Blood
Songs of Worship
I have noticed that more and more songs about the blood of Jesus are being played on Christian radio. This could be good, but I am worried about some of the theology that is being propagated.
Some songs seem to confuse the blood of Jesus with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the one who carries all the power of God, so the blood of Jesus is not the power of God. When songs speak of the power of the blood, they might be claiming that the blood of Jesus was effective for the purpose for which it was shed, but some songs seem to go beyond that.
The blood that gives me strength from day to day
It will never lose its power (Andraé Crouch – The Blood Will Never Lose Its Power).
Your blood will never lose its power.
Your blood will never lose.
Your victory will stand forever.
Your blood will never lose (Rend Collective - Your Royal Blood)
Providing power for daily life is not the purpose of the blood of Jesus. It is the Holy Spirit who gives us power from day to day. He will never lose his power. Confusing the blood of Jesus with the power of the Holy Spirit is a mistake.
Some songs verge on worship of Jesus’ blood.
The blood, the blood, the blood
Oh, the wonderful blood (Tiffany Hudson-The Wonderful Blood).
Followers of Jesus should only worship God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit).
When I went to the New Testament, I was surprised at how little mention the blood of Jesus receives. I will analyse these mentions in the remainder of this article.
Lost Blood
An important thing to note from the New Testament account of Jesus’s death is that his blood was not captured. Jesus lost a significant amount of blood when he was beaten almost to death by Pilate’s soldiers. He would have bled further when nails were driven through his feet and wrists. This blood all trickled down onto the ground and was lost.
A victim of crucifixion dies when lifting their body to inhale air becomes too difficult, and their heart and brain run out of oxygen. No blood flows. When Jesus breathed his last breath and died, the centurion pierced his side with a spear to ensure that he was dead. Blood and water ran out and would have trickled onto the ground, and would have been lost. This is a contrast with Old Testament sacrifices.
When sacrifices were offered in the Old Testament tabernacle, the animal’s throat was cut, and the blood that flowed was caught in a vessel so it could be poured against the altar. Jesus’ blood was not captured, so it does not exist now (unless Jesus’ resurrected spiritual body has the equivalent of spiritual blood). So, the blood of Jesus is not available for use now. Everything it achieved had to be achieved at the time of the cross, when it was shed.
Death of the Person
In the New Testament, the word “blood” is a shorthand way of referring to the death of a person. The following are just a few of the many instances.
The expression “blood of the prophets” refers to the prophets being killed.
Therefore this generation will be held responsible for the blood of all the prophets (Luke 11:50).
And so upon you will come all the righteous blood that has been shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Berekiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar (Matthew 23:35).
When Judas told the Jewish leaders he had betrayed innocent blood, he was admitting that he contributed to Jesus’ death.
“I have sinned,” he said, “for I have betrayed innocent blood (Matt 27:4).
Pilate said he was “innocent of Jesus’s blood, as a way of claiming to be innocent of his death.
When Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere, but that instead an uproar was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd. “I am innocent of this man’s blood (Matt 27:24).
The people said the Jesus blood was on them to indicate that they were responsible for Jesus’ death.
All the people answered, “His blood is on us and on our children (Matt 27:25).
The Jewish leaders said Peter and James were trying to make them guilty of Jesus’ blood. They believed they were being accused of responsibility for his death.
“You are determined to make us guilty of this man’s blood.” (Acts 5:28).
The death of Stephen was referred to as his blood.
And when the blood of your martyr Stephen was shed (Acts 22:20).
The book of Revelation refers to the deaths of the martyrs as their blood (Rev 6:10).
In her was found the blood of prophets and of God’s holy people, of all who have been slaughtered on the earth (Rev 18:24).
He has avenged on her the blood of his servants (Rev 19:2).
In all these verses from across the New Testament, the word “blood” refers to the death of a person.
The implication of this is that many of the references to blood in the New Testament refer to Jesus’ death, rather than to his blood as such.
