ActualChristianMusic
Read in

1 Peter 1:18-19 vs. “Thank You Jesus for the Blood”

Charity Gayle · checked 2026-08-21

What we checked

Passage1 Peter 1:18-19 chapter ↗ 1 more proof on 1 Peter 1 →
Translation shownBSB (Berean Standard Bible)
Presents itself asinspired-by
Categorynot a quote
AlbumEndless Praise · 2021
Words addressed toJesus
Teaching or experiencemixed

Graded against the standard

Quotation criteria not graded: this song never presents its words as scripture

Applies to every song the Name held holy · God shown holy · true of God · the standard

✓Reverent treatment

✓ What's good

  • The blood in the song is a lamb's, and the writers have said the Passover was in mind. That is the same image 1 Peter 1:19 uses
  • It never says it is quoting, anywhere. The official upload lists writers and producer and cites no verse, the artist's own lyric page names none, and the printed credits list themes rather than scripture
  • Redemption is sung as a price paid by someone else, never as something the singer achieved. That is the direction Peter's sentence runs
  • The chorus thanks Jesus by name rather than an unnamed "You," so the gratitude has an address

⚠ Cautions

  • Peter's verse works by saying what the ransom was not paid with, perishable things, silver or gold. The song has nothing that does that job, so the negation that drives the verse is not in the song
  • The passage's "from" is an empty way of life inherited from the forefathers. The song's "from" is the singer's own distance and bondage. Both are real, and they are not the same thing
  • No publisher page lists 1 Peter 1:18-19 for this song, and the pages that do list verses do not agree with each other. Treat any passage attached to this song, including this one, as a comparison and not a source

Verse Proof

1 Peter 1:18-19

The text in BSB (Berean Standard Bible)

“For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life you inherited from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or spot.”

Peter writes to believers scattered across five Roman provinces in Asia Minor, addressing them as exiles (1:1). The letter's first chapter moves from their new birth to a call to live as holy people (1:15-16) and to conduct themselves in reverent fear during their stay (1:17). Verses 18-19 give the reason for that call, and they open with "you know," so Peter is restating something his readers had already been taught rather than breaking news. The sentence names three things at once. It names what the ransom was not paid with, perishable things, silver or gold. It names what it was paid with, the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or spot, which is the language of a sacrificial and Passover animal. And it names what they were ransomed out of: the empty way of life they inherited from their forefathers. That last term is a handed-down way of living, not only a personal record of wrongdoing.

What the song says, described not quoted

A modern hymn of thanks, written in 2019 at a writing retreat in Willis, Texas, by Charity Gayle with Ryan Kennedy, Steven Musso, David Gentiles and Bryan McCleery, and released as a single in March 2021 before appearing on the album Endless Praise. The published lyric runs to three verses, a chorus and a bridge, with a repeated vamp between sections on the live recording. The first verse is the singer's own account of having been far off and lost. The second and third turn to what Christ did to close that distance: a debt the singer owed and did not pay, chains broken, a death taken in the singer's place, and a rising afterwards. The chorus is thanks, addressed to Jesus by name, for being cleansed and for being brought out of darkness. The bridge widens from the singer to the redeemed together and to their standing as God's children. No verse is cited and no translation is named at any point, not in the song, not in the official upload's description, and not on the artist's own lyric page.

Nothing here is presented as scripture, so nothing has been altered. What is worth laying side by side is the shape of the two. The song and the verse agree on the mechanism. Both treat rescue as a purchase made by someone else, and both put a lamb's blood at the centre of it. In a 2024 interview with Decision magazine, Gayle and Kennedy said the writers had the Passover in mind, the blood applied to the doorposts, which is the same image 1 Peter 1:19 reaches for when it calls Christ a lamb without blemish or spot. They differ on the two other terms in Peter's sentence. The first is the price. Peter argues by negation. He tells his readers what the ransom was not, perishable things, silver or gold, and the contrast is the engine of the whole verse. The song has no equivalent move; its payment picture is a debt the singer owed, which arrives at the same place by a different road. The second is the captivity, and this is the larger gap. The song is ransomed out of a personal condition: distance, lostness, bondage, darkness. Peter names something else, an empty way of life inherited from the forefathers. That is a life received from other people and lived because it was handed over. A singer can recognise the song's "from" easily. Peter's "from" takes longer to see, because inherited things do not usually feel like captivity.

· Not a quote: The song cites no verse and presents none of its lines as scripture. It shares 1 Peter 1:18-19's picture of a ransom paid in a lamb's blood. But it names a different thing to be ransomed from than the passage names.

▸ Official upload. Now listen with the proof in mind.

A ransom text names two things: what it cost, and what you were bought out of. Songs remember the cost.

Why it matters

This song has become one of the standard congregational songs about the blood, and for many people it now supplies the vocabulary they use for redemption. That vocabulary is sound, and this proof is not a correction of it.

The reason to hold the verse next to it anyway is that Peter's sentence carries a term the song has no room for. He is writing to converts whose old life came to them by inheritance, and he tells them the ransom bought them out of that. Repentance from a way of living you were handed is a different job from repentance for things you chose, and it is easier to miss. A singer who has only the song will name their sins. A singer who reads the verse will also look at what they simply absorbed.

Is it safe to dwell on?

Sung on repeat, this song moves between God and the singer.

