Articles
Sprinkling of His Blood - 1Pet 1:2
Sprinkling of His Blood - 1Pet 1:2
Peter speaks of the disciples of Christ being chosen for obedience unto Jesus Christ and the sprinkling by His blood (1Pet. 1:1-2).
The people of the first century, and especially the Jewish people, would immediately picture something a bit different than us today when they heard of the blood of sacrifices. While the gentile world had its own religious ceremony involving the offering up of an animal, us readers of the Bible today are much more familiar with the offerings of the Jewish people.
This offering was not about a little bloodletting of an animal, but the taking of its life. The life is said to be ‘in the blood’, and the shedding of its blood was the taking of its life.
The study of such offering will occupy a lifetime of reading, meditating, and giving of thanks on your part! You begin in the Garden where God takes the life of an animal to cover the consequences of Adam’s sin (nakedness and shame). We follow as the Patriarchs offer up such blood sacrifices through the rest of Genesis. When Moses leads the people out of Egypt, God establishes a covenant with them. This involved the offering of the sacrifice and taking the blood of the sacrificed victim and sprinkling it upon the tabernacle, the utensils used in worship, and THE PEOPLE (for the short story on this, read Hebrews 9:18-22). Such sacrifices continued year after year, generation after generation down through the years until the coming of Jesus. This involved thousands upon thousands of animals’ lives being taken.
Jesus said of the cup of the Lord’s supper that ‘this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” (Matt. 26:28). Thus, Christians have now come not to Mt. Sinai and the Mosaic covenant, but “to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood, which speaks better than the blood of Abel” (Heb. 12:24).
Jesus died (was sacrificed – but to death – shed His blood) and then entered into the very presence of God, the Most Holy Place, “once for all by his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption” (Heb. 9:12). “ Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus” (Heb. 10:19 ). While the sacrifices of the OT could sanctify and cleanse the flesh, “how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? (Heb. 9:14).
Thus, we are redeemed “with the precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ. Such is summed up in Peter’s writing of the ‘sprinkling of the blood’. It took the very offering up of the life of Jesus to atone for our sin! Have you therefore purified your soul in the obedience of truth?
Hugh DeLong
