“Why do Christians talk so much about “the blood of Jesus?”

    Here are a few thoughts for my non-evangelical friends who may have wondered “Why do Christians talk so much about “the blood of Jesus?”   

I often wonder what non-Christians think when they hear us talk and even sing about the blood of Jesus.   I can understand if they find it strange even to the point of sickeningly weird (especially when I hear the way “the BLOOOOD” is sometimes uttered with modifications of the voice).  After all, blood has some pretty disgusting things associated with it: hemorrhagic diseases,  occult sacrifices, leeches, HIV, bloody noses, car crashes, crime scenes, battlefields, and shootouts (especially when filmed in slow motion!), to name a few.   Christians may sing about “a fountain filled with blood” but we don’t normally associate great quantities of blood with anything good unless we are the Red Cross at the end of a drive. 

To listen to many of the more recent songs and hear what many Christians say, you would think that the actual blood of Jesus, the fluid with its plasma and corpuscles, has some mystical, magical, and divine power within it.  For instance, to talk about the power of “one drop of Jesus’ blood” to save, heal, defeat the devil, etc., is to attribute to the physical substance of Jesus’ blood powers which ordinary human blood does not possess.  But the phrase “the blood of Jesus” is not about the blood per se, but the fact that “the blood of Jesus” is a figure of speech (a metonym) to indicate the entirety of “the death of Jesus.”  To be more precise, it means the death of Jesus suffered as a violent punishment for sin according to the loving determination of God the Father to give His Son and of the Son freely to become incarnate for the purpose of living the life that sinners needed to live and dying the death sinners deserved to die so that they could be saved.  If you want to really understand what all these Bible verses mean, and what the song lyrics, if accurate, ought to mean, then mentally cut out “blood” and paste in “God’s gift of His Son as the substitute sufferer of the death penalty deserved by sinners like me.”  When you think this way as you read of the uses of actual blood in Old Testament worship and ritual, and you think of the many uses of the word “blood” in scripture, which are all metaphors for various aspects of God’s salvation, you will know why the precious blood is the theme of countless Christian sermons and songs.

Some of you may be ready to quit reading because you reject the idea of people suffering for sin at all, others because you reject the idea of God accepting, let alone sending, a substitute sufferer.  Please bear with me.  My purpose today is simply to explain the biblical expression, “the blood of Jesus.”  The proof that this is both consistent with the goodness of God and absolutely necessary in this universe of which He is Creator and Lord is quite easy, and a good subject for another day.  For today, let’s just observe that if we grant the definition of “the blood” given above, then you will see that all the uses of the term in scripture coalesce in a beautiful harmony and all the depth of devotion to the phrase by believers through the centuries makes perfect sense. 

Let’s consider the main forms of expression of “the blood” in scripture.  Four  principles must be born in mind. 1)  Right at the beginning we see that “blood” has a significance beyond the mere physical fluid.  Upon the occasion of the first murder, the murder of Able by Cain, God says, “the voice of your brother’s blood cries up from the ground.”  Like evidence in a crime scene, Able’s blood speaks loudly that an unnatural death has occurred, a life has been taken, and justice must be done.  2) Further, in a number of ways God early taught that the shedding of human blood is a most serious matter; if not done in the execution of true justice it is a high crime against God.  A number of Old Testament laws were clearly designed to demonstrate this sacredness of life and the special seriousness and significance of bloodshed.  This is in keeping with the principle taught throughout the Bible sin is serious also, so serious that it requires punishment by death.  3) However, from the very beginning the Bible taught that God could and would, in grace motivated mercy, appoint and accept the death of an innocent substitute in the place of the guilty sinner.  Through cross-imputation, the demerit, the blame, of the sinner would be accredited to the worthy willing victim, and the innocence or merit of the victim would be counted to the sinner. This promise of this function of the coming divine Messiah in the making of this “great exchange” was renewed with every animal sacrifice He ordained for observance by His people.    4) Finally, from the beginning, God taught that the death of the divinely provided substitute made a huge multifaceted difference for those for whom it was performed.  As sin against God has various effects in the relation of the sinner to God, so the death of the substitute made a multifaceted difference.  It is this multifaceted significance which explains the wide metaphorical use of the term “blood” in scripture and in the hymns of believers. 

