The Blood of Sprinkling

“The blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that

of Abel.”

The Old Testament is to some Christians almost a sealed book, especially in those parts which treat of the rites and ordinances pertaining to the tabernacle and temple. But this is an inferior stage in religious knowledge and experience, and should not be willingly rested in. After having obtained a just view of Christ as Mediator, from the clear representations of the New Testament, we go back to the system of Levitical types, and find it all there. It would be but an imperfect, undeveloped scheme of salvation, which should be derived from the New Testament without the Old. Indeed, the New constantly assumes and paraphrases the

* New York, January 15, 1857.

208 ‘^H^ BLOOD OF SPRINKLING.

Old; and many of the most precious Gospel declarations of Christ and the Apostles would be unintelligible hieroglyphics, without the key of Moses. It is the manner of these great teachers to express spiritual, gracious and eternal things in terms of the’ temple and the altar; and this in conformity with a system, planned from the beginning, in which all the type and symbol of the Mosaic economy is a preparation for the clear light of the latter day. Those, therefore, are the most deeply taught and richly experienced believers, who, after having learnt the simple principles of evangelical truth in the New Testament, go back with them to the Old Testament, and behold a hundredfold more beauty and majesty in the same truths as arrayed in the forms and laws of the Jewish service. In our endeavour, then, to find the Cross in the Holy of HoHes, and the Gospel in those smoking altars, we have our best aid in the Epistle to the Hebrews, which might be named a Key to the Tabernacle, or the Old Testament explained by the New. The theology which results from such studies is diametrically opposed to that of the metaphysical and sentimental school, who cite little scripture, and almost ignore the gorgeous pageantry of the old priestly service. Though a distempered fancy may here, as elsewhere, work mischief, these rites, which fill so much space in the Pentateuch, admit of an application much more detailed than is commonly enjoyed; and under ApostoHc guidance we shall do well to make ourselves largely acquainted with this neglected mine of truth.

Even cursory readers perceive the striking parallel between the bloody offerings of the temple and the oblation of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ; but few have taken pains to trace out the analogies, latent in the particular parts of sacrificial work, every one of which casts light upon the doctrine of redemption. At such a season as this, when every eye ought to be bent towards the atoning Lamb, we shall do well to enter somewhat into the more concealed significancy of this ceremonial, for the wine of sacred truth does not yield itself without pressure, and the honeycomb of grace requires its laden cells to be broken.

Consider with me, for a very few moments, the several steps which belonged to a regular and complete sacrifice, under the Aaronic liturgy.* First, there was the selection of a suitable, unblemished animal, as the victim; let us say a lamb from the flock. This reminds us at once of the Divine election of the Only-Begotten Son, as the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world. Secondly, the innocent creature was solemnly presented, for this peculiar purpose, near the door of the tabernacle. Answerable to this is the actual appearance of the Incarnate Son, in human nature, and especially his solemn separation and oblation of himself, the priest and victim being in this case one and the same. Thirdly, we behold a most imposing ceremony: the sinner who offers sacrifice lays his hands

* AfiTovpyla, Heb. ix. 21 et al. locis.

