Recognising the spiritual significance of blood
Blood has great spiritual significance. It is because of the blood of Jesus that we can have forgiveness for our sins and therefore, the ability to conquer Satan and all demonic spirits. It is Incredible to think that there are still traces of our precious Saviour Jesus’ blood and DNA in the ground in Jerusalem, from the Garden of Gethsemane to where the Cross was erected at the skull. Jesus paid for our bodies with His blood and cleansed our bodies with His blood so that the Holy Spirit can come and live inside us. Over the ages, however, mankind has used blood for corrupted purposes.
(See Chinese versions: 简体中文 > 认识血的属灵意义 | 繁體中文 > 認識血的屬靈意義)
Revelation 12:11 ESV And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.
1 Corinthians 6:19-20 ESV Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.
Hebrews 9:22 ESV Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.
Blood transports oxygen and nutrients around the body and helps to remove waste. It regulates our body temperature and helps to fight infections. In short, blood brings life to every cell in our body and cleanses it.
Leviticus 17:11 ESV For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life.
We may think of our blood as simply a body fluid that comes in four basic categories – blood types A, B, AB, and O – but in reality, everybody’s blood has unique biochemical markers. Even identical twins with similar DNA are unique in their blood composition. We can be recognised by our individual blood just as we can be recognised by our unique fingerprints.
Take Abel for example. Abel’s blood was shed onto the ground where his brother, Cain, had killed him. God identified Abel’s blood and said, “The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground.”
Genesis 4:8-11 ESV Cain spoke to Abel his brother. And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him. Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” He said, “I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?” And the Lord said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground. And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand.
Blood is both physical and spiritual life
In addition, the Bible teaches us the following about blood.
- Life – It is the life of every creature. | Leviticus 17:14 ESV For the life of every creature is its blood: its blood is its life. Therefore I have said to the people of Israel, You shall not eat the blood of any creature, for the life of every creature is its blood. Whoever eats it shall be cut off.
- Covenant – It is the mark of any binding agreement between God and His people. | Exodus 24:8 ESV And Moses took the blood and threw it on the people and said, “Behold the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words.”
- Purification of sin – It is necessary for purification rites under God’s law. | Hebrews 9:22 ESV Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood…
- Forgiveness of sins – It is the atonement that is shed for the forgiveness of sins. It is why Jesus paid for all our sins with His blood. | Hebrews 9:22 ESV …without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.
- Peace with God – It is how we are reconciled with God and made at peace with Him. | Colossians 1:19-20 NLT For God in all his fullness was pleased to live in Christ, and through him God reconciled everything to himself. He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of Christ’s blood on the cross.
- Testimony of Jesus as God’s Son – It is part of Jesus’ testimony and revelation as God’s Son. | 1 John 5:6-8 NLT And Jesus Christ was revealed as God’s Son by his baptism in water and by shedding his blood on the cross—not by water only, but by water and blood. And the Spirit, who is truth, confirms it with his testimony. So we have these three witnesses the Spirit, the water, and the blood—and all three agree.
- Price of the church – It was the price Jesus paid with His own blood to obtain the global body of believers. | Acts 20:28 ESV Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.
- Price of our new way of life – It is the ransom Jesus paid to rescue us from an empty way of life| 1 Peter 1:18-19 NLT For you know that God paid a ransom to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors. And it was not paid with mere gold or silver, which lose their value. It was the precious blood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God.
Blood was very important and used extensively in cleansing rituals under the old system before Jesus Christ. Blood represented the costly price for spiritual atonement because all sin is an offence against God that is punishable by spiritual death. If we lived under the purification system in those times, we would have stepped into temples with altars that were covered with the sight and smell of blood. Innocent, unblemished animals were constantly being sacrificed to cover the sins of God’s people. It was a stark reminder of the cost of our sins.
Hebrews 13:11 NLT Under the old system, the high priest brought the blood of animals into the Holy Place as a sacrifice for sin, and the bodies of the animals were burned outside the camp.
In another example from the Bible, we see that God instructed the Israelite slaves in Egypt to kill a lamb and paint its blood on the doorposts of their homes as a sign so that the final and most terrifying plague God was about to send upon Egypt would pass them and not harm them. That night, anyone without the blood on their doorposts found their firstborn dead. This is the salvation from death that the Jews still celebrate today during their Passover festival.
Exodus 12:12-14 ESV For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord. The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt. “This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord; throughout your generations, as a statute forever, you shall keep it as a feast.
