What Is the Biblical Significance of Blood?
In the Bible, blood is never just a biological fluid. Blood is bound up with life and death, judgment and mercy, covenant and cleansing, sacrifice and salvation. In the Old Testament, blood outside the body almost always signals death and calls for reckoning (Genesis 9:5–6). At the same time, God appoints blood as his chosen means for atonement and cleansing (Leviticus 17:11). In the New Testament, “the blood of Christ” becomes a central way of speaking about his sacrificial death, justification, redemption, and the inauguration of the new covenant (Romans 3:25; Ephesians 1:7; Hebrews 9:12).
To understand the gospel, Christians must understand what Scripture means by blood: life poured out in death, given by God as the way he deals with sin and restores people to himself.
1. Blood as Life and Death in the Old Testament
In the Old Testament, blood is first a question of life and death. Life depends on blood flowing in the body; blood outside the body signals that life has been lost. Because God is the giver of life and sovereign over death, spilled blood is a serious matter that demands an account (Genesis 9:5–6).
Key themes include:
Shed blood pollutes the land (Numbers 35:33; Psalm 106:38).
Blood “cries out” for justice (Genesis 4:10).
The one responsible for killing another has blood on their hands and is liable for their own life (Isaiah 1:15; 59:3; 2 Samuel 4:11).
The “avenger of blood” from the victim’s family is charged with executing justice (Numbers 35:19–21; Deuteronomy 19:6, 12).
Even when bloodshed is not legally murder (such as in war), it can still carry consequences, as when David’s bloodshed disqualifies him from building the temple (1 Chronicles 22:8). When people are responsible for their own death, Scripture can say their blood is “on their own heads” (Joshua 2:19; 2 Samuel 1:16; Acts 18:6).
After the flood, God permits humans to eat meat but forbids eating blood, because “the life of the flesh is in the blood” (Genesis 9:3–4; Leviticus 17:10–14; Deuteronomy 12:16). The best context for slaughtering animals is sacrificial, where blood can be properly offered to God (Leviticus 17).
The association between loss of blood and loss of life underlies laws about menstruation, postpartum bleeding, and other discharges, which temporarily exclude a person from worship (Leviticus 12; 15; 18:19). Blood in such contexts is related to mortality and impurity. Yet the same blood that can defile can also be used by God to cleanse.
2. Blood in Sacrifice, Cleansing, and Consecration
God assigns blood a central role in Israel’s sacrificial system, not because of some inherent magical property, but because he ordains it as the appointed means of atonement and purification (Leviticus 17:11). Shed blood marks the transition from life to death; in ritual it marks the transition from death’s realm to the realm of holiness and life.
In atonement rituals:
Blood testifies that a life has been given in place of another (Exodus 12:13, 23; Leviticus 16).
Blood functions as a ransom, representing the life of the worshiper and proclaiming that no further bloodshed is required.
In cleansing rituals:
Blood removes impurity that threatens the holiness of the sanctuary and altar (Leviticus 16; 14).
Blood marks the transition from uncleanness (associated with death) to holiness (associated with life).
Blood is also used in consecration:
Priests are consecrated with blood (Exodus 29; Leviticus 8).
The altar is consecrated with blood (Ezekiel 43:20).
In all of this, blood signals that life has been given, sin covered, and a new status established.
3. Blood and Covenant in the Old Testament
Blood also stands at the heart of biblical covenants. Exodus 24 describes a covenant ceremony where Moses reads the “book of the covenant” to the people and then sprinkles blood on the altar and the people, saying, “Behold the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you” (Exodus 24:7–8). The book of the covenant declares God’s requirements; the blood of the covenant points to the need and provision for forgiveness when those requirements are broken.
Later texts recall this:
Zechariah 9:11 speaks of “the blood of my covenant with you” as the basis on which God sets prisoners free.
Hebrews 12:18–24 compares the old covenant sealed with blood to the new covenant in Christ’s blood.
The blood of the covenant declares that life has been given and that forgiveness and fellowship are possible even after covenant violation, because God has provided a way for sin to be dealt with.
