The Blood of God, or the Blood of His Own: Our Unique Savior
Acts 20:28
KJV
Take heed therefore unto
yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath
made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath
purchased with his own blood.
A few modern
translators present alternatives to the blood of God. One alternative is use of Lord in lieu of God, allowing association of blood with the humanity of Jesus. There's substantial manuscript support for this rendering, but even so-called "best" Alexandrian manuscripts favor God, and most modern translators render it that way, but there is much disagreement about which is correct.
Another alternative is to render the phrase with his own
blood to read with the
blood of his own, as
if own were a
substantive (noun-like term) rather than an adjective, and it's
possible to read the Greek in this latter fashion. However, the KJV
rendering is the preferred one since the other resembles an
incomplete thought, and it can be taken to read like the KJV (the
blood of his own can
have the sense of the blood that is his
own). In an effort to ensure this alternative rendering Son
has been inserted after own to complete
the thought, offering the blood of His own
Son, but Son
isn't in the text, and can't be taken as implied; this rendering makes own
an adjective, rather than a substantive, so this would even abandon grammar preferred by scholars to avoid the concept of the
blood of God, that refers to Jesus Christ as having divine
blood.*
*Our
Savior didn't have human blood, both a human father & mother
being needed to form it, and He had no human father. Blood forms in
the fetus out of direct contact with blood of either parent
(Borkert, D.T. - M.D. & Pulliam, K.R. - PhD,
"The Blood of Christ
www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/cbtj/03-2 _001.pdf )
Indeed,
as has been pointed out, Lev.17:11 says that life is in the blood,
and the life in Jesus was divine, not merely human,* so His blood
would be part of His divine nature, along with His divine Spirit and
Soul. His body would be generated by the Holy Ghost from Mary's
genetics, and, along with His human spirit and soul, would constitute
His human nature. The latter nature would be perfected by the divine
nature of His blood as the only material part of His deity.
Now earthly father/son relationships are those of blood, and the
heavenly Father/Son relationship is that of Divine Blood. The Savior
is the Son of God and Son of man, perfect God and perfect man without
a sin nature, so He represents both, with a view to ultimately
providing the perfection of mankind.
*
Bromfield, E.L.
smoodock45.wordpress.com/.../were-we-purchased-with-god’s-blood/
Now divided manuscript evidence supporting
the different readings cannot of itself be decisive due to the
humanity of copyists, and in such cases the textual evidence of
context and grammar are decisive. Further, the early church provides
reliable evid- ence in this case, understanding the true reading as
speaking of the blood of God, as seen by use of this terminology by
the martyr Ignatius in the early 2nd century.* He spoke of knowing he
would soon die by facing lions at Rome, and considered it a great
honor to die on behalf of His Savior who shed "the blood of God" for
him. Now can yelping of modern scholars, who think they can correct
scripture at a whim if it dis- pleases their sense of accuracy, have
the slightest weight in comparison with Ignatius' magnificent
testimony on the rendering? Which modern scholar believes his opinion
with such devotion that he would be concerned enough to espouse and
teach it while knowing that hungry lions await him because of his Christian testimony?
* "Ignatius to the Ephesians".
www.earlychristianwritings.com › Church
Fathers
We see strong evidence
that Divine Blood was shed to atone for the sin of all mankind, and
we can understand that the shedding of this blood would atone for
sin. Indeed, we can see that the highest price in the universe was
paid by God to guarantee forgiveness of sin to all who are sick of
sin that otherwise would place an insurmountable barrier between Holy
God and sinful mankind.
Note: Readers can follow-up on
textual history of variant readings on this subject at the very
informative website of Brother Will Kinney noted below.
brandplucked.webs.com/acts2028godsblood.htm
