Down to Earth But Heavenly Minded

Question:

‘When is a person sprinkled by the blood of Christ?’

Answer:

1. As to the first question; the only passage in the New Testament where ραντίζω ― to sprinkle; or ράνησμός ― sprinkling, are used definitely with reference to Christians, are Hebrews 10:22, “Having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience;” in Hebrews 12:24, “To the blood of sprinkling;” also in Peter 1:2, “Unto obedience, and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.”

In the first passage there is reference in the writer’s mind to the triple action of washing with water, sprinkling with blood, and anointing with oil observed in the ceremonial consecrations of the priests. (Exodus 29; Leviticus 8.) He omits the last mentioned, which was typical of the anointing of the Holy Ghost; for while teaching Christians as to their own privileges, he leaves it open, as far as the knowledge of remission of sins reaches for Israel’s blessing in the kingdom. Then the vail will not be rent for them; while there may be access by faith within it to God, they do not draw nigh, as we do, with purged consciences, and through a vail which has been rent, into the presence of God in the holiest. The glory will then have come out to them, instead of their going in to it, which is our portion. Therefore the anointing with the Holy Ghost is not mentioned. Israel’s blessings are founded on water and blood. I notice this important difference in passing.

In Hebrews 12:24, he unfolds the richer value of the blood of Jesus Christ with that of Abel; called here the blood of sprinkling in connection with the New Covenant, as there had been the analogous sprinkling of the book and the people when Moses inaugurated the Old. The blood of Jesus spake of fullest grace to those who shed it; that of Abel cried from the ground for vengeance against the murderer, Cain.

In 1 Peter 1:2, the apostle states that believers out of the nation of Israel, being born of God, are sanctified unto two things: (1.) To obey after the pattern of Jesus, in giving up their own wills for God’s; in contradistinction to the obedience of the law, to which they had been sanctified under the Old Covenant. (2.) Thus sanctified, or separated absolutely to God, they come under the value and efficacy of the blood of Jesus Christ, which cleansed them from their sins; in contrast with the blood of the Old Covenant, which sealed their condemnation.

Thus far, as to the passages where the expression is used.

Now I think that you will find, that in the Old Testament the blood is always presented to God, when it is a question of sins ― sprinkled on the mercy-seat; before the mercy-seat; at the altar of burnt-offering; on the altar of incense, etc., etc. ― to give a righteous ground for the Lord’s relationship with His people; His dwelling amongst them, or of their worship; also, to restore those relationships when interrupted. The only exception seems to have been in the ceremony of the cleansing of the leper. (Leviticus 14.)

But in the New Testament the blood is always, without exception, presented to God, though we see it by faith. In Romans 3:25, Christ has been set forth as a propiatory, or mercy-seat; which answers to the propiatory in the ark of the covenant where God’s manifested presence was seen in the Holiest of all. And this rightly so in this chapter, for Paul is laying a righteous ground for God’s actions in justifying the ungodly who believe in Jesus. Romans 3 is all God’s side; chapter 4 gives our side as sinners. On the day of Atonement (Leviticus 16), the first goat’s blood was carried within the vail, to meet the claims of the throne of God; the blood was only presented for His eye. Also, in the Passover, He was to see it, and His passing over them was righteous, because it met His eye, and answered the claims of His holiness. So in Colossians 1:20, the peace of the throne of God was made through the blood of the Cross, on the ground of which creation will be, and we are reconciled. In Hebrews 9:12, Christ enters heaven through His own blood. In Hebrews 10:19, we enter into the holiest because of it. In 1 John 1:7, the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from every sin, giving God a righteous ground to have us in the light with Himself, and so on.

I do not find in the New Testament thought, that it was ever sprinkled on the person at all, to cleanse away his sins. He was justified because of it; has redemption through it, and forgiveness; access to the holiest, etc., because it has been offered to God. On this ground the Word of God (which is the water) comes, and by it we are born again ― but born of God on the ground of the redemption which has been accomplished through the blood. This accounts for the different order of presentation of the water and blood in John’s gospel, and his epistle. In the former the blood comes first in order: “One of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water.” The blood expiates, and answers God’s claims ― and because of its value, He sends out the water of the word (comp. Ephesians 5:26), and through it we are convicted of our sins, and are cleansed in the value of the blood. The epistle being our side, as the gospel was God’s, the order is reversed. The water and blood is the order (1 John 5); the water has reached our consciences first, to bring us to God in the value of the blood.

The sprinkling of the person to cleanse his sins is not a New Testament thought; and the moment the water of the word has reached the conscience of a sinner, he is clean in God’s sight because of the blood on the ground of which God has acted, though his conscience may not yet have entered upon the value of it. In fact, the first action of the Word is to make the conscience bad, creating unhappiness at one’s state ― conviction of sin ― anxiety, etc. When the blood has been received with joy at the first, it has only been received by the natural conscience, or the intellect; there is no divine work, and the blade withers. A stony ground hearer has probably been produced. This is constantly the case in the ordinary preaching of the day in which we live. When there is a real reaching of the conscience by the word of God, unhappiness and exercise of the conscience is produced; then the value of the blood with God having been learned, the conscience is purged and there is peace.