upon the head of the animal, confessing his sins. In the parallel instance of the scapegoat, the high priest is said to “put the sins of the congregation on the head of the goat.” Jewish writers record the words with which this imposition of hands was sometimes accompanied: “I beseech thee, 0 Lord, I have sinned, I have done perversely, I have rebelled, I have done so and so (mentioning the transgression); but now I repent, and let this victim be my expiation 1 “Who does not recognize in this the sinner under the Gospel, who, with clearer views, comes not to the visible but the invisible altar; not to the son of Aaron, but the son of David and Son of God; laying his hands not on the lamb of the perishable flock, but on the head of the divine sacrifice, and saying,” I have sinned, I have done perversely, I have rebelled; let this victim be my expiation! “So closely did the Hebrew connect this ceremony with the acknowledgment of guilt, that it grew into a maxim,” Where there is no imposition of hands, there is no confession.” They were equally accustomed to regard this laying on of hands as symbolically removing the guilt of sins from the sinner to the sacrifice. That which the Israelitish worshipper did, long before the Great Sacrifice on Calvary, and even before the slaying of his own typical offering, the Christian penitent now does by an act of faith, looking back to the oblation made once for all by the Lord Jesus. And every time he casts the eye of believing towards his humbled, scourged, buffeted, bleeding, crucified Saviour, he lays his hands anew upon the sacred Lamb, saying, Let this victim be my expiation! Fourthly, the sacrifice was slain, and consumed (sometimes wholly), upon the altar. This was the great atoning act. Here is blood for blood, and life for life. The basis of all its significancy is laid down, Lev. xvii. 11: “For the life of the flesh is in the blood; and I have given it to you upon the altar, to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul; “or as some render it, “for the blood atoned through the soul.” It is not the matter of the blood which atones, but the soul or life which resides in it; so that the soul of the ofiered victim atones for the soul of the offering penitent. In the imperfect but most speaking representation of type, the sacrifice of the innocent symbolic substitute goes up to God in the smoke of the bunit-offering, a sweet-smelling savour — if we may borrow another phrase from the vocabulary of Moses — a token and a pledge that the satisfaction is not only ofiered but accepted. It is by that which is here represented, to wit, by the self-oblation of the Lord Jesus Christ, that the breach between heaven and earth is made up; and so far as the efiicacy of the atonement is concerned, the work is complete and can never be repeated. All other pretended sacrifices, bloody or unbloody, are profane mockeries and insulting disparagements of that sacrifice of Himself, “once for all,” which terminated when Jesus cried, “It is finished! “Pifthly, and last in the order of sacrificial action, was the sprinkling of blood, to which your attention is more particularly called, as involved in the text, and as full of meaning appropriate to this ordinance. Aspersion or sprinkhng is a symbolical act employed with both water and blood. The sprinkhng of water is a token of symbolical cleansing, and is just as valid for this purpose, as if the whole body were washed by plentiful affusion or immersion, otherwise it would not have been so largely employed in the ritual language of the Old Testament. To sprinkle is to cleanse. Mark, therefore. Lev. xiv. T, when a leper was to be purified:” And he shall sprinkle upon him that is to be cleansed

from the leprosy seven times, and shall pronounce him clean’’ As soon as he was thus bedewed, his consciousness responded, “Now I am ceremonially clean.” It was to carry home this consciousness that the act was ordained. Among the “divers washings,” (baptisms,*) we may confidently enumerate what took place in the consecration of the Levites, Numb. viii. Observe how they were cleansed: “Take the Levites from among the children of Israel, and cleanse them. And thus shalt thou do unto them to cleanse them, SprinJcle water of purifying upon them,” etc. In another instance, where ceremonial defilement was contracted, a clean person was to take hyssop and dip it in water, and sprinkle it upon the tent and inmates; all which prepared the Hebrew

* Aia<y>6poi5 ^atmarfxois. Heb. ix. 10.

people for comprehending such language as that of God by the prophet: “Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you and ye shall be clean; from all your filthiness and from all your idols will I cleanse you,” Ezek. xxxvi. 25. In all these cases, whether in symbol or reality, there was conveyed to the soul a divine purification and a sense of it.

Now, if we turn from the application of baptismal water to the application of sacrificial blood, we shall observe the analogy hold good, and shall see the rite conve3dng to the sinner a consciousness of acceptance with God. In regard to God, the slaying and oblation was enough: in regard to man, the blood must be sprinkled. God might be appeased, and yet the sinner might be destitute of any pledge that it was so. Hence the importance of the seal; just as in our day the importance of sacramental sealings, in regard to acts long since consummated. “This sprinkling of blood was by much the most sacred part of the entire service, since it was that by which the life and soul of the victim were considered to be given to God as supreme Lord of Ufe and death; for what was placed upon the altar of God was supposed, according to the religion of the Jews, to be rendered to him.” * But the same typical sprinkhng reaches the offerer and sometimes the whole congregation, in token of their participation in the finished work. Those who honour God’s Old

* Outram on Sacrifice.

214 THE BLOOD OF SPRIKKLINa

Testament lessons will not turn away from a short examination of several cases as prescribed in the Law.

