THE SPEAKING OF ABEL
[p. 550] THE SPEAKING OF ABEL
Hebrews 11: 4; Hebrews 12: 24, 25
Those of us present who knew our brother are not here in a mere formal or perfunctory way, but with moved affections; that is, love is amongst us. The Lord Jesus said to His disciples, “By this shall all know that ye are disciples of mine, if ye have love amongst yourselves” (John 13: 35). This love works backward and forward and is active at the present time. Our brother is not equal to response at present here; in the language of the Lord Jesus about Lazarus, he has died. “Lazarus has died”, the Lord said. Personally he is elsewhere. According to what the Lord Jesus again said to one who hung on the cross by him, “To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise” (Luke 23: 43). The thief and He did not go together; the Lord Jesus went first. As the soldiers arrived at the cross, they found that the Lord Jesus had died already. The thieves had not died; so that the Lord Jesus had gone into paradise first. He had said to His Father ere dying, “Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit” (Luke 23: 46). He was received by His Father. The thief went later; that is, the saved thief. The other, alas! will never go there. God forbid that that could be said of anyone here. He spoke reproachfully to Christ; there is no evidence that he ever repented; whereas the one who went to be with Jesus that day in paradise repented. He said, “... we indeed justly, for we receive the just recompense of what we have done; but this man has done nothing amiss” (verse 41). So that our brother as well as the thief is in paradise; the word is used to denote a place of blessing, or bliss; but still it is not the final destiny of the believer or of Christ either. Three days afterwards Christ Himself was raised from the dead; the thief was not;
[p. 551] he is yet to be raised. The Lord will come to his grave presently and call him out of it. What infinite thoughts will fill the heart of the Saviour as He approaches each tomb, so to speak, to call each saved one out of it! He will call the thief out of the tomb. He had a poor grave; it was one made for the wicked. It was intended for Jesus too, but Jesus had His grave with the rich; He was with the rich in His death. Joseph of Arimathaea provided one for Him under God; a new grave, a tomb cut out of a rock, out of which He came three days afterwards. The thief remains in it, but Jesus will visit him presently to take him out of it. But the other thief will remain there for some time longer; for it is said the rest of the dead (that is, the wicked dead) remained for one thousand years; so that the saved dead come out of their graves first, one thousand years before the others. But our Lord Jesus was the first out. It is said, “The first-fruits, Christ; then those that are the Christ’s at his coming” (1 Corinthians 15: 23). The thief is amongst those; and our brother is amongst those.
So that, as we said in our prayer, we are not here defeated, but victorious. We have no doubts at all as to where our brother has gone, nor as to his resurrection. He will come out with all the others who have died, from Abel, who was the first one to die, down to the last one ere the Lord Jesus comes for His own. Who can count the myriads whom the Lord, when He comes, shall call forth? He will quicken those of us who are alive. If He were to come now He would change us all, and raise our brother so that we would all go up together in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; so to be forever with the Lord.
These are the great general facts relative to our present position here; and they are victorious facts. Everyone present should lay hold of them and enjoy them. Having said all that, I would remark on these [p. 552] verses. First, the fact that Abel is said to be dead; that is, death is a real thing, even if it be a christian, a believer in Christ; it is death. So that it says, “God bearing testimony to his gifts, and by it, having died, he yet speaks” (Hebrews 11: 4). That is, Abel is speaking, although dead. The facts are that he offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous. These are the facts, and he is the first person who died. He offered unto God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain. They were brothers. Abel’s offering was acceptable to God; that is, it was typically Christ. Of the first-fruits of the flock he offered to God, and God accepted his offering. This is the basis of our meeting here today, that we have been enabled, those of us who are christians — nearly all of us are — to offer to God a more acceptable sacrifice than others; that is, those who bring the fruit of their own work. Cain brought the fruit of the ground; he was a tiller of the ground; he offered a bloodless sacrifice to God. Many are doing that, whereas the testimony of Scripture is that without the shedding of blood there is no remission; nor is there any salvation for anyone save those who trust in the blood of Jesus. That is the acceptable sacrifice. Abel offered that; he offered it by faith, the principle of our dispensation. The principle underlying the gospel is faith. And so “Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained testimony of being righteous”. What a wonderful thing it is to obtain testimony that one is righteous before God! — righteous through the one perfect offering of the Lord Jesus. “For ye are saved by grace, through faith; and this not of yourselves; it is God’s gift: not on the principle of works, that no one might boast” (Ephesians 2: 8, 9). So that no one can boast of works in this matter. Without faith in the atoning sacrifice of [p. 553] Christ there is no salvation for anyone. There are many Cains, alas! who bring bloodless sacrifices, but they are not acceptable to God. We do not hear of Cain speaking after he dies, but we do hear of Abel speaking after he dies. And one brings this thought forward, because our dear brother has spoken in his lifetime, and he will speak after his death. He is speaking now; the facts relative to him have a voice; so that he being dead yet speaks; not, of course, in a vocal way, but still there is the speaking developed out of the life of our dear brother. To all present thus here now it has a present, living voice. He is dead, but his spirit has gone to be with Christ. As the Lord Jesus says, “but he is not God of the dead but of the living; for all live for him” (Luke 20: 38). He is dead as to his body, but he is alive as to his spirit. He is with Christ on the basis of that one sacrifice which God regards as pleasing to Him, so that He has accredited him with righteousness. He has a voice for everyone here today.
