sin … makes me whole again … makes me white as snow” (Nothing But the Blood of Jesus, written in 1876), “gives me strength…soothes my doubts and calms my fears, and dries all my tears” (The Blood Will Never Lose Its Power, 1969), “free[s] from [our] passion and pride…for a cleansing [by] Calvary's tide…[be made] whiter, yes brighter than snow … Sin-stains are lost in its life-giving flow” (Power in the Blood, 1899), and “speaks a better word … speaks righteousness for me … stands in my defense (Nothing but the Blood, 2004).
Bracketing the problematic imagery comparing purity to whiteness, these four songs all share an affirmation of the power of Jesus’ blood—on the cross and today. According to the late Christian philosopher, Dallas Willard, this focus on Jesus’ blood within American Christian piety “has created the impression that it is quite reasonable to be a ‘vampire Christian.’ One in effect says to Jesus, ‘I’d like a little of your blood, please. But I don’t care to be your student or have your character. In fact, won’t you just excuse me while I get on with my life, and I’ll see you in heaven.’”1 How can we understand the place and role of the blood of Jesus in atonement theologies?
The blood-soaked hymns of the last 150 years capture a much older spirituality. Fourteenth century mystic and author Catherine of Siena described the essence of her faith in a letter: “Bathe in the blood of Christ crucified. See that you don't look for or want anything but the crucified, as a true bride ransomed by the blood of Christ crucified – for that is my wish.”2 Catherine wished to be covered in Christ’s blood both in life and in death. As she lay dying on April 29, 1380, she fixed her eyes on a crucifix, made the Sign of the Cross and cried, “The Blood! The blood! Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit.”
In contrast to these lyrical exultations in praise of blood, contemporary Womanist theologians have questioned, even condemned, any role for Jesus’ blood in atonement or salvation. Famously, and most radically, Womanist theologian and Presbyterian lay person, Delores Williams wrote, “There is nothing divine in the blood of the cross.”3 Williams is concerned not to glorify the suffering of African-Americans, particularly African-American women. For her, just as “God does not intend black women's surrogacy experience … [n]either can Christian faith affirm such an idea. Jesus did not come to be a surrogate.”4 Instead, Williams seeks to understand human salvation through Jesus’ life, not through his suffering, death, or blood. She does not want to forget the cross, yet she is opposed to glorifying the cross. She will not glorify Jesus’ suffering so as not “to render [Black women’s] exploitation sacred.”5 Fellow womanist theologians Jacquelyn Grant and Kelly Brown Douglas also question the (over-) emphasis on Jesus’ blood in seeking to understand the implications of Jesus’ death on the cross.6 Womanist theologian JoAnne Marie Terrell in her book, Power in the Blood?, believes “that the continuous intercession of the spirit of Christ must become integral to womanist reckonings of Christ Jesus’ significance.”7 Certainly the power of God in Jesus Christ does not end at the Cross.
Personally, my hope when starting this blog was to be able to cleanse myself, my spirituality, and my theology, completely of Jesus’ blood. Yet, Karl Barth—and his reading of Scripture—would not let me do it.
For ten pages in Church Dogmatics IV/1, Barth offers his commentary on Colossians 1:20, Hebrews 10:19, 1 Peter 3:18 while developing his understanding of Jesus Christ as Priest.8 Barth neither exalts Jesus’ blood (like Catherine of Siena or the hymns I cited in the first paragraph), nor rejects any role for the blood (like Delores Williams). Instead, as part of his claim that “atonement is history”9 —holding together the life, death, and resurrection of the incarnate Son of God—Barth holds to an understanding of Jesus’ death as a sacrifice. Yet, in contrast to Israelite animal sacrifices, Jesus’ death is “the fulfillment of what is meant by all sacrifices, and at the same time the end of all sacrifices … He does not offer anything else … He simply offers Himself. He does not pour out the blood of others, of bulls and calves, to go into the Holiest with this offering (Heb. 9:12, 25). It is a matter of His own blood, of the giving of His own life to death.”10 Jesus’ death is a self-sacrifice, where as the High Priest for all humanity, Jesus offers himself—his own blood—to give His own life to death.