In the cleansing of one who had been afflicted with leprosy, after the slaying of one of the two sacrificial birds, the priest was to dip hyssop (among other things) in the blood, and sprinkle upon the leper seven times. Lev. xiv. This is a very simple and very striking service, in which the sprinkling of blood is used for purification.

But greatly more solemn is the next case, Lev. xvi., in which the method is detailed in which the high priest, once in the year, on the great day of Atonement, shall enter into the Holy of holies. A bullock, as one of the nobler animals, is slain and laid on the altar. Then, verse 14, “he shall take of the blood of the bullock and sprinkle it with his finger upon the mercy-seat eastward, and before the mercy-seat shall he sprinkle of the blood with his finger seven times.” The mercy-seat, or, far more properly, the propitiatory, was the awful centre of the shrine, displaying its golden effulgence above the ark of the covenant, and just beneath the covering wings of the overshadowing cherubim. To sprinkle the blood here, was to bring it to the throne of Jehovah, amidst the blaze of the Shekinah, unapproachable save by the typical Mediator. It was to declare before Infinite Justice, that the satisfaction was complete, by venturing even there with that which was the life and soul of the sacrifice. This is blood which “speaks.” The apostle Paul refers to this, Heb. ix. 18, “For when Moses had spoken every precept to the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and of goats, with water and scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book and all the people, saying. This is the blood of the testament which God hath enjoined unto you: * moreover, he sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry. And almost all things are by the law purged with blood, and without shedding of blood is no remission.” And after these striking words, the apostle goes on to show, that all this was done in antitype and reality, when our glorious High Priest entered into the heavenly places, to present the merit of his own most precious blood-shedding. As the whole virtue of the sacrifice resided in the life, which, as we have above cited, was in the blood, the solemn presentation of the blood was a sign that the oblation was complete; and the sprinkling of it on sinners was a token to them that the guilt of their sins was remitted. We have dwelt thus long upon an external rite, which many pass over as insignificant, because this is God’s own method of conveying to us, in the most lively and impressive manner, the cardinal truth of propitiation and pardon. This, then, is that “blood of sprinkling,” spoken of in the text.

The way is now open to us to inquire. How the BLOOD OF Christ, the great antitype,” speaketh

* Compare Luke xii 20.

BETTER THINGS THAN THAT OF AbEL.” Words need

not be multiplied in exposition of the clause. The blood of Abel spake dreadful things, when God said to Cain, “The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground.” It was vocal with wrath. It uttered the echo of God’s vindicatory indignation against fratricide. It was the first human bloodshed, and an event fitted to strike by comparison and contrast. Now, in this view, 1. The blood of Jesus speaks atonement, satisfaction, and access to God’s favour. And this it specially does as sprinkled or exhibited in the sight of the Supreme Majesty. It must have been an hour of breathless interest and expectation, when the hundreds of thousands of Israel, gathered on that high day in the tabernacle court, followed with their eyes the high priest in his pontifical array, with the graven jewels and names on his breast, as with stately mien and profound awe he passed towards the sacred tent, bearing in his hands the blood of the altar, and then, lost within the curtains, advanced to the invisible recess of hidden glory. But the gospel shows us something more august than this shadow. “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. Nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holy place every year with blood of others; but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared, to put away sin, by the sacrifice of himself.” The sprin-IJing of typical blood, in regard to God, declared that sin was atoned for, and that a way was opened for sinners into the Hohest of all. This sprinkling was accomplished when the Lord Jesus, by the blood of the everlasting covenant, made solemn entrance into heaven, in the name of his people, and when — if I may use Levitical expressions, familiar to the Gospel, and provided for this very end — he drew near to the primeval and real mercy-seat in heaven, and there left traces of his own divine blood, as though he said, “I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do; here am I, and the children whom thou hast given me. Spare them, for I have borne their sins in my own body on the tree, of which the pledge and testimonial is this blood, expressed from my human veins in Gethsemane, at the place of scourging, and on the Cross.” And so everlasting is the remembrance of this in heaven, that John the Apostle says, in his Apocalypse, “And I beheld, and lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb, as it had been slain.” Still does the blood of Christ speak better things than that of Abel, by causing the merit of the Atonement to resound in heaven.

