The Blood of Sprinkling A Sermon

The Blood of Sprinkling

A Sermon

(No. 1888)

Delivered on Lord's-day Morning, February 28th, 1886, by

C. H. SPURGEON,

At [1]the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of
sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel. See that ye
refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused him
that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away
from him that speaketh from heaven."–Hebrews 12:24, 25.

WE ARE JOYFULLY REMINDED by the apostle that we are not come to Mount
Sinai and its overwhelming manifestations. After Israel had kept the
feast of the Passover, God was pleased to give his people a sort of
Pentecost, and more fully to manifest himself and his law to them at
Sinai. They were in the wilderness, with the solemn peaks of a desolate
mountain as their center; and from the top thereof, in the midst of
fire, and blackness, and darkness, and tempest, and with the sound of a
trumpet, God spake with them. "The earth shook, the heavens also
dropped at the presence of God: even Sinai itself was moved at the
presence of God, the God of Israel." We are not come to the dread and
terror of the old covenant, of which our apostle saith in another
place, "The covenant from the Mount Sinai gendereth unto bondage"
(Galatians 4:24.) Upon the believer's spirit there rests not the
slavish fear, the abject terror, the fainting alarm, which swayed the
tribes of Israel; for the manifestation of God which he beholds, though
not less majestic, is far more full of hope and joy. Over us there
rests not the impenetrable cloud of apprehension; we are not buried in
a present darkness of despair; we are not tossed about with a tempest
of horror; and, therefore, we do not exceedingly fear and quake. How
thankful we should be for this! Israel was privileged even in receiving
a fiery law from the right hand of Jehovah; but we are far more
favored, since we receive "the glorious gospel of the blessed God."

Our apostle next tells us what we are come to. I suppose he speaks of
all the saints after the death and resurrection of our Lord and the
descent of the Holy Ghost. He refers to the whole church, in the midst
of which the Holy Spirit now dwells. We are come to a more joyous sight
than Sinai, and the mountain burning with fire. The Hebrew worshipper,
apart from his sacrifices, lived continually beneath the shadow of the
darkness of a broken law; he was startled often by the tremendous note
of the trumpet, which threatened judgment for that broken law; and thus
he lived ever in a condition of bondage. To what else could the law
bring him? To convince of sin and to condemn the sinner is its utmost
power. The believer in the Lord Jesus Christ lives in quite another
atmosphere. He has not come to a barren crag, but to an inhabited city,
Jerusalem above, the metropolis of God. He has quitted the wilderness
for the land which floweth with milk and honey, and the material mount
which might be touched for the spiritual and heavenly Jerusalem. He has
entered into fellowship with an innumerable company of angels, who are
to him, not cherubim with flaming swords to keep men back from the tree
of life, but ministering spirits sent forth to minister to the heirs of
salvation. He is come to the joyous assembly of all pure intelligences
who have met, not in trembling, but in joyous liberty, to keep the
feast with their great Lord and King. He thinks of all who love God
throughout all worlds, and he feels that he is one of them; for he has
come to "the general assembly and church of the first-born, which are
written in heaven." Moreover, he has come "to God the Judge of all,"
the umpire and rewarder of all the chosen citizens who are enrolled by
his command, the ruler and judge of all their enemies. God is not to
them a dreadful person who speaks from a distance; but he is their
Father and their Friend, in whom they delight themselves, in whose
presence there is fullness of joy for them. Brethren, our fellowship is
with the Father, our God. To him we have come through our Lord Jesus
Christ. Moreover, in the power of the Spirit of God we realize the
oneness of the church both in heaven and earth, and the spirits of just
men made perfect are in union with us. No gulf divides the militant
from the triumphant; we are one army of the living God. We sometimes
speak of the holy dead; but there are none such: they live unto God;
they are perfected as to their spirits even now, and they are waiting
for the moment when their bodies also shall be raised from the tomb to
be again inhabited by their immortal souls. We no longer shudder at the
sepulcher, but sing of resurrection. Our condition of heart, from day
to day, is that of men who are in fellowship with God, fellowship with
angels, fellowship with perfect spirits.

