The “Better Things”
And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel. – Hebrews 12:24
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.
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. 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 is 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. Our Lord’s blood says “better things than that of Abel,” and what does it say? It says, “There is redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His grace.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1888.cfm
This Blood is Always Speaking
And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel. – Hebrews 12:24
The text says not “the blood of sprinkling that spoke,” but “that speaks.” It is always speaking; it always remains 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 speaks to the Most High. By the teaching of the Holy Spirit the atonement will always speak in edification to believers yet upon the earth. It is the blood that speaks. 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 from your sins, for they cost your Savior dearly. The time of your ignorance God winked at, but now commands 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 and 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 speaks with a 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, no, so long as there is one on earth who still needs its cleansing power because of fresh backslidings. Oh, hear its voice! Incline your ears and receive its blessed accents. It says, “Come now, and let us reason together, says the Lord; though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1888.cfm
Do Not Mute the Gospel
See that ye refuse not Him that speaketh. – Hebrews 12:25
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 is gone. “Oh,” they say, “the gospel has lost its power!” What wonder when they have made it a mute 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 awaken 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 forever will be those silver notes which now console the living, and cheer the dying, a mute spirit will possess this sullen world, and no voice of joy will break the blank silence of despair.
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? No, 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 says the text, and who can contradict it? ~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1888.cfm
The Voice of the Gospel
For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest, And the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words…But ye are come unto mount Sion…and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel. – Hebrews 12:18,19,22,24
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 anymore.” 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 speaks.” 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 deserved 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 loves righteousness! See how He loves 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 you refuse not Him who speaks.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1888.cfm
The Covenant of Promise
And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel. – Hebrews 12:24
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 tend to despise it. This is natural, since they speak slightingly of the atonement. What covenant is there without blood? If it is not ratified, if there is no sacrifice to make it sure, then is it no covenant in the sight of God or of enlightened men. But, O beloved, you 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 is a man’s covenant, if it is confirmed, it stands, but this is God’s covenant, confirmed with promises, oaths and blood, and it stands fast forever 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 forever by His most precious blood. That, also, is evident enough in the text; fail not to consider it well. ~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1888.cfm
The Sacrifice is Identical with the Savior
But ye are come unto mount Sion…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. – Hebrews 12:22,24,25
I ask you to look at the text and observe that this sprinkling of the blood, as mentioned by the Holy Spirit 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 speaks better things than that of Abel. See that you refuse not Him who speaks.” He says it is the blood that speaks, and then he proceeds to say, “See that you refuse not Him who speaks.” 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 speaks; see that you 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. ~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1888.cfm
He Hath Said 