2. The blood of Jesus speaks peace to the believing sinner s conscience. One may be interested in the great salvation, and yet be destitute of certainty. We are constrained to judge thus concerning some of the best of God’s people, in their moments of darkness and depression. The same blood which removes guilt by being shed at the altar, removes fear by being sprinkled on the believing oflPerer. This is the great meaning of the sealing type. It was so applied to the people with some profusion, for the blood being put into basins, and having water miagled to keep it fluid, was conveyed on a bunch or bundle of hyssop bound up with scarlet wool, till it was all spent in the service. This rite of sprinkling was chosen of God as an expressive sign of the effectual communication of the benefits of the covenant to the persons so bedewed. The blood of Christ was not divided, as was that of the Levitical sacrifice, part being sprinkled on the altar and part on the sinner; but the efficacy of his one oblation produced both consequences. Yet we need both. Even though offered to God, it must be applied to us. The High Priest sprinkles our heart and conscience, as with the hyssop-branch; which explains the lamenting prayer of David, “Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean.” This application is wrought by the Holy Spirit; and how gracious is this effusion! We stand at a great distance, unable to serve God with any liberty, till he thus speaks peace to our troubled souls. This filial serving of the living God is expressly noted as the end for which the application is made, Heb. ix. 13; and let us here learn to rise fi:om the type to the antitype: “For if the blood of bulls and goats, and the ashes of an heifer spiinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the Eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works, to sere the living God.” Then we can serve with well-grounded cheerfulness, when the warm eflPusion of Christ’s blood is felt upon our hearts, which so lately were sinking with dread.

Let us go back to the Law, which is our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. Here is an offender, standing pensive and awe-struck before the altar of burnt-offering. He has presented his victim; he has laid on it the hand of confession and imputation; he has seen it deprived of life and laid upon the blazing altar; he has gazed upon the series of symbohcal actions expressive of the atoning work and satisfaction to God. But one thing is yet wanting, to assure him of his individual participation in this justifying righteousness; he receives from the hyssop-branch the sacred drops upon his vestment and his person. His pardon is sealed. He says, with a new consciousness, “I am free! This oblation avails for me! God remits my guilt for the sake of sacrifice!” Now all this takes place in a New Testament sense. The convinced sinner has a clear view of the plan of remedy provided in the Gospel, and of Jesus Christ as the one atoning sacrifice. At the feet of this Cross he confesses his sins. He beholds there a propitiation amply adequate for the pardon of a world. He approves the method, and honours its wisdom and love. He perceives the law exalted and God’s anger turned away. This, so far as it goes, is faith; but peace is in abeyance. He knows Christ to be a Saviour, but he falters in claiming Christ a Saviour for him, until, 0 blessed moment! the veil is rent, the priest returns from the most holy place, and sprinkles him with the peace-speaking blood. Now he can cry, “I know whom I have believed;” “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief;” “My beloved is mine, and I am his;” “My Lord and my God!” Thus the blood of the covenant speaketh to the conscience better things than that of Abel.

