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. – Acts 20:28, King James Version.
Many of our trinitarian neighbors (and some others) would have us believe that this text means that the Almighty God himself died for the church. If so, then, the Almighty God himself died, which of course, scripturally is totally impossible. If God Almighty had flesh and blood, this would make him lower than the angels. — Psalm 8:5; Hebrews 2:7.
We first want to point out that it was the only true God (John 17:1,3), the "one God" of 1 Corinthians 8:6, who prepared the body of flesh and blood for Jesus by means His Holy Spirit. (Matthew 1:18,20; Hebrews 10:5) Since Jesus, while in the days of his flesh (Hebrews 5:7), was directly the Son of God, the blood running through the veins of Jesus' flesh was indeed the blood of his God and Father, for that blood came from him. This, however, does not mean that we need to imagine that Jesus is God Almighty, etc.
We might note that the Alexandrine manuscript as well as some other manuscripts read as “to shepherd the church of the Lord which…” Thus the New English Bible renders this verse: “Keep watch over yourselves and over all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has given you charge, as shepherds of the church of the Lord, which we won for himself by his own blood.” The Antigua Version de Casidoro De Reina, Revisada por Cipriano de Valera (1602), Revision de 1960, reads “iglesia del Senior”, that is, “church of the Lord” instead of “iglesia de Dios” (Church of God).
However, let us look at how several other translations render this verse:
Keep watch over yourselves and over all the flock, of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God that he obtained with the blood of his own Son. — New Revised Standard Version.
Take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God which he obtained with the blood of his own Son. — Revised Standard
So keep watch over yourselves and over all the flock which the Holy Spirit has placed in your care. Be shepherds of the church of God, {F32 } which he made his own through the blood of his Son. {F33} — Today’s English===FOOTNOTES:F32: God; [some manuscripts have] the Lord.F33: through the blood of his Son; [or] through the sacrificial death of his Son; [or] through his own blood.
Be careful for yourselves and for all the people the Holy Spirit has given to you to care for. You must be like shepherds to the church of God, which he bought with the death of his own son. — New Century Version
Take heed, therefore, to yourselves and to all the flock, in which you the Spirit Holy placed overseers, to shepherd the church of God, which He purchased through the own blood. — Jay Green’s Interlinear.
Take heed therefore to yourselves, and to all the flock, wherein the Holy Spirit has set you as overseers, to shepherd the assembly of God, which he has purchased F184 with the blood of his own. F185========FOOTNOTES:F184: Middle voice; reflexive: see Note e, Heb. 1.3.F185: I am fully satisfied that this is the right translation of ver. 28. To make it a question of the divinity of Christ (which I hold to be of the foundation of Christianity) is absurd. It has been questioned whether ‘of his own’ can be used thus absolutely in the singular. But we have it in John 15.19, and in the neuter singular for material things, Acts 4.32. The torturing of the passage by copyists arose, I believe, from not seeing, the real sense of it; a touching expression of the love of God. — Darby Translation
Thus Darby, although believing that Jesus is God Almighty, realizes that it is “absurd” to look to this scripture as proof of the trinity doctrine, although we know many do so.
If it was actually the blood of God, it would mean that such blood was of He whose glory is greater than the angels, rather than the blood of man, whose glory is lower than the angels. (Psalm 8:5; 1 Corinthians 15:39-41; Hebrews 2:7). It would mean that it was not the blood of the man Jesus Christ (1 Timothy 2:5,6), and thus there has been no ransom, for it is the blood of one lower than the angels — a human — that was needed to make satisfaction for the sin of Adam. (Of course, we realize the trinitarians claim that Jesus was both a spirit being in nature and a human being in nature at the same time, and they often style this the “dual natures” or "hypostatic union" of Christ, but no scripture reveals such a concept.) Jesus, being our high priest appointed by the only true Supreme Being, offers his own blood to the only true Supreme Being; he is not the the only true Supreme Being who receives the sacrifice. — Psalm 8:5; John 17:1,3; Hebrews 2:9; 3:1,2; 9:14.
We recommend the studies:
Nevertheless, in reality, God Almighty is a spiritual being and does not have flesh and blood. (John 3:24; 2 Corinthians 3:17) Jesus was made a spiritual being in his resurrection. (1 Corinthians 15:45) He was not a spiritual being while he was a human being. — 1 Corinthians 15:38.
At any rate, God's bodily glory -- the bodily glory of the Surpeme Being -- does not contain blood, as His bodily glory is spiritual. Blood is fleshly, earthly, terrestrial. -- Leviticus 17:11; 1 Corinthians 15:39-41.
God -- the Supreme Being -- did not die for the church; His Son -- a human being, a little lower than that angels -- died for the church and the world of mankind. -- Hebrews 2:9; 1 John 2:2..
At any rate, God's bodily glory -- the bodily glory of the Surpeme Being -- does not contain blood, as His bodily glory is spiritual. Blood is fleshly, earthly, terrestrial. -- Leviticus 17:11; 1 Corinthians 15:39-41.
God -- the Supreme Being -- did not die for the church; His Son -- a human being, a little lower than that angels -- died for the church and the world of mankind. -- Hebrews 2:9; 1 John 2:2..
Yet many claim that if one applies the dual natures of Jesus to Acts 20:28, one could see that the verse is referring to Jesus as God (Supreme Being). By doing this, it is claimed that "the blood" refers the God's blood. Of course, as pointed out, the Supreme Being, who is spirit, does not have blood. So how does one actually apply the idea of dual natures to the verse? Although many, in some vague way, try to apply their "dual natures" (or, hypostatic union) concept of Jesus to this verse, they fall short in providing reasoning as to how it could be applied and make sense. Evidently one would have assume that "God" in the verse refers to the alleged Supreme Being Jesus. But as Jesus, the Supreme Being, Jesus would not have any blood. How does one get from the Supreme Being Jesus to the blood of the human being Jesus? If it is referring to the blood of the human Jesus, then it is not the blood of the alleged Supreme being Jesus, since the alleged Supreme being Jesus never had any blood.
The Greek wording, however, indicates that the verse does not refer directly to the blood as being blood flowing in the veins of the Supreme Being (who, being a spirit being, actually has no blood), but rather to the blood of the human being Jesus, who is God's own (son, servant, prophet, etc.). Being that God provided the blood to his son, it is his own blood, but not blood as though God has a body of flesh and blood, etc.. Similarly, we often may hear it be said that a son has the blood of his father running through his veins. This does not make a son the same human being as his father.
Nothing in the verse says that Jesus is God Almighty. There is definitely nothing in the verse about three persons in one being or three persons all of whom are wholly God Almighty, or that God is more than one person, or that Jesus exists on two levels of consciousness at the same time, etc.
---Ronald R. Day, Sr., Restoration Light Bible Study Services (RLBible, ResLight)
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