The Saviour
"...and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin."
1 John 1:7
Of all the language in the Christian faith, this is the part the modern ear finds most difficult. The old hymns are full of it. The Bible is marked with it from the third chapter of Genesis to the last chapter of the Revelation. And to a sensibility trained to find such things distasteful, it can seem primitive that so much should depend on blood.
But it does depend on it, and the reason is not that God is bloodthirsty. The reason is that God is serious about what sin costs, and there is a logic running through the whole Bible that makes sense of every altar in it. This article follows that logic.
Begin where God begins, with a statement that explains the entire sacrificial system in one sentence:
It is a fair question, and modern readers ask it with real discomfort. Why should a religion of love be soaked in blood from Genesis to Revelation? Why not forgiveness by decree, quietly, without slaughter?
Scripture gives the reason in one sentence, and it is not sentimental.
"For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul." (Leviticus 17:11)
Blood stands for life — poured out, ended, given up. And the wage attached to sin was never a fine or a period of shame. It was death.
"For the wages of sin is death." (Romans 6:23)
So an atonement that cost no life would be a legal fiction. The blood is in the Bible because death is in the sentence, and God will not pretend otherwise.
"And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission." (Hebrews 9:22)
"For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul." (Leviticus 17:11)
There is the key. Blood in Scripture is not a symbol of violence; it is the token of life. The life is in the blood — and blood poured out is the visible evidence that a life has been given up in death.
Now put that beside the penalty of sin. The wage of sin is death — the forfeiting of a life. So if a guilty person is to be spared, a life must be surrendered in his place, and the blood is the proof that it has happened. Blood is not an arbitrary requirement; it is simply what a substituted death looks like.
From this, one rule follows, and Scripture states it without softening:
"...and without shedding of blood is no remission." (Hebrews 9:22)
No remission. Not less remission, or slower remission. None. This is the sentence that stands behind every altar in the Old Testament and behind the cross in the New.
Once you see it, you find it running through the whole Book.
Once you see it, you cannot read the Old Testament without noticing it running through every page.
In Eden, the first death in the Bible is God’s doing. Adam and Eve sewed fig leaves, and God replaced their covering with skins — which required an animal to die. The first funeral was for the first covering.
"Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them." (Genesis 3:21)
At the altar, Abel brought of the firstlings of his flock and was accepted; Cain brought the produce of his own labour and was not.
On the mountain, Abraham was stopped with the knife raised, and a ram was found caught in a thicket. A substitute died and the son went home.
"And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son." (Genesis 22:13)
In Egypt, the angel of death passed through, and the only shelter was blood on a doorpost. Not the character of the household, not the sincerity of the family — the blood.
"And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are: and when I see the blood, I will pass over you." (Exodus 12:13)
Mark the wording: when I see the blood. Not when I see your repentance, or your record. The safety of every house that night rested on something outside it.
In Eden, when the first man and woman had sinned and tried to cover themselves with leaves, God clothed them with skins — which means that somewhere just outside the story an animal died, and the first death in the world occurred so that guilty people could be covered.
Abel brought a lamb and was accepted; his brother brought the produce of his own labour and was not.
In Egypt, an entire nation was spared in one night, and the difference between the houses was not morality, ancestry, or effort. It was blood on the doorposts.
At Sinai, God established a system in which the ordinary Israelite could not approach without a death. The tabernacle ran with blood: at the altar, at the laver, on the day of atonement, at every feast. It was a bloody, relentless education, and it was meant to be. Every animal was a sentence spoken to the conscience: something must die for you.
And yet the whole system was deliberately insufficient, and its insufficiency was part of the lesson.
If the sacrifices worked, why were there so many of them?
That is the argument of Hebrews, and it is unanswerable. A treatment that must be repeated indefinitely has not cured anything.
"For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins." (Hebrews 10:4)
"For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins. But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year." (Hebrews 10:2-3)
The annual sacrifice was not a receipt; it was a reminder. Every year it said the same thing: this is still outstanding. The Levitical system was a promissory note, not a payment.
And the priests themselves preached the same message by never sitting down. There was no chair in the tabernacle, because the work was never finished.
Consider the arithmetic. An animal is not the equal of a man. It has no moral standing, gave no consent, and bore no guilt of its own. Rivers of animal blood could not remove one human sin, and Scripture says so plainly. That is why the sacrifices had to be repeated — every morning, every evening, every year, without end. A payment that must be made again was never a payment at all; it was an instalment on a debt that could not be cleared.