On one occasion, Moses literally threw blood on the Israelites when he confirmed their covenant with God after their great deliverance from slavery in Egypt. A covenant with God is binding for eternity and is much more substantial and solemn than just any modern-day contract. It cannot be broken. The blood, therefore, represented the sealing of their eternal agreement with God.
Exodus 24:6-8 ESV And Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins, and half of the blood he threw against the altar. Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it in the hearing of the people. And they said, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient.” And Moses took the blood and threw it on the people and said, “Behold the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.”
We no longer see such blood rituals conducted because Jesus was the perfect fulfillment of all of these requirements for all time. His blood marked our new covenant with God and paid for the forgiveness of our sins, our purification, and our deliverance from our old way of life. He is our Passover lamb.
1 Corinthians 11:25 ESV In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”
1 Corinthians 5:7 ESV … For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.
(As a side note, marriage is another covenant we make before God. it is consummated with sexual intercourse between a man and a woman. Blood is also shed when a virgin becomes one with her husband, physically and spiritually, for the first time before God.)
Malachi 2:14 ESV … the Lord was witness between you and the wife of your youth… your companion and your wife by covenant.
The significance of Jesus’ blood
Before Jesus Christ, the first believers would have had a practice of making animal sacrifices for their sins at the temple on a regular basis. The animals that were sacrificed had to be spotless and without blemish. These early followers would have profoundly understood the significance of their perfect Saviour’s precious blood.
1 Peter 1:18-19 ESV Knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.
Jesus paid a phenomenal price to redeem and cleanse us from our sins. It is therefore not surprising that God will judge anyone who disregards or scoffs at the sacrifice of Jesus’ blood severely. We will bring spiritual death upon ourselves whenever we do so.
Hebrews 10:28-29 NLT For anyone who refused to obey the law of Moses was put to death without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. Just think how much worse the punishment will be for those who have trampled on the Son of God, and have treated the blood of the covenant, which made us holy, as if it were common and unholy, and have insulted and disdained the Holy Spirit who brings God’s mercy to us.
It is the same when we take communion.
The wine we take at communion represents the blood that Jesus shed for our forgiveness and purification. When we take communion without reverence, careful self-reflection, and confession of our sins, it can lead to us becoming weak or ill and even dying early as a consequence. This was the stern warning given to the church in Corinth where some people had gotten drunk on the wine at communion.
1 Corinthians 11:27-29 ESV Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died.
1 Corinthians 11:21-22 ESV For in eating, each one goes ahead with his own meal. One goes hungry, another gets drunk. What! Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I commend you in this? No, I will not.
(As a side note, we sometimes hear prayers where people ask to be “covered by the blood of Jesus” as a form of protection from harm, misfortune, or spiritual attacks. We need to remember that Jesus’ blood is not a “good luck charm”. Protection and help from God comes from submission and obedience to our holy and perfect Heavenly Father, not from calling upon the blood of Jesus.)
James 4:7 ESV Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
Psalm 5:12 ESV For you bless the righteous, O LORD; you cover him with favor as with a shield.
The significance of our blood
Not only does God see His Son’s blood as precious, but our blood is also precious too because Jesus paid for our bodies at a high price.
1 Corinthians 6:19-20 NLT Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body.
We are told we should:
- Never intentionally cut ourselves: Leviticus 19:28 ESV You shall not make any cuts on your body for the dead or tattoo yourselves: I am the LORD.
- Never intentionally shed blood: Romans 3:11-12,15-18 ESV “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” “Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known.” “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
- Never eat blood: Acts 21:28-29 NLT “For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay no greater burden on you than these few requirements: You must abstain from eating food offered to idols, from consuming blood or the meat of strangled animals, and from sexual immorality. If you do this, you will do well. Farewell.”
Anyone who has shed blood becomes spiritually defiled. Take King David for example.
Lamentations 4:13-14 NLT Yet it happened because of the sins of her prophets and the sins of her priests, who defiled the city by shedding innocent blood. They wandered blindly through the streets, so defiled by blood that no one dared touch them.
God called King David “a man after my heart, who will do my will.” The king faithfully fought many wars and killed many enemies on behalf of God’s people. Then there came a time when David wanted to honour God by building a temple for Him, but God forbade the king from doing so because there had been much human blood on his hands. Evidently, there were no physical marks but spiritual stains.
Acts 13:22 ESV And when he had removed him, he raised up David to be their king, of whom he testified and said, ‘I have found in David the son of Jesse a man after my heart, who will do all my will.’