What repetition plants here is a reflex of crediting the rescue to someone else. The thanks is repeated, it is addressed to Jesus by name, and its object is an event that happened outside the singer and before the singer. That is a good thing to have running in the back of a mind.

The tag is mixed because the words alternate honestly and the count is close. One verse is the singer's former state, two are about what Christ did, the chorus is thanks for what was done to the singer, and the bridge moves out to the redeemed together. Looped, it forms someone who talks about their rescue rather than their record, in that order.

The verse is worth reading alongside it for the one thing the loop will not plant. Sung a hundred times, the song will teach you to thank Christ for a price paid. Read 1 Peter 1:18-19 with it and it will also tell you what the price bought you out of, which is a life you did not choose so much as receive.

Helpful comparison

The listings themselves are useful evidence here, because they do not agree. Worship Together lists 1 John 1:7, Matthew 26:27-28 and Hebrews 10:19-22 for this song. Worship Online lists Ephesians 1:7, Hebrews 9:22 and Romans 5:8. A behind-the-song write-up heads its discussion with Ephesians 2:13. PraiseCharts prints the copyright and CCLI number and lists themes instead of scripture references. Four sources, seven passages, no overlap between the two lists that give any.

That spread is not sloppiness. It is what a thematic song looks like from the outside. When a song sets a text, everyone cites the same address, because there is only one. When a song gathers a doctrine, every reader hangs it on the verse they happen to reach for, and the lists diverge. 1 Peter 1:18-19 is a reasonable eighth entry on that list and it appears on none of them, which is the plainest available evidence that this song is not quoting anything.

Sources

Corrections

  1. This entry argued from "the publisher" when it meant worshiptogether.com. That site is the song-resource platform Capitol CMG Publishing runs, not the song's publisher, and it carries songs Capitol CMG does not publish, so a scripture list on it is the platform's rather than the songwriters'. The site had already corrected this wording on the Ephesians 2:4-6 entry on 2026-08-07. The finding is unchanged; only who published the reference.

Think we got something wrong? Tell us what and where, and we will check it against the text. Real errors get fixed here, dated, in public. Every correction on the site →

Where the text survives the song

Not a ranking, and not a swap. If what you came for is the passage sung whole, these proofs found it kept: word-for-word verified, or paraphrase that says so and names its source.

✓ VERIFIED “Psalm 16” The Corner Room (Adam Wright) Psalm 16:1-11 You can sing this one straight through. It is all eleven verses of Psalm 16, in order, in a named version. What you repeat is the psalm.

✓ The printed sung text carries all eleven verses of Psalm 16, in order, with no line printed twice and no refrain added

⚠ The track title alone will not tell you which Bible you are singing. On Apple Music and Spotify it is just "Psalm 16". The version is named on the album page and in the video description.

 ✓ VERIFIED “Be Strong and Courageous (Joshua 1:9)” Seeds Kids Worship (Seeds Family Worship) Joshua 1:9 Sing it, and hand it to your kids. It is Joshua 1:9 whole, in the ESV the publisher names, and the tag sings the address, so the verse and its reference get memorized together.

✓ The whole verse, in order, with every repeated line drawn from the verse's own words

✓ no cautions: this is the standard

 ✓ VERIFIED “Mark 10” Streetlights Mark 10:23-27 Play it freely. This is Mark 10 itself, read word for word in a named translation. The line about all things being possible arrives as the answer to a question about being saved.

✓ The whole chapter, in order, so verse 27 arrives after the rich man’s scene and after the disciples ask who can be saved, instead of standing on its own

⚠ “Word-for-word” here describes the reading, not the translation theory. Streetlights uses it for what is read. Tyndale uses the same phrase for a different thing

More songs like this

NOT A QUOTE “New Name Written Down in Glory” Charity Gayle Luke 10:20 Sing it. Nothing here is quoting scripture, and what it celebrates is true. Just know the famous line is a 1910 hymn refrain, and the new name is Revelation's promise rather than Luke's sentence.

✓ Never says it is quoting at any point: no reference in the song, none printed on the official chart, none in the publisher's song metadata

⚠ The title line is a hymn phrase, not a Bible phrase. No translation renders Luke 10:20, or Revelation 2:17, in those words

 NOT A QUOTE “Living Hope” Phil Wickham 1 Peter 1:3-5 Sing it. It quotes nothing, and the phrase it borrows for its title carries the same meaning Peter gives it, hope anchored in the resurrection rather than in how the singer feels.

✓ Uses "living hope" in the sense 1 Peter 1:3 gives it, grounded in the resurrection rather than in the singer's feelings

⚠ No reference is given, so a listener may not know the title is a phrase from a specific verse

 NOT A QUOTE “Battle Hymn of the Republic” Julia Ward Howe (recorded by David Phelps) Isaiah 63:1-6 Sing it knowing what it adds. Nothing in it is offered as scripture, and its pictures of judgment stay God's work. The sighting, a singer seeing that judgment happening now, is the hymn's own.

✓ The judgment stays God's work. The hymn's “He” is God throughout and no source disputes it; Gamble's objection is to the use the hymn makes of the images, not to who does the treading

⚠ The opening line reports a present sighting of God's glory arriving. Isaiah 63 speaks of a day of vengeance but pins it to no date, so the timing is the hymn's addition

262 songs checked so far. Nothing for the song you want? Ask us to check it.