Without Shedding of Blood:
Hebrews 9:22 and the Passover (Part 1 of 7)

Part 1 of 7 · Without Shedding of Blood: The Old Testament Foundation

Picture a believer who has trusted Jesus Christ but has been taught that his sins remain on him until he goes down into the water. Every day until his baptism he wonders whether God has forgiven him. He has been told that if he dies on the way to the baptistery, he dies in his sins. Many sincere preachers have taught that water baptism is for the remission of sins, and many sincere people have carried that fear.

I want to test that teaching by the Word of God. The remission of sins is the forgiveness of sins, God sending our guilt away so that it is no longer charged to us. No one can pull remission and salvation apart. So a teaching that makes water baptism the moment and means of remission makes water baptism a requirement for salvation.

Those who hold this view deserve to be heard on their own terms. Many in the Churches of Christ, and in some other groups, teach that a believing, repentant sinner receives forgiveness through the blood of Jesus Christ at the moment of baptism. They do not deny the blood of Jesus Christ. They believe baptism is where God applies it. I am convinced from Scripture that this view is mistaken, and I begin with one verse in the book of Hebrews.

What Hebrews 9:22 Says

“And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission.” (Hebrews 9:22, KJV)

This verse does not merely say that blood is helpful for remission. It says there is no remission at all without the shedding of blood. The writer could have named any part of Israel’s worship, and he named only one. Whatever God grants as the remission of sins, He grants on the ground of shed blood.

The writer of Hebrews built that sentence from the history of Israel. In this seven-part series I will go back where he went: to the Passover, to the sin offering, and to the day of atonement. Then we will see how Jesus Christ fulfills those pictures, how Leviticus 17:11, Matthew 26:28, and Hebrews 9:22 agree, and how Abraham shows the way the blood is received. The last part answers the strongest objections. This series is the Old Testament companion to my 12-part study, Salvation in Jesus Christ, which walks through the New Testament witness.

The Blood on the Door

God taught this lesson before there was a tabernacle or a priesthood. In Exodus 12 He told Moses and Aaron that every household in Israel must take a lamb without blemish, a male of the first year (Exodus 12:5). They were to keep it until the fourteenth day of the month and kill it in the evening (Exodus 12:6). Then God told them exactly what to do with the blood.

“And they shall take of the blood, and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door post of the houses, wherein they shall eat it.” (Exodus 12:7, KJV)

Moses passed that command to the elders of Israel. They were to dip a bunch of hyssop in the blood in the bason and strike the lintel and the two side posts with it (Exodus 12:21-22). No one was to go out of the door of his house until the morning. That night the LORD passed through the land of Egypt to smite the firstborn, and He gave Israel this promise.

“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, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt.” (Exodus 12:13, KJV)

God named one sign of protection on that night, and it was blood. Exodus 12 gives no command to wash the door posts or to sprinkle water on the threshold. When the LORD saw the blood, He passed over that house and would not suffer the destroyer to come in (Exodus 12:23). The safety of the firstborn did not rest on how clean the house was or how good the family was. It rested on the blood of the lamb upon the door.

Centuries later the writer of Hebrews looked back on that night and joined trust in God to the blood.

“Through faith he kept the passover, and the sprinkling of blood, lest he that destroyed the firstborn should touch them.” (Hebrews 11:28, KJV)

Moses believed what God said and kept the Passover with the sprinkling of blood that God required. Israel did not invent a way to be safe. They trusted the provision God made, and that provision was shed blood.

Water does appear in the exodus story, but only after the blood. Israel was sheltered by the blood of the lamb first, and only afterward did they pass through the Red Sea. Paul calls that crossing a baptism unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea (1 Corinthians 10:1-2). The people who went through the water were already a people sheltered by the blood.

Search these Scriptures for yourself: Hebrews 9:22; Exodus 12:1-13; Exodus 12:21-23; Hebrews 11:28; 1 Corinthians 10:1-2.

Next in this series: Part 2, The Sin Offering: Forgiven Through Blood.

Go Deeper

• The Blood, Not the Water: Does Baptism Save?
• Christ’s Blood, Not Baptismal Water, Washes Away Sin
• Salvation in Jesus Christ: Introduction to the 12-Part Series

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“And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God. For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.”

2 Corinthians 5:18-21 (KJV)