His Blood Speaks A Better Word

His Blood Speaks a Better Word

It must have been a startling sight to murderous Cain—the bloodied, lifeless body of his brother, Abel, killed in a resentful rage because God had accepted Abel’s offering while rejecting his own. Perhaps Cain thought he had silenced Abel and no one would know of his crime. But a voice went up from the spilled blood into the presence of God.

The LORD asked Cain, “Where is your brother? Where is Abel?”

“I don’t know,” Cain responded. “Am I my brother’s guardian?”

But the LORD said, “What have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground! Now you are cursed and banished from the ground, which has swallowed your brother’s blood.” (Genesis 4:9-11)

If the blood of Abel cried out to God from the ground, what did it say? Surely it spoke of Abel’s faithfulness. It lamented God’s creation destroyed without cause. It appealed to the Judge of all the earth to exact justice. Certainly Abel’s blood spoke a curse over the one who had done wrong.

The writer of Hebrews says that the blood of Jesus, shed at the Cross, “speaks a better word than the blood of Abel” (Hebrews 12:24, NIV). While Abel’s blood screamed out from the ground for justice against the one who murdered him, the blood of Jesus cries out from the Cross for mercy for all who murdered him. The blood of Jesus speaks a blessing, not a curse, over those who have done wrong. It welcomes rather than banishes.

The blood of Jesus speaks for us, not against us. The voice of the sprinkled blood of our Mediator, Jesus, says, “I love you. I forgive you. I have purchased you. I will cleanse you. I am protecting you. I will keep you. I will always be with you.”

Lord, you come to me saying, “What have you done?” And whatever I have done, however black and filthy my sin may be, the voice of your Son’s blood cries out to you to bless me rather than curse me. I hear the blood of Jesus saying, “You will be blessed. I have forgiven your sins. I have set my mark on you, and no one can harm you.”