One cannot appreciate the biblical significance of the blood of Jesus apart from the context of the multifaceted effects of man’s fall into sin, so let’s recall what the Bible teaches about that.  Man was created for the purpose of life in joyous fellowship with the God who deserved His utter love and trust, shown in obedience.  He had been created in God’s image, to manifest that glorious reality by using his body and mind in a holy society to exercise godlike dominion and care over God’s creation unto God’s glory.  But man believed the devil and rejected the wisdom and authority and worthiness of His Father and Creator. The result was disastrous: in the most tragic sense he “un-manned” himself.  Becoming guilty of sin (sin is a crime against the Creator whose Person and Will is the source and standard of all morality and justice), man became estranged from God, cursed in all areas over which he had been especially blessed.  Ruining that divine image he became corrupt in his nature (mind and heart) and a willing captive that corrupt nature and to the devil.  He brought death to his body and soul, and was ruined with regard to God’s high design for his relationships to his fellow man and his role for the rest of creation.  The “curse” extended to every aspect of everything touching the life of mankind.  Why sing about the blood of Christ?  Because the blood of Christ is God’s grace-motivated answer to sin and all its curse-consequences.  Let’s look at the more prominent ones.

First, the primary effect of sin, the root of all other effects of sin and the thing most necessary to be addressed in salvation from sin is guilt.  Not guilty feelings, which follow and also are remedied by the blood of Christ, but true guilt, the truly just liability to punishment.   The blood of Jesus deals with man’s guilt by being a “satisfaction” for his sin.  This means that Christ has fully performed, as a man for man, everything that God wanted from man and has, as man for man, suffered the penalty owed by man for sin.  God has received the honor owed to Him by his creature, man, and justice against the assault on that honor has been carried out.  As a result of this, God’s holy and just anger against the sinner for his sin is “turned away.”  This is the meaning of the biblical word “propitiation.”  As Paul the apostle wrote, believers are,

 justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; to declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. Ro 3:21–26

In Christianity, the problem is not how can a just God punish sinners, but how can a just God not punish sinners, since sin deserves to be punished.  This verse says God delayed the execution of his justice against sin in the past, remitted it, because its punishment would be carried out upon Jesus.  As seen here, God has demonstrated his justice in forgiving sinners by punishing their sins in another, Christ Jesus, who he “set forth,” i.e., provided, gave, to be a propitiation, i.e., an atonement-making, wrath-receiving, wrath-diverting sacrifice.  Since sin results in our being judged unrighteous before the Great Judge, the blood of Christ, representing all that Christ accomplished in his life and death, is said to provide “justification,” by being applied to believing sinners (symbolized and expressed metaphorically by “sprinkling”).  “Justified” is the legal verdict of not only “not guilty” but “Righteous!” – i.e., in perfect conformity to all God’s requirements.  Again, justification is a legal declaration that the sinner is judged to be perfectly in accord with God’s standard of righteousness because the perfect obedience of Christ’s entire life is imputed, i.e., credited, to him.   In this win-win way, justice is satisfied and demonstrated, and the guilty go free.  God is “just and the justifier.” God, in love, gave Jesus to die in our place resulting in justification, and justification results in our being “saved from wrath.” 

Here is another benefit:

But God commends his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.  Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.  For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.  And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement (Romans 5:8-11).

