THE ARGUMENT OF HISTORY

The Blood Doctrine as a Fundamental of the Faith

 
I'm not teaching you any new thing tonight. I'm teaching you what all fundamentalists believe.⁽²⁾

--Dr. Jack Hyles

 

Some Respected Fundamentalists Are Blood Indoctrinators

Dr. M.R. DeHaan is a Blood Indoctrinator.

When the author first learned of this Doctrine, he was astounded. He never before had heard anything like it. It was in the author's freshman year in Bible college, during a monthly pot-luck at a neighboring church, that a young preacher presented a wild explanation for Christ's sinless Nature. The preacher said that science has proven that a person inherits his body from his mother, but inherits his blood from his father. Christ was a man because He took His flesh from His mother, but He was the sinless Son of God because He took His blood from God, His Father. The preacher's proof was that doctors may test a child's blood or DNA to find the father of the child.

The preacher explained that after Christ rose from the dead He took His blood into Heaven. Salvation was incomplete until Christ presented His blood on the Mercy Seat in Heaven. Since Christians are members of the body of Christ, the blood of Christ actually flows from Heaven and through all believers, just as in a literal, physical body. When we confess our sins, the antibodies in the blood of Christ flowing through us attacks those sins and gives us an immunity to those sins. He claimed that it is the antibodies in Christ's blood that keeps us from sinning.

That weekend, the author made a long-distance call to his mother, and described these claims to her. She learned from her boss, who is a medical researcher and ordained preacher, that these teachings were popularized by the efforts of the late Dr. M.R. DeHaan. Doctor DeHaan is considered a scientific authority because he was a medical doctor before he became a preacher. He died in 1965, ending a long career as a preacher and teacher on the Radio Bible Class. So important is Dr. DeHaan's influence that Dr. Bob Gray of Texas plagiarized a paragraph from page 17 of Dr. DeHaan's book in a sermon that Dr. Gray preached at Bella Vista Baptist Church in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 1991.⁽³⁾

Many of the quotes from the other preachers mentioned in this book seem to have been mere recitals of Dr. DeHaan's teachings, since these preachers use the same illustrations and some of the same words that Dr. DeHaan used for the same points. Most of these preachers couldn't prove what they say, so are forced to lip-synch with Dr. DeHaan. The only reason that the other preachers are quoted in these cases is to show how wide-spread the Blood Doctrine is, to break up the monotony of reading quotes from one person and to abide by the quotation agreement reached with Zondervan Corporation.

Sword of the LORD also cites from Dr. DeHaan's book. They apparently used a different edition than did this author, because they cite some very interesting passages that the author could not find in his copy of Dr. DeHaan's book. The January 28, 1988 issue of Sword of the LORD quoted Dr. DeHaan as saying,

Every drop of blood which flowed in Jesus' body is still in existence.... 

Perhaps there is a golden chalice in Heaven where every drop of the precious blood is still in existence....⁽⁴⁾

 The really shocking statements attributed to Dr. DeHaan came later in the Sword article;

In his book, The Chemistry of the Blood, Dr. DeHaan (a medical doctor) says, "All the blood which is in the child is produced within the child itself as a result of the introduction of the male sperm. The mother contributes no blood at all."

Then on page 42 of his book, Dr. DeHaan says, "Every drop of blood in an infant's body is the contribution of the male parent..."⁽⁵⁾

 
Notice that Dr. DeHaan is considered a scientific authority, and that the Blood Doctrine is made to look more authoritative, based on Dr. DeHaan's medical background. Yet, Dr. DeHaan finished medical school almost a century ago. As mentioned earlier, he died decades ago. At best, Dr. DeHaan's medical knowledge would be out of date, so more recent material should be cited. Instead of doing this, the Blood Indoctrinators have been forced to abandon medicine as a defense of their beliefs. When Doctor Paisley attacked a recent sermon that was written with the assistance of a modern medical doctor, he did not criticize the medical claims made in it, even though they directly opposed Dr. DeHaan's claims. Instead, he began by saying that he did not care what scholars said; he was only interested in the plain teachings of the Bible.

There is a chapter in this book examining the medical aspects of the Blood Doctrine. However, it should be mentioned here that Dr. DeHaan was always wrong about what science says about human blood. When Dr. Gray quoted Dr. DeHaan's medical claims at Bella Vista Baptist Church, the audience exploded with amens and hallelujahs, but when the author showed some of those people what medicine really says about the infant's blood, they became defensive. The Blood Indoctrinators only care about medicine when they can twist it to suit their uses. Modern medical knowledge, just like the medical knowledge of 50 years ago, directly refutes Dr. DeHaan's claims about the formation of human blood.

When the author returned to his mother's home, he was loaned a copy of Dr. DeHaan's book, The Chemistry of the Blood and Other Stirring Messages. It was the 28^th printing of his book in 31 years, the first one being printed in 1943, so there were probably a lot of people who liked his book and still believe his teachings. That book gave the author enough information eventually to piece together a continent of a doctrine that was like a New World to him. It would have been difficult for the author to have researched the Blood Doctrine without Dr. DeHaan's book showing the beliefs of the Blood Doctrine. Doctor DeHaan will be quoted often in this book.⁽⁶⁾

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