We have also come to Jesus, our Savior, who is all and in all. In him
we live; we are joined unto him in one spirit; he is the Bridegroom of
our souls, the delight of our hearts. We are come to him as the
Mediator of the new covenant. What a blessed thing it is to know that
covenant of which he is the Mediator! Some in these days despise the
covenant; but saints delight in it. To them the everlasting covenant,
"ordered in all things, and sure," is all their salvation and all their
desire. We are covenanted ones through our Lord Jesus. God has pledged
himself to bless us. By two immutable things wherein it is impossible
for him to lie, he has given us strong consolation, and good hope
through grace, even to all of us who have fled for refuge to the Lord
Jesus. We are happy to live under the covenant of grace, the covenant
of promise, the covenant symbolized by Jerusalem above, which is free,
and the mother of us all.

Then comes the last thing of all, mentioned last, as I shall have to
show you, for a purpose. We have come "to the blood of sprinkling." On
that first day at Sinai no blood of sprinkling was presented, but
afterwards it was used by divine order to ratify the national covenant
which the tribes made with Jehovah at the foot of the hill. Of that
covenant the Lord says, "which my covenant they brake, although I was
an husband unto them." He never brake his covenant, but they brake it;
for they failed to keep that condition of obedience without which a
covenant founded upon works falls to the ground. We have come to the
blood of sprinkling which has fallen upon a covenant which never shall
be broken; for the Lord hath made it to endure though rocks and hills
remove. This is called by the Holy Ghost "a better covenant, which was
established upon better promises." We are come to the covenant of
grace, to Jesus the Mediator of it, and to his blood, which is the seal
of it. Of this last we are going to speak at this time–"The blood of
sprinkling which speaketh better things than that of Abel."

I shall need this morning to occupy all the time with what I regard as
only the first head of my discourse. What is it? "The blood of
sprinkling." It will be our duty afterwards to consider where we
are–"we are come unto this blood;" and, thirdly, to remember what
then? "See that ye refuse not him that speaketh."

I. FIRST, WHAT IS IT? What is this "blood of sprinkling?" In a few
words, "the blood of sprinkling" represents the pains, the sufferings,
the humiliation, and the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, which he
endured on the behalf of guilty man. When we speak of the blood, we
wish not to be understood as referring solely or mainly to the literal
material blood which flowed from the wounds of Jesus. We believe in the
literal fact of his shedding his blood; but when we speak of his cross
and blood we mean those sufferings and that death of our Lord Jesus
Christ by which he magnified the law of God; we mean what Isaiah
intended when he said, "He shall make his soul an offering for sin;" we
mean all the griefs which Jesus vicariously endured on our behalf at
Gethsemane, and Gabbatha, and Golgotha, and specially his yielding up
his life upon the tree of scorn and doom. "The chastisement of our
peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed." "Without
shedding of blood there is no remission;" and the shedding of blood
intended is the death of Jesus, the Son of God.

Remember that his sufferings and death were not apparent only, but true
and real; and that they involved an incalculable degree of pain and
anguish. To redeem our souls cost our Lord an exceeding sorrowfulness
"even unto death;" it cost him the bloody sweat, the heart broken with
reproach, and specially the agony of being forsaken of his Father, till
he cried, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Our Mediator
endured death under the worst possible aspects, bereft of those
supports which are in all other cases of godly men afforded by the
goodness and faithfulness of God. His was not merely a natural death,
but a death aggravated by supernatural circumstance, which infinitely
intensified its woe. This is what we mean by the blood of Christ, his
sufferings, and his death.

