As I explained in the second part of this episode, in terms of dates of composition, Paul’s letters are the oldest writings in the New Testament. From this historical fact, and other data, we could conclude that Paul— as some New Testament scholars believe—was the true creator of the religion that arose after the death of Jesus, perhaps without intending to be. This is due to the strong influence his letters exerted on his followers, at least on some of the writers whose books were later gathered into the canon. This possible conclusion is reinforced by an honest reading of the Gospel narrative, where we do not see that Jesus had, as His purpose, to found a new religion, but rather to continue devotion to the one God—yet in a different way than what was traditionally taught. Jesus was a son of Adam transformed back to our true spiritual origin, at least inwardly. That was part of the fulfillment of the promise the Creator gave to Adam and to his descendants—us—when he was exiled from the Garden of the Kingdom to this earth.
Jesus was not religious, but spiritual. That means He clearly distinguished between living according to the Spirit and living according to religion. In fact, a person can be deeply religious and have no relationship with God at all. That is why in the Gospels—not in Paul’s writings—we see a man who openly confronts the human traditions of His time, saying, for example, that they invalidated God’s commandment through their traditions. This was because men’s customs had become intertwined with divine commandments, displacing the Voice of the Creator and granting greater authority to human interpretations. The result was that the Voice of God was silenced. And when two opposing voices present themselves as true—the voice of man and the voice of God—one should prevail. If both are maintained at the same time, what is produced is doctrinal incoherence. That is what happened with the coexistence of the doctrine of repentance and the doctrine of redemption by blood: two irreconcilable approaches that cannot be held together without contradiction.
That incompatibility also began with the belief that the ritual of sacrifices came from God. But when God Himself clarified—through Jeremiah and other prophets—that these were not His commands and were not part of the Covenant, that truth was silenced by the voice of man. The system continued its course without being eliminated, and it even reached the time of Paul and the author of Hebrews, who apparently still believed the ritual came from the divine Source. Thus, two opposing beliefs remained coexisting within the same doctrinal body: one based on the prophetic voice that denounced sacrifice as human tradition; the other that made it the central axis of redemption. This contradiction not only creates incoherence; it damages the credibility of the spiritual message. The result of maintaining both ideas as if they were compatible is deeply harmful, both to the integrity of the Word of God and to the soul of the sincere believer who perceives that spiritual dissonance. Even if they are taught together, the doctrines of sacrifice as the means of salvation and repentance as the path to reconciliation cannot coexist without canceling each other out. Pauline redemption by blood can only stand if repentance ceases to be necessary. That is why Paul never taught reconciliation with God through forgiveness granted to a repentant heart.
When a person has not yet reconciled with the Source, their spirit has not been transformed or strengthened by the Spirit of God. Yet they can still perceive, from the outside, the conflict within. And it is precisely this lack of coherence that pushes them away. The soul perceives the contradiction, and instead of drawing near to truth, it withdraws. Because where it should find light and meaning, it finds confusion.
Using God’s words in Isaiah, Jesus reminded the people of His generation of what God had said: “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. They worship me in vain, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.” When the word doctrine is used here, it implies “doctrines of God.” That is, they were teaching human traditions as God’s wisdom. Jesus knew that truth clearly, and He told them so.
God’s words are sent, among other reasons, to divide the carnal from the spiritual, so that false beliefs may be corrected. The spiritual and the carnal are like water and oil. The carnal fights within the person who has not been transformed so that the spiritual part remains asleep. We know Jesus’ sayings were very offensive, because God’s words scandalized them and pierced like a double-edged sword through their religious pride. Religion was created by man’s arrogance. It has a carnal origin or root. It is not spiritual. It did not come from God. Jesus’ purpose was that they would recognize the error. The spiritual person is meek and humble of heart. If warned of an error— and we all commit them because we are imperfect created beings in this body— he evaluates it and changes. The Scriptural saying that man’s arrogance makes him fall is true. The first step toward inner healing of any kind is to recognize the error or the problem. The one who does not do so does not prosper. For example, the first step for healing in a person dependent on alcohol or drugs is accepting their bondage. In other words, we must recognize what binds us in order to change and progress. The religious generation of that time did not recognize it.