So the sacrificial system was not a solution. It was a signpost, pointing beyond itself, and every repetition said the same thing: not yet, not this, something greater is required.
The greater thing came, and Scripture chooses one word for it above all others.
"Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot." (1 Peter 1:18-19)
The apostle Peter reaches for the two things men prize most — silver and gold — and sets them aside as corruptible. Whatever a fortune could buy, it could not buy this.
And note the word precious. It is not the volume of blood that gives it worth; a great deal of blood has been shed in history and purchased nothing. Its value lies in whose it was.
"Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood." (Acts 20:28)
Read that last phrase slowly, because it is one of the strongest statements of the deity of Christ in Scripture. The church of God, purchased with His own blood. God has no blood, save in the Person of the Son made flesh.
"Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot." (1 Peter 1:18-19)
Note what is ruled out first: silver and gold. The wealth of the world, offered entire, could not have bought one soul. Money is a corruptible thing; the debt was not.
And note why this blood is called precious. Not because it was chemically different, but because of whose it was. Scripture goes as far as language can go on this point:
"...the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood." (Acts 20:28)
God... his own blood. That is a staggering phrase, and it is deliberate. Because the One who died is truly God as well as truly man, the value of that single death is infinite — sufficient for the sins of the whole world, and not one drop wasted.
Scripture uses the language of the slave market. To redeem is to buy back — to pay a price and set a captive free.
"In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace." (Ephesians 1:7)
And in heaven, the redeemed sing about it — not about their own perseverance or discovery, but about the purchase price:
"...for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation." (Revelation 5:9)
Observe the scope: every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation. There is no ethnic boundary to this purchase, and no cultural one. The blood was adequate for all of them, and it is adequate for you.
Scripture names several distinct results, and it is worth taking them separately, because each answers a different part of our problem.
"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." (Romans 3:25)
Propitiation is the wrath-bearing word: not the anger ignored, not overlooked, but satisfied by a substitute.
"Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him." (Romans 5:9)
"And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself." (Colossians 1:20)
Justified, reconciled, at peace — and every one of those in the past tense for the believer, because the transaction is complete.
It justifies — that is, it puts us right with God legally, and secures us against what is coming:
"Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him." (Romans 5:9)
It makes peace — the war is over, and it was ended from God's side:
"And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself." (Colossians 1:20)
It brings the far-off near — those who had no standing whatever are brought in:
"But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ." (Ephesians 2:13)
Take those three together and see how complete they are. Justified — the legal problem is settled. Peace — the relational problem is settled. Made nigh — the distance is removed. There is nothing left over.
Now to something more inward, and for many people more urgent than any of the above.
"But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin." (1 John 1:7)
Notice the tense of cleanseth. Not cleansed once and now depleted. It is continuous — a fountain rather than a bottle.
"How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?" (Hebrews 9:14)
Purge your conscience. That is the part men most need and least expect. Many have been forgiven and still cannot forgive themselves — and this verse says the same blood that answered God’s justice also answers the accusation inside a man’s own head.
The deepest difficulty is often not theological but personal: a man may believe he is forgiven and still feel filthy. The memory will not stay buried. Scripture addresses precisely this, and it locates the cleansing exactly where the trouble is:
"How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?" (Hebrews 9:14)
Purge your conscience. Not merely the record in heaven — the conscience, the inner accuser. The old sacrifices could never do this; they reminded the worshipper of sin annually rather than removing the sense of it. This blood reaches further in.
And the extent of the cleansing is total:
"...and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin." (1 John 1:7)
All sin. Not the respectable sins. Not the ones committed before we knew better. All of them — including the one you would least want named, and the one you have never told anyone.
"...Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood." (Revelation 1:5)
Note the order in that verse: He loved us first, and then washed us. Not washed us in order to love us. The love came before the cleansing, which is why the cleansing is not a reward.
Under the old system, access to God was severely restricted. A curtain shut men out of the holiest place. Only the high priest could enter, only once a year, and never without blood — and a man who entered wrongly died.
"Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh." (Hebrews 10:19-20)
For fifteen centuries a curtain had stood between God and the people, and one man went behind it once a year, with blood, and not without fear. When Christ died, that curtain was dealt with from the top:
"And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom." (Matthew 27:51)
From the top to the bottom. Not torn open by a man reaching up, but torn down by God reaching out. Nobody has needed an appointment since.
Then the curtain was torn from top to bottom, and Scripture draws the conclusion:
"Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus." (Hebrews 10:19)
Weigh the word boldness. Not permission, grudgingly extended. Not nervous access on sufferance. Boldness — the freedom of a child in his father's house. And note who is addressed: brethren, ordinary believers, not a priestly class.
