'Sin' and 'blood' occur 477 times in KJV

Jesus Christ says “Verily, verily, I say . . . ” 25 times in the Bible and each time it’s in the Book of John.

“The Greek word for ‘verily’ is ‘amen,’ and in the Old Testament you have these double ‘amens’ for emphasis,” explains Jordan. “That expression ‘Verily, verily’ has a doctrinal content to it.

“ 'Verily, verily' is a way of saying, like a captain on a ship, ‘Now, hear this, the captain speaking.’ It’s that same kind of thing with, ‘Hear ye, hear ye.’ In their culture they put the exclamation at the beginning, not the end. In forming sentences and language it’s called fronting, where you put the most important things up front and then add the rest. You remember how Yoda in Star Wars would say, ‘Speak I must. Important things say I.’

“When you read in the Psalms the word ‘Selah,’ people tell you that’s a musical expression for a pause, but every time you read that word in the Scripture, and it’s not just in the psalms, the context is about the Second Advent and it’s saying in essence what it says in Habakkuk, ‘Let all the earth keep silence before him.’

“The idea is you guys need to sit down and think about what’s happening because you’re fixing to get your clock cleaned. This is a serious matter. When a Judge says, ‘Silent in the court,’ that means there’s serious things fixing to happen.

“ ‘Verily, verily’ is a doctrinal emphasis in connection with the accomplishing of the Davidic Covenant. You’re never going to read that in a commentary or any book, but if you check it you’ll see that’s the idea going on.

“As you go through the Book of John, you’ll see it constantly and John’s focus, once again, is, He came to His own and His own received Him not, but to as many as received Him, they got the ‘Verily, verily,’ and to them gave He the power to become the sons of God.

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From one of the most famous passages in the Bible, we read in John 3, [10] Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things?
[11] Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen; and ye receive not our witness.
[12] If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things?
[13] And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven.
[14] And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up:
[15] That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
[16] For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

“The idea there in verse 11 is they don’t get it; they don’t have faith. Faith is the way you perceive things and they weren’t walking in faith. Christ is giving the contrast between the old covenant and the new covenant. It’s the contrast between what they’ve gotten through Moses and now what He’s come to give them: the heavenly things.

“We saw in Hebrews 3 about that ‘heavenly calling’ and in Hebrews 11 about Abraham looking for that heavenly city. Jesus says, ‘I’m come to tell you now about receiving these things. The law and the prophets were until John, but now the kingdom of God is preached. There’s a spiritual issue coming down here, guys, and this is the deal.’

“That kingdom they’re going to have, Deuteronomy 11 says it’s ‘as the days of heaven on earth.’ Jesus is telling them, ‘The God of heaven is going to come down here to the earth, so I’m telling you of heavenly things. If you don’t get the message of the old covenant, you’re never going to get the message of the new covenant.’

“They just weren’t getting the message; they were blind to it. Here’s this Pharisee who’s given intense attention to the text and the traditions of Israel, to the Bible God gave Israel, for a whole lifetime, and yet he hasn’t understood the basic truth the law was designed to teach.

“Jesus told them, ‘I didn’t come to call the righteous to repentance; I came to call sinners.’ That’s what the law was designed to teach them. You remember in Luke 18 where the Pharisee stands out by the temple and says, ‘Father, I thank you that I’m not like this guy over here. I fast, I give tithes, I do all these things. You’re lucky to have me.’

“That poor old Publican walked by and smote himself on his breast, wouldn’t even lift up his eyes, and said, ‘Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner.’ That’s the difference.

“When you stand in front of the temple and you talk about mercy, you got to remember there’s a place in that temple called the ‘mercy seat.’ In that ‘mercy seat’ was the blood and over it were the cherubim where the presence of God—the Shekinah glory of God—was to be, the manifestation of His presence, and in that ark were the broken commandments; the law that was broken and a figure of the spiritual condition of the nation Israel.

“Though the law was broken, that shed blood gave acceptance for God to meet them and He said, ‘I’ll meet them on that mercy seat.’ That’s why the blood was there. That Publican understood that God had given him a way to be acceptable before Him, but it wasn’t going to be without the shedding of blood.

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“By the way, the word ‘sin’ occurs 477 times in a King James Bible. You want to guess how many times the word ‘blood’ occurs? Same amount of times. Now, that’s really weird and I know people say, ‘What are you saying, Brother Rick?,’ and I just say, ‘Well, that word occurs that many times and that word occurs that many times.’

“There’s a balance and when people say, ‘Well, that’s in English and we’re not speaking English,’ my response is, ‘But I am.’ You go in your language and get your illustrations. They’ll be there. The Living Word of the living God exists in all the languages of the nations and will have the same testimonies in one language that it does in another one. It may not be what I just gave you as an illustration in English, but there will be similar kind of confirmations in those other languages about God’s Word being God’s Word.

“Jesus says in Verse 13, [13] And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven.

“In other words, ‘I know some things because I came down from heaven and I’m up there still.’ The point there is Christ can speak about heavenly things; He’s qualified to because He knows about them and He’s seeing these things.

“That verse right there is a verse that’s a problem for commentaries and when you get here, you’ve got to make a decision. Is verse 13 what Jesus actually said, the words of Christ, or is this the point in the text where John begins his commentary as argument? In other words, is this verse beginning where John is going to start describing and making comments about what Christ has set up at that point? Most commentaries follow the latter route and they say that Jesus speaks up to verse 12 and then in verse 13, it’s John talking.

“I’ve said to you that when you study the Book of John, there are parts of the book where you can’t really tell who’s talking. You’ll be coming along in the text like this and you’ll be thinking it’s Jesus talking and all of a sudden John’s quit quoting Christ and now the Holy Spirit’s giving him commentary on it. This is probably the one passage where people argue about that the most.

“This stirs you up, because if this is Christ talking, verse 13 is a great statement on His deity. That’s one of the reasons people, if He’s sitting there talking to Nicodemus and at the same time He says, ‘I’m in heaven,’ well, where is He?! Is He in heaven or is He on earth?

“Well, if John wrote it, it would indicate that what John is telling you is that Jesus, who is now in heaven, after the ascension, was really one who descended down and has ascended up and therefore, the one who said this really could tell you because He’s been there.

“By the way, some people like to quibble about that and say, ‘No MAN hath ascended up to heaven,’ but what happened to Enoch? He was translated. What happened to Elijah? God took him in the chariot. You say, ‘See, the verse has got to be wrong because no man ascended up to heaven,’ but Enoch went up to heaven and Elijah went up to heaven.

“That’s a place where you have to be careful to just read the verse and quit thinking the verse says something it doesn’t say. It says no man ascended up to heaven. In other words, Jesus goes out in Acts 1, they see Him and then He ascends up out of their sight. Nobody took Him; He just went on His own.

“That’s not what happened with Enoch. It says God took him. He was and then God translated him. With Elijah, God sent a taxi; put him in a chariot and took off in the whirlwind. So, technically, they don’t really ascend. Obviously what it’s saying is no man ascended up to heaven on his own steam, his own power, ‘but He that came down from heaven, even the son of man which is in heaven.’

“Now, I’m going to tell you that I take those to be the words of Christ.”