At the first Passover, the blood of the sacrificed animal was placed on the houses of the Israelites as the divinely appointed sign by which they would be spared from the judgment falling upon Egypt. Exodus 12:13 emphasizes God's promise that when He saw the blood He would "pass over" them. The blood did not function as a magical object; it marked those who trusted and obeyed God's provision for deliverance.

Christian interpretation sees this event as a powerful type of salvation through the death of Christ. Romans 5:8-9 teaches that while sinners were still estranged from God, Christ died for them and that they are justified by His blood and saved from wrath through Him. The correspondence is therefore between deliverance from judgment through the blood of the Passover sacrifice and deliverance from divine judgment through Christ's sacrificial death. The Exodus event had an immediate historical meaning for Israel, while the New Testament presents Christ's blood as accomplishing the deeper and final redemption to which the Passover pattern points.