The shed blood from the spotless body of the Lord Jesus is the touchstone by which to test every man’s faith, and the orthodoxy of every religious teaching. Blood is life, and the life of Christ goes nowhere except through the touch of His blood. A crimson salvation is the only salvation. To reject Christ’s blood for salvation is to reject His body, and to reject His body is to reject His spotless human soul, and His Divine personality that lived in His body. To reject His Person is to reject the eternal Father Who sent Him. Hence salvation or damnation turns on the pivot of our attitude toward the blood of Jesus.  

There is a wonderful statement in Heb. 12, where the apostle speaks of “the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than the blood of Abel,” and in the next verse warns us “not to refuse this blood, and its voice from Christ.” He is showing the startling contrast between Mount Sinai where the law was given, and the upper room on Mount Zion where the Holy Spirit was given—the two kinds of fire; the two kinds of shaking; the two kinds of words; the two kinds of blood; and the two kinds of mediator.  

Let us single out the contrast between the two kinds of blood, that of Abel, and that of Jesus. The name of Abel is mentioned in connection with Sinai because his blood cries for the execution of law and justice.  

1. The blood of mediation. Abel shed his blood as a martyr—as a witness for the truth of being saved through the atonement; but his blood did not make atonement, and was not a sacrifice for the saving of others. He died as a witness to the future sacrifice of Jesus. The word “martyr” is Greek and means “a witness.” But Jesus shed His blood as a voluntary substitute for the guilty, as an oblation and atonement, the innocent for the guilty, for the sins of the world.  

The word “mediator” means one who goes between two contending parties to reconcile, and if need be receive the blows from either side, even unto death. In this sense Scripture speaks of Moses as a mediator at Mount Sinai, when he stood between the anger of God, and the rebellion of Israel, and prayed for them, even though it might cost the blotting of his name from God’s book. The blessed Jesus went infinitely beyond this and in His human body stepped in between the holy wrath of God against sin on the one side, and the awful rebellion and impurity of the world on the other side. In His soul, He endured God’s wrath against sin, and in His body He endured the malice and murder of wicked men against a Holy God. In His soul He was smitten by the law of justice, and in His body He was smitten by the nails of the hatred of sinners. Thus on the God-side He poured out His soul unto death, and on the man-side He poured out His precious blood unto death.  

Deep and solemn wonders break out around us everywhere when we look into Christ’s blood shed for us. Just to mention a few! The Person of God’s eternal Son assumed, through a human mother, human flesh and blood for the purpose of rending that flesh, and spilling that blood to save lost sinners. Again, by the Divinity taking human blood, He united Himself by a living cordage to all creation that He might live in the creature, and make an atonement for the creature, and sanctify the creature and then show the creature how to live. Again, the worth of any blood is measured by the character and dignity of the creature who owns it. This law is recognized by all men, from the gradation of worth in a worm up to a monarch. Hence when a Divine Person assumes to Himself blood and flesh, He partakes at once of the infinite purity, majesty and sacred worth belonging to the Godhead. Hence the blood of Jesus ranks beyond the blood of a wicked sinner just as far as the Holy God outranks the sinner.  

2. “The blood of sprinkling.” This is the second contrast between the blood of Abel and that of Jesus. This opens up to us still greater wonders in Christ’s atonement. In order to understand why it is called “the blood of sprinkling,” we must look back to the Old Testament description of the Day of Atonement, which was an exact pattern of things in the Heavens, and which Christ fulfilled in every little particular. The High Priest shed the blood of the victim at the altar outside of the veil and, catching the warm blood, took it in a basin into the Holy of Holies. With his hand he sprinkled it, before it coagulated or got cold, on the golden lid of the mercy seat, under the wings of the Cherubim. He then prayed to the God of Israel, Who shone forth in the Shekinah light, and then returned back through the second veil to bless the people. From the time that he offered the sacrifice until the time he put the blood on the mercy seat, no person was allowed to touch him.  

Now see how all this was perfectly carried out by our Lord. He was the Priest, the Altar, and the sacrificial Victim, all in Himself. He shed His blood outside the gate, and His body lay dead for three days. Then He arose, and took His own blood which He had shed, and went into the third Heavens—the Holy of Holies—in the blazing presence of the eternal Father, and sprinkled His own shed blood on the mercy seat before the Father, on the very day of His resurrection. Then He returned and met His disciples that same evening, and told them to handle His body, and prove that He was alive.  

But early in the morning, when Mary met Him near the tomb, she wanted to clasp His feet with her hands, and He said, “Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended to my Father, but go to my brethren, and tell them, I ascend unto my Father, and to your Father” (John 20:17). This was to fulfill the law that no man should touch the high priest in his living person, until the sacrificial blood was sprinkled on the mercy seat.  