Well now, to be brief I will pass on to the other scripture; because we have speaking again, only a comparison is made. We are come to many things in this passage. Believers are said to have come to some great and glorious things, all founded on the sacrifice of Christ. First we are come to the holy mount, then to the spirits of just men made perfect, and in our verses, we have come to Jesus, the Mediator of the new covenant. What a fact that is! We have come to Him; not that we are coming, but we have come. Believers have come to such a Person. He is the Mediator of the new covenant; it is in His blood. And then it is said, “... to the blood of sprinkling”, Abel’s blood is not that. We read of Abel’s own blood, the blood of Abel; that is to say, the blood that flowed from his wounds that he received from his brother; for Cain slew him. That blood is to be required, we are told, of Jerusalem [p. 554] All the blood of the righteous from Abel onwards is to be required at the hand of Jerusalem, a very solemn fact. But this is not his own blood; Abel did not approach God through his own blood; it is the blood of another, that is, of the beast that typified the Lord Jesus. It was the blood of Christ by which he drew near, by which he was accepted and accounted righteous. It says here, “to the blood of sprinkling, speaking better than Abel”. Abel spoke himself; but the blood of sprinkling speaks of itself. What a suggestion there is in that for everyone of us! Those of us whose sins are forgiven through it are refreshed in the very thought of it, as we are already established in the sense of acceptance with God through it.
This blood of sprinkling speaks of better things than Abel; it speaks of an atoning value; it speaks of a price paid; it speaks of forgiveness of sins; it speaks of righteousness, justification for the guiltiest sinner. It is the ground on which our brother has gone to be with the Lord; and the ground on which we will all be raised presently. It speaks better than Abel; Abel speaks wonderfully; although dead, he yet speaks. It does not say what he says. Here we have the blood speaking; “the blood of sprinkling, speaking better than Abel”. So we pass on from the testimony of our brother, from the testimony of his service, from the testimony of his work amongst us, from the testimony of his love that he had for the brethren and for the Lord Jesus — we pass on from that, although making much of it we pass on from it to the blood of sprinkling which speaks better things. Things that the saints say of their dead are wonderful, but still there are better things; and it is a point made in this book, “and to the blood of sprinkling, speaking better than Abel”. Our brother would be the first to say, Well, say very little about me, but say all possible about Christ. So we pass [p. 555] on from the saved person to the Saviour, and His blood which is of infinite value for atonement. It speaks better things than Abel.
And then the further thought is that we do not refuse Him that speaketh; that is, the Lord Jesus. There is the speaking of His blood, and there is His own speaking, and it is a most solemn thing to reject Him that speaketh. “For if those did not escape who had refused him who uttered the oracles on earth, much more we who turn away from him who does so from heaven”. So that we have three speakings: we have the speaking of the saved person although dead, we have the speaking of the atoning blood of Christ, the blood of sprinkling, and then we have His own speaking authoritatively from heaven, and the warning to everyone of us is not to turn away from it. For it says, “See that ye refuse not him that speaks”.
We are not here as those just seeking to get through with this little service here in a perfunctory way, in friendliness, or personal kindness, or remembrances; let no one think that. Let him think of the voice of Christ speaking to him at this present time, and the awful consequences of turning away from it. As it goes on to say, “whose voice then shook the earth; but now he has promised, saying, Yet once will I shake not only the earth, but also the heaven. But this Yet once, signifies the removing of what is shaken, as being made, that what is not shaken may remain. Wherefore let us, receiving a kingdom not to be shaken, have grace, by which let us serve God acceptably with reverence and fear. For also our God is a consuming fire” (Hebrews 12: 26 - 29). These are most solemn verses; but whilst speaking thus and warning everyone, for the warning comes to all, one is thinking of the speaking, and the thought of what comes in before these awful judgments that are spoken of here, that is, the Lord Jesus coming from heaven. “For the Lord himself, with an assembling shout, with archangel’s voice and with trump of God, shall descend from heaven; and the dead in Christ shall rise first” (1 Thessalonians 4: 16). If the Lord came now, our brother here would come out of that casket first before any of us would be changed. It is the great victory of God. “... for the Lord himself, with an assembling shout, with archangel’s voice and with trump of God, shall descend from heaven; and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we, the living who remain, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and thus we shall be always with the Lord”. This great act of power accomplished by our Saviour and Lord will take place before the judgments against which we are warned in those verses that I read.