What Blood Achieves
New Testament verses that describe what the blood of Jesus achieved cover four main themes.
1. Redemption
The achievement that is described most frequently in the New Testament is “redemption”. This is an economic term. In the Old Testament, a person who fell into poverty and was sold into slavery could be redeemed by someone in their family. The family member would pay a fee to the person who owned the slave to set them free from their enslavement.
The New Testament explains that we were redeemed, or bought back, by Jesus’ blood. To realise the significance of this achievement, we need to understand whose power we were redeemed from.
A redemption fee is paid to someone who has the power to keep the people under their control from being freed. When humans rejected God’s way and fell into sin, they did not just oppose God. They fell under the control of the spiritual powers of evil, who refused to set them free again unless a redemption fee was paid to them. The fee that they demanded was blood. Jesus shed his blood to redeem us (set us free) from the control of the spiritual powers of evil.
Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood (Acts 20:28).
In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace (Eph 1:7)
He entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption (Heb 9:12).
You were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect (1 Peter 1:18-19).
You were slain, and with your blood you purchased for God persons from every tribe and language and people and nation (Rev 5:9).
This redemption blood payment was partially fulfilled during the first Passover when the destroyer (one of the spiritual powers of evil) was prevented from killing the firstborn of Israel by the blood of the lamb on a doorpost. It seems that the spiritual powers of evil accepted the blood of the lamb as a down payment on Jesus’ blood.
By faith he kept the Passover and the application of blood, so that the destroyer of the firstborn would not touch the firstborn of Israel (Heb 11:28).
The book of Revelation confirms that the saints defeated the dragon (representing the spiritual powers of evil) by the blood of Jesus.
They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony (Rev 12:11).
The redemption fee paid by Jesus destroyed the authority of the spiritual powers of evil because they lost their right to control humans under their power.
The letter to the Romans says something similar.
Much more then, having now been put right by His blood, we shall be rescued from Wrath through Him (Rom 5:9)?
Wrath is a powerful cosmos dominator spirit that dominated the world during the season prior to the cross. Jesus’ death rescued humans from his power.
I explained how blood works for redemption in Why Blood?
The spiritual powers of evil demand blood, partly because they like the grisliness of bloodshed, but mostly because they want the death of all humans to remove the people whom God gave authority on earth. The death of God, who had become man, fully satisfied their demands.
2. Reconciliation
Human sin created enmity between humans and God. It also created enmity between humans.
But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ (Eph 2:13).
Through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross (Col 1:20).
Jesus’ death made peace between us and God. I think these verses are using the expression blood to refer to Jesus’ death. It was his death that reconciled us with God, not his blood. One thing is clear. God does not demand Blood.
3. Cleansing
One of the effects of human sin is that it contaminates us in a way that gives the spiritual powers of evil the power to attack us. I described how this works in Pure and Impure. Cleansing the tabernacle was the purpose of the Day of Cleansing. The contamination of sin causes humans to feel guilty and fearful of God. Jesus shed his blood to set us free from this impurity.
How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God (Heb 9:14).
The blood of Jesus, his Son cleanses us from all sin 1 John 1:7).
And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people pure through his own blood (Heb 13:12).
Jesus’ blood cleanses us from the contamination of sin and makes us pure.
This is the message of Romans 3:25, although it is not well understood.
God presented Christ as a mercy seat, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith (Rom 3:25).
The mercy seat was the lid of the covenant box in the tabernacle where God dwelt. Blood was not offered on it. On the Day of Cleansing, blood was sprinkled on the gold altar beside it. This was done to cleanse the Holy of Holies from any contamination due to the sins of the people.
Jesus death on the cross purifies us from the contamination of sin and allows us to become the temple of the Holy Spirit. Sin empowers the spiritual powers of evil, because it gives them access to human lives. Blood is the redemption fee that they demanded. Jesus’ death satisfied their demands, which disempowered them.
