Hebrews 9:13-14 vs. “The Blood Will Never Lose Its Power”

Andraé Crouch and the Disciples · checked 2026-08-21

What we checked

PassageHebrews 9:13-14 chapter ↗ 1 more proof on Hebrews 9 →

Translation shownBSB (Berean Standard Bible)

Presents itself asinspired-by

Categorynot a quote

AlbumTake the Message Everywhere · 1968

Words addressed tonot addressed to God (sung about Him)

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

What the title says is the conclusion Hebrews 9 argues for: verse 12 calls the redemption eternal, obtained once for all, and 10:14 says one offering perfected for all time
No statement that it is quoting anywhere. No reference, no translation named, nothing framed as scripture, so there is nothing in it to mis-hear as a verse
The writing account is public and specific, which is what makes it possible to separate what the songwriter claimed from what hymnal editors later attached
Every line is about one subject, and nothing in it says something of God that the text does not support
The reach language of the refrain has real neighbours in scripture, and editors have pointed at Psalm 103 for it

⚠ Cautions

The verses printed beside this hymn are editors' choices, not the songwriter's, and across the hymnals they do not agree with each other
Hebrews 9:14 says the blood purifies the conscience from works of death. The song names strength, doubts, fears and tears. Both are scriptural, but the conscience is this verse's word and the song does not reach it
The verse ends with a purpose clause, so that we may serve the living God. The song's account of what the blood does ends with the singer
The refrain pictures reach and supply. Hebrews grounds the permanence somewhere else, in an offering made once and never repeated

Verse Proof

Hebrews 9:13-14

The text in BSB (Berean Standard Bible)

“For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that their bodies are clean, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself unblemished to God, purify our consciences from works of death, so that we may serve the living God!”

The letter to the Hebrews, writer unnamed, addressed to Jewish believers under pressure to slide back toward the sacrificial system they were raised in. Chapter 9 sets that system beside Christ's work and compares them item by item: two rooms in the tabernacle, a high priest who enters the inner one once a year and never without blood, and rites that have to be repeated. Verses 13 and 14 are one sentence built as a "how much more" argument. The lesser term is the blood of goats and bulls together with the ashes of a heifer, the red-heifer rite of Numbers 19, which restored a ceremonially unclean person to outward, bodily cleanness. The greater term is the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself unblemished, and what it reaches is not the body but the conscience, purified from works of death. The sentence does not stop at cleansing. It ends with a purpose: so that we may serve the living God. Verse 12, immediately before, names what He obtained as eternal redemption, entering the holy places once for all.

What the song says, described not quoted

Two stanzas and a refrain, written by Andraé Crouch as his first song and recorded by the Disciples for their 1968 debut. The first stanza looks back to the blood shed at Calvary long ago and says it still supplies the singer strength today. The refrain measures how far that blood reaches, from the highest ground to the lowest, and states the sentence in the title, that it never loses its power. The second stanza names what the blood does to the singer's doubts, fears and tears. Nothing is quoted. No verse is cited, no translation is named, and God is never addressed: every line is third-person, about the blood.

The account of the writing is documented and specific. Crouch and his twin sister Sandra were at gospel musician James Cleveland's house for a barbecue. Watching sauce poured over the ribs made Andraé think of the blood of Jesus, and he began to sing. Sandra wrote it down. He was unhappy with it and threw it out, and she took it back out of the trash. Sources differ on his age. Wikipedia says fifteen, UMC Discipleship's history of the hymn says fourteen, and Hymnary dates the text 1962, which fits neither age against a July 1942 birth date. They agree it was his first song and that he was a teenager. No account names a verse.

Nothing shifted between text and lyric, because nothing was taken. The song never says it is quoting and never mentions Hebrews. What is worth tracing instead is where this hymn's scripture references came from, because it has a great many of them and none are the writer's. The rights holder cites nothing. Manna Music holds the copyright, dated 1966 and renewed in 1994, and the PraiseCharts listing carries the copyright line and CCLI number with no scripture reference attached. Crouch's own account of the writing names no passage either. The references appear later, in hymnals, and they were chosen by editors. Hymnary lists this text in dozens of hymnals, and the scripture indexes across them point at more than twenty different passages: Ephesians 1:7, Romans 5:9, Colossians 1:13-14, Galatians 2:20-21, Isaiah 53:5, Psalm 103:11, 1 John 1:7, Mark 14:24, Luke 22:20, Revelation 1:5 and 5:9, 1 Corinthians 11:26, Hebrews 13:20, and in Hebrews 9 alone verses 12, 14, 11-14 and 22. Almost no two hymnals agree. The Psalter Hymnal Handbook takes a different line again and assigns Ephesians 1:7 to every stanza. So the passage on this page is one of those editorial readings, not the song's citation. Two hymnals reached for Hebrews 9:11-14 and 9:14 specifically, which is a fair pointer, and it is worth checking what that verse actually says next to what the song says. The song's point is durability: the blood has not weakened with time. Hebrews 9 argues for exactly that, and supplies the ground the song has no room for. Permanence here is not a supply that keeps flowing. It is the property of one offering made once, by a willing and unblemished offerer, through the eternal Spirit, obtaining an eternal redemption. Verse 14 also names what that blood reaches, and the word is conscience, purified from works of death. The song names strength, doubts, fears and tears. Both are real in scripture. Only one of them is this verse's word.