1 Chronicles 22:7-10 ESV David said to Solomon, “My son, I had it in my heart to build a house to the name of the Lord my God. But the word of the Lord came to me, saying, ‘You have shed much blood and have waged great wars. You shall not build a house to my name, because you have shed so much blood before me on the earth. Behold, a son shall be born to you who shall be a man of rest. I will give him rest from all his surrounding enemies. For his name shall be Solomon, and I will give peace and quiet to Israel in his days. He shall build a house for my name. He shall be my son, and I will be his father, and I will establish his royal throne in Israel forever.’
Some vital reminders
1. Abstaining from shedding our own blood
Most of us have never committed murder as King David did in war, but we may have deliberately shed our own blood without being aware that it belongs to Jesus. We may have cut ourselves in self-harm in times of great anguish, shed it as part of a treatment (blood-letting), or traded it like a commodity. All this grieves God. If this is something we have unwittingly done in the past, it is certainly worth repenting of in Jesus’ name so as to be reconciled back to God. He will listen and respond to our prayers when we do.
Isaiah 1:15 ESV When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood.
2. Avoiding anything that defiles our blood
Just as Jesus sacrificed His body and blood for our sins, we are to keep our bodies (and blood) as holy and acceptable living sacrifices for God.
Romans 12:1 ESV I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
At the same time, we need to remember that we have an enemy, Satan, who will tempt, deceive, and pressurise us into contaminating our living sacrifices by making our blood impure. We can easily fall for the devil’s lies when we do not watch out, conduct our own research, and seek the Holy Spirit for the truth.
1 Peter 5:8 ESV Be sober–minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.
John 16:13 ESV When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.
Tattoos are one such example. Being from an unregulated industry, tattoo inks often come tainted with metallic and toxic particles. The most common ingredient is carbon black. The second is titanium dioxide (TiO2), which is also used in food additives, sunscreens, and paints. These particles enter and contaminate our bloodstream during the process of tattooing and remain inside our bodies forever. For more, see Tattoos defile our blood and temples.
We must all stand before Jesus to be judged one day and He will judge us for the good or evil we have done to our earthly bodies and blood. While we can, let us repent and undo any defilement to our blood that we have allowed in the past.
2 Corinthians 5:10 ESV For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.
2 Corinthians 7:1 ESV Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.
3. Renouncing all blood pacts
Throughout history, God has made covenants with people in blood. As believers today, we no longer need to make any blood covenants because Jesus has paid for us with His blood.
Satan, however, will try to deceive us into making blood sacrifices or blood covenants to enslave people to him forever. Some examples include blood-related witchcraft rites, idol worship rituals, and oath-making. Thank God we can break all past blood sacrifices or oaths for good when we repent in Jesus’ name and command all unclean spirits that came to oppress us as a result to leave us. God’s grace and mercy know no end.
1 Corinthians 7:23 NIV You were bought at a price; do not become slaves of human beings.
Testimony 1: Experiencing emotional freedom after renouncing a blood pact
During an inner healing and deliverance prayer session, I experienced great trouble with expressing my emotions and was led to kneel before the Lord to humble myself and acknowledge His lordship over my life.
As the prayer counsellors and I sought the Holy Spirit for guidance, I saw an image of a white lady and a prayer counsellor was prompted to ask me about my relationship with my best friend in childhood and her parents.
I was reminded of her family’s engagement in dark magic and entering into a blood pact with her as a child. Following a movie we watched on television, we both pricked our fingers and joined them together as a sign of our sisterhood. The ‘white lady’ was a demonic spirit associated with her parents, who referred to me as their ‘god daughter’ and whom I had submitted to as a result.
This indirectly opened a door of influence to the dark powers they worshipped.
As I cast these evil spirits away in the name of Jesus, I was then able to release my suppressed emotions.”
Testimony 2: Removing a lock on the heart by renouncing a demonic blood pact
“As a teenager, in the depths of my depression, I used to self-harm and cut myself. On several occasions, I would make bloody lacerations on my body and sing the twisted lyrics of heavy metal rock songs, inviting death to take me. I had not realised that I had made a blood covenant with Satan as a child!
No wonder I always felt as if there was a lock on my heart, a lock that was heavy and hurt, even as a Holy Spirit filled believer.
When I repented and revoked this contract through the redemption and power of the blood of Jesus, I literally saw a black sticky goo being lifted off my heart and thrown into a fire – forever gone.
Suddenly, I felt a warmth in my heart and the purification of God’s light. I could breathe more easily. I declared that my body is a temple of the Holy Spirit and I was not familiar territory for these dark spirits and that they can never ever find their way back to me.”
May this sharing be a blessing to you as you seek to love God with all your heart and treasure your blood because Jesus paid it with His own blood.