Blood

BLOOD

Blood is the fluid that circulates through the body of a person or a vertebrate animal. Aside from reference to the common physical substance, the term “blood” has a number of symbolic uses in the Bible. At times, it refers to a red color: “the sun will be turned into darkness, and the moon will turn bloodred” (Acts 2:20). The “blood of the grape” means wine (Deuteronomy 32:14, RSV). In the New Testament the expression “flesh and blood” refers to human life, to “natural” humanity: “Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 16:17, RSV). After betraying Jesus, Judas recognized that he had “sinned in betraying innocent blood” (Matthew 27:4, RSV). In such passages “blood” has reference to life lived at the human level, natural life as opposed to spiritual or divine life.

The term “blood” is also used in the sense of shedding blood, that is, in killing or murder. Psalm 9:12 speaks of one “who avenges blood.” Genesis 37:26 refers to the brothers who concealed Joseph’s blood, that is, his murder. To be “burdened with the blood of another” (Proverbs 28:17, RSV) means to be guilty of murder. At the crucifixion Pilate said, “I am innocent of the blood of this man” (Matthew 27:24-25). Thus, the idea of violent death is regularly connected with blood.

The logic of such expressions becomes particularly clear when one sees how closely life is associated with blood. Three passages specifically tie the two together. “Only you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood” (Genesis 9:4, RSV). “For the life of the flesh is in the blood” (Leviticus 17:11, RSV). “The only restriction is never to eat the blood, for the blood is the life” (Deuteronomy 12:23, TLB). Because God is the author of all life, any shedding of blood (any killing) is a serious matter. A certain sanctity associated with blood forms the basis for prohibitions against eating it. (Compare what the apostles said in Acts 15:20.) Blood stands for the “life principle” that is from God.

Because of its association with life, blood takes on a special significance regarding sacrifices. On the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16), the blood of a bull and of a goat were sprinkled upon the altar as a “covering” of the people’s sin. Life was poured out in death. Animal life was given up on behalf of the life of the people. Judgment and atonement were carried out through a transfer of the sin of the people to the animal sacrifice. This transferring of sin is depicted also by the scapegoat in the same ceremony (Leviticus 16:20-22). In the first Passover (Exodus 12:1-13), the blood bore the same meaning. Animal blood posted on each door was a sign that a death had already taken place, so the angel of death passed over.

Further, because life is connected with blood, blood becomes the supreme offering to God. In the ratification of the covenant (Exodus 24), Moses poured half the sacrificial blood on the altar. After reading the covenant to the people and receiving their affirmative response, he sprinkled the rest of the blood on them and said, “This blood confirms the covenant the LORD has made with you in giving you these laws” (24:8). Sprinkling blood on both the altar and the people bound God and the Israelites together in covenant relationship. In the sacrifices of Israel, blood stood for death and depending on the context, might also stand for judgment, sacrifice, substitution, or redemption. Life with God was made possible by blood.

In the New Testament, apart from medical references (Matthew 9:20) and references to murder (Acts 22:20), the primary reference is to the blood of Christ, an allusion to the Old Testament. The synoptic Gospels show that at the Last Supper Jesus spoke of his blood with reference to a new covenant (Matthew 26:28; Mark 14:24; Luke 22:20). The language surrounding those sayings reveals a sacrificial theme. Jesus was speaking of his death and its redemptive significance. The fourth Gospel expresses the same theology in different terms and in a different context: “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you cannot have eternal life within you” (John 6:53). The believer is said to participate by faith in the death and resurrection of the Lord (1 Corinthians 10:16).

The apostle Paul’s letters likewise associate blood with Christ’s death. The word becomes—like the term “cross”—synonymous with the death of Christ in its saving significance: making peace “by means of his blood on the cross” (Colossians 1:20); and in a passage on reconciliation: “though you once were far away from God, now you have been brought near to him because of the blood of Christ” (Ephesians 2:13). “Blood” and “cross” both stand for the death of Jesus in reconciling Jew and Gentile to God and in the creation of a new humanity. Paul evidently had in mind the sacrifice of the Day of Atonement when he said that God purposed that Christ be an atoning sacrifice by his blood (Romans 3:25). His vocabulary (Leviticus 16) focused on the most important sacrifice of Jewish tradition.

Peter made reference to the blood of the covenant (Exodus 24) when he described Christian exiles as having been sprinkled with the blood of Christ (1 Peter 1:2). He reminded his readers that they had been redeemed by that blood (v 19). In calling Christ the “spotless lamb of God,” he may have had in mind either the servant of Isaiah 53 or the Passover lamb. Both had redemptive significance in his readers’ minds. Finally, to the writer of Hebrews the whole Old Testament system of sacrifices found its ultimate fulfillment in the blood of Christ, that is, in his sacrificial death (Hebrews 9:7-28; 13:11-12).

New Testament references to the blood of Christ point to the overall redemption achieved by God in the death of his Son (Hebrews 10:20). Both justice and justification were achieved (Romans 3:26). The blood of Christ is therefore called the “once for all” means of redemption (Hebrews 9:26).