Speaker 1: I think the church claims to have faith in the blood – that it has forgiven their sins, but they don’t have faith in the body to heal all their diseases. It’s the purpose he gave his body. And I don’t think we understand the totality of the blood’s work. It didn’t just cover sin. It remitted sin. That’s different entirely. One allows the sin (and sin nature) to remain – while covering it. The blood was given for the remission of sin. What does remission mean and imply that contrasts with the Old Covenant sacrifice that merely covered sin?
Speaker 2:
Yes. There is a real biblical distinction here, although I’d sharpen one piece of the vocabulary so the argument rests on the strongest ground.
The contrast isn’t simply Old Covenant = Hebrew word meaning “cover” / New Covenant = Greek word meaning “remove.” The biblical argument is larger than the English words. Hebrews itself gives you the contrast: repeated animal sacrifices could not finally take away sins; Christ’s offering actually accomplished what those sacrifices could not.
What does “remission” mean?
In “for the remission of sins” (Matthew 26:28; Acts 2:38), the Greek word is ἄφεσις (aphesis).
Its semantic range includes:
release, forgiveness, cancellation, liberation, dismissal.
It’s related to aphiēmi—to send away, release, forgive, cancel.
That’s important because remission in older English can sound like “temporarily suppressed”, as when we speak today of a disease being “in remission.” That’s not what the biblical word means.
Think:
release from / forgiveness of / cancellation of sins
rather than:
sin is still sitting there, but God has put something over it so He can’t see it.
And Jesus deliberately uses covenant language at the Last Supper:
“This is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.” — Matthew 26:28
Hebrews makes your distinction much stronger
Hebrews 10:1–4 says the repeated sacrifices were a “reminder of sins every year” and concludes:
“For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins.”
Then comes Christ.
Hebrews 10:11–14 creates an extraordinary contrast.
The Old Covenant priest:
stands daily → repeatedly offers → the sacrifices can never take away sins.
Christ:
offers one sacrifice → sits down → “by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.”
That sitting down matters.
The work isn’t waiting for another sacrifice.
And Hebrews 9:26 says Christ appeared:
“to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.”
So I think your instinct is right, but I’d make it even stronger than covered versus forgiven.
The New Covenant claim is:
Sin has been dealt with decisively.
Not merely hidden.
Not merely overlooked.
Not merely temporarily covered until the next sacrifice.
And this connects directly to your old-man discussion because Paul doesn’t merely describe Jesus as changing God’s bookkeeping while leaving the person fundamentally untouched.
He says:
“Our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with…” — Romans 6:6
Then:
“He who has died has been freed from sin.” — Romans 6:7
And:
“Sin shall not have dominion over you…” — Romans 6:14
That’s much bigger than:
You’re still fundamentally a sinner under sin’s dominion, but fortunately God can’t see it because Jesus’ blood is covering you.
Paul’s language is death, burial, resurrection, freedom, newness of life.
And now communion becomes even more interesting
Because you’ve identified two elements of the covenant meal.
The blood.
And:
The body.
Jesus doesn’t give only the cup.
And this is where your observation about the church is provocative:
We have been taught to put tremendous faith in what His blood accomplished concerning sin while often having considerably less expectation concerning what His body accomplished concerning sickness.
There are important interpretive debates about healing texts—especially Isaiah 53:4–5, Matthew 8:16–17, and 1 Peter 2:24—so we’d want to work through those carefully rather than simply assume the conclusion.
But the connection itself isn’t something we have to invent.
Matthew explicitly quotes Isaiah after Jesus heals the sick:
“He Himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses.” — Matthew 8:17
And Isaiah’s suffering-servant passage brings sin and sickness language strikingly close together.
That makes your communion question legitimate:
Why have we developed a robust theology of what the blood means for sin while sometimes barely asking what the body means for sickness?
Especially when Jesus says:
“This is My body, which is given for you.”
And there’s an even deeper New Covenant contrast
Jeremiah’s promise of the New Covenant concludes:
“I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.” — Jeremiah 31:34
Hebrews quotes it and then says:
“Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.” — Hebrews 10:17
And then:
“Now where there is remission of these, there is no longer an offering for sin.” — Hebrews 10:18
That is enormous.
No more sacrifice because the sacrifice actually worked.
So perhaps your communion framework develops like this:
The blood doesn’t testify that God has learned to tolerate my sinful identity. It testifies that sin has been remitted—released, forgiven, dealt with through the once-for-all sacrifice of Christ.
And therefore my confession isn’t:
“I’m still fundamentally the old sinner, but thankfully I’m covered.”
It’s:
“The old man was crucified with Christ. Sin’s dominion has been broken. I have been reconciled, cleansed, made righteous, and brought into covenant union with Him.”
Then the cup becomes much more than “Thank You for forgiving the bad things I’ve done.”
It becomes covenant identification with an entirely new relationship to sin.
And I think that’s exactly where your two communion threads converge:
The blood speaks to more than forgiveness of individual acts; the body speaks to more than remembering physical suffering. Together they proclaim the comprehensiveness of the finished work and our covenant identification with the One who accomplished it.
That would be worth developing next alongside Passover, because the Exodus imagery may strengthen your point considerably: the Passover wasn’t merely about Israel having its sins forgiven. It was deliverance from an entire realm of bondage into a new covenant identity and life.