These were voluntarily undertaken by himself out of pure love to us,
and in order that we might thereby be justly saved from deserved
punishment. There was no natural reason on his own account why he
should suffer, bleed, and die. Far from it,–"He only hath
immortality." But out of supreme love to us, that man might be forgiven
without the violation of divine rectitude, the Son of God assumed human
flesh, and became in very deed a man, in order that he might be able to
offer in man's place a full vindication to the righteous and
unchangeable law of God. Being God, he thus showed forth the wondrous
love of God to man by being willing to suffer personally rather than
the redeemed should die as the just result of their sin. The matchless
majesty of his divine person lent supreme efficacy to his sufferings.
It was a man that died, but he was also God, and the death of incarnate
God reflects more glory upon law than the deaths of myriads of
condemned creatures could have done. See the yearning of the great God
for perfect righteousness: he had sooner die than stain his justice
even to indulge his mercy. Jesus the Lord, out of love to the Father
and to men, undertook willingly and cheerfully for our sakes to magnify
the law, and bring in perfect righteousness. This work was so carried
out to the utmost, that not a jot of the suffering was mitigated, nor a
particle of the obedience foregone: "he became obedient unto death,
even the death of the cross." Now he hath finished transgression, made
an end of sin, and brought in everlasting righteousness: for he has
offered such an expiation that God is just, and the justifier of him
that believeth. God is at once the righteous Judge, and the infinitely
loving Father, through what Jesus hath suffered.

Brethren, though I have said that there was no reason why the Son of
God should bleed and die on his own account, yet towards us there was a
reason. Our Lord from of old in the eternal covenant was constituted
the head and representative of all who were in him; and so, when the
time came, he took the place, bore the sin, and suffered the penalty of
those whom the Father gave him from before the foundations of the
world. He is as much the representative man as the first Adam was the
representative man; and as in Adam the sin was committed which ruined
us, so in the second Adam the atonement was made which saves us. "As in
Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." There was no
other person so fit to undertake the enterprise of our redemption as
this second man, who is the Lord from heaven. He properly, but yet most
generously and spontaneously, came and shed his precious blood, in the
room and place and stead of sinners, to bring the guilty near to God.

But the text does not merely speak of the blood shed, which I have
explained to you, but of "the blood of sprinkling." This is the
atonement applied for divine purposes, and specially applied to our own
hearts and consciences by faith. For the explanation of this sprinkling
we must look to the types of the Old Testament. In the Old Testament
the blood of sprinkling meant a great many things; in fact, I cannot
just now tell you all that it signified. We meet with it in the Book of
Exodus, at the time when the Lord smote all the first-born of Egypt.
Then the blood of sprinkling meant preservation. The basin filled with
blood was taken, and a bunch of hyssop was dipped into it, and the
lintel and the two side-posts of every house tenanted by Israelites
were smeared with the blood; and when God saw the blood upon the house
of the Israelite, he bade the destroyer pass that family by, and leave
their first-born unharmed. The sprinkled blood meant preservation: it
was Israel's passover and safeguard.

The sprinkled blood very frequently signified the confirmation of a
covenant. So it is used in Exodus 24., which I read to you just now.
The blood was sprinkled upon the book of the covenant, and also upon
the people, to show that the covenant was, as far as it could be,
confirmed by the people who promised, "All that the Lord hath said will
we do." The blood of bulls and of goats in that case was but a type of
the sacrificial blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. The lesson which we
learn from Exodus 24:is that the blood of sprinkling means the blood of
ratification or confirmation of the covenant, which God has been
pleased to make with men in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. Since
Jesus died, the promises are Yea and Amen to all believers, and must
assuredly be fulfilled. The covenant of grace had but one condition,
and that condition Jesus has fulfilled by his death, so that it has now
become a covenant of pure and unconditional promise to all the seed.

In many cases the sprinkling of the blood meant purification. If a
person had been defiled, he could not come into the sanctuary of God
without being sprinkled with blood. There were the ashes of a red
heifer laid up, and these were mixed with blood and water; and by their
being sprinkled on the unclean, his ceremonial defilement was removed.
There were matters incident to domestic life, and accidents of outdoor
life, which engendered impurity, and this impurity was put away by the
sprinkling of blood. This sprinkling was used in the case of recovery
from infectious disease, such as leprosy; before such persons could
mingle in the solemn assemblies, they were sprinkled with the blood,
and thus were made ceremonially pure. In a higher sense this is the
work of the blood of Christ. It preserves us, it ratifies the covenant,
and wherever it is applied it makes us pure; for "the blood of Jesus
Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin." We have our hearts sprinkled
from an evil conscience; for we have come unto the obedience and
sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.