The doctrine of salvation by blood presents me with a serious problem, because according to Paul it was given to him by direct revelation from Jesus after His death, and the Jesus I see in the New Testament said the following in Matthew: “If you knew what this means: ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice,’ you would not condemn the innocent.” This phrase comes from Hosea chapter six, which begins with an invitation to return to the Lord: “Come, let us return to the Lord. He has torn us, but He will heal us; He has struck us, but He will bind us up. In a moment He will restore us; He will raise us up to live before Him.” Returning to the Lord implies that before we had moved away from Him, taking a wrong path. Jeremiah expresses it another way: “When one falls, he gets up; when he loses the way, he returns to it.” Or in another wording: “When people fall, do they not get up again? When one goes astray, do they not return to the way?” This has nothing to do with sacrificial rituals for sin, but with the inner recognition that one chose the wrong path. Later in the same prophet, God reproaches them that their love and faithfulness are fleeting, and He tells them what He wants: “What I want from you is that you love me, and not that you make sacrifices; that you acknowledge me as God, and not that you offer me burnt offerings. But my people, like Adam, have broken my covenant and have been unfaithful to me.” Jesus knew very well God’s words in Hosea: He did not want animal sacrifice rituals, but sincere inner conversion. Moreover, Jesus taught reconciliation through forgiveness: “And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” If Jesus taught that forgiveness, mercy, and love are what God wants—and not sacrifices—how could we believe that after His death He revealed to Paul the opposite?
Paul presents a very confusing exposition of his doctrine because when he speaks of “the law,” he does not explain which part of the law he means. Paul throws everything into one bag under the name “the law,” and that law is not always the same. When Paul speaks of “works of the law,” he could be referring to moral works such as doing justice, telling the truth, or helping one’s neighbor. Other times he would be speaking of “works of the law” referring to the commands of the religious system of his time. He says: “It is not those who hear the law who are righteous before God, but those who do the law will be justified.” That is unquestionably the moral law. Yet he contradicts himself when he says: “By works of the law no human being will be justified before Him, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.” Clear contradiction. Here he is not talking about ritual, because the law through which knowledge of sin comes is moral, not ritual. The passage he wrote in Galatians 2:21—“I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for nothing”—which law is he referring to here? This law is the law of sacrifices, where man returned to “righteousness” through the slaughter of an animal and the shedding of its blood. He cannot be speaking about the moral law, such as not committing perjury or not coveting what belongs to another, because that is the only law that does not change. It is the spiritual law of the Kingdom of God. When the transgressing angel and the first created pair violated that Law, they were expelled from the Kingdom. The law he mentions in Galatians—without clarifying it—is the law of sacrifices, and that law was disauthorized by God through the prophets. Paul’s doctrines are confusing because he mixes the true Law of God—the moral laws—with man’s laws: animal sacrifices as redemption.
Personally, I believe that in Galatians, when he says “then Christ died for nothing,” he is reflecting on the reason for Jesus’ death. He finds no meaning in it unless he interprets it as the true sacrifice for forgiveness—following the Levitical logic of sacrifices. However, his statement that “the doers of the law will be justified” is correct, because that is the moral law and that does not change. God forgives us, but if we return to the same path we left—the works of injustice we practiced—we separate ourselves again from His love and forgiveness fades. Paul had great difficulty understanding why Jesus died as He did. In the Hebrew understanding, Jesus died as “cursed”: “cursed is the one who dies on a tree.” That did not fit in Paul’s mind. I truly believe he was trying to find a theological justification.
God spoke clearly, but human beings complicated what is simple, mixing the divine with human ideas. These have distorted the image of God’s character and have driven away many potential believers. One of the greatest lacks in the human being is the lack of love and the need to be loved. Who would draw near to a god who demands the shedding of animal blood to satisfy his thirst for justice and grant forgiveness? That ritualistic image of God—demanding, bloodthirsty, transactional—completely contradicts the image revealed by the prophets: a God who forgives the contrite heart, who calls to dialogue and not to slaughter. In that framework, the God presented by Levitical laws appears as a strict judge who demands specific payments for transgressions; a being pacified by blood and by the smell of burned fat, where animal sacrifice—and later, according to Paul, Jesus’ sacrifice—is seen as the condition for reconciliation with Him. A conditional God whose mercy depends on precise compliance with a physical ritual—or on someone’s death—when He told us He does not want the wicked to die, but to reconcile and stop doing evil; a God who said human sacrifices were atrocious; a God who repeatedly said sacrifices did not interest Him. Yet we were handed, as “the love of God,” the unjust death of a righteous man. Is that love? Is it not injustice?
In the New Testament, Paul’s influence was decisive—not only in the salvation doctrine that arose after Jesus’ death (a doctrine that emerged first from him and then from the author of Hebrews), but also in norms regarding family relationships and the behavior of women. Many of those norms were common in the Greco-Roman culture of the time. That early influence shaped the direction of many later teachings, as we will see next.
