Is “Pleading the Blood” scriptural?

“Hello Pastor. So many Christians plead the blood of Jesus. I don’t see this in the scriptures. Can you elaborate on this?”

Great question for all of us who are “sticklers” for the Word. So, you are correct that there is no scripture about “pleading the blood”. But I believe that if the believer understands a couple things about what they are doing when they use that term, then it’s fine.

One way to view it is in the legal sense, when called into question: “How do you plead?” We’re not innocent necessarily. And because of Christ, we’re not guilty either. So saying, “I plead the blood” answers all questions about everything. The cross did it all! And now we are innocent.

There is a more scriptural term called “sprinkling the blood”, which few people use these days (but we do sometimes). And it’s really the same thing. It refers to the Old Testament event when the priests (and Moses) were commanded to kill the sacrifice and sprinkle the holy place, sprinkle the book of the law, put a drop on the priest’s big toe, right thumb, right ear, and sprinkle all the people for sin atonement. 

Heb 12:24—And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than [that of] Abel.

1 Pet 1:2—Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ…

Heb 10:2, 22—For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins. … 22 Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.

Today, we can sprinkle the blood “by faith” on our hearts to remember that our consciences are clean. It’s the blood that cleanses and purifies things. And therefore it’s the blood of Jesus that cleanses our hearts before God; so we mention the blood in our prayers and declarations simply to appropriate that promise and remind ourselves that we are accepted by God and exonerated in every way because of the blood of Christ.

Heb 9:14—How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?

Then finally, there is the passover lamb event, where the Israelites were to kill the lamb and sprinkle the doorway of their homes so that the angel of death would pass over them when killing the firstborn of the Egyptians.

Now, Christians recognize the power in the blood of Christ and declare it as an act of faith in God’s protection and in His exempting us from the all the curse, “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law…” (Gal 3:13). 

So, in essence, “pleading the blood” is more of a verbal recognition of our covenant with God through Christ, for every area of our lives, knowing that He will always honor the blood, just as He did in the Old Testament. And even moreso now that it’s the blood of His Son. So, I think even we Word people can use the terms plead, sprinkle, declare, lean on, remember, etc., to verbalize our faith in what the blood does for us, without being too technical about it. We can “fling blood” everywhere! It’s holy. And it’s valuable.

The blood is our proof of covenant. And that’s a big deal.