4. Blood in the New Testament: Human Blood and Judgment
The New Testament continues to use blood in many of the same ways as the Old. It often refers simply to violent death (Matthew 23:30–35; Matthew 27:4–8; Revelation 6:10; 17:6; 18:24; 19:2), and blood imagery is connected with judgment (Acts 2:19–20; Revelation 6:12; 8:7–9; 11:6; 14:20; 16:3–6; Exodus 7:17–20). Those responsible for someone’s death are said to have the victim’s blood on their heads (Acts 5:28; 20:26).
The phrase “flesh and blood” describes human frailty and mortality (Matthew 16:17; 1 Corinthians 15:50; Galatians 1:16; Ephesians 6:12). Hebrews 2:14 emphasizes that Jesus took on “flesh and blood” to share in human death and destroy the one who has the power of death.
The Jerusalem Council instructs Gentile believers to abstain from blood (Acts 15:20, 29; 21:25), reflecting the same concern found in Genesis 9 and Leviticus that blood, as the life, belongs to God.
5. The Blood of Christ: Atonement, Redemption, and Cleansing
When the New Testament speaks of the blood of Christ, it is shorthand for his sacrificial death. Justification, atonement, and redemption “by his blood” mean by his death offered in sacrifice (Romans 3:25; 5:9; Ephesians 1:7; 2:13). No mystical power is assigned to the physical substance of Christ’s blood; salvation rests on his life given up in death.
Key themes:
Atonement and justification: God put Christ forward “as a propitiation by his blood” (Romans 3:25).
Redemption: Believers have “redemption through his blood” (Ephesians 1:7; Revelation 5:9).
Cleansing: “The blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7).
The language of blood captures the sacrificial, substitutionary, and covenantal dimensions of Christ’s death. It draws together Old Testament patterns of sacrificial blood for forgiveness and cleansing, but now in a once-for-all, definitive way.
6. The Blood of the Covenant and the Lord’s Supper
The Old Testament already links wine and blood through imagery like the “blood of grapes” (Genesis 49:11; Deuteronomy 32:14) and winepress scenes of judgment (Isaiah 63:2–3; Joel 3:13). Jesus takes this imagery and applies it to himself. At the Last Supper, he gives his disciples a cup and says, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Matthew 26:28; Mark 14:24; Luke 22:20).
In the Lord’s Supper:
The cup signifies Christ’s “blood of the covenant,” his sacrificial death that brings forgiveness and inaugurates the new covenant (Jeremiah 31:31–34; Luke 22:20).
The bread signifies his body given for his people (1 Corinthians 11:23–24).
Whoever eats and drinks “in an unworthy manner” is “guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord” (1 Corinthians 11:27), meaning they are held responsible for despising Christ’s death.
Hebrews 9–10 contrasts the repeated animal sacrifices of the old covenant with Christ’s once-for-all self-offering:
Animal blood purified the earthly sanctuary; Christ’s own blood opens the way into the heavenly sanctuary (Hebrews 9:11–14).
Animal sacrifices could not finally remove sin; Christ’s sacrificial blood brings eternal redemption and definitive forgiveness (Hebrews 9:12; 10:11–14).
His blood “speaks a better word than the blood of Abel” (Hebrews 12:24), not a cry for vengeance, but a proclamation of reconciliation.
By his blood, Christ brings those who were “far off” near to God and unites Jew and Gentile into one new humanity (Ephesians 2:13–16; Colossians 1:20–22).
Conclusion
In Scripture, blood is life poured out in death, set apart by God as the means by which sin is judged, forgiveness is granted, covenants are sealed, and people are brought from death into life. Old Testament laws and sacrifices teach that blood belongs to God and that atonement requires a life in place of a life (Leviticus 17:11). The New Testament reveals that all of this points to the blood of Christ—his sacrificial death as the Lamb of God—through which believers are redeemed, cleansed, reconciled, and brought into the new covenant. To be “under the blood of Christ” is to be under God’s mercy and blessing; to reject that blood is to remain under judgment.
Bible verses about blood
Genesis 9:5–6, “For your lifeblood I will require a reckoning… Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.”
Leviticus 17:11, “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.”
Exodus 12:13, “The blood shall be a sign for you… when I see the blood, I will pass over you.”
Psalm 106:38, “They poured out innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters.”
Matthew 26:28, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”
Romans 3:25, “God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.”
Ephesians 1:7, “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses.”
Hebrews 9:12, “He entered once for all into the holy places… by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.”
1 John 1:7, “The blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.”
Revelation 5:9, “You were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.”
