Christ's blood a better word

"But you have come...to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel."
Hebrews 12:22, 24

In Genesis 4, Cain and Abel, brothers, and sons of Adam and Eve, are found giving offerings to God as an act of worship. Abel brings a better offering than Cain, and this makes Cain jealous. He's angry, and as v.5 tells us, "his face fell". God sees this, asks Cain why he's so angry and teaches him, "If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door" (v.6). God, in effect, takes Cain aside and re-centers him on what is important. But Cain's heart is hard and he won't be deterred. So he takes his brother into conversation, where he rises against him and kills him. How did this all start? It all started with Abel offering a better offering to God (an offering that worshiped God truly) than Cain did (who apparently only looked at the offering as a course and ritual, but not as worship).
At this point God comes to Cain, holds him accountable, and says, "Your brothers blood is crying to me from the ground" (v.10), after which God punishes Cain by promising him that the ground will no longer yield good fruit for him. The very ground upon which Cain spilled his brothers blood will no longer yield strength for him as he farms and tills it, and it's because Cain first refused to let his offering be an act of worship but instead an act of ritual, which (we all know) always leads us to approach it irreverently.

I want you to notice something in the text--God tells Cain that his brother's blood cries out to Him from the ground, and this is immediately followed by Cain's punishment. In a sense, the hole that Cain left in his original offering (which came from the ground) is filled in with his brother's blood (which is on the ground), and now Cain is "not accepted", as God said back in v.6. The point is that the offering made by the humans serves to be "the word" spoken on behalf of the humans, to the holy God who is their Creator and Sustainer. Obviously, the people can speak plainly to God (as we see in the text), but the offering is designated as a word which is something more--truly, it's being offered is meant to be an act of worship, because this God can't be approached as though He's just another human. He's not. So people are to give offerings, to atone for their lack of measuring up to this God. Cain and Abel both know this, but Abel understands this, whereas Cain doesn't. And now, as Cain has jealously murdered his own brother in jealousy that he loves God more, the blood speaks on behalf of Cain, to God.
And truly that's not all--the blood also speaks to Cain on behalf of God, which we see in God citing Abel's blood and then immediately punishing Cain for the sin. Truly, Abel's blood acts as the mediator between God and man, both ways: to God, it speaks man's total depravity and spiritual deadness which leads to cold-blooded murder; to humans, it speaks God's displeasure with man's lack of trust in Him which leads to these heinous acts, followed up by curse and punishment, for the sake of man knowing that there is a problem so that he'll repent (which, in the Old Testament, rarely happens).

At least this appears to be the stance taken by the writer of Hebrews, who we see in 12:24 citing that Abel's blood apparently "speaks a word". But to whom does this word speak? If you read throughout the book of Hebrews, you'll see the writer entirely devoted to unpacking for the reader the goodness of the new covenant inaugurated by Christ--the sinless and spotless Lamb--shedding His blood to make a final sacrifice (truly, a final OFFERING) to God, which "purifies our conscience from dead works to serve the Living God" (9:14) and "perfects for all time those being sanctified" (10:14). The work of Old Testament offerings and sacrifices, while they atoned for the people's sins against God, never actually changed their hearts (9:9-10), and so only served as dead reminders of sins (10:3). There's no change--there's no transformation--and there's certainly no sense of "I need to make this offering, because I'm a sinner and I need forgiveness from God whom I've sinned against." So it's always done ritualistically, just like Cain, and in the end, Abel's blood still is speaking on behalf of us to God, and in so doing speaks on behalf of God to us.

But when Christ came and offered a final sacrifice to God, it was completely different, because it works to actually purify hearts, change hearts, and implant the Word and Spirit of God INTO the hearts of the people who trust in it (8:8-12, cf Jeremiah 31:31-34). Also note that PEOPLE (in their sins) don't make this sacrifice/offering--God makes it on behalf of the people. So what's man's job? Just trust in it to be sufficient to do all it was meant to do. Christ the spotless Lamb and perfect Son of God has become a perfect and faithful High Priest, because His sacrifice is final and binding--those who trust in it show their grafting into the Vine (John 15). Truly, as the Hebrews writer says in 12:24, His blood, poured out onto the ground like Abel's, speaks a better word on our behalf to God, because our trusting in it is done with a pure conscience and clear heart (or else it's not trusting in it).
But it also speaks a better word on God's behalf to us, because, since it puts an end to the spiritual depravity of those whom it was made FOR, and springs forth life where there is none (see Ezekiel 37, John 3), it brings about sonship (see Romans 8, Galatians 4). There's no possibility of our offering a less-than-quality sacrifice, like Cain, because GOD offered the sacrifice--Christ.

This all being the case--Christ being the new offering and new sacrifice and new "word" spoken to God and to us--we listen more intently to God's question to Cain, which is now posed to us: "If you do well, will you not be accepted?" What does God mean?--accepted by WHOM? Obviously Himself. He's the one to whom the offering is offered--but in Christ He's the One who has MADE the offering as well. Our job? Trust in it. Stop trying to pull ourselves up to God, because we'll only end up like Cain: jealous of those who understand the gift of God's grace, out of control of our emotional response, and eventually found with blood on our hands. Christ's blood speaks a much better word than that. May we trust in its work to do all it was meant to do: To "purify our conscience from dead works to serve the Living God."