The sprinkling of the blood meant, also, sanctification. Before a man
entered upon the priesthood the blood was put upon his right ear, and
on the great toe of his right foot, and on the thumb of his right hand,
signifying that all his powers were thus consecrated to God. The
ordination ceremony included the sprinkling of blood upon the altar
round about. Even thus hath the Lord Jesus redeemed us unto God by his
death, and the sprinkling of his blood hath made us kings and priests
unto God for ever. He is made of God unto us sanctification, and all
else that is needed for the divine service.

One other signification of the blood of the sacrifice was acceptation
and access. When the high priest went into the most holy place once a
year, it was not without blood, which he sprinkled upon the ark of the
covenant, and upon the mercy-seat, which was on the top thereof. All
approaches to God were made by blood. There was no hope of a man
drawing near to God, even in symbol, apart from the sprinkling of the
blood. And now to-day our only way to God is by the precious sacrifice
of Christ; the only hope for the success of our prayers, the acceptance
of our praises, or the reception of our holy works, is through the
ever-abiding merit of the atoning sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The Holy Ghost bids us enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus;
there is no other way.

There were other uses besides these, but it may suffice to put down the
sprinkling of the blood as having these effects, namely, that of
preservation, satisfaction, purification, sanctification, and access to
God. This was all typified in the blood of bulls and of goats, but
actually fulfilled in the great sacrifice of Christ.

With this as an explanation, I desire to come still closer to the text,
and view it with great care; for to my mind it is singularly full of
teaching. May the Holy Spirit lead us into the truth which lies herein
like treasure hid in a field!

First. The blood of sprinkling is the center of the divine
manifestation under the gospel. Observe its innermost place in the
passage before us. You are privileged by almighty grace to come first
to Mount Zion, to climb its steeps, to stand upon its holy summit, and
to enter the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. In those
golden streets, surrounding the hallowed shrine, you behold an
innumerable company of angels. What a vision of glory! But you must not
rest here; for the great general assembly, the festal gathering, the
solemn convocation of the enrolled in heaven, is being held, and all
are there in glad attire, surrounding their God and Lord. Press onward
to the throne itself, where sits the Judge of all, surrounded by those
holy spirits who have washed their robes, and, therefore, stand before
the throne of God in perfection.

Have you not come a long way? Are you not admitted into the very center
of the whole revelation? Not yet. A step further lands you where stands
your Savior, the Mediator, with the new covenant. Now is your joy
complete; but you have a further object to behold. What is in that
innermost shrine? What is that which is hidden away in the holy of
holies? What is that which is the most precious and costly thing of
all, the last, the ultimatum, God's grandest revelation? The precious
blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot–the
blood of sprinkling. This comes last; it is the innermost truth of the
dispensation of grace under which we live. Brethren, when we climb to
heaven itself, and pass the gate of pearl, and wend our way through the
innumerable hosts of angels, and come even to the throne of God, and
see the spirits of the just made perfect, and hear their holy hymn, we
shall not have gone beyond the influence of the blood of sprinkling;
nay, we shall see it there more truly present than in any other place
beside. "What!" say you, "the blood of Jesus in heaven?" Yes. The
earthly sanctuary, we are told, was purified with the blood of bulls
and of goats, "but the heavenly things themselves with better
sacrifices than these."(Hebrews 9:23) When Jesus entered once for all
into the holy place, he entered by his own blood, having obtained
eternal redemption for us: so saith the apostle in the ninth chapter of
this epistle. Let those who talk lightly of the precious blood correct
their view ere they be guilty of blasphemy; for the revelation of God
knows no lower deep, this is the heart and center of all. The
manifestation of Jesus under the gospel is not only the revelation of
the Mediator, but especially of his sacrifice. The appearance of God
the Judge of all, the vision of hosts of angels and perfect spirits, do
but lead up to that sacrifice which is the source and focus of all true
fellowship between God and his creatures. This is the character which
Jesus wears in the innermost shrine where he reveals himself most
clearly to those who are nearest to him. He looks like a lamb that has
been slain. There is no sight of him which is more full, more glorious,
more complete, than the vision of him as the great sacrifice for sin.
The atonement of Jesus is the concentration of the divine glory; all
other revelations of God are completed and intensified here. You have
not come to the central sun of the great spiritual system of grace till
you have come to the blood of sprinkling–to those sufferings of
Messiah which are not for himself, but are intended to bear upon
others, even as drops when they are sprinkled exert their influence
where they fall. Unless you have learned to rejoice in that blood which
taketh away sin, you have not yet caught the key-note of the gospel
dispensation. The blood of Christ is the life of the gospel. Apart from
atonement you may know the skin, the rind, the husk of the gospel; but
its inner kernel you have not discovered.

