Heaven’s Testimony That Christ’s Blood Was Accepted

Yesterday, we finished with saying that Jesus shed His blood on the Cross to purchase the blessing promised to Abraham. However, the final consummation of Christ’s atoning work did not come on earth, but in heaven.

“But Christ came as High Priest of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation. Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.” (Heb. 9:11-12)

As believers in the new covenant, we have come to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel (Heb. 12:24).

These passages in Hebrews reveal that the atoning work of Christ was not finally consummated by the shedding of His blood upon the cross on earth, but by His later entering with His blood into the presence of the Father. There He presented that blood as the one final and sufficient satisfaction and expiation for all sin. It is this blood of Christ, now sprinkled in heaven, that speaks better things than that of Abel.

The blood of Christ is contrasted with that of Abel in two main respects. First, Abel’s blood was left sprinkled upon earth, while Christ’s blood was presented and sprinkled in heaven. Second, Abel’s blood called out to God for vengeance upon his murderer, while Christ’s blood speaks to God in heaven for mercy and pardon.

This revelation, given in Hebrews, of Christ completing the atonement by presenting His own blood before the Father in heaven enables us to understand why the gift of the Holy Spirit could not be given until Christ had been glorified. The Holy Spirit is given not upon the basis of the believer’s own merits but upon the basis of Christ’s atonement.

This atonement was not consummated until the blood of Christ had been presented in heaven and God the Father had declared His absolute satisfaction with this atoning sacrifice. Thereafter the giving of the Holy Spirit to those who believed in Christ was the public testimony of the supreme court of heaven that the blood of Christ was forever accepted as an all-sufficient propitiation for all sin.