The Atonement of Jesus
It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us… – Hebrews 9:23,24
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.” When Jesus entered once and for all into the holy place, He entered by His own blood, having obtained eternal redemption for us. Let those who talk lightly of the precious blood correct their view before they are 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 fuller, more glorious, and 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 takes away sin, you have not yet caught the key-note of the gospel dispensation. The blood of Christ is the life of the gospel. ~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1888.cfm
Made Meet for Divine Service
…and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling… – Hebrews 12:24
Before a man entered upon the priesthood the blood was put upon his right ear, and on the big 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 has the Lord Jesus redeemed us unto God by His death, and the sprinkling of His blood has made us kings and priests unto God forever. He is made of God unto us sanctification, and all else that is needed for the divine service. 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 today 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 Spirit bids us enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, there is no other way.
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. ~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1888.cfm
The Blood of Jesus Christ
But ye are come unto mount Sion…and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling… – Hebrews 12:22,24
The text does not merely speak of the blood shed but of “the blood of sprinkling.” This is the atonement applied for divine purposes and especially applied to our own hearts and consciences by faith. 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, 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 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 Yes 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. 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 cleanses 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. ~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1888.cfm
Out of Love to the Father and to Men
And being found in human form He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. – Philippians 2:8
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. 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 has immortality.” 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 has finished transgression, made an end of sin, and brought in everlasting righteousness, for He has offered such expiation that God is just, and the justifier of him that believes. God is at once the righteous Judge, and the infinitely loving Father, through what Jesus has suffered. “As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1888.cfm
The Blood of Sprinkling
But ye are come unto mount Sion…and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling… – Hebrews 12:22,24
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 especially 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 exceedingly sorrowfulness “even unto death;” it cost Him the bloody sweat, the heart broken with reproach, and especially the agony of being forsaken of His Father till He cried, “My God, My God, why have You 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. ~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1888.cfm
Covenanted Fellowship
But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel. – Hebrews 12:22-24
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 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. ~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1888.cfm
He Hath Said 