I next ask you to look at the text and observe that this sprinkling of
the blood, as mentioned by the Holy Ghost in this passage, is
absolutely identical with Jesus himself. Read it. "To Jesus the
mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that
speaketh better things than that of Abel. See that ye refuse not him
that speaketh." He saith it is the blood that speaketh; and then he
proceeds to say, "See that ye refuse not him that speaketh." This is a
very unexpected turn, which can only be explained upon the supposition
that Jesus and the blood are identical in the writer's view. By what we
may call a singularity in grammar, in putting him for it, the Spirit of
God intentionally sets forth the striking truth, that the sacrifice is
identical with the Savior. "We are come to the Savior, the mediator of
the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh; see
that ye refuse not him." Beloved friends, there is no Jesus if there is
no blood of sprinkling; there is no Savior if there is no sacrifice. I
put this strongly, because the attempt is being made nowadays to set
forth Jesus apart from his cross and atonement. He is held up as a
great ethical teacher, a self-sacrificing spirit, who is to lead the
way in a grand moral reformation, and by his influence to set up a
kingdom of moral influence in the world. It is even hinted that this
kingdom has never had prominence enough given to it because it has been
overshadowed by his cross. But where is Jesus apart from his sacrifice?
He is not there if you have left out the blood of sprinkling, which is
the blood of sacrifice. Without the atonement, no man is a Christian,
and Christ is not Jesus. If you have torn away the sacrificial blood,
you have drawn the heart out of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and robbed
it of its life. If you have trampled on the blood of sprinkling, and
counted it a common thing, instead of putting it above you upon the
lintel of the door, and all around you upon the two side-posts, you
have fearfully transgressed. As for me, God forbid that I should glory
save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, since to me that cross is
identical with Jesus himself. I know no Jesus but he who died the just
for the unjust. You can separate Jesus and the blood materially; for by
the spear-thrust, and all his other wounds, the blood was drawn away
from the body of our Lord; but spiritually this "blood of sprinkling"
and the Jesus by whom we live, are inseparable. In fact, they are one
and indivisible, the self-same thing, and you cannot truly know Jesus,
or preach Jesus, unless you preach him as slain for sin; you cannot
trust Jesus except you trust him as making peace by the blood of his
cross. If you have done with the blood of sprinkling, you have done
with Jesus altogether; he will never part with his mediatorial glory as
our sacrifice, neither can we come to him if we ignore that character.
Is it not clear in the text that Jesus and the blood of sprinkling are
one? What God hath joined together, let no man put asunder. Note this
right carefully.

Thirdly, observe that this "blood of sprinkling" is put in close
contact with "the new covenant." I do not wonder that those who are lax
in their views of the atonement have nothing honorable to say
concerning the covenants, old or new. The doctrine of the covenants is
the marrow of divinity; but these vain-glorious spirits affect to
despise it. This is natural, since they speak slightingly of the
atonement. What covenant is there without blood? If it be not ratified,
if there be no sacrifice to make it sure, then is it no covenant in the
sight of God or of enlightened men. But, O beloved, ye who know your
Lord, and follow on to know him yet better, to you the covenant of
promise is a heritage of joy, and his atonement is most precious as the
confirmation of it. To us the sacrificial death of our Lord is not a
doctrine, but the doctrine, not an outgrowth of Christian teaching, but
the essence and marrow of it. To us Jesus in his atonement is Alpha and
Omega, in him the covenant begins and ends. You see how it was
confirmed by blood. If it be a man's covenant, if it be confirmed, it
standeth; but this is God's covenant, confirmed with promises, oaths
and blood, and it stands fast for ever and ever. Every believer is as
much interested in that covenant as was Abraham the father of
believers; for the covenant was made with Abraham and his spiritual
seed; and in Christ it is confirmed to all that seed for ever by his
most precious blood. That, also, is evident enough in the text: fail
not to consider it well.