We know from the writer of 2 Peter that there were many who, as he wrote, did not understand what Paul meant in his doctrines—and from what he says, many had read Paul’s letters by the time this author wrote, without understanding what he meant. That lack of understanding of Pauline doctrines is, for that writer—who expresses it with a hint of arrogance—wisdom inaccessible to the ignorant; for me, it is simply incoherence and contradiction.
Here a bit of historical context regarding the authenticity of the letter is necessary. Although its heading says, “Simon Peter, servant and apostle of Jesus Christ,” Second Peter is one of the most disputed books of the New Testament. Although it claims to have been written by the apostle, a witness of the transfiguration and servant of Jesus, most biblical scholars agree it was likely written by someone else decades later, using Peter’s name to give authority to the message.
Researchers such as Ehrman, Bauckham, and Metzger have pointed out that its style, vocabulary, and content reflect a period and theology later than Peter’s. For example, Ehrman classifies 2 Peter as pseudepigraphy—that is, a work written by someone pretending to be someone else. And Metzger states that it was the most debated and latest accepted letter in the canon, and that its marked differences from 1 Peter make it very unlikely that both come from the same author. But this is not only a modern conclusion. Already in antiquity, the silence of Irenaeus (second century)—who never mentions it despite citing many other letters—suggests it was not known or not accepted in his environment. Later, Origen (third century) openly acknowledges the doubt in his time: “Peter… left one letter acknowledged. Perhaps also a second, for it is not accepted by all as authentic.” And Eusebius of Caesarea, in the fourth century, wrote: “Of the so-called catholic epistles, the one called the second of Peter has not been accepted as authentic by many.”
This practice can be considered a form of spiritual identity appropriation, since the author not only adopts Peter’s name, but claims to have been present at intimate moments with Jesus to support what he writes. He explicitly says: “We were eyewitnesses of his majesty… when we were with him on the holy mountain.” That is claiming experiences Peter lived—such as the transfiguration—and presenting them as one’s own to legitimize the message.
This kind of statement leaves no doubt: the text wants the reader to believe they are hearing the true apostle, although everything indicates it was not so. It is interesting to note that the writer of 2 Peter, though he has read Paul’s letters, steps away from the subject of salvation by not speaking of repentance or redemption by blood. The only thing he mentions is purification from former sins. There is no mention of Jesus’ sacrifice as the basis of redemption, no teaching about the cross as substitution, no exposition of faith in blood as the means of salvation. He rejects false teachers who live in debauchery, but he does not offer as the solution the blood of Christ; rather, he points to godliness and knowledge. What does this tell us? That the author, though living in a Christianity where Paul is influential, does not adopt Paul’s sacrificial theology and maintains a message closer to an ethic of conduct. That could indicate either that he belonged to a Christian community that knew Paul but did not follow him blindly, or that the concept of “salvation by blood” had not yet been universalized even well into the second century.
Regarding authors who seem to adopt the Pauline doctrine of redemption by blood and not reconciliation through repentance, we find: the author of Hebrews, the first letter attributed to Peter, the author of Revelation, and the author of 1 John. All of them express, in different tones, the idea that Jesus’ death was a necessary sacrifice for the expiation of sins, aligning themselves with the sacrificial thinking Paul promoted in his writings.
The other New Testament writings do not develop or openly sustain this doctrine. The Synoptic Gospels (Mark, Matthew, and Luke) and the Gospel of John do not present the cross as a sacrifice for sins, but as the tragic end of a confrontation with the religious and political authorities of their time.
— In Mark 14:24, Jesus says: “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.” This phrase could be interpreted as sacrificial, but it does not say it is a sacrifice for sin, nor does it mention expiation. Moreover, many ancient manuscripts do not even include the phrase “for the remission of sins,” suggesting it may have been a later addition with liturgical or theological coloring.
The Gospels do not build a doctrine of blood as redemption in a Pauline manner. Although some phrases were later used by theologians to support that doctrine, their original content and context do not justify a sacrificial reading without forcing the text. This is seen clearly in Mark. He does not explain what that covenant is or what relation it would have to blood. The phrase seems detached, and its interpretation was shaped later by Paul’s theology. If it is read as an expiatory sacrifice replacing the ritual animal, then it fits Paul’s doctrine of redemption by blood. But that doctrine is human in origin, not divine. According to Jeremiah, Isaiah, Hosea, and other prophets, God never ordered sacrifices nor included them as part of His covenant with the people. Therefore, to connect this phrase to sacrificial logic not only fails to clarify Jesus’ message—it contaminates it with ideas the prophets had already denounced as false.
