The Significance of Blood and Water in Scripture

Blood 

Humanity’s sin results in separation from God, who is perfectly righteous, holy, and set apart from everything evil.1 In love and grace, God provided a substitute, His own Son, to pay the penalty our sin deserves. 

In the Old Testament, God declared to Israel, “For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life.”2 The New Testament confirms, “Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness [of sin].”3 The sacrificial system of the Old Testament pointed to Jesus, who died as the ultimate offering for sin.4 Animal sacrifices are no longer necessary.5 Jesus’s death provides reconciliation to God for all who trust in Him. 

At the Last Supper, Jesus lifted the cup and said, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”6 John, who wrote this Gospel, drank from that cup. Surely the significance of that night resonated deeply within his memory. John later wrote a message he longed for God’s people to know: “The blood of Jesus ... purifies us from all sin.”7 As an elderly apostle imprisoned on the Greek island of Patmos, John declared the truth that sustained him: Jesus “loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood.”8 

Water 

Jesus said the water He gives to believers is “a spring ... welling up to eternal life.”9 He promised, “Whoever believes in me, ... rivers of living water will flow from within them. By this he meant the Spirit.”10 The water that flowed from Jesus’s body may point to the new spiritual life that is given to all who believe and receive Jesus.11 The Bible’s final chapters repeat Jesus’s promise. God invites all who thirst to receive “water without cost from the spring of the water of life.”12 The Spirit and the Church repeat the invitation: “Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life.”13 

1. Set apart from evil: Habakkuk 1:13 

2. Atonement: Leviticus 17:11 

3. Shedding of blood: Hebrews 9:22 

4. Sin offering: Romans 3:25-26; 8:1-4 

5. Animal sacrifices not necessary: Hebrews 10:1, 4 

6. Last Supper: Matthew 26:28; Luke 22:20 

7. Purification from sin: 1 John 1:7 

8. Freed from sin: Revelation 1:5 

9. Living water: John 4:14 

10. Spirit: John 7:38-39 

11. New life: John 1:12-13 

12. Water of life: Revelation 21:6 

13. Let the thirsty come: Revelation 22:17

Resource: Bible Study Fellowship, People of Promise: Kingdom Divided, Lesson 26, The Gospel of John