But, fourthly, I want you to notice that according to the text the
blood is the voice of the new dispensation. Observe that on Sinai there
was "the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words; which voice they
that heard entreated that the word should not be spoken to them any
more." You look, therefore, under the new dispensation, for a voice,
and you do not come to any till you reach the last object in the list,
and there see "the blood of sprinkling that speaketh." Here, then, is
the voice of the gospel; it is not the sound of a trumpet, nor the
voice of words spoken in terrible majesty; but the blood speaks, and
assuredly there is no sound more piercing, more potent, more
prevailing. God heard the voice of Abel's blood and visited Cain with
condign punishment for killing his brother; and the precious blood of
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, cries in the ears of God with a voice
which is ever heard. How can it be imagined that the Lord God should be
deaf to the cry of his Son's sacrifice? Lo, these many ages the blood
has cried–"Forgive them! Forgive them! Accept them! Deliver them from
going down into the pit, for I have found a ransom!"

The blood of sprinkling has a voice of instruction to us even as it has
a voice of intercession with God. It cries to us, "See the evil of sin!
See how God loveth righteousness! See how he loveth men! See how
impossible it is for you to escape from the punishment of sin except by
this great sacrifice in which the love and the justice of God equally
appear! See how Jehovah spared not his own Son, but freely delivered
him up for us all."

What a voice there is in the atonement!–a voice which pleads for
holiness and love, for justice and grace, for truth and mercy. "See
that ye refuse not him that speaketh."

Do you not hear it? If you take away the blood of sprinkling from the
gospel, you have silenced it. It has no voice if this be gone. "Oh,"
they say, "the gospel has lost its power!" What wonder when they have
made it a dumb gospel! How can it have power when they take away that
which is its life and speech? Unless the preacher is evermore preaching
this blood, and sprinkling it by the doctrine of faith, his teaching
has no voice either to rouse the careless or to cheer the anxious. If
ever there should come a wretched day when all our pulpits shall be
full of modern thought, and the old doctrine of a substitutionary
sacrifice shall be exploded, then will there remain no word of comfort
for the guilty or hope for the despairing. Hushed will be for ever
those silver notes which now console the living, and cheer the dying; a
dumb spirit will possess this sullen world, and no voice of joy will
break the blank silence of despair. The gospel speaks through the
propitiation for sin, and if that be denied, it speaketh no more. Those
who preach not the atonement exhibit a dumb and dummy gospel; a mouth
it hath, but speaketh not; they that make it are like unto their idol.

Let me draw you nearer still to the text. Observe, that this voice is
identical with the voice of the Lord Jesus; for it is put so. "The
blood of sprinkling that speaketh. See that ye refuse not him that
speaketh." Whatever the doctrine of the sacrifice of Jesus may be, it
is the main teaching of Jesus himself. It is well to notice that the
voice which spoke from Sinai was also the voice of Christ. It was Jesus
who delivered that law the penalty of which he was himself to endure.
He that read it out amidst the tempest was Jesus. Notice the
declaration–"Whose voice then shook the earth." Whenever you hear the
gospel, the voice of the precious blood is the voice of Jesus himself,
the voice of him that shook the earth at Sinai. This same voice shall
by-and-by shake, not the earth only, but also heaven. What a voice
there is in the blood of sprinkling, since indeed it is the voice of
the eternal Son of God, who both makes and destroys! Would you have me
silence the doctrine of the blood of sprinkling? Would any one of you
attempt so horrible a deed? Shall we be censured if we continually
proclaim the heaven-sent message of the blood of Jesus? Shall we speak
with bated breath because some affected person shudders at the sound of
the word "blood?" or some "cultured" individual rebels at the
old-fashioned thought of sacrifice? Nay, verily, we will sooner have
our tongue cut out than cease to speak of the precious blood of Jesus
Christ. For me there is nothing worth thinking of or preaching about
but this grand truth, which is the beginning and the end of the whole
Christian system, namely, that God gave his Son to die that sinners
might live. This is not the voice of the blood only, but the voice of
our Lord Jesus Christ himself. So saith the text, and who can
contradict it?

