Back in the '80's, Baptist Fundamentalists were immeasurably irked by the "bloodless" religion of John MacArthur. John MacArthur was vociferously condemned and his name pounded in conferences and IFB college chapels by self-proclaimed champions of the blood of Christ.
That torrent of heated rhetoric has slowed to a trickle, but Baptist fundamentalists' perception of John MacArthur remains negative.
Personally, I think MacArthur was unjustly maligned and his beliefs misrepresented. I'm not going to hash-out the particulars of that controversy, as it already occupies a great deal of bandwidth in the blogosphere. Suffice it to say that a explanation of the controversy is capably handled here. Go. Read. Decide for yourself.
Here's the problem I'd like to discuss today: in their zeal to condemn MacArthur's bloodless religion, many Baptists have embraced a different form of error which could appropriately be named "hyper-bloodism." This hyper-bloodism promotes the view that only one drop of Christ's blood is needed to make atonement for sin. In an effort to exalt the value Christ's blood, many have unwittingly eliminated the need for the death of Christ.
This error is becoming more and more noticeable in the music promoted in fundamental Baptist churches. Songs about the blood of Christ have become increasingly popular in IFB churches - a sort of mucial "nyah-nyah" at MacArthur. Interestingly, many of these songs were not written by Baptist fundamentalists, but IFB churches have taken the lyrics and have been running with them at break-neck speed.
The Christian music world is replete with these kind of songs. And I think the motive behind such lyrics is admirable: a desire to show the infinite value of Christ juxtaposed to the deplorable condition of my sinful state. But what we're left with is an inaccurate view of the blood, and a diminished view of Christ's sufferings.
In short: it took more than one drop to wash my sins away; it took Christ's unimaginable suffering, pain, and death. His sacrificial death. It took his broken body and shed blood. (Luke 22:19-20)
"One drop" lyrics miss the mark and do more to steer Baptist fundamentalists towards a heretical view of the atonement than MacArthur's alleged "bloodless" Christianity.
2 comments:
Nice post and nice blog. I found your comments on another blog site quite astute and so I wanted to drop by and check out your page - well done.
I agree with your assessment regarding the blood of Christ. Some IFB churches I am familiar with go so far as to state that Christ did not have human blood, and that his blood was all collected and reserved in heaven. Souls are 'literally' washed in blood when folks come to Christ! This is a little too close to Roman sacramentalism for me.
Hello, Andrew. Thanks for the visit and the kind words. You're correct that some IFB views on the blood have warped into Romanism.
Post a Comment