The very blood that once kept sinners at a distance now brings them all the way in.
Scripture describes the blood of Christ as having a voice, and it makes a comparison that repays attention.
Scripture says the blood speaks, and it sets its testimony against another voice.
"And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel." (Hebrews 12:24)
Abel’s blood cried from the ground for justice. This blood speaks better things — it does not cry for vengeance but pleads for mercy, and it has never once been refused.
And there is an enemy whose whole occupation is accusation, who is answered by the same blood:
"And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony." (Revelation 12:11)
"And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel." (Hebrews 12:24)
Abel's blood, spilled by his brother, cried from the ground for justice. It demanded a reckoning, and it received one.
The blood of the Lord Jesus Christ speaks too — but it speaks better things. Where Abel's blood cried vengeance, this blood cries mercy, pardon, peace, it is finished. And it is still speaking. When the accuser brings a charge against a believer, there is a voice at the throne that answers it, and the answer is not a defence of the believer's conduct but a statement of the price already paid.
Which is why Scripture describes the victory of God's people in exactly these terms:
"And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death." (Revelation 12:11)
Not by their strength, their record, or their arguments. By the blood.
One more contrast completes the picture, and it is the difference between the old system and the new.
"Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us." (Hebrews 9:12)
"But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God... For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified." (Hebrews 10:12,14)
He sat down. The chair that had never existed in the tabernacle was finally occupied, and it is occupied still.
This is why the Lord’s Supper is a remembrance and not a repetition. Nothing is re-offered. We look back at a finished work, not forward to another one.
"For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord’s death till he come." (1 Corinthians 11:26)
"Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us." (Hebrews 9:12)
Two words carry the weight. Once — not annually, not repeatedly, not to be renewed or re-presented. And eternal — the redemption obtained is not a temporary covering that will need attention next year. It is permanent.
This is what the Lord Jesus Christ was speaking of on the night before He died, when He took a cup and told His disciples what His blood would accomplish:
"For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins." (Matthew 26:28)
A new covenant, sealed in blood, securing not the annual covering of sins but their remission — their sending away.
Everything in this article comes to a single practical point, and the Passover states it better than any argument.
On that night God's instruction to Israel was exact. It was not enough that a lamb had died; that alone saved nobody. The blood had to be applied — struck on the doorposts of each individual house. And God attached His promise not to the family's worth, its history, or its intentions, but to one thing:
"...and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt." (Exodus 12:13)
When I see the blood. Not when I see your sincerity. Not when I see your religion, your upbringing, your good intentions, or your efforts to improve. The blood.
Consider what that meant in practice. Inside those houses were people of very different characters — some devout, some fearful, some barely believing. It made no difference to their safety. The distinction that night was not between good Israelites and bad ones. It was between houses under the blood and houses not.
So the question is not whether you are sincere, or moral, or religious. It is whether the blood has been applied to you personally, by faith. A sacrifice not received saves no one, and there is no third category.
"For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." (Romans 3:23)
"For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." (Romans 6:23)
"But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8)
"But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name." (John 1:12)
The scarlet thread that began with skins in a garden runs through a lamb at a doorpost, through centuries of altars, up to a cross outside a city wall — and then it does not stop.
It runs into heaven, where the redeemed of every nation are described as singing about the price that bought them, and where the One who paid it is worshipped as the Lamb that was slain.
That is not a primitive idea. It is the most costly transaction ever made, and it was made deliberately, by a God who would not lower His standard and would not abandon us to it.
The blood has been shed. The only question left is whether it has been applied to you.
"...and when I see the blood, I will pass over you."Exodus 12:13
This doctrine attracts more open scorn than any other, and the objections deserve straight answers rather than offence.
"It is primitive — a relic of an age that appeased gods with slaughter."
The comparison fails at the crucial point. Pagan sacrifice moved from man to god: the worshipper brought something to change the deity's mind. Scripture moves the other way. God provides the sacrifice Himself, at His own cost, to satisfy His own justice. Nobody is buying God off. He is paying.
"But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8)
"It is cosmic child abuse — a father punishing his son."
This modern objection rests on treating the Father and the Son as separate parties with opposed interests. Scripture will not allow it. The Son was not a victim seized against His will:
"No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again." (John 10:18)
He was not overpowered. He laid it down — and it was the Father who gave Him. This is one God accomplishing one purpose at infinite cost to Himself, not one Person punishing another.
"Why can God not simply forgive?"
