There is one more issue I think we should discuss before we get to the burial and resurrection of Christ. Knowing that Satan (and religion in general) would try to pervert the meaning of the events of the cross and the importance of His spiritual death by emphasizing the significance of His blood, Christ provided proof that He did not bleed to death. As we have already discussed, unlike the sacrificial animals of the Old Covenant, His literal blood had no spiritual significance whatsoever.
Instead of slumping sideways when He dismissed His soul and spirit, Jesus thrust His head and therefore, his body, forward. In John 19:30 it says, "He bowed His head". The verb klino indicates that He deliberately placed His head in a forward position. This is what caused His body to be leaning in the specific way that it was when the soldier thrust his spear into Jesus’ chest, setting up a clear demonstration for all to see and for John to record in John 19:34.
"But one of the soldiers pierced His chest with a spear and there was an immediate rush of blood clots and serum from the wound."
The Greek noun pleura in this verse should not be translated "side". It specifically refers to the chest cavity. The soldier’s spear penetrated upward under Christ’s rib cage without breaking any bones (none were to be broken, Psalms 34:20) and lacerated His heart. And it is John’s description of what came from the wound that is significant. He doesn’t describe two separate elements (as blood and water in the KJV), but instead, he describes the condition of one element – the blood in Jesus’ dead body.
What John describes is the natural form that whole blood takes when it coagulates, separating into red clots and a clear, yellowish liquid. The soldiers were trained to recognize death and when death was suspected to carry out the necessary examination to confirm it. This is why the soldier did what is recorded in the verse above. To anyone viewing from a distance (as John was) or to anyone examining closely (as the soldiers were doing), to see blood separated into clots and serum is absolute proof of physical death.
Now, for the blood inside anyone’s body to have precipitated into this form, he must have died suddenly and he could not have bled to death. If someone bleeds to death, clots and serum do not form inside the body. The blood simply exits the body from the wound or wounds in the same whole, red form you would see if you cut your finger. In spite of the physical torture Christ received during His trials and then on the cross, His physical death came suddenly when, with complete self-control and clarity of mind, He sent away His soul and spirit. Certainly, He did bleed from the wounds He received, but those wounds did not kill Him.
Blood clots do not form from either external bleeding or internal hemorrhaging. The sight of blood clots and serum coming from the wound inflicted by the soldier not only confirmed that Jesus was, in fact, dead; they also confirm that He could not have bled to death. In order for a large quantity of separated blood to flow from a wound, a large vessel had to be severed. Furthermore, there had to be a large quantity of blood still present in the upper chest cavity. Also, this separated blood had to have been cut off and prevented from draining into the abdominal cavity and lower extremities. And what could keep this concentration of blood clots and serum from exiting the chest cavity?
Only with His body thrust forward would Christ’s diaphragm shut off the downward flow of blood and expose clear definition of His rib cage, giving the soldier a perfect target – His heart. The exact, deliberate way in which Christ positioned His body gave us this vivid, eyewitness proof of His physical death and how He died, forever recorded by John in the Word of God, who attests to the accuracy of his account (John 19:35).
But in spite of this record, Roman Catholic doctrine insists that Christ carried His blood with Him to heaven in a bowl. Of course, by saying this, they absolutely refute the spiritual death of Christ on the cross and go out of their way to place significance on the physical blood, and therefore the physical death of Christ – a significance that does not exist in truth. Probably without even realizing its source, many fundamentalist and evangelical groups cling to this doctrine born of ignorance and superstition in the Dark Ages by perpetuating various forms of religious mysticism around the physical blood of the Lord.
As has already been noted, when Jesus’ work was finished, He presented Himself to the Father and was welcomed. His acceptance by the Father had nothing to do with His literal blood, nor did He take any of that blood with Him. His acceptance by the Father was based on the fact that Jesus Christ had met the demands of a holy, righteous and just God and had paid the full penalty for the sins of mankind in the only way that was possible – through His spiritual death.
When Jesus Christ entered heaven He carried not blood, but the fact that He had fully satisfied the Father’s plan. His salvation work was completed. The enmity that had existed between God and man had been removed. Reconciliation had been accomplished (Ephesians 2:13-16) through the "blood of Christ" (verse 13). But it wasn’t the red liquid that flowed through Jesus’ body that satisfied the Father. So, again, let me remind you: in the Old Testament, the blood of sacrificial animals was literal and the judgment was symbolic, but on the cross the blood was symbolic, while the judgment was literal. And when you see the term “blood of Christ” in the New Testament it must be understood that it is a synonym for the true saving work of Christ on the cross – His spiritual death.