Paul tells the elders gathered in
Ephesus: “Keep watch over yourselves and over all the flock, of which the Holy
Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God (την εκκλησιαν
του θεου) that he
obtained with the blood of his own Son (ην
περιεποιησατο δια
του αιματος
του ιδιου).” The
significance of this text is that it can also be read as follows: “that he
obtained with his own blood.” This reading makes “God” (ο θεος) the
subject of the verb “obtained” (περιεποιησατο).
Paul would thus seem to be making a reference to Jesus’ own blood as if it were
God’s own blood. But this reading is highly implausible insofar as Luke-Acts
from beginning to end clearly distinguishes between God and Jesus. This very
book begins with Peter’s sermon on the day of Pentecost in which Jesus is
presented as “a man attested to you by God” (Acts 2:22). So also, to the
gentiles in the household of Cornelius he brings the message that “God anointed
Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power,” so that “he went about
doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with
him” (Acts 10:38). It was argued above at great length that these texts push
against the idea that Jesus has the divine nature. Apart from the possible case
of this incidental slippage, the identity between Jesus and God is never
asserted in any clear or explicit manner in Luke’s writings. If Luke did in
fact believe that Jesus simply is God himself, one might have expected this
point to be expressed more clearly and explicitly in a greater proportion of
the apostolic discourse. For this reason, it would seem preferable to opt for an
alternative interpretation.
As far as this text is concerned,
there are at least a few options. One reading attested to in the manuscript
record speaks of “the church of the Lord” (την εκκλησιαν
του κυριου) rather
than “the church of God.” This would make it possible to identify Jesus with
“the Lord” (ο κυριος) and assert that Jesus obtained it by his own
blood. Alternatively, one may take “the Holy Spirit” here actually to be a
reference to the resurrected Christ and the subject of the verb. Luke does
speak elsewhere of “the spirit of Jesus” (το πνευμα ‘Ιησου) not allowing Pual and Timothy to go into
Bithynia (Acts 16:7). So also, to refer to a passage already mentioned earlier,
Paul says that after his resurrection Christ became a “life-giving spirit” (πνευμα ζωοποιουν, 1 Cor
15:45). It could be that Luke is referring to Jesus as “the Holy Spirit” at
Acts 20:28 as well. He is the one who appointed these Ephesian men to be
overseers of the church of God/the Lord, which he (the Holy Spirit, i.e.,
Jesus) bought with his own blood. Alternatively again, one may take του ιδιου
as a substantive, interpreting the
phrase as: “with the blood of his own [Son].” This is the reading preferred by
Harris (Jesus as God, 141) and by Richard Pervo (Acts, 523).
Finally, one may say that “his own blood” (του αιματος
του ιδιου) is in fact
a reference to Jesus’s blood, not God’s, and that Luke has simply communicated
this point poorly by failing to make Ιησους explicit as
the subject of the verb “obtained” (περιεποιησατο).
In any case, there is no need to find here a reference to “God’s blood.”
Chalmer Faw for example does not even consider any further possibility than
that the church is said to be bought with the blood of God’s Son. (Acts,
235) (Steven Nemes, Trinity and Incarnation: A Post-Catholic Theology [Eugene,
Oreg.: Cascade Books, 2023], 196-97)