— In Luke 22:20 we find: “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.” It also does not develop an explicit sacrificial theology; it fits more within symbolic covenant language, not penal substitution.
— In John, there is no statement where Jesus declares that His death is to atone for sins. On the contrary, the Gospel emphasizes the revelation of truth, obedience to the Father, and the testimony of light against darkness.
Moreover, since Matthew and Luke are largely built upon Mark’s text, it is logical that they present similar or adapted versions of that phrase. But none of them develops or explains the content of that supposed covenant “in his blood,” which reinforces the idea that this theology did not come from Jesus but from later doctrinal development.
Nevertheless, when analyzing only the content of 1 John, the author—although adopting the idea of redemption by blood—does not set aside repentance. He writes: “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” At the same time he speaks of redemption by blood, showing the influence of Paul’s gospel, he also exhorts repentance. This is the combination of two doctrines: one is the Levitical sacrificial doctrine denounced by God through Jeremiah as outside the Alliance; the other is the prophetic doctrine of salvation through repentance. That is the evident contradiction. If we must repent, redemption by blood has no value. If the blood has redemptive value, we do not need to repent. So when Paul says, “then Christ died in vain,” he is saying that if his interpretation is not real, Jesus died in vain—revealing that he would not understand His death. This is because, in the context of the time, those who believed Jesus was the expected Messiah did not understand how He could die without fulfilling what the writings said about him. Most religious people of that time expected a human Messiah, descended from David, who would restore the kingdom of Israel, defeat the oppressors, and reign politically in Jerusalem. He was not seen as a divine figure or as a savior who had to die for the sins of the people.
Jesus, in His own way, also placed the sacrificial ritual outside the Law of God and the Prophets when He said they nullified the Law of God by their traditions. He also affirmed that He did not come to abolish “the Law and the Prophets,” which many interpret as affirming the entire Torah. But if we believe the sacrificial system truly belonged to that Law of God—which He said He would not abolish—then the sacrificial ritual would have to continue, because Leviticus teaches clearly that those sacrificial laws were a “perpetual statute” for Israel. That is, they were not provisional or symbolic, but commands established forever, according to the text itself. Therefore, abolishing sacrifices would imply abolishing God’s Law. And that creates a contradiction: Jesus said He did not come to abolish the Law. Paul and the author of Hebrews claimed the sacrificial laws were part of that same divine Law. Yet they were abolished by the perfect sacrifice of the cross. There was no longer any need for sacrifices for sin. This reveals that Jesus—who said He did not come to abolish the Law—could not have taught the elimination of the sacrificial system if that system truly was part of the Law He spoke of.
We are not told that Jesus offered sacrifices or ordered others to do so, not even on the many occasions He was in the Temple. Moreover, we have clear evidence in Mark 7 that Jesus taught that this sacrificial system was part of human tradition, not the true will of God. In the following passage in Mark, He criticizes religious leaders for allowing someone to excuse themselves from helping their parents by declaring their goods as corban—that is, an offering dedicated to God. Jesus responds: “Thus you nullify the commandment of God by your tradition.” The term corban did not refer only to money; it also referred to material goods and animals consecrated for sacrifice in the Temple system. By calling that practice a tradition of men, Jesus was stripping the sacrificial system of all divine authority. What the people considered sacred and a “commandment of God” because it was in the Torah, Jesus identified as a human practice—even as an excuse to evade true obedience.
This act—placing the sacrificial system outside the Law of God—was not declared with trumpets, but it was expressed through words and actions. Jesus did not abolish the Law; He purified it. He separated what was truly from God from what the people had adopted as sacred though it was not. Paul, by contrast, has an unresolved problem between what Jesus taught in life and what he claims was revealed to him after Jesus’ death.
Redemption by blood, which Paul presents as the center of his gospel, was not taught by Jesus during His ministry. On the contrary, Jesus distanced Himself from the sacrificial system and called it human tradition. Yet Paul claims to have received directly from Jesus a post-mortem theology in which His blood replaces the Temple sacrifices. This is a clear opposition: what Jesus taught in life and what—according to Paul—He commanded after His death do not agree. Paul did not continue Jesus’ message; he replaced it with a new one, centered on a ritual theology Jesus never taught.