A Twilight Musing

The writer of Hebrews observes at one point that, in both contrast and similarity to hearing the terrifying voice of God at Sinai, we who hear the message of God through Christ have come to “Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel” (Heb. 12:23-24, ESV). 

Eugene Peterson’s translation of this passage throws light on this odd comparison: “You've come to Jesus, who presents us with a new covenant, a fresh charter from God. He is the Mediator of this covenant. The murder of Jesus, unlike Abel's—a homicide that cried out for vengeance—became a proclamation of grace” (Heb. 12:23-24, The Message).  This presentation of the blood of Christ as a “proclamation of grace,” in contrast to the blood of Abel, which “cried out for vengeance,” provides a meaningful contrast that is relevant to our observance of the Lord’s Supper.

In the Genesis narrative about Cain and Abel, after Cain had killed his brother, God appears to him and says, “What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground. And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand” (Gen. 4:10-11, ESV).  Abel, said the writer of Hebrews, was “commended by God as righteous” (Heb. 11:4, ESV), so he was an innocent victim; but he was not, like Jesus, absolutely righteous and innocent.  The only response God could make to Abel’s murder was wrath and vengeance toward the murderer; but God could and did use the innocent death of Jesus as an avenue to show grace and forgiveness to all humankind.  Even on the cross Jesus asked His Father not to count His murder against those who carried it out: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34, ESV).

The wrongful death of Abel and the response of God to it shows us that no normal human in the fallen world, however righteous in his life, could, by his death, provide a remedy for inherited sin.  Justice could be done, at best, only by God’s wrath being visited on the murderer in response to the cry of the blood of the victim.  But the wrongful death of Jesus and the innocent blood He shed had the power to set aside God’s wrath and to deliver not only those who put Jesus to death, but all of humankind from the just consequences of their sins.

So as in the Eucharist we offer up to death our fleshly, sin-stained bodies and are symbolically infused with the New Covenant blood of Christ, we go beyond the innocent blood that can cry out only for God’s vengeance, and we rejoice in the shed blood of the absolutely innocent Lamb of God that cries out for the forgiveness of all sinners.

Dr. Elton Higgs was a faculty member in the English department of the University of Michigan-Dearborn from 1965-2001. Having retired from UM-D as Prof. of English in 2001, he now lives with his wife in Jackson, MI. He has published scholarly articles on Chaucer, Langland, the Pearl Poet, Shakespeare, and Milton. Recently, Dr. Higgs has self-published a collection of his poetry called Probing Eyes: Poems of a Lifetime, 1959-2019, as well as a book inspired by The Screwtape Letters, called The Ichabod Letters, available as an e-book from Moral Apologetics. (Ed.: Dr. Higgs was the most important mentor during undergrad for the creator of this website, and his influence was inestimable.