Blood (4) What Jesus 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 to God who had became 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 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.