. . .the comments in both Lev 16:30 and 1 John 1:7 require some sort of
gap filling. Neither of these texts explicitly says if the purification of
people is brought about by a purgation sacrifice and neither text denies this.
However, linking the notion of purification of people to purgation sacrifices
has little to no evidential warrant, whereas linking the purification to the
promised divine water-washings is the only exegetically warranted—and thus
logical—conclusion given the protocols of ritual impurities, the way ritual
impurity is analogous to moral impurity, and the prophetic promises of moral
purification only being envisioned in terms of washings, not purgation
sacrifices of any kind. In other words, Rabbi Aqiva’s interpretation of Lev
16:30 is preferable because it coheres with all of these purification protocols
and the way moral purification is analogous to ritual purification.
What this means for 1 John is that Jesus’s “blood” in 1:7 is probably
not being conceptualized as blood, but rather as water. Just like
Jesus’s blood in Rev 7:14 was water and oil (and ordination-blood), the
function Jesus’s blood has in 1 John 1:7—purification of people—is the function
water has and this is the substance the prophets use to talk about the
necessary moral purification to come. This would explain the emphasis on
“water” alongside “blood” in 5:6 and 5:8 (cf. John 19:34). Jesus's blood qua
blood in his death, and when John wants to coney moral purification his death
accomplishes then it is not Jesus’s blood-as-death, but Jesus’s blood-as-water
that accomplishes this.
Whether written by the same hand or not, scholars agree that the author
of 1 John knew the Gospel of John. The claim in 1 John 1:7 (together with
5:5-12) appears to be an interpretation of 7:38 in light of Jesus’s death
(19:34) and giving of the Spirit after his resurrection (20:22). Jesus
declares, “just as the scripture said” those who believe in him will have
“rivers form their belly flow with living water” (7:38), which is then
specified in terms of the “Spirit” (7:39). This collocation of water and Spirit
is exactly what scriptures like Ezek 36:25-27 promise (cf. Isa 44:3). And
remember that “living water” is not capable of becoming ritually impure no
matter what contacts it. It is a perpetual source of ritual purity. Jesus’s
death (blood and water, 19:34) and the giving of the Spirit to dwell in his
followers (20:22; cf. 14:16-17; 16:7, 13) together are the purifying “living
water” (7:38-39) continually present in the person. Therefore, the comments in
1 John 1:7 appears to be thinking about Jesus’s “blood” not in terms of
sacrificial blood, but in terms of purifying living waters understood as
an image of the indwelling Spirit (3:24; 4:13; 5:5-8), which is tantamount to
Jesus’s very “life” (5:11-12) and “God” “abiding” in believers (3:34; 4:12-13,
15-16; cf. 2:6, 24, 27-28; 3:14-15).
As a result, 1 John 1:7 may also then be a poetic reference to baptism
since “water” is that purifies people from ritual impurities and it is
what the prophets use to metaphorically depict moral purification. If so, this
would mean the use of “blood” is referring both to Jesus’s death—which
is when Jesus “gave over his Spirit” (19:30; cf. “released his Spirit,” Matt
27:50)—and the effect of moral purification that results from water
immersion into his death. Earlier traditions already associated baptism
with sharing in Jesus’s death (e.g., Rom 6:3-11; Mark 10:38-39; Col 3:12) and
there are also texts that explicitly draw upon the water-washing purification
aspect of baptism (e.g., 1 Pet 3:21; Titus 3:5; 1 Cor 6:11 with 12:13).
In this light, it may be significant that in the Gospel of John says his
“word” (logos) makes his disciples “pure” (katharos) (15:3; cf.
13:10) and “consecrates” or “sanctifies” them (hagiazō, 17:17) and 1
John begins with reference to “the word (logou) of life” (1:1). (This
same notion is in Eph 5:26: “in order to sanctify [hagiasē] her, by
purifying [katharisas] her by the washing of water with the word [hrēmati]”)
And, immediately after talking about purification in 1 John 1:7 and 9 there is
another reference to the “word” (logos, 1:10). In this context, having
“his word in us” in 1:10 seems to be how we experience the purification talked
about in 1:7 and 9 (cf. John 15:3).
Thus, it is unlikely that 1 John 1:7 is associating purification to
blood qua blood since the idea of purification is not linked with blood per
se in any other text and the Johannine literature has particular emphasis
on the purifying function of both the “word” and “water.” Hence, 1 John 1:7
seems to be activating the liquid quality of blood on analogy to a
purifying water-washing.
If this is the case, then the claim of 1 John 1:7 is conveying something
like this: “The blood of Jesus purifies us all of sin because just as
water-washing purifies, then much more will the blood of Jesus—the purest
‘water’—wash us and purify us of all unrighteousness in baptism since baptism
is what unites us to Jesus’s death.” This would explain why 1 John 1:7 is
phrased in a way that alludes to Lev 16:30 and it evokes the prophetic
expectation of moral purification, which is said to come through a divine
washing. If this is correct, the reference to “blood” here is not to be
understood as declaring (without precedent) that sacrificial atoning blood is applied
to the people for their purification, but to play on the viscous nature of
blood to evoke water baptism. In this way, “blood” functions to anchor the
promised moral purification in a union with Jesus’s death, but
its viscous quality evokes the purifying “waters” of baptism, which themselves
are understood as the promised divine waters from the prophets and are
associated with the divine “pouring out” of the Spirit like water (Ezek
36;25-27; Isa 32:15; 44:3; Joel 3:1 [2:28 Eng.]), which is the very thing
Johannine literature emphasizes (cf. 1 John 5:6-8; John 7:38-39; 19:30, 34). (Andrew
Remington Rillera, Lamb of the Free: Recovering the Varied Sacrificial
Understanding of Jesus’s Death [Eugene, Oreg.: Cascade Books, 2024], 216-18)
