I am not aware that the expression is ever met with in any portion of the New Testament except the Epistle to the Hebrews, and this may at once suggest the idea that it has a Levitical signification. The great object of that Epistle is to expound the types of the book of Leviticus, and to show their fulfilment in our most blessed Saviour. Accordingly in two out of the three passages there is a direct reference to the ancient types. It is therefore only natural to expect that the phraseology employed in the Book of Leviticus, respecting the types, will reappear in the exposition of those types in the Epistle. And if we would understand the Epistle, we must learn from the Book of Leviticus what was the nature of that sanctification which was effected through blood in the law of types. Some people seem to think that these sacrifices produced no result except in so far as they pointed typically to the Lord Jesus. But I do not think they will find that opinion borne out in Scripture. They will find there that, in addition to their typical and prophetic character, these sacrifices were, at the time of their being offered, effectual in God’s purpose for the bestowal of certain most important blessings. Thus this passage says, ‘If the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh:’ the blood then of bulls and of goats did actually ‘sanctify to the purifying of the flesh.’ There was a certain act of sanctification there and then wrought through the application of that blood. It was not merely that in it through faith believers laid hold on the future atonement by the coming Saviour, but there was something done for them at the time; so that after the sacrifice they were in a position different to that in which they stood before it. Take the two cases referred to in this verse. First, there is the sprinkling of the blood of the bullock, as on the day of atonement. On that occasion the altar was sprinkled with the blood. (Levit. xvi. 19.) Now the altar was not actually purified by the sprinkling, as if it had been washed with water. Yet you read, ‘He shall sprinkle of the blood upon it—and cleanse it, and hallow,’ or sanctify, ‘it from the uncleanness of the children of Israel.’ In that case the altar was cleansed from legal guilt. In consequence of its contact with the sin of guilty man it was regarded before God as an unclean thing, and by the sprinkling of blood it was sanctified, or legally cleansed. Before the sprinkling it was polluted, but afterwards it was clean, or, in other words, all legal impurity was removed.