Hebrews12:24

Translation

and to JESUS, the mediator of the new covenant,

and to the sprinkling of blood which speaks better things than that of ABEL.

Paraphrase

you have come to THE SAVIOR, the one who gets credit for bringing about the new covenant; you have come to commit yourself through a self-imposed death-curse to the New Covenant which is built on a foundation that is capable of bringing about better results than the futile death of the first innocent man to give his blood, whose name was BREATH.

Footnotes

1: "mediator"

Moses is considered the mediator of the Former Covenant, and you will notice how we call the Law the Law of Moses even though it was God’s law. In the same was Jesus was the one who made the New Covenant possible.

2

The name Abel can mean “breath or vapor.” It is different form of the key word of Ecclesiastes, where it means “vapor-like.”

Why is Abel mentioned?

Abel is mentioned because he also was a just man who did not die because of his own sinfulness. The contrast is that the shedding of Jesus’ blood was effective in accomplishing much, whereas the shedding of Abel’s blood did not accomplish anything. Jesus was much more than just an innocent victim.

These verses from Hebrews also speak of the blood that was sprinkled, and it is referring to the New Covenant. When was the blood of Jesus sprinkled? Neither here nor in any other part of the New Testament is the sprinkling of Jesus’ blood explained, it is simply stated, assuming that the reader would understand it. This was a figurative expression easily understood by all of that day to indicate that when we submitted to the authority of the one who established the New Covenant, we were figuratively “sprinkled” by the blood shed at the cutting of this New Covenant (the cross). The fact that we were not personally splattered with the actual blood of Jesus does not lessen the impact of the image. There were many people (e.g. women and children) who never walked through the blood and were never sprinkled with the blood at the cutting of some ancient covenant, but they were still expected to follow the covenant conditions. That was true of the Former Covenant as well; the male leaders were sprinkled with blood, but the rest were not, yet everyone had to obey its regulations or suffer the punishments. The inclusion of this statement in the book of Hebrews is a means of emphasizing the fact that we, as believers, are under obligation to follow God’s conditions because we have voluntarily placed ourselves under His authority. The voluntary nature of it is a key difference between the Former Covenant and the New Covenant. Not only did we commit ourselves to faithful obedience, but we understand that if we do not follow through, the consequence will be death—in this case, eternal separation from God.