Have you ever thought of what became of the blood that Jesus shed out of His body? The crown of thorns drew the blood from His head, and when they pulled out some of His beard, for Scripture says, “they plucked the hair from His cheek,” it likely drew blood from His face. When He was scourged with knotted cords, it drew the blood from His back, thus making three blood sheddings before He went to Calvary; and then the piercing of the two hands, two feet and side, made five more blood sheddings on the cross.  

But what became of all that blood? The Romish church teaches that after He rose He assumed all of that blood back into His body, and that every time the Romish priest consecrates the mass, that blood is shed afresh in the mass. This is blasphemous contradiction to Scripture, which teaches that “He shed His blood once for all,” with “no more sacrifice for sins.” Thousands of Christians have never even thought of what became of it. We are told in Hebrews 9 how Christ entered into the Heavenly places, and the Holy of Holies by His own blood, as our High Priest. Hence Christ’s blood is still living as if freshly shed on the Heavenly altar for our salvation and sanctification.  

The body of Christ was immortal, and would never have died, for death comes by sin. Christ having no taint of sin, would have lived forever, without sickness, or old age, or death, had He not chosen to die. Scripture says, “death had no dominion over Him,” and Jesus affirms “that no man could take His life,” but “He laid it down of His own will.” And even when He was dead, His body did not in the least begin to mortify as other bodies do, for Scripture says, “His body saw no corruption.” Hence corruption, or putrefaction, could not touch one atom of His living organism, His flesh or blood. “In Him was life.” He was the fountain of life, and His blood has never decayed, but is sprinkled today, and remains on the mercy seat before the Father, as fresh as the morning He sprinkled it there, when He told Mary she must not touch Him till He had performed that High Priestly act. It was shed on the cross, but was sprinkled three days after on the mercy seat where it is yet.  

How can that blood save us? In a twofold way. It satisfied all the claims of Divine justice, and secures our justification. And then the vitality, the living force in that precious blood, is imparted to our hearts, washing away the sinful tempers and depravity of the soul. The red drops of blood were physical, but in those drops was a hidden, powerful vitality, just as there is life in a grain of corn. That life in Christ’s blood, which was emphatically the life of His body, is imparted to us by the Holy Ghost. This is what Christ means that “except we eat His flesh, and drink His blood, we have no life abiding in us.” Through faith we eat the life-force of His immortal body, and drink the life-force of His living blood. This is why John says he saw Christ in Heaven “as a Lamb newly slain.” There is no decay with God, but eternal freshness, and youth, and sweetness, and most intense vitality.  

3. “The voice of the blood.” This is the third contrast between the blood of Abel and that of Jesus. How little people imagine the abyss of meaning in that old axiom that “blood will tell.” It is true, blood can speak, and has a voice, and articulation in the ear of God. There are millions of sounds below the hearing of our ears, which God and angels can hear. God can hear the very thoughts we think. Every time we think a thought, a little molecule of the brain is consumed, and has to be repaired while we sleep. The action of the mind on the brain, consuming the brain tissue, produces an infinitesimal explosion similar to that of striking a match in order to liberate the phosphorus and make a flame. These minute-thought explosions in the brain are heard as distinctly by the Almighty God as we hear a peal of thunder. God heard the blow of Cain’s club on the head of Abel. He heard the sound of the rushing blood from his wounds and the moans and prayers of the dying man. He heard the sound of the drops of blood on the ground and said, “the voice of Abel’s blood cried to me from the ground.” That cry was for justice, for perfect equity and righteousness—a cry that was perfectly lawful. But when Jesus shed His blood, it uttered a voice far beyond the blood of Abel.  

The blood of Jesus has a voice. The eternal Father heard every drop of blood that gushed from the body of His dear Son, heard the sound as they fell on the earth. He heard the thoughts in the brain of Jesus as He hung on the tree; and more, He heard the beating of the heart that supplied the blood; and more, He heard the boundless love in that heart and brain, the fathomless compassion, the infinite merit that was in the blood by virtue of it belonging to His Divine Son.  

Every drop of that precious blood cried with infinite pathos for mercy and compassion; “Father forgive them,” “Father sanctify them.” This was the voice beyond martyrdom; it was atonement; it was the sacrifice of love, and hence it speaks better things than the blood of Abel. We must not only be justified through that blood, but have our nature washed in it, and then feed on it, till our whole soul and life has its character, and we are turned into the same pure love that poured that blood out with such lavish prodigality. “These are they who have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”