Further, my brethren, from the text I learn another truth, namely, that
this blood is always speaking. The text saith not "the blood of
sprinkling that spoke," but "that speaketh." It is always speaking, it
always remaineth a plea with God and a testimony to men. It never will
be silenced, either one way or the other. In the intercession of our
risen and ascended Lord his sacrifice ever speaketh to the Most High.
By the teaching of the Holy Ghost the atonement will always speak in
edification to believers yet upon the earth. It is the blood that
speaketh, according to our text, this is the only speech which this
dispensation yields us. Shall that speech ever be still? Shall we
decline to hear it? Shall we refuse to echo it? God forbid. By day, by
night, the great sacrifice continues to cry to the sons of men, "Turn
ye from your sins, for they cost your Savior dear. The times of your
ignorance God winked at, but now commandeth all men everywhere to
repent, since he is able to forgive and yet be just. Your offended God
has himself provided a sacrifice; come and be sprinkled with its blood,
and be reconciled once for all." The voice of this blood speaks
wherever there is a guilty conscience, wherever there is an anxious
heart, wherever there is a seeking sinner, wherever there is a
believing mind. It speaketh with sweet, familiar, tender, inviting
voice. There is no music like it to the sinner's ear: it charms away
his fears. It shall never cease its speaking so long as there is a
sinner yet out of Christ; nay, so long as there is one on earth who
still needs its cleansing power because of fresh backslidings. Oh, hear
ye its voice! Incline your ear and receive its blessed accents: it
says, "Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord; though
your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be
red like crimson, they shall be as wool."

This part of my discourse will not be complete unless I bid you notice
that we are expressly told that this precious blood speaks "better
things than that of Abel." I do not think that the whole meaning of the
passage is exhausted if we say that Abel's blood cries for vengeance,
and that Christ's blood speaks for pardon. Dr. Watts puts it:–

"Blood has a voice to pierce the skies:

'Revenge!' the blood of Abel cries;

But the dear stream when Christ was slain

Speaks peace as loud from ev'ry vein."

That is quite true; but I conceive that it is not all the sense, and
perhaps not even the sense here intended. Revenge is scarcely a good
thing; yet Abel's blood spake good things, or we should hardly read
that Christ's blood speaks "better things." What does the blood of Abel
speak? The blood of Abel speaks to a complete and believing obedience
to God. It shows us a man who believes God, and, notwithstanding the
enmity of his brother, brings to God the appointed sacrifice of faith,
strictly following up, even to the bitter end, his holy obedience to
the Most High. That is what the blood of Abel says to me; and the blood
of Jesus says the same thing most emphatically. The death of Jesus
Christ was the crown and close of a perfect life, it was a fit
completion of a course of holiness. In obedience to the Great Father,
Jesus even laid down his life. But if this be all the blood of Jesus
speaks, as some say that it is, then it does not speak better things
than the blood of Abel; for it only says the same things in a louder
voice. The martyrdom of any saint has a voice for obedience to God as
truly as the martyrdom of Jesus; but the death of our Lord says far
more, infinitely more, than this: it not only witnesses to complete
obedience, but it provides the way by which the disobedient may be
forgiven and helped to obedience and holiness. The cross has a greater,
deeper, gladder gospel for fallen men than that of a perfect example
which they are unable to follow.

