Bible Emblems

by Edward Eli Seelye

The blood of Abel speaks not of Abel calmly yielding up his breath, while his head lies peacefully on his mother’s lap. It calls us to no softened couch over which fond parents bend in agony, and catch the placid smile which lingers on the countenance, and gather up the few rays of hope which beam in the dying eye, and which seem to whisper that death may, after all, be not so formidable a thing.

In no such way does it speak to us. But it is Abel murdered, Abel stretched upon the cold ground, weltering in his blood, a mangled, ghastly spectacle. And every clotted blade of grass, and every bloody stone has found a tongue, and cries, “A brother’s hand has done the hellish deed.” We stand aghast, and ask for no more appalling testimony to the total depravity of the species. Try as we may to soften down the hideousness of that depravity, after all our study to find something to relieve the odiousness of that corruption which festers in the soul, there is a voice in the earliest history of the race, a voice of blood which mocks our arguments and banishes our cherished convictions.

3. The blood of Abel cries for vengeance. It was the only testimony the Almighty produced when he summoned Cain to trial. The deed was done in secret. No one saw it. No one heard the dying man’s last groan. His lips were sealed, his tongue was stiff and cold, and the murderer thought that by a brazen and persistent denial of his crime, he could escape detection. But though Abel could not testify, and no living man saw the uplifted hand which smote him, still there were witnesses enough. Dumb things grew eloquent, and the voice of blood published the foul deed to God and man.

From what we have read of the history of murderers, it would seem that there was something more than a rhetorical figure in those words in Genesis, which give a voice to the blood shed by violence. Hundreds and thousands have heard such a voice. Often it amounts to nothing, that the assassin has concealed his crime from his fellow-men, and can walk abroad in the community with no suspicious eyes turned towards him. He is haunted by something which keeps publishing his guilt. The ghastly visage of his victim rises before him, and follows him. It shakes its gory locks at him, crossing his path everywhere like an avenger who will not be appeased. Its avenging cry rings in his ears. He starts at the sound of his own footsteps. Every thing seems to echo it. The rustling of a leaf alarms him. The murmuring waterfall tells the bloody tale; the winds wail it through the air. It seems to him that all the world has found it out. Inanimate things have grown articulate, and published it. He expects the next man who meets him in the street will accuse him to his face. And not unfrequent is it, that by the very alarm and uneasiness, the strange anxiety and restlessness which he betrays, the eye of suspicion is turned upon him, and a clue is furnished, which leads to the disclosure of his crime.

This avenging cry of blood is the hardest thing in the world to silence. It will not be appeased without the life of him who shed it. It is the voice of retributive justice, speaking from the throne of God, and echoed from the inner judgment-seat of the human conscience, demanding blood for blood. It is an awful voice, which, for the first time, the world heard when Abel’s blood was shed.

But it is time we turned to listen to another voice to which the text invites us. It is indeed the voice of blood; but it is a strange, a new voice, which speaks a new language to the soul. It is the “blood of sprinkling.” The crucifixion of the Son of God was a most foul and atrocious deed of blood: but in consequence of a special and extraordinary arrangement by the Godhead, called the covenant of redemption, that blood spilled on Calvary received a new significancy, and spoke better things than blood had ever spoken before.

1. The blood of sprinkling speaks better things to God, than the blood of Abel did. That blood cried unto God from the ground for vengeance, but the blood of Christ sends aloft to the Almighty’s throne a far different testimony. It speaks to God of a full satisfaction made to his law and justice for the sins of guilty men. It stands before the eternal Majesty, and challenges the divine attributes of truth and holiness and justice to say aught they can against the sinner’s acquittal and acceptance. It holds up before the glittering sword of justice the cleft side and dripping hands of Jesus, and boldly asks, Is not this enough? It declares to God that now it is consistent with himself and his righteous government to pardon the transgressor, and extend to him the open hand of reconciliation. It pleads for guilty sinners in the heavenly world, and before the throne of Jehovah; and louder than the roll of the eternal anthem, and the shoutings of the angelic choirs, its mighty and prevailing voice is heard, “Spare him; for I have found a ransom.” It bids mercy reveal her lovely face, and sway her sceptre over a fallen, but now redeemed world. Yes, the blood of sprinkling is heard in the highest heaven. It speaks in the ear of God.

2. It speaks to men. It proclaims to them a new and living way of approach to God. The apostle tells us, in the epistle to the Hebrews, that this way is through the blood of Christ, and that Christ hath consecrated this way to us through the veil, that is to say, his flesh.

Before this new provision was made, the only way of acceptable approach to God was through the covenant of works which required complete personal obedience to the divine law. That way was closed. Sin broke it up, and man had no possible means of repairing it. Another way must be discovered, else we must remain under condemnation. The blood of sprinkling opens up a new and living way. It speaks to men of pardon, and assures them that the sacrifice of the cross was a full propitiation for their sins, which God himself has approved. It declares to sinners, that now God can be just, and the justifier of the ungodly; that it has done all that was necessary to satisfy divine justice and avert the sentence of wrath which was over them, and that the very God who before appeared to them as a consuming fire, is now plenteous in mercy, and ready to forgive.

3. The blood of Christ speaks peace to the human conscience. Anxious as the sinner may be to escape the penalty of his transgressions, his conscience holds him to the conviction that that penalty must be endured; for God, whatever else he be, must be a God of justice, and must insist upon the sanctions of his law. Much as our selfish nature longs to escape suffering for sin, the conscience sternly says it cannot be. That suffering must be met. The penalty of transgression must be borne.