Verse 20

Saying; This is the Blood of the Testament which God has enjoined to you.

The difference between the words of Moses and the repetition of them by the Apostle is not material, as to the sense of them. Behold, in Moses, is rendered by This; both demonstrative notes of the same thing. For in pronouncing of the words Moses showed the blood to the people; and so Behold the blood, is all one as if he had said, this is the blood. The making of the covenant in the words of Moses is expressed by has cut, divided, solemnly made. This the Apostle renders by has enjoined or commanded you. And this he does partly to signify the foundation of the people's acceptance of that covenant, which was the authority of God, enjoining them or requiring them so to do; partly to intimate the nature of the covenant itself which consisted in precepts and injunctions principally, and not absolutely in promises as the New Covenant does. The last words of Moses, Concerning all these words, the Apostle omits. For he includes the sense of them in that word, which the Lord commanded you. For he has respect therein both to the words themselves written in the book, which were precepts and injunctions, as also the command of God for the acceptance of the covenant.

That which Moses said, is, This is the blood of the Testament. Hence the Apostle proves that death and the shedding of blood therein was necessary to the consecration and establishment of the first Testament. For so Moses expressly affirms in the dedication of it; This is the blood of the Covenant; without which it could not have been a firm covenant between God and the people; not I confess from the nature of a covenant in general; for a covenant may be solemnly established without death or blood; but from the especial end of that covenant, which in the confirmation of it, was to prefigure the confirmation of that new Covenant, which could not be established but with the blood of a sacrifice. And this adds both force and evidence to the Apostle's argument. For, he proves the necessity of the death and blood-shedding or sacrifice of Christ in the confirmation of the New Covenant, from hence, that the Old Covenant which in the dedication of it was prefigurative hereof, was not confirmed without blood. Therefore, whereas God had solemnly promised to make a new Covenant with the Church, and that different from or not according to the Old, which he had proved in the foregoing chapter, it follows unavoidably, that it was to be confirmed with the blood of the Mediator, (for by the blood of beasts it could not be) which is that truth wherein he did instruct them; and nothing was more cogent to take off the scandal of the Cross and of the sufferings of Christ.

For the enunciation itself, This is the blood of the Covenant, it is figurative and sacramental. The covenant had no blood of its own; but the blood of the sacrifices is called the blood of the Covenant, because the covenant was dedicated and established by it. Neither was the covenant really established by it. For it was the truth of God on the one hand, and the stability of the people in their professed obedience on the other, that the establishment of the covenant depended on. But this blood was a confirmatory sign of it, a token between God and the people of their mutual engagements in that covenant. So the Paschal Lamb was called God's Passover, because it was a sign and token of God's passing over the houses of the Israelites when he destroyed the Egyptians (Exodus 12:11, 21). With reference it was to those sacramental expressions, which the Church under the Old Testament was accustomed to, that our Lord Jesus Christ, in the institution of the sacrament of the Supper, called the bread and the wine, whose use he appointed therein, by the names of his body and blood; and any other interpretation of the words wholly overthrows the nature of that holy ordinance.

Therefore this blood was a confirmatory sign of the covenant. And it was so, (1) From God's institution, he appointed it so to be, as is express in the words of Moses. (2) From an implication of the interest of both parties in the blood of the sacrifice; God, to whom it was offered, and the people on whom it was sprinkled. For it being the blood of beasts that were slain, in this use of it each party as it were engaged their lives to the observation and performance of what was respectively undertaken by them. (3) Typically, in that it represented the blood of Christ, and fore-signified the necessity of it to the confirmation of the New Covenant; see Zechariah 9:11; Matthew 26:28; Luke 22:20; 1 Corinthians 11:15. So was it the blood of the Covenant, in that it was a sign between God and the people of their mutual consent to it, and their taking on themselves the performance of the terms of it, on the one side and the other.

The condescension of God in making a covenant with men, especially in the ways of the confirmation of it, is a blessed object of all holy admiration. For, (1) the infinite distance and disproportion that is between him and us, both in nature and state or condition; (2) the ends of this covenant which are all to our eternal advantage, he standing in no need of us or our obedience; (3) the obligation that he takes upon himself to the performance of the terms of it, whereas he might righteously deal with us in a way of mere sovereignty; (4) the nature of the assurance he gives us thereof, by the blood of the sacrifice, confirmed with his oath; do all set forth the ineffable glory of this condescension. And this will at length be made manifest in the eternal blessedness of them by whom this covenant is embraced, and the eternal misery of them by whom it is refused.

The Apostle having given this full confirmation to his principal assertion, he adds, for the illustration of it, the use and efficacy of blood, that is, the blood of sacrifices, to purification and atonement.