Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 708
Delivered on Lord’s Day Morning, September 2, 1866
Genesis 4:10.
“And to Jesus the Mediator of the Ne w Covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaks better things than that of Abel.” Hebrews 12:24.
The first shedding of human blood was a very terrible experiment. Whether Cain’s murderous blow was premeditated or not, the sight of a bleeding human corpse must have been a terrible novelty to him. He had not been hardened by reading details of warfare, or listening to tales of murder. Killing and slaying were new terrors to mankind, and he who was the ringleader in such violence must have been filled with mingled astonishment at the result of his blow, and apprehension as to its consequences.
I think I see him standing there by the corpse, for a moment stiff with fear, awe-struck at the sight of blood. Will the skies dart malignant fires upon him? Will the earth produce speedy avengers from her astonished soil? What questions must have flashed through the murderer’s mind! And lo, the warm lifeblood flows in a crimson stream upon the earth, and some ghastly comfort arises to the mind of the guilty wretch as he observes the earth soak in the blood. It stands not in a pool, but the earth opens her mouth to receive and to conceal his brother’s blood. Sad memorials bespatter the herbage and crimson the soil, but still the dreadful flood is drying up, and the murderer feels a momentary joy.
Perhaps Cain went his way dreaming that the terrible matter was all over. He had done the deed and it could not be undone. He had struck the blow, rid himself of the presence of one who was obnoxious to him. But the blood had been swallowed up by the earth and that was the end to the business which need cause no further thought. There was no machinery in those days of police, and law, and judges, and gallows—and therefore Cain had little or nothing to fear. Strong and hale man, with no one to punish him and nobody to accuse or upbraid him except his father and his mother, and those, possibly, too bowed with grief and too mindful of their own offense to show much resentment toward their first-born.
He may, therefore, have imagined that the deed was speechless and silent, and that now oblivion would cover his crime so that he might go his way as though the deed were never done. It was not so, however, for though that blood was silent in the seared conscience of Cain, it had a voice elsewhere! A mysterious voice went up beyond the skies—it reached the ear of the Invisible, and moved the heart of Eternal Justice, so that breaking through the veil which conceals the Infinite from man, God revealed Himself and spoke to Cain: “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood cries unto Me from the ground.”
Then Cain knew that blood could not be idly spilt—that murder would be avenged—for there was a tongue in every drop of the vital essence which flowed from murdered manhood which prevailed with God. So God would interpose and hold a solemn inquest. Brethren, that was a more terrible experiment, still, which was tried at Calvary when not the first man was slaughtered but the Son of God Himself! He who was Man but yet was more than man. God manifest in the flesh. It was a dread experiment when, having dragged Him before the judgment seat and falsely condemned Him, having shouted, “Away with Him, away with Him,” they actually dared to take the nails and fasten the Son of God to the accursed tree! Terrible, indeed, to lift up His body between earth and Heaven, and there to watch its griefs till they ended in His death, when they pierced His side, and from it flowed blood and water!
No doubt Pilate, who had washed his hands in water, thought that no mischief would come of it. The Scribes and Pharisees went their way, and said, “We have silenced the accusing voice. There will no more be heard in our streets of Him who said, ‘Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites.’ We shall no longer be disturbed in our hypocrisy and formality by the Presence of a pure and holy Being, whose simple honesty shall be a stern rebuke to us. We have murdered Him. We have put Him to death without just reason, but that is the end of it. There will be no voice to that blood.”
Little did they know that up to Heaven the cry of Jerusalem had already gone, “His blood be on us, and on our children,” was registered in the tablets of Justice, and before long Jerusalem became the treasure house of woe and a den of misery, so that the like of her destruction has not been, neither ever shall be, upon the face of the earth. Far more delightful is the fact that another and more melodious cry went up to Heaven from the Cross of Calvary. “Father, forgive them,” resounded from the wounds of Immanuel.
The blood of Abel was not voiceless, and the blood of Jesus was not dumb—it cried so as to be heard amid the thrones of Heaven, and blessed be God—it spoke for us and not against us! It spoke not worse things, as it might well have done, but better things than that of Abel. It did not demand fiercer vengeance than that which fell upon Cain. It did not ask that we might be driven vagabonds and fugitives upon the face of the earth, and to be at last banished from God into Hell forever, but it cried, “Father, forgive them”! And it prevailed, and the curse was taken away! And a blessing came to the sons of men.