            The blood of Jesus results in even more than justification.  Justification announces that God is at peace regarding us, but “reconciliation” also means that He makes us to be at peace with Him.  The death of Christ has obtained for Him the role of dispensing the Holy Spirit to sinners, which results in their being created anew, given new spiritually-alive hearts, i.e., “born again,” which results in their seeing God in a new light and believing on Christ.  Reconciliation means that parties who were estranged, who have become enemies, are now back together as friends.  We are reconciled to God by the blood of Christ because the cause of our mutual estrangement has been taken away and exchanged for reasons for mutual delight.  Christ is said to “make peace” between us and God, to “bring us near.”  God views us righteous in Christ and we view Him as pacified and welcoming.  Indeed, even though He is awesome and holy and cannot look upon sin, we can stand in His presence, look up into His loving face, address Him as Father, and come confidently to Him in prayer, all thanks to the blood of Jesus.  This is a further exchange, the beginning of fellowship¸ or the mutual sharing of so many benefits of His grace for our need.  Moreover, it means the beginning of a complete spiritual transformation known is scripture as sanctification, which is the process which ultimately results in the complete restoration of our likeness of Christ.

             Another result of sin depicted in the Bible is “uncleanness.”  One common expression refers to being “cleansed” or “washed” by the blood.  When God would teach us about how sin affects our relationship with Him, He describes Himself as pure, and sin as moral impurity, filth, corruption, defilement, and many other similar disgusting expressions and then shows us that these things, being incompatible with His purity, render us unfit to dwell with Him.  The blood of Jesus does not operate by accomplishing a physical cleansing, but by removing sin as a reason for separation and also setting into motion a moral transformation.  So, when scripture speaks of worshippers in the Old or New Testament as being sprinkled with blood, it means that the death of the substitute guilt bearer has been applied to them and therefore God no longer regards them as repulsive but immediately, before they have changed their lives at all, as positively spotless, bleached white, snow white, and pure, sweet smelling and pleasing to Him.  Then, thanks to the blood of Christ, He begins the process of cleaning them up to cause them to actually become the Christ-like people that they already are in His eyes. 

Similar to this, sin is not only described as making dirty, but as making sick, with wounds and putrefying sores and blindness and crippling deformity, so that man cannot do what He was created to do.  (He is even said to be “dead in trespasses and sins.”)  His so called “free will” is only as free as his crippled heart, his blind understanding, and his abscessed affections, can carry it.   Remembering that we are speaking of a wonderful metaphor here, the blood of Jesus is the medicine that brings healing; i.e., the result of the death of Christ is that the sin-sick souls are healed, they are made whole.  They can see clearly (understand), feel appropriately, and respond accordingly to the truth of the gospel.  By His bloody stripes they are healed.   

The blood of Jesus also provides redemption.  In the Bible, “redemption” means deliverance from captivity (think of slaves and prisoners) by the payment of a ransom price.  As I said earlier, the Bible presents the sinner as captive to his own corrupted nature (i..e., “the flesh” in scripture, with its corrupted drives, pride, prejudice, addictions, fears, etc.), captive to the devil, and captive to a corrupt society and a cursed creation.  The death of Christ serves as a redeeming “ransom” for the believer, not by paying a ransom to the devil to release him, but by removing the reason why he is a captive, his guilt of sin, and by gaining for Christ the right to have them as His own.  Redemption sets them free from the devil and free from the power of sin a poh"wn to hell ("the lathem as His own.  Thus they who were formerly bound to a power that was holding th.  They who were formerly bound to a power that was holding them fast and pulling them down to hell (“the law of sin and death”), are now bound to a power, a life-force, i.e.,  Jesus with the Holy Spirit (“the law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus) which is now pulling them heavenward, so to speak.  Christ’s blood purchases for lost sinners everything they will need to be delivered from all their bondage to their fallen hearts and set free to believe and to repent and to live for God.  It means that the sinner is “translated” from being under the power of the devil, with his condemnation and fear and the crippling hold of deeply ingrained habits of sin, to a new power, the power of the risen Lord who lives and works within his heart by the indwelling, new-person-creating Holy Spirit.  This is what is meant by the expression, “If anyone be in Christ there is a new creation.”  The ultimate stage of this redemption by the blood of Jesus is the resurrection of glorified bodies to dwell with Him in a cosmos purified at last of every trace of sin.

