Jesus's Blood on Heavenly Altar

[Guest]

This question came up on another forum I frequent that is mainly populated by Protestants and Catholics. A contributor said that Jesus's Blood is on the altar in Heaven. What does the LDS Church teach in this? I had always believed that the "blood on the altar" did not mean His literal blood was splashed on the altar. My understanding of why blood is placed on the altar is probably slightly different from Mainline Christians as I understand it more in a Jewish or Messianic Jewish way. 

[Jane_Doe]

That's a weird phrasing I've never heard before... I'm not even sure what the other poster was trying to say.

Breaking things down: obviously in OT there was literal blood spilt on literal alters during literal sacrifices (foreshadowing Christ).   When Christ Himself suffered & died, He literally did bleed profusely as the ultimate sacrifice, but it wasn't literally on an altar in Heaven-- it was on Earth, in the garden and on the cross.   

Did that help at all?

 

Edited February 27, 2018 by Jane_Doe

[Guest]

Yes, it does, thank you. Yeah, it was an odd way to phrase the question. I have never heard anyone say, essentially, Jesus went to Heaven and splashed His blood on the altar. What would even be the purpose of that? I understand the purpose in the sacrifice, atonement, etc. (I think), but splashing His actual blood on the Heavenly altar...why?

[Vort]

I think the question is not meaningful to us. If they mean that some physical altar in God's heaven is literally splashed with Christ's plasma-based, hemoglobin-laced bodily ichor -- such thinking makes up no part of LDS theology. (Or of the beliefs of most other religions, which typically consider anything "physical" to be vulgar, corrupt, and unclean, certainly nothing that would exist in heaven.)

If instead they are talking in some sort of figurative sense, then they would need to express this idea in other language that would be meaningful to Latter-day Saints. We are familiar enough with Old Testament imagery and practices, such as smearing the blood of the sacrifice on the horns of the altar, so I suppose we would say that Jesus, the true sacrificial Lamb, has his blood smeared on the heavenly altar in the sense of the atoning acts as portrayed in Leviticus. But other than general references to "the blood of the Lamb", we don't dive deeply into imagery about smeared blood or cutting the sacrifice up into pieces or such. Talking about Jesus' blood being splashed or sprinkled or smeared on the altar of heaven is not the type of figurative language that we normally use.

So ultimately, the question seems meaningless. If they're talking literal bodily blood flowing from a wounded Jesus onto a heavenly altar -- no, absolutely not. I feel quite secure in saying that such an idea is absolutely foreign to LDS doctrines. If they mean a figurative take -- well, sure, we know all about Old Testament sacrifice and symbology, and though we don't usually use it to that degree, we could. But I can't see why we would dwell on it, or argue over whether the sacrificial blood of the Lamb covers the whole altar or just the horns, or other such acts of looking far beyond the mark and utterly missing the meaning by being enraptured by the symbol.

[Jane_Doe]

1 minute ago, Tampasteve2 said:

Yes, it does, thank you. Yeah, it was an odd way to phrase the question. I have never heard anyone say, essentially, Jesus went to Heaven and splashed His blood on the altar. What would even be the purpose of that? I understand the purpose in the sacrifice, atonement, etc. (I think), but splashing His actual blood on the Heavenly altar...why?

I mean you could talk figuratively, which could be meaningful (referencing back to OT times).  But that phraseology isn't really LDS style.  I mean, we certainly talk about His sacrifice and the value of it-- we talk about that a lot.  But not so much referencing to "literal splashing on a alter in Heaven".  

[Guest]

Got it, I believe we are in agreement. 

[Guest]

13 minutes ago, Vort said:

 

So ultimately, the question seems meaningless. If they're talking literal bodily blood flowing from a wounded Jesus onto a heavenly altar -- no, absolutely not. I feel quite secure in saying that such an idea is absolutely foreign to LDS doctrines. If they mean a figurative take -- well, sure, we know all about Old Testament sacrifice and symbology, and though we don't usually use it to that degree, we could. But I can't see why we would dwell on it, or argue over whether the sacrificial blood of the Lamb covers the whole altar or just the horns, or other such acts of looking far beyond the mark and utterly missing the meaning by being enraptured by the symbol.

The post was written very briefly, but it seemed to definitely imply literal blood on the altar. 

I think your advice of not arguing about it is sage, thank  you!

[zil]

39 minutes ago, Vort said:

...If they mean that some physical altar in God's heaven is literally splashed with Christ's plasma-based, hemoglobin-laced bodily ichor -- such thinking makes up no part of LDS theology. ...

.. If they're talking literal bodily blood flowing from a wounded Jesus onto a heavenly altar -- no, absolutely not. ...

Not only is this foreign, but from latter-day revelation, we know that blood cannot survive in the presence of God - resurrected beings will not have blood.  So the idea that mortal-ish blood could exist in the Celestial Kingdom in the midst of "everlasting burnings" seems like a physical impossibility - it being unpure (at least the mortal portion of it) would burn up.  (Or whatever it is that happens to mortal stuff inside "everlasting burnings".)

Edited February 27, 2018 by zil