The blood of Abel said this, too–that he was not ashamed of his faith,
but witnessed a good confession concerning his God, even to the death;
he put his life in his hand, and was not ashamed to stand at the altar
of God, and avow his faith by obediently offering the ordained
sacrifice. Now, I grant you that the blood of Jesus also declares that
he was a faithful and true witness, who willingly sealed his witness
with his blood. He proved by shedding his blood that he could not be
turned aside from truth and righteousness, even though death stood in
his way; but if that is all that the blood of sprinkling speaketh, it
saith no better things than the blood of Abel. "Be faithful unto
death," is the voice of Abel as well as of Jesus. Jesus must have said
more than this by his blood-shedding.

The blood of Abel said good things; that is implied in the fact that
the blood of Jesus Christ says better things; and no doubt the blood of
Abel rises to the dignity of teaching self-sacrifice. Here was a man, a
keeper of sheep, who by his mode of life laid out his life for the good
of those committed to his charge; and at the last, in obedience to God,
he yielded himself up to die by a brother's hand. It was the first
draught of a picture of self-sacrifice. Our Lord Jesus Christ also made
a complete self-sacrifice. All his life long he gave himself to men. He
lived never for himself. The glory of God and the good of men were
united in one passion which filled his whole soul. He could say, "The
zeal of thine house hath eaten me up." His death was the completion of
his perfect self-sacrifice. But if that were all, the blood of Jesus
saith no better thing than Abel's death saith, though it may say it
more emphatically.

Our Lord's blood saith "better things than that of Abel;" and what doth
it say? It saith, "There is redemption through his blood, the
forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace." "He his own
self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we being dead to
sins should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes we were healed."
"He hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be
made the righteousness of God in him." The voice of the blood is this,
"For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and
their iniquities will I remember no more." "The blood of Jesus Christ
his Son cleanseth us from all sin." Now, my brethren, these are better
things than Abel's blood could say, and they are what the blood of
Jesus speaks to every one upon whom it is sprinkled by faith. It must
be applied to each one of us by faith, or it says nothing to us. But
when it falls on each believing individual, it saith to him words of
blessing which pacify his conscience and delight his soul.

The apostle says that "Ye are come to the blood of sprinkling." Is it
so? Has that blood of sprinkling ever been applied to you? Do you feel
it? Are you preserved? Are you cleansed? Are you brought nigh to God?
Are you sanctified unto God's service by the atoning sacrifice? If so,
then go you out, and in firm confidence that never can be shaken, make
your glory in the blood of sprinkling. Tell every sinner whom you meet
that if the Lord Jesus wash him he shall be whiter than snow. Preach
the atoning sacrifice of the Lamb of God and then sing of it. Recollect
that wondrous threefold song in the fifth chapter of the Revelation,
where, first of all, the elders and living creatures round about the
throne, sing a new song, saying, "Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us
to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and
nation." Then ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of
thousands of angels take up the strain and cry, "Worthy is the Lamb
that was slain." Nor is this all; for the apostle tells us, "Every
creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and
such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying,
Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth
upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever." See you not that
they all extol the Lord Jesus in his sacrificial character as the Lamb
slain? I have scant patience with those who dare to put this great
truth into the background, and even sneer at it or misrepresent it of
set purpose. Sirs, if you would be saved you must have the blood of
Jesus sprinkled upon you. He that believeth not in Christ Jesus, in
Jesus the atoning sacrifice, must perish. The eternal God must repulse
with infinite disgust the man who refuses the loving sacrifice of
Jesus. Inasmuch as he counted himself unworthy of this wondrous
sacrifice, this marvellous expiation there remaineth no other sacrifice
for sin, and nothing for him but that eternal blackness and darkness
and thunder which were foreshadowed at Sinai. Those who refuse the
atonement which wisdom devised, which love provided, and which justice
has accepted, have signed their own death-warrant, and none can wonder
that they perish. The Lord lead us to glory in Christ crucified. Amen.

PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON–Exodus 20:1-21; 24:1-8.

HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"–236, 279, 291.

* For this line of thought I am much indebted to a chapter in an
admirable book, entitled "Every-day Life," by C. H. Waller, M. A. Shaw
and Co.