Bought With God’s Blood

Paul was saying farewell to the church leaders in Ephesus.

As he was saying farewell he mentioned a very interesting phrase:

Hechos de los Apóstoles 20:28 NIV

28 Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood.

That phrase appears in the last sentence…the church belongs to God.

The church was bought with his own blood.

Whose blood is this?

…we are told that it is God’s blood.

Now, this is a very interesting phrase because we’ve been taught that God is a spirit.

Juan 4:24 NIV

24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

A spirit is invisible.

A spirit does not have flesh, bones, or blood.

So how can Paul say that the church was bought with God’s blood?

What are we to learn from such a strange phrase?

We can learn a few lessons:

The first lesson is that the church of God, the people of God, does not belong to any person.

Our congregation, and any other congregation does not belong to any human being no matter how holy or how important they make themselves out to be.

The church is under God’s ownership. He is its Master and Lord.

We answer directly to the Lord Jesus Christ because we belong to him.

For this reason, we believe that no human government, no earthly rulers, no earthly authorities have any say over the conduct, government, beliefs of the Church of God.

It is God who tells us how the church should conduct itself, how it should be government, and what it should believe - because after all - it is God’s church.

The second lesson is that the church was bought with God’s own blood.

First of all, we must understand how is it that God can have blood?

We believe in one God who has revealed himself in the persons - the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This is called the Holy Trinity.

Jesus, God the Son, took upon himself human flesh.

When Jesus was born he had true human flesh, bones, and blood.

When Jesus suffered on the cross and bled for the forgiveness of our sins - it was God himself, in the person of Jesus, who bled for us.

…and this is how God bought for himself, paid the price, to have a people who would seek and worship him.

This is why we can say that God bought rebellious sinners, and paid the price by the shedding of his blood upon the cross of Calvary.

The third lesson we learn is that the church is the most precious institution created by God.

Not only did God create the church…but Jesus shed his blood to bring forth the church of God.

There is nothing else in all creation that was paid with such high a price - the shedding of God’s own blood.

It is for this reason that we value the local church and all local churches scattered around the world - because as a community of believers we believe that we were all bought by God’s own blood.

We believe that all of us - we are God’s people.

…and just imagine - people of all nations, tribes, peoples, and languages standing before God’s throne - worshipping him for having bought us with his precious blood.

Apocalipsis 7:9–10 NIV

9 After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. 10 And they cried out in a loud voice: “Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.”