Significantly for our purposes, one key insight here is that Jesus’ death is once for all. For Barth, the power in the blood of Jesus is that Jesus’ blood sustains his life—just as blood does for all humans. So when Jesus gives up his blood, he gives up his life, and it is in dying that Jesus puts to death the impact of human sinfulness. As Barth writes, “that his blood as this man should finally be shed and fall to the ground and be lost.”11 And “be lost”? For Barth, it seems, the work of Jesus’ blood was complete on Golgotha; the sacrifice of Jesus’ life “fulfilled” the ancient sacrificial system and offered humanity a new beginning with God.
Based on these insights, I have three responses to my reaction to singing about Jesus’ blood:
Christ’s sacrificial death was complete, once for all, on the cross at Calvary. There is no need (or real possibility even) to continue to sacrifice Jesus. Humans do not need more of Jesus’ blood, we need to live in light of the truth that Jesus gave of his lifeblood so that we may be reconciled to God and to one another.
All power in this world is in God. There is no power for salvation in the blood of Jesus and there never was. Jesus’ blood sustained his life. Most crassly, if Jesus had donated a pint of his blood, but not died on the cross, that blood would have no power. Even today, having a pint of Jesus’ blood would not make a difference in one’s life or circumstances. Any miracle or healing that might be associated with the blood would be a work of God, not an independent action. In fact, in many of the lyrics of The Blood Will Never Lose Its Power, replacing “the Blood of Jesus” with “the Holy Spirit” conveys much the same meaning. If only the hymn could be re-written as: “The [Holy Spirit] will never ever lose its power.”
In much of the conversation surrounding Jesus’ blood, the Trinity gets lost. We must keep a Trinitarian focus while Jesus dies on the cross. The blood of Jesus has no power apart from the Holy Spirit and the One whom Jesus calls Father.
In the shedding of his blood on Cavalry, Jesus’ blood was lost and his life on this earth abruptly ended. On the third day, Jesus was raised from the dead, overcoming his death due to a lack of oxygen and loss of blood. The same power that conquered the grave is available to us today for healing, liberation, and salvation.
Dallas Willard, The Great Omission (HarperOne, 2006), 14.
Catherine of Siena, The Letters of Catherine of Siena, vol. 2, ed. Suzanne Noffke (Tempe, AZ: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2001), 184.
Delores Williams, Sisters in the Wilderness: The Challenge of Womanist God-Talk (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1993), 159.
Williams, Sisters in the Wilderness, 159.
Williams, Sisters in the Wilderness, 159.
See Jacquelyn Grant, White Women’s Christ and Black Women’s Jesus (Atlanta, GA: Scholar’s Press, 1989) and Kelly Brown Douglas, The Black Christ (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1994).
JoAnne Marie Terrell, Power in the Blood?: The Cross in the African American Experience (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1998), 125.
Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics IV/1, (London: T&T Clark, 1956), 273–283.
Barth, IV/1, 15.
Barth, IV/1, 277.
Barth, IV/1, 280.
This write up helps to broaden our focus and understanding about the blood of Jesus Christ even if we would like to use it in our hymns and prayers. I once heard someone praying to dedicate an electronic equipment in church and he said, "I soak this equipment in the blood of Jesus." It then struck me that if this equipment is soaked in a "blood" of any kind, it might not function well. I think that the use of the blood of Jesus goes beyond the mixture of red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets, plasma and other dissolved components. The blood encapsulates the life and personhood of the living (the living soul). The blood of Jesus encases the life and person of Christ. The observance of the Eucharist highlights the significance of that meaning of the blood .... demonstrating the essence of the person of Christ, as part of the Trinity. Our use of the blood of Christ should not be in the narrow sense.
Thanks for your thoughtful critique of womanist theology. I thoroughly agree with the first and third of your responses. They’re both familiar to me because they’re bedrock beliefs of Eastern Orthodoxy, the faith I now embrace. Your second response suffers from excessive literalism, which led you to make the astonishing claim that “there is no salvation in the blood of Jesus and never was.” The saving power of Christ’s blood is a non-negotiable part of Christian faith and piety, but needs to be interpreted in the framework of your first and third points.