¹ There is nothing mystical about Jesus’ “blood” (i.e., His blood having some kind of power that the rest of His body did not possess). His “blood” simply represented the life of His body, which was given in death. The blood is the basis of physical life; thus bodily life can be said to be preeminently “in the blood.” Furthermore, the blood is the original material from which, in the embryonic state, the human organism is developed. But, also: to someone familiar with the Old Testament sacrificial system, “blood” signifies sacrifice. So, it was not something special about Jesus’ blood per se, that redeemed us. It was the substitutionary, sacrificial death of His body that redeemed us.

⁵ This passage teaches not only that Jesus delivered us from the penalty of the law, but also that He delivered us from the duty of having to keep the law for righteousness (cf. Col. 2:16-17). Again, it was accomplished by the death of Christ at the cross, upon which the law was “nailed” (i.e., abolished).

⁹ See a discussion of this expression in Chapter Ten on p. 142ff.

¹⁰ Tree” is a figurative expression for the cross.

¹⁴ The sources of these and other quotations will remain unidentified; it is not my purpose to vilify certain individuals but to teach the truth of the Atonement.

¹⁷ Notice that the lowest point of Jesus’ “humiliation” was not suffering in hell but it was “the death of the cross.”

²⁰ For a complete study of the early church’s doctrine of the Atonement, please see The Doctrine of the Atonement According to the Apostolic Fathers Compared with the Apostolic Doctrine of the Atonement by Malcolm Webber.

²² See Chapter Fourteen.

²³ See Chapter Ten.