"Washed In The Blood"

By Charles Sebold

I am reading the fascinating book The Text of the New Testament by Bruce Metzger, one of the premier textual critics of the New Testament in this century. It is a "cracking good read" - I'm finding it much more informational than the Alands' book of the same name.

At some point it mentions that the Textus Receptus and many later manuscripts make mistakes which indicate that they were copied by dictation rather than transcription. One of the primary examples is Revelation 1:5. In the King James Version [KJV] it reads thus:

And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood

This is the only suggestion in the entire New Testament that we as humans are to be washed in His blood. In every other New Testament reference to blood, it has something to do with being shed for us, or in one case later in Revelation 7:14 we find that the multitude of believers throughout history stand before the throne and before the Lamb, having washed their robes in His blood and made them white. And every other reference to washing, except for the aforementioned 7:14, is to washing in water.

The word translated in KJV as "washed" sounds almost the same as the word for "freed," which appears in the earlier manuscripts. So, the New American Standard Bible renders Revelation 1:5 this way:

and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the first-born of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To Him who loves us, and released us from our sins by His blood

That's a little different, isn't it? And if you read the Scriptures from a Jewish perspective, you can now see that being ourselves "washed in the blood of Jesus" is really a horrible picture, a strange horror show which speaks of death but not of being free from sin through His sacrifice for us.

Washing our robes in His blood, however, brings Joseph to mind, whose multi-colored coat was dipped in blood to convince Jacob that he was dead. When we receive the gift of salvation, we are not instantly made perfect, but from a legal standpoint we are considered to be dead to sin, and our father on earth, the devil, is shown our robes dipped in blood - our lives as seen after Yeshua's death - and thus we are freed of legal obligations to him, because he considers us dead. In reality that blood is not on our hands and cannot "stick" to us, and it comes away, leaving the clean white robe representing our righteousness.

Anyway, this means I can't sing any hymn or song that talks about being washed in the blood of the Lamb anymore. Oh, well.

There is a fountain filled with blood
Drawn from Immanuel's veins
And sinners plunged beneath that flood
Lose all their guilty stains!

I appreciate what the hymnist was trying to do here, but the fact is, this image is just horrible, and Paul would have thought we were devil worshippers to even suggest such a thing. Why do you want to be covered in the blood of Yeshua? That suggests that you are taking responsibility for His death, when in fact only One can take responsibility, and that One is not "guilty" because of it, but only demonstrates His love for humanity in that act.

Sidenote:  If you are interested in further study on this same topic, it was previously addressed in a study done by Peter A. Michas, on the book of The Revelation. Contact Peter to order tape number RVL-3.

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