The Power of the Blood of Jesus: What It Accomplished for You

You sang it on Sunday.

Second row, left side, the seat you have sat in for nine years. The words came out of you the way they have since you were small enough to stand on the pew. What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

It is Thursday now. The kitchen is dark except for the light over the stove, and you are standing at the sink with a dish towel in your hand, replaying what you said to your daughter an hour ago. The tone. The word you promised God you would never use on her again.

The hymn is still in your head. You are just not sure it covers Thursday.

Here is what I want to show you. The blood you sang about is not a line in a hymn. It is the most finished thing in the universe, and it was finished with Thursday in view.

The short answer: The power of the blood of Jesus is that it did what nothing else could do: it paid for sin, cleansed the sinner, and opened the way to God. John puts it plainly: “the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.” (1 John 1:7) To apply the blood is not to say a phrase over a problem. It is to stand on what the blood has already done, and to say so out loud when everything in you says otherwise.

Why It Had to Be Blood

Robert Lowry wrote that hymn in 1876, and he did not invent the answer. He got it from Hebrews: “without shedding of blood there is no remission.” (Hebrews 9:22)

That sentence sits on top of the whole Old Testament. “For the life of the flesh is in the blood,” God told Israel, “and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls.” (Leviticus 17:11) Sin costs a life. Blood is a life poured out. Every lamb on every altar was saying the same thing: this is what it costs, and you cannot pay it yourself.

Now the word. “Remission” in Hebrews 9:22 is the Greek aphesis. It means release, a sending away, a letting go. It is the word Jesus read aloud in Nazareth when He opened Isaiah and said He had come “to proclaim liberty to the captives” (Luke 4:18). Liberty there is aphesis. Remission of sins is not God deciding to overlook something. It is a captive walked out of the cell and the door left open behind him.

What the Blood Accomplished

So what did the blood actually do?

“In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.” (Ephesians 1:7) Redemption is a ransom paid; you were bought out. The blood cleanses your conscience, not just your record (Hebrews 9:14). It gives you “boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus” (Hebrews 10:19), a room one man entered once a year. It justifies you (Romans 5:9). It makes peace (Colossians 1:20). It brings the far-off near (Ephesians 2:13). And it is the ground on which the saints “overcame him,” the accuser (Revelation 12:11).

Seven things, and not one of them is a feeling. They are events, and they do not become less true on the nights you feel least like they are.

What the blood of Jesus does walks through all seven with the Greek behind them. Hebrews 12:24 and the blood that speaks better things follows the one still happening right now, in the present tense. And the blood that cleanses the conscience is for the guilt that stays after you have already been forgiven.

What It Means to Apply the Blood

You have heard people say it, I apply the blood of Jesus over my house, over my children, and maybe wondered whether it does anything at all.

Go back to the night the phrase comes from. In Egypt, each household killed a lamb and put its blood on the doorposts with hyssop. “And when I see the blood, I will pass over you.” (Exodus 12:13) That is the applying. It happened once, before dark. Then the families went inside, shut the door, and ate. Nobody stood outside all night reapplying. The blood was on the door, and they rested on His word while the judgment went by.

That is applying the blood now. It has already been shed and accepted; applying it is agreeing with what it did. It is standing at your sink on Thursday and saying, out loud, that word I said is covered, and I am not carrying it to bed. Revelation 12:11 says the saints overcame “by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony.” The blood is His part. The testimony is yours: you say what the blood did, and you keep saying it.

It is not a ritual phrase. It is a refusal to argue with the accuser about a debt that has been paid.

When the Hymn Feels Like a Hymn

I have played that song at forty funerals. She is the church pianist, and she has played “Nothing but the Blood” so many times her hands know it without her. Today the casket holds a man she went to high school with, and she is the only one in the room who knows what she said to him the last time they spoke, in the parking lot, in March. On the line she has played ten thousand times, nothing but the blood of Jesus, her hands keep going and her eyes fill, and she lets them.

Scripture to Stand On

Keep these where you can find them on a Thursday night.

• “And according to the law almost all things are purified with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission.” (Hebrews 9:22)
• “But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.” (1 John 1:7)
• “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace” (Ephesians 1:7)
• “Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus,” (Hebrews 10:19)
• “And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death.” (Revelation 12:11)

A Prayer to Stand on the Blood

If you want to follow the scarlet thread from Genesis to Revelation, one thing the blood accomplished at a time, that is what The Power of the Blood of Jesus was written for. For tonight, pray this with the dish towel still in your hand.

Father, I come to You by the blood of Jesus. Not by my record, which has Thursday on it, and not by my promises, which I have broken before. By His blood. You said that without the shedding of blood there is no remission, and then You shed it, and I am taking You at Your word. The thing I did today is covered. The thing I did years ago is covered. I am not going to carry either one to bed. I stand on what the blood has done, and I say so out loud: I am cleansed, I am redeemed, I am Yours. In Jesus’ name, amen.

And listen for what He has been saying since the Friday it was finished:

It is paid, child. All of it. I saw the blood, and I passed over you.

The blood was finished before you ever sang about it, and it covers Thursday.