Because a judge who simply forgives is not merciful but corrupt, and the victims in his courtroom are wronged a second time. Sin is not a private slight to be waived; it is a debt in a real universe with a real Judge. Forgiveness at no cost to anyone would mean the wrong did not matter.
"It is barbaric to be washed in blood."
The language is deliberately physical because the reality was. A sanitised cross is a false one. There was nothing tidy about it, and the offence of the language is a small fraction of the offence of the event.
"For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God." (1 Corinthians 1:18)
There is a long habit of keeping Christianity while quietly removing this, and it is worth naming what the substitutes are, because each sounds reverent.
Christ as example only. He shows us how to live and die well, and we follow. But an example saves nobody who cannot follow it, and none of us can. A drowning man does not need a demonstration of swimming.
Christ as teacher only. Excellent ethics, admired by people who have no intention of obeying them. And it makes His death pointless — teachers do not need to be executed to leave a syllabus.
Christ as victim only. A good man destroyed by an unjust system, with whom the suffering may identify. There is truth in it, and it is not redemption. Sympathy does not settle a debt.
And the cross as a symbol of love with no explanation. This is the commonest of all. But love that costs nothing and achieves nothing is only sentiment. The cross demonstrates love because something was accomplished there.
"Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." (1 John 4:10)
Take the propitiation out of that verse and the love has nothing to stand on.
If this were a primitive idea that the faith outgrew, it would fade as Scripture advances. It does the opposite. In the last book, where the redeemed are seen in glory, the blood is what they sing about.
"Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen." (Revelation 1:5-6)
"And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation." (Revelation 5:9)
Every kindred, tongue, people and nation — and one purchase price named for all of them.
"These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." (Revelation 7:14)
And notice how He appears when John finally sees Him on the throne. Not as a lion first, though He is called one. As a Lamb, and a Lamb bearing the marks:
"And I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne... stood a Lamb as it had been slain." (Revelation 5:6)
The wounds are still there in glory. Heaven has not forgotten what it cost, and neither should we.
Our gracious heavenly Father, we come before Your throne of grace through the precious name and perfect merit of our Lord Jesus Christ, who alone has opened the way into Your presence.
We thank You for Your beloved Son, and for the precious blood, without which there is no remission. We praise You for Your preserved Word, which declares "The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin" (1 John 1:7), and which cannot be broken.
We confess before You that we have spoken lightly of a price we could never have paid. Forgive us, we pray, and cleanse us, for You are faithful and just to forgive us our sins.
We beseech You for every soul reading these words who is yet without Christ. Send forth Your Holy Ghost to convince them of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment; open their understanding; and draw them to Your Son before this day is done.
Strengthen Your people who read it. Comfort the discouraged, establish the wavering, and let none go away empty. And use this message to make the worth of that blood real to every soul who reads it, for Your glory and not for ours.
We pray all of this to You, O God, our Holy and Heavenly Father, in the precious name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, by the power and anointing of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Before you close this page, one question matters more than everything you have just read: if you died tonight, do you know where you would be?
You cannot be saved by joining a church, by being baptized, by giving money, or by living a decent life. Salvation is not a wage that is earned; it is a gift that is received. Every one of us has sinned, the wages of sin is death, and there is a real hell prepared for sin — but the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died on the cross in the sinner's place, was buried, and rose again the third day.
If you know yourself to be a sinner, and you are willing to turn from your sin and trust Him alone, then speak to God now. There are no magic words — but if these words are the cry of your heart, pray them and mean them:
Dear Holy and Almighty God, I come to You just as I am. I confess that I am a sinner. I have broken Your law, I have gone my own way, and I deserve the judgment and the everlasting fire that my sin has earned. I cannot save myself, and I bring You nothing.
I believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is Your Son; that He loved me and died on the cross in my place, shedding His precious blood for my sins; that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day.
Here and now I turn from my sin, and I trust Him alone — not my works, not my religion, not my goodness — to save me. Lord Jesus, come into my heart, forgive my sin, and be my Saviour from this moment and for ever.
In the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ I pray. Amen.
1. Tell somebody today. "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved" (Romans 10:9).
2. Begin reading the Bible. Start with the Gospel of John, then Acts, then Romans. Read a little every day. "As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby" (1 Peter 2:2).
3. Talk to your Father every day. You may now come boldly, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. No appointment is needed and no man's permission.
4. Find a Bible-believing church and be baptized. Not to be saved — you already are — but in obedience, and as the public confession of what has happened to you.
5. Rest in this, and do not be shaken by your feelings. "He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life" (John 5:24). You will still sin; when you do, confess it and go on — "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9).