What Does the Blood of Jesus Do? Seven Things Scripture Says

The question came from the folding chair by the door.

Wednesday night, the fellowship hall, eleven of you around two tables pushed together. Somebody had just read Hebrews out loud, and the retired mechanic who never says anything set his coffee down and asked it. We sing about the blood every week. What does it actually do?

Nobody answered. You could feel the room reach for the hymn and come up with nothing behind it. You have been a Christian for twenty-six years, and the honest answer was that no one had ever laid it out for you.

Scripture has. The list is longer than the hymn.

Here is what I want to show you: seven things Scripture says the blood of Jesus does, each with the verse it stands on.

The short answer: Scripture names at least seven things the blood of Jesus does. It redeems you, cleanses your conscience, gives you access to God, justifies you, makes peace, brings you near, and overcomes the accuser. “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace” (Ephesians 1:7). None of the seven is waiting on how you feel tonight. All seven are finished.

It Redeems: The Ransom Was Paid

Start where Paul starts. “In Him we have redemption through His blood.” (Ephesians 1:7)

The Greek word is apolytrōsis, and its shorter cousin lytrōsis is the one Hebrews uses: “with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.” (Hebrews 9:12) Both words come from lytron, a ransom, the price paid to buy a slave or a prisoner out. Jesus used that very word about Himself. He came “to give His life a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:45)

So redemption is not a mood. It is a transaction with a receipt. Peter tells you what the price was not, and what it was: “you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold … but with the precious blood of Christ.” (1 Peter 1:18–19) Somebody owned you, and somebody paid, and the one who paid now holds the title. That is what the word means. The lexicons do not let it mean less.

It Cleanses, and It Opens the Door

Two more, and they belong together.

The blood cleanses your conscience. Hebrews asks, “how much more shall the blood of Christ … cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” (Hebrews 9:14) The old sacrifices could make a man ceremonially clean on the outside. They could not reach the place where he kept the memory of what he had done. The blood of Christ does. There is a whole guide on that one, the blood that cleanses the conscience, because the guilt that stays after forgiveness is its own kind of ache.

And the blood opens the door. “Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus.” (Hebrews 10:19) The Holiest was the room behind the veil, where one man went once a year, with blood, and not without fear. The blood of Jesus puts you in that room with boldness. Not tiptoeing. Not waiting to be called. Entering.

It Justifies, Makes Peace, Brings Near

Three more, and each one changes where you stand.

Justified: “having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him.” (Romans 5:9) To be justified is to be declared right in the court. Not pardoned with a frown. Declared right, and by His blood, not by your record.

Peace: God reconciled all things to Himself, “having made peace through the blood of His cross.” (Colossians 1:20) The war is over, and you did not end it. He did. Peace with God is not something you keep by behaving. It was made, past tense, by blood.

Near: “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.” (Ephesians 2:13) Far off was your address. Near is your address now. You did not walk the distance. You were brought.

It Overcomes the Accuser

The seventh is the one you need on the nights the other six feel far away. “And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony.” (Revelation 12:11)

The “him” is the accuser, the one John says “accused them before our God day and night.” (Revelation 12:10) His whole case is built on what you did. And the saints did not overcome him by denying what they did, or by being better than he said. They overcame him by the blood, which had already paid for everything in his file, and by saying so.

That is the heart of what it means to stand on the power of the blood of Jesus. You are not pleading your case. You are pointing at His.

When the List Is Just a List

Paid in full. He has seen the words before, on a restitution letter from the county, the one that took him four years of paychecks to earn. He is two years out and sitting in the back row of a church he walked into because it was raining. The man up front reads Ephesians 1:7 and says the Greek word means a ransom, a price paid to set a prisoner free. He knows what a price is. He knows what it is to owe something you cannot get out from under. He sits very still with his hands between his knees and does not look up until the song is over.

Scripture to Hold the Seven

Read them slowly, one at a time. Each is a thing that happened, not a thing you have to make happen.

• “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace” (Ephesians 1:7)
• “how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” (Hebrews 9:14)
• “Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus,” (Hebrews 10:19)
• “Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him.” (Romans 5:9)
• “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.” (Ephesians 2:13)

A Prayer Over the Seven

That mechanic’s question has a long answer, and the whole scarlet thread of it, from Genesis to Revelation, is what The Power of the Blood of Jesus was written to walk you through. For tonight, pray the seven.

Father, thank You for the blood of Jesus and for what it did. I was bought with it, and I belong to You. My conscience is cleansed by it, and I lay down the memory I have been carrying. I have boldness to come to You by it, so I am coming now. I am justified by it, declared right in Your court. I have peace with You by it, a peace I did not make. I have been brought near by it. And when the accuser speaks tonight, I will answer him with it. Seven things, all finished. I stand on every one. In Jesus’ name, amen.

And listen for what He has been saying since the price was paid:

You were worth the blood, child. I paid it gladly. Stop trying to pay Me back.

The blood did seven things for you, and every one of them is already finished.