This leads us to the fact that the blood of Jesus preserves.    In scripture after scripture we are reminded that the death of Christ does not merely begin salvation, but that it saves entirely, from beginning to end.  Songs that say things like the blood of Jesus will “never lose its power” or that it “still flows” are simply and metaphorically saying that the benefits of the death of Jesus have no limitation of effectiveness and no expiration date; the death of Jesus is and always will be successful in obtaining  from God everything His people need and against everything that could frustrate the purpose of God in providing it.  For this the Bible presents Jesus as a priest continually making intercession for the saints.  A priest would make intercession by presenting the blood of the sacrifice to God and then looking to God in prayer to keep his gracious promises for the people, promises which had been made conditional upon those sacrifices.  Jesus is no longer bleeding, the blood is no longer flowing, but the plea based upon the once for all offering of Jesus will never weaken:  “I did what you wanted me to do for the salvation of my people.  My shed blood is the proof.”  In this way, “the blood of Jesus speaks better things than the blood of Able.”  In answer to that plea, God causes all things, all spiritual things, all physical things, ALL things, to work together in the lives of His people for their salvation. 

There are times when all this may seem too good to be true.  Does the blood of Christ do anything further to help the believer?  The answer is a clear, firm and resounding YES!  Every promise of God to us is in the form of what the Bible calls “covenants.” God’s promises have this special feature—they are binding, guaranteed, absolutely and irrevocably confirmed because they are “sealed in blood.”  It may help to think of the things we do to show we really mean it, we really want our word of promise to be taken seriously.  When we were kids we said, “Cross my heart and hope to die.” An older expression of this might be, “my life on it.” We “shake on it” or get it sealed by a notary public.    God’s covenants are like that.  The eternal living God has said in covenant after covenant, “My life on it.  I will keep my promise to you” He has sealed that promise not with a notary’s seal, but with a ceremony involving blood.  Then for OUR death-deserving covenant violations He took our human nature on Himself and shed His blood unto death.   So, whenever I take the Lord’s Supper and receive the cup of “the New Covenant in my blood,” as Jesus called it, I am hearing (seeing, tasting, swallowing!) God’s promise made certain by Jesus’ death that “I am your God and you are my son.  Your sins I forgive.  Your heart I cleanse.  You are free from the power of sin and the power of a sinful world and of the devil and all the powers of evil, and from the fear of death.  I am your everlasting inheritance and you will dwell with me in righteousness forever.”  Those are all things to sing about!   

There is one final feature of the blood of Jesus which I must not fail to emphasize and every reader of this page must take seriously.  As indicated in the previous point about receiving the Lord’s Supper, all references to the blood in scripture involve some kind of participation by the sinner.  The blood must be applied and its effects must be appropriated by faith.  As taught in the Bible, the redemption accomplished by Christ on the cross must and certainly will be applied to His people by the Holy Spirit and they will, in response, appropriate the work of Christ for themselves by believing on Him.  This is what is meant by the Savior’s words, “unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you cannot be saved.”  There is a participation in the blood of Christ, i.e., a partaking of Christ with all the benefits accruing from His death..   To put it simply, it is not enough to admire Jesus’ moral teachings, or his example, or feel sympathy to Him in His death. You must believe upon Him as crucified for sin, i.e., as God’s provision for sin, a provision that you need, and entrust yourself to Him as such.  That was the original Christian message—“Christ and Him crucified.”  So, the questions everyone must ask are, “has the blood of Christ been sprinkled on me?”  “Have I entrusted my life, my soul, my all to this crucified and resurrected Christ?”  You see, there really is something different about the Christian religion; none of the others have the blood of Jesus and that means everything.

 Well, large and heavy volumes could be written on each of these and other effects of the blood of Jesus (and have been!), but I just wanted to help you begin to see that if you know the blood of Jesus stands for the death of Jesus, and you know some part of the many effects of the death of Jesus, you would understand why Christians sing such lines as—

There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel’s veins;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.
 The dying thief rejoiced to see that fountain in his day;
And there have I, though vile as he, washed all my sins away.
Dear dying Lamb, Thy precious blood shall never lose its power
Till all the ransomed church of God be saved, to sin no more.
E’er since, by faith, I saw the stream Thy flowing wounds supply,
Redeeming love has been my theme, and shall be till I die.

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