In Acts 20:28 we see Christ as God: “Take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, among whom the Holy Spirit has placed you as overseers to shepherd the church of God, which He obtained through His own blood.” This verse reveals that Christ as our God is the Purchaser of the church, having obtained the church with His own blood. God secured, purchased, and redeemed the church with His own blood. God’s own blood is the blood of Jesus Christ (1 John 1:7). This also implies that the Lord Jesus is God.
God’s purchasing the church with His blood indicates the precious love of God for the church and the preciousness, the exceeding worth, of the church in the eyes of God. Here the apostle does not touch the divine life and nature of the church as in Ephesians 5:23-32, but the value of the church as a treasure to God, a treasure which He acquired with His own precious blood. Paul expected that the elders as overseers would also treasure the church as God did.
Both the Holy Spirit and God’s own blood are divine provisions for the church He treasures. The Holy Spirit denotes God’s person, and His own blood, God’s work. God’s redemptive work acquired the church; now God’s person, the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45), cares for the church through the overseers. The church is under the care of the Holy Spirit, and the church has been bought by God with His own blood. Hence, the church is a treasure in the sight of God. The church is dear to God, so we have to regard and respect the church.
In Acts 20:28 Paul says that the church of God has been obtained “through His own blood.” To understand the unusual phrase His own blood in verse 28, we need to see that the God who died for us to obtain the church is not the God before incarnation. Prior to incarnation, God certainly did not have blood, and He could not have died for us. It was after the incarnation, in which God was mingled with humanity, that He died for us. Through incarnation, our God, the Creator, the eternal One, Jehovah, became mingled with man. As a result, He was no longer only God—He became a God-man. As the God-man, He surely had blood and was able to die for us.
When the God-man died on the cross, He died not only as man but also as God. The One who died on the cross was the One who had been conceived of God and born with God. Because He was a God-man, the very element of God was in Him. The divine element was mingled with His humanity.
In the conception of the Lord Jesus, the God-man, the divine essence out of the Holy Spirit (Matt. 1:18-20; Luke 1:35) was generated in Mary’s womb. Such a conception of the Holy Spirit in the human virgin, accomplished with both the divine and human essences, constituted a mingling of the divine nature with the human nature and produced the God-man, One who is both the complete God and a perfect man, possessing the divine nature and the human nature distinctively, without a third nature being produced. This is the most wonderful and excellent person of Jesus.
The conception and birth of the Lord Jesus was God’s incarnation (John 1:14), constituted of the divine essence added to the human essence, hence, producing the God-man of two natures—divinity and humanity. Through this, God joined Himself to humanity that He might be manifested in the flesh (1 Tim. 3:16) and might be the Savior (Luke 2:11) who died and shed His blood for us.
The blood that has redeemed fallen human beings is the blood of Jesus, the Son of God (1 John 1:7). As human beings, we need genuine human blood for our redemption. Because He was a man, the Lord Jesus could fulfill this requirement. As a man, He shed human blood to redeem fallen human beings. The Lord is also the Son of God, even God Himself. Therefore, with His blood there is the element of eternity, and this element ensures the eternal efficacy of His blood. Therefore, as a man He has genuine human blood, and as God He has the element that gives to His blood eternal efficacy. In Acts 20:28 Paul had the boldness to speak of this blood as being God’s own blood.
Therefore, Christ died on the cross as the God-man, and the blood He shed there for our redemption was the blood not only of the man Jesus but also the blood of the God-man. Therefore, this blood, through which God obtained the church, is God’s own blood. This implies that Jesus Christ is God as the Purchaser of the church who obtained the church with His own blood.
Acts 26:18-23 unveils Christ as the content of the gospel. Christ suffered death and resurrected from the dead to announce light both to the Jews and to the Gentiles, to open their eyes, to turn them from darkness to light and from the authority of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance.