engeance on those who shed it on the
Cross, some of whom possibly were now among the readers of the Apostle's
piercing words. What an immeasurable distance between the first man of
faith, mentioned in the eleventh chapter, and Jesus, with Whom his list
closes! The very first blood of man shed to the earth cried from the
ground to God for vengeance. The blood of Jesus sprinkled in heaven
speaks a better thing. What the better thing is, we are not told. Men
may give it a name; but it is addressed to God, and God alone knows its
infinite meaning.

From all this we infer that the comparison here made between Sinai and
Zion is intended to depict the difference (seen, as it were, in another
Bunyan's dream) between a revelation given before Christ offered Himself
as a propitiation for sin and the revelation which God gives us of
Himself after the sacrifice of Christ has been presented in the true
holiest place.

The Apostle's account of Mount Zion is followed by a most incisive
warning, introduced with a sudden solemnity, as if the thunder of Sinai
itself were heard remote. The passage is beset with difficulties, some
of which it would be inconsistent with the design of the present volume
to discuss. One question has scarcely been touched upon by the
expositors. But it enters into the very pith of the subject. The
exhortation which the author addresses to his readers does not at first
appear to be based on a correct application of the narrative. For the
Israelites at the foot of Sinai are not said to have refused Him that
spake to them on the mount. No doubt God, not Moses, is meant; for it
was the voice of God that shook the earth. The people were terrified.
They were afraid that the fire would consume them. But they had
understood also that their God was the living God, and therefore not to
be approached by man. They wished Moses to intervene, not because they
rejected God, but because they acknowledged the awful greatness of His
living personality. Far from rejecting Him, they said to Moses, "Speak
thou unto us all that the Lord our God shall speak unto thee; and we
will hear it and do it."[375] God Himself commended their words: "They
have well said all that they have spoken." Can we suppose, therefore,
that the Apostle in the present passage represents them as actually
rebelling, and "refusing Him that spake"? The word here translated
"refuse"[376] does not express the notion of rejecting with contempt. It
means "to dep