Hebrew 12:

24 ….(we are) come unto mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem… the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things…

Blood is life and life is blood

Blood is synonymous with life. …. because the life of every creature is its blood. That is why I have said to the Israelites, “You must not eat the blood of any creature because the life of every creature is the blood is its blood…“(Leviticus 17:14). For this reason, it’s very vital in the issues of contacting the spiritual world. There are spiritual principles and values encoded in it. Even then, those who have had nothing to do with Christ know this truth. The value and significance of blood may be appreciated by man, but he cannot fathom the outworking of the encoded principles. Man can only appreciate its mystery.

David knew the part of the landscape of the mystery of blood. He was running away from Saul. Then he longed for the water of the well of Bethlehem, a part of the land from where he was escaping from. A deathly battle would be needed to break through to accessing it. But three of his warriors who had the spoken longing of their leader put their lives in their hands and broke through to fetch the water. David was flabbergasted. And he said, Be it far from me, O Lord, that I should this: is not the this the blood of the men went in jeopardy of their lives? Therefore he would not drink it  (2 Samuel 23: 15-17).

Blood is also a mean of double exchange. This was predominant in the church in the wilderness. The life (blood) of an animal, regarded as innocent, clean and sinless, was forever exchanged for the life of sinning, unrighteous people. The man put his two hands on the animal, which is then killed and irs blood drained. In this drama of double exchange, the innocent life is offered as sacrifice – an holocaust, instead of the sinning man whose life has been transfered to the animal. It’s a statement of self-identity nation with the animal. This was what God did for man in Christ. Jesus Christ, God, became man, and man became Jesus Christ. To with that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself…(2 Corinthians 5:19). How? Jesus Christ, the God who became man, free of sin, was made to represent us and bear our sin. But he hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him (2 Corinthians 5:21). This is the height of the believer’s identification with the Lord Jesus Christ. A believer is as righteous as Christ: Christ as righteous has assumed the life of sinful man while the sinful man has assumed the life of Christ. The believer is not only as righteous as God, he’s at the peakest of righteousness.

God, in the beginning, desired to be at one with man. This At-one-ment with God was a journey for man. But for the later spiritual technology accomplished in Christ, there was no possiblity of the fallen man arriving that goal. Now, through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, man is now at one with the godhead. Here is peace with God, indeed. Therefore, being justified (regarded as being qualified to identify) by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 5:1). God told Israel through Moses, 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 (Leviticus 17:11).

This double exchange also qualifies as a covenant. A covenant is an agreement between two parties. Covenant has an objection and involves blood or the participants in it. The bastardised form of it is what is called treaty between nations today. In the primitive notion, especially the type found among Africans, part of the body of each covenanting party is cut, blood is let out on a nut which is shared and eaten by the two. It’s a strong statement: my life for you; your life is for me. Covenant cannot be independently broken by one party.  God made a covenant with man. This is a strange covenant in that it’s the blood of one party that was used to seal the covenant. ….. through the blood of the everlasting covenant (Hebrews 13:20). The concatenation of sacrifices prescribed in the Old Testament, especially in Leviticus, is a prefigurement of the perfect sacrificial Lamb which was Jesus Christ. The sacrifice of himself is the perfect substitutionary sacrifice for man to become one with God (atonement). This blood is what gives a believer boldness to enter into the sanctuary of God’s habitation – that is, the holiest. Travelling far to this section of the Tabernacle of God’s dwelling is to have come to one with God, the end of the journey. But this again is not by self efforts, but by grace.

Man has redemption through the shedding of the blood of the animal for the sacrifice. Redemption is being bought and brought home from the slave market. It can also mean a restoration to the position from one has fallen. In whom we have redemption through his blood; the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace (Ephesians 2:7).;

One of the mysteries of the blood of the covenant is that it speaks. Believers in Christ know many things about the shed blood of the Lord Jesus, but they hardly reckon about its power to speak. Yes, the blood speaks. The blood of the first man to be killed on the earth, Abel, spoke. In fact, it cried. God was confronting Cain who’d just killed Abel, his brother: “What have you done? the voice of thy brother’s blood crieth to me from the ground” (Genesis 4:10). The blood of Jesus Christ also has a voice. Only that this isn’t crying to point attention to the evil deed of someone. ….. and thou shall take his blood, and sprinkle it round round upon the altar (Exodus 29:16). This scene here is type of the Lord Jesus offering his blood, referred to in our opening passage as the blood of sprinkling. His blood, spilled, was sprinkled around the altar. Attached hard to this truth is that this blood for sprinkling does speak. It doesn’t speak only, it speaks better things! I love to invoke this blood against evil voices arguing against me. I thank the Lord for the blood of sprinkling which speaks better things on my behalf. I let the evil one know that whatever he has set into motion against me, I have the sprinkling blood standing for me, speaking better things. It thrills me to know that this blood does counter every evil argument against me.

Oh, no, I don’t scream that “I plead the blood of Jesus” because the Lord didn’t teach me that. Why need I plead when this blood is the greatest force on earth against all arguments, able to bring all imaginations against me to obedience to Christ. Nor do I scream “the bl-o-o-o-d of Jesus.” The blood of sprinkling handles the situation without shouting itself hoarse. There’s no where in the Scripture that teachers me to scream the blood of Jesus. I’m in the blood