Hebrews Xii. 24. 479

although it be in the body, is less felt and seen than the flesh and bones. There are other indications given of the blood being separate from the body. The sacred writings present the body and blood under the aspect of things divided, not only in the sufferings and death of our Lord, but also in the supper insti tuted in remembrance of His death. Examine ch. xiii. 9, etc., x. 10, 29 ; 1 Cor. xi. 24, 25. The mode of predicating follows the mode of existence ; for this very reason the body and blood of Christ are considered as quite distinct, because there is a dis tinction or separation existing in respect (on the part) of the subject. Therefore the blood, as shed, is still in heaven before the eyes of God ; it still speaks for us ; it is still the blood of sprinkling : 1 Pet. i. 2. The blood of Abel, which the earth, having opened its mouth, drank from the hand of Cain, cried out apart from the body ; so the blood of Jesus Christ speaks, likewise apart, in heaven, with greater power and benignity. For this reason mention is here properly made of the blood of sprinkling apart from Jesus Himself, as in ch. x. 19, 21, the entrance into the sanctuary in the blood of Jesus, and this same High Priest, are praised (spoken of) apart; andch. xiii. 12, the blood of Jesus is considered apart from His body (comp. ver. 11); and ch. xiii. 20, the very raising of the great Shepherd of the sheep from the dead is said to have been accomplished through the blood of the eternal covenant. Comp. Rev. Riegeri. Hist. Frr. Boh., vol. ii., p. 68, etc., where, following the footsteps of Pfaffius, a very wide field of old and more recent opinions is so spread out before us, that this single opinion, which he skilfully states, comes forth without any of the disadvantages attending on the rest. The blood itself shed, not the shedding of the blood, is the ransom, the price of eternal redemption. That price, paid to God, remains paid, without being restored to the body of the Redeemer. The redemption is eternal ; the value of the price is eternal, just as if the Redeemer hung on the cross daily and expired daily for us. In His death there was the power of a life that was not to be dissolved. In His life there is the value of His death, which is perpetual. The death of the Lord itself swept away the weakness of His life in the world, in which (weakness), for the sake of undergoing death, He became a par taker of flesh and blood, ch. ii. 14 : and so the same death, as a