3. As a case under the preceding, the blood of sprinkling speaks peace to the soul in regard to daily sins. Oh, shameful, dreadful word! Yet none more true. No dream is more directly opposed to the Scriptures than the pretence to sinless perfection. “If we say that we have no sin we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” Every instructed Christian knows that he sins, by commission or by omission, every hour; and that he requires not only a primary reconciliation to God, on the ground of Christ’s one sacrifice, but a constant renewal of the same grace, to keep him in favour, and particularly to persuade him of his acceptance, which is not always easy, in the face of those corruptions which break out even into act. A fair and most important distinction must be taken between Justification, which is a single act, accomplished instantaneously, once for all, at the sinner’s first believing, and Pardon, which must be renewed day by day, though its efficacy depends upon the one original sacrifice. Such was the glory of that oblation, that it needed not to be repeated, in this differing from the typical sacrifices, which were reiterated as fresh sins arose. Heb. x. 1. “For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually, make the comers thereunto perfect. Por then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers, once purged, should have had no more conscience of sins!’ But when Messiah comes, v. 10, we are saved “by the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” Nevertheless, that which is ever-enduring in its value and prevalency needs to be applied to us frequently, to take away “conscience of sins;” that is, while there is but one Sacrifice, there are many Sprinklings. As long as we live and every day that we live, our rising evils of heart and life are such as would destroy all peace, if it were not for the hyssop-branch in the hand of the Spirit. There is a two-fold appHcation to the soul of Christ’s atoning righteousness by the Holy Spirit; one, which is single, and never repeated, the effect of which is to interest such soul in the redemptive acts; the other, which is perpetually renewed, the effect of which is to give jpeace to the soul under a sense of pardon. That experience may justly be distrusted in which there is no going again and again to the blood of Jesus for new appHcations. Thousands have used the words of the great penitential Psalm, with a feeling of their necessity. The royal sinner knew that he had received the Holy Spirit, for he prays that he may not lose the gift. He knew that he had possessed the joy of God’s salvation, for he implores that it may be restored. But at the same time he sues for fresh pardons: “Blot out my transgressions;” “Purge me with hyssop;” and for new peace of conscience, “Make me to hear joy and gladness, that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.” The divine affusion of the sacred blood upon the heart and conscience, tends, as the Christian life goes on, to make the subject a more obedient and a happier Christian; which seems to be contemplated by the Apostle Peter, when he designates believers as “elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience, and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.” The same ideas of obedience and renewed pardon are presented in connexion by the Apostle John: “My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, [who never sinned,] and he is the propitiation for our sins.” The true oblation reaches that which Aaronic oblations could not reach,

namely, the conscience; for Paul says, that those were gifts and sacrifices, that could not make him that did the service perfect as ]pertaining to the conscience Grace and mercy result in peace, named in its higher measures the “peace of God which passeth all understanding.” Love hath for its nature to make itself known and to have itself behoved. The infinite love of God to the soul is not satisfied until it pours itself into the consciousness, saying, “I have loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee.” God might have postponed the disclosure of the soul’s safety until the day of judgment; the blood might have been carried within the veil of the visible heavens, and offered at the cherubic throne, without ever being applied to our souls in this earthly state. But far different has been the gracious purpose of our High Priest, who condescends to assure us of our redemption, and to sprinkle us with his blood. The word of the Gospel, in the written revelation, precious as it is, and fundamental as it is to all edification within, utters assurances only of general favour. There must be a distinct act of the Spirit to carry this home to the individual consciousness. And so many are the doubts and misgivings, engendered by indwelling sin, that we need our beloved Saviour to tell us again and again that he is at peace with us and loves us stiQ. The words which he employs for this purpose are the very words which stand recorded in his written testament; but they are uttered with a new tone of personal love and a voice trembhng with individual compassion. And sometimes he vouchsafes to employ the idiom of signs and pledges, more penetrating than that of speech, and to address us thus:” Take, eat, this is my body: This cup is the new covenant in my blood, shed for many.

for the remission of sins.” But the retrospective sacrament would be as inoperative as the prospective sacrifice, unless there were superadded the gracious work of the Spirit within, applying the blood of Jesus Christ to the heart, and witnessing with our spirits that we are the children of God. More simply, the Divine influence increases faith, renders its object more clear, precise, complete and free from error, and makes its acting more constant and intense. In this the Word is greatly aided by the sign and seal. And when the word of promise, set forth in this two-fold way, is made good to the soul at the communion, the effect is the same as if the bridegroom’s own lips audibly should say to the particular participants: “I am come into my garden, my sister, my spouse; I have gathered my myrrh with my spice; I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey; I have drunk my wine with my milk; eat, O friends; drink, yea, drink abundantly, O beloved!” Such invitations will be peculiarly welcome to those who halt with the wounds of recent sins, and who seem to hear the challenge, “Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?” But as surely as the bread and the wine shall presently be offered to your taste, so surely Christ offers to you, sinful though you be, all the advantages of the blood of sprinkling.