· Not a quote: The song quotes no verse, cites no passage and names no translation, so the word-for-word standard does not apply. It says Christ's blood never loses its power, and that is what Hebrews 9 argues for.

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

The song says the blood never loses its power. Hebrews says why: it was offered once, and once was enough.

Why it matters

The title says something about time, and what it says is right. What two stanzas cannot carry is the reason for it, and Hebrews 9 spends a chapter on the reason: one offering, made once, through the eternal Spirit, obtaining an eternal redemption, in a letter whose whole argument turns on the difference between a rite that must be repeated and one that never will be. A singer with only the refrain has a true sentence and nothing under it, and a true sentence with nothing under it is the kind that wobbles when someone pushes on it. It is also worth knowing that the verses printed beside this hymn in hymnals were chosen by editors and disagree with one another, so any reference above the song is a pointer to follow rather than the song's own citation.

Is it safe to dwell on?

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

What repetition plants here is one sentence about durability: the thing that saved you has not weakened. That is true, and Hebrews 9:12 and 10:14 are where it is argued rather than asserted. The dwelling tag is mixed for a countable reason. The grammatical subject of nearly every line is the blood, and the beneficiary of nearly every line is the singer, so the song holds Christ's work and its effect on me in the same breath, over and over. Looped, that plants a reflex that turns toward the cross when doubt arrives, which is where the letter sends its readers too. The one thing the loop will not supply is the verse's destination. Hebrews 9:14 purifies the conscience so that we may serve the living God, and that last clause has to be read. It does not arrive by singing.

Helpful comparison

This site already has a proof on Hebrews 9:22, and the two sit on the same chapter for a reason worth naming. Verse 22 states the law's requirement, that without shed blood there is no forgiveness. Verses 13 and 14 are the "how much more" that answers it, and they answer it with a comparison rather than a bare claim: animal blood really did accomplish something, and what it accomplished was outward. The argument gets its force from conceding the lesser term. A song that sings only the conclusion, as this one does and as most blood hymns do, keeps the true part and drops the comparison that earned it. That is not a fault in a two-stanza gospel song. It is the reason the chapter is worth opening beside it.

The verse's own terms are not in the song: a conscience purified from works of death, and service to the living God. The song keeps the conclusion of the argument without those terms.

Sources

Andrae Crouch — The Blood Will Never Lose It's Power · (the recording checked for this proof; the auto-generated "Andrae Crouch - Topic" channel, description reads "Provided to YouTube by Vanguard", album Take the Message Everywhere, ℗ 2005 Light Records, main artists Andrae Crouch and Disciples, 2:58)
UMC Discipleship Ministries — History of Hymns: "The Blood Will Never Lose Its Power" · (the barbecue account at James Cleveland's house and Sandra retrieving the song from the trash; age fourteen; the COGICS recording of 1962; the song's appearance on the 1968 Disciples debut; the © 1966, 1994 Manna Music line; the two-stanza plus refrain structure and what each stanza is about; the Psalm 103:12 parallel and the earlier blood hymns by Lewis E. Jones, Civilla Martin and Fanny Crosby)
Hymnary.org — The Blood Will Never Lose Its Power · (Andraé Crouch as author and composer, text and tune dated 1962, © 1966 renewed 1994 Manna Music; the Psalter Hymnal Handbook note assigning Ephesians 1:7 to all stanzas; the per-hymnal scripture indexes showing more than twenty different passages, including Hebrews 9:11-14, 9:14, 9:12 and 9:22)
PraiseCharts — The Blood Will Never Lose Its Power · (writer Andrae Crouch; © 1966 Manna Music, Inc., admin. by Gaither Copyright Management; CCLI song number 11885; themes listed as Assurance and Blood; no scripture reference listed by the rights holder's chart page)
Wikipedia — Take the Message Everywhere · (1968 debut album by Andraé Crouch and the Disciples on Light Records, produced by Ralph Carmichael; this song is side two, track three, 2:58)
Wikipedia — Andraé Crouch · (born 1 July 1942 in Los Angeles with twin sister Sandra; wrote this song at fifteen; the COGICS formed 1960; the Disciples formed 1965 and their Light Records debut in 1968)

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