4. Lord’s Supper and Covenant Renewal
Many of the references to blood in the New Testament refer to the Lord’s Supper. When Jesus celebrated his Last Supper with his disciples, he referred to his blood. Mark, Matthew and Hebrews describe the wine that Jesus shared as the “blood of the covenant.
This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many (Mark 14:24, Mat 26:28).
This is the blood of the covenant, which God has commanded you to keep (Hebrews 9:20).
Luke and Paul referred to the “new covenant in my blood.
In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you” (Luke 22:20).
In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me (1 Cor 11:25).
In the book of Hebrews, it is described as the “blood of the eternal covenant”.
Now may the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus (Heb 13:20).
The relationship between blood and the new covenant is explained in Hebrews.
This is why even the first covenant was not put into effect without blood. When Moses had proclaimed every command of the law to all the people, he took the blood of calves, together with water, scarlet wool and branches of hyssop, and sprinkled the scroll and all the people (Heb 9:18-19).
In Old Testament times, a covenant was established by an action involving blood, usually the blood of an animal. When God established his covenant with the children of Israel, Moses sprinkled the blood of a calf on the document recording the covenant and on the people themselves. Allowing themselves to be sprinkled with blood, the people committed to obeying the law that God had announced to them (Ex 24:6-8, Deut 29:25).
Jesus established a new covenant by dying on the cross, but his blood was not sprinkled on his followers. Instead, before he died, he established a shared meal for his followers in which a cup of wine would be shared, representing the blood he shared on the cross. The “blood of the covenant” that we drink together is the equivalent of the blood that was sprinkled to establish the old covenant. The new covenant had a better symbolism to mark its fulfilment.
The cup shared at the Lord’s Supper is a “cup of thanksgiving”.
Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ (1 Cor 10:16)?
The cup is filled with wine. There is no blood in the cup. Thanksgiving looks back to something that has happened in the past. The benefits gained by the shedding of Jesus’ blood were achieved when he died. He does not repeat the suffering in the present. Rather, he encourages us to look back on what he did for us with thanksgiving.
The other important word in this verse is “participation”. When we drink from the cup of wine during the Lord’s supper, we are declaring our participation in what Jesus achieved on our behalf. We died with Jesus, so we can live with him. This was confirmed in John 6:53-58.
Confusion
The danger in tending to worship “the blood” or turning it into something magical is that it minimises what Jesus did. We were rescued by Jesus. His blood did not rescue us. Jesus’ blood did not feel any pain when he was beaten by the Romans and hung on the cross. The pain of his beating and death was registered in his mind. He paid the price by experiencing this pain. His blood did not feel it. Jesus felt it. Jesus is the one we should worship. His Holy Spirit is the one who can empower us.
Pleading the Blood
A common practice amongst evangelical Christians is “pleading the blood”. I am ambivalent about this practice, as it does not seem to be biblical. The phrase “pleading the blood” is not used in the New Testament. Claiming the covering of the blood” (or being “under the blood”) is closely related to “pleading the blood”, but “claiming the blood” is not mentioned in the New Testament either.
These phrases are mostly used in spiritual warfare. Modern Christians frequently “declare the blood” or claim the “covering of the blood” as a defence against demonic influence or temptation. Since spiritual warfare is serious, I believe that we should base our defensive posture on the clear teaching of the scripture (see Personal Protection).
Paul gave clear teaching about spiritual warfare in Ephesians 6. The main protections against spiritual attack are the shield of faith and the sword of the Spirit (which is the word of God). Our spiritual protection comes from declaring the word of God and standing in faith. 1 Peter 5:9 and James 4:7 confirm that we defeat the powers of evil by resisting them in faith. This is not something we just do as individuals; it is something we do with a body of believers. Strong protection comes together by standing together with other followers of Jesus who are committed to loving us in him (see Spiritual Protection).
Words are not magic. Using words that we do not understand to resist evil is a risky game. Pleading the blood is a fairly vague way of resisting the powers of evil and standing on faith. When resisting the enemy with prayer, we should be more precise about what we are doing.