Hebrews 12:22-24

Hebrews 12:22-24. Seven things, Bengel notes, show the inferiority of the condition of Israel under the Law, and seven things show the superiority of the true Israel under the Gospel. Our gathering-place is Mount Zion (not Sinai), the abode of Him who is Father and King, and the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God. We are come to an innumerable company of angels (literally, ten thousands of angels; not the comparatively few who witnessed the giving of the Law, and aided the administration of the old economy), to the festal gathering of the Church of the first-born of the Christian Church of this age, consisting as it did of those who were heirs of the promises, and whose names are enrolled, not as were the names of the first-born of Israel, in earthly registers (Numbers 3:42), but in heaven itself; a privilege shared, moreover, not by the first-born only, but by the entire company of the redeemed (see Luke 10:20); and to God, the Judge of all. The mention of the militant Church and of their adversaries brings up this thought: He is their Defender, and to Him they may commit their cause.

And to the spirits of just men made perfect, from righteous Abel downwards; and to the Mediator of the recent and new covenant (not the same word as in chap. Hebrews 9:15)

Jesus (the name of our Lord which the writer of this Epistle uses when speaking of His redeeming work), and to the blood of sprinkling the blood that ratified the covenant is now offered to God and applied (not shed merely) to the human conscience, which speaketh better than Abel, or than the [blood] of Abel. ‘Than Abel' may refer to his offering or to his martyrdom. His offering had no intrinsic efficacy, and his martyrdom cried for vengeance. Christ's blood cried only for mercy, and secures it.