Through the Blood of Christ we are redeemed:

So precious is this element of life that only through Holiness will we understand this very essence of what forgiveness can be. What, we may ask, does being holy have to do with comprehending the Transubstantiation which completely is the perfection of his blood; the life-giving element of all human beings? Since Christ was as much human as divine his body was composed of Blood; it is said it was type AB.

Jesus gave the supreme expression of his free offering of himself at the meal shared with the twelve Apostles “on the night he was betrayed.” On the eve of his Passion, while still free, Jesus transformed the Last Supper with the apostles into the memorial of his voluntary offering to the Father for the salvation of men: “This is my body which is given for you.” “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” (CCC 610).

The cup of the New Covenant, which Jesus anticipated when he offered himself at the Last Supper, is afterwards accepted by him from his Father’s hands in his agony in the garden at Gethsemani, making himself “obedient unto death.” Jesus prays: “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me….” Thus he expresses the horror that death represented for his human nature. Like ours, his human nature is destined for eternal life; but unlike ours, it is perfectly exempt from sin, the cause of death. Above all, his human nature has been assumed by the divine person of the “Author of life,” the “Living One.” By accepting in his human will that the Father’s will be done, he accepts his death as redemptive, for “he himself bore our sins in his body on the tree.” (CCC 612).

Christ’s death is both the Paschal sacrifice that accomplishes the definitive redemption of men, through “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world,” and the sacrifice of the New Covenant, which restores man to communion with God by reconciling him to God through the “blood of the covenant, which was poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” (CCC 613).

There is no other element on earth except the blood of a living human that contains more perfection of life-giving DNA than the blood of a man. Christ became the first of many whose human blood would show a proficiency for grasping the total ability to understand just what God sought from the emptying of his Son’s blood as a sacrifice to redeem man’s sins. It is through this function of extreme love that many more who followed the mission of Christ would also choose martyrdom and through the loss of their blood understood the meaning of love for those who would follow.

But when they came to Jesus and saw he was already dead, they did not break his legs ,but one soldier thrust his lance into his side, and immediately blood and water flowed out. (Jn 19: 33 - 34). St. John probably emphasizes these verses to show the reality of Jesus’ death, against the docetic heretics. In the blood and water there may also be a symbolic reference to the Eucharist and Baptism, (footnote to the above scripture verses).

One note regarding the blood of Jesus; I once heard a TV minister proclaim that the blood Jesus shed was divine not human. That is a heretical statement since Jesus was two natures in one person. If the blood was not also human then his human nature was not real and the Incarnation was not needed. The Incarnation was when Christ assumed a human nature and everything he did while on earth was both natures working in tandem. His blood was as much human as divine.

Ralph B. Hathaway