A Commentary on Hebrews 12:22-24, by Arthur Walkington Pink.

But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel.
~ Hebrews 12:22-24

Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion.
~ Psalm 2:6

Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is mount Zion, on the sides of the north, the city of the great King.
~ Psalm 48:2

But the LORD is the true God, he is the living God, and an everlasting king: at his wrath the earth shall tremble, and the nations shall not be able to abide his indignation.
~ Jeremiah 10:10

God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints, and to be had in reverence of all them that are about him.
~ Psalm 89:7

Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.
~ James 1:18

By so much was Jesus made a surety of a better testament.
~ Hebrews 7:22

Moreover he sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle, and all the vessels of the ministry.
~ Hebrews 9:21

To say nothing about many poetic expressions in the Psalms (such as "He maketh me to lie down in green pastures"), and symbolic language in the Prophets (like "then will I sprinkle clean water upon you... I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh"), take such a saying of our Lord’s as this: "There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children or lands, for My sake and the Gospel’s, but he shall receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children and lands, with persecutions" (Mark 10:29 , Mark 10:30 ) the impossibility of literalizing such a promise appears, for example, in a man’s receiving or having a hundred mothers. Now if that statement is not to be interpreted literally, why should an outcry be raised if the writer presents good reasons for interpreting other verses figuratively?

After reading the above, some may be inclined to say, "All of this is very bewildering and confusing." Our reply is, Then you must have sat under very superficial preaching. Any well-instructed scribe would have taught you that there is great variety used in the language of Holy Writ, and often much care and pains are required in order to ascertain its precise character. That is one reason why God has graciously provided "teachers" (Ephesians 4:11 ) for His people. True, the path of duty is so plainly defined for us that the wayfaring man (though a fool) need not err therein; but that does not alter the fact that in order to ascertain the exact significance of many particular expressions of Scripture, much prayer, and comparing passage with passage, is called for. The Bible is not a lazy man’s book, and the Holy Spirit has designedly put not a little therein to stain the pride of men.

Now much help is obtained upon this difficulty by recognizing that many of the things which pertain to the new covenant are expressed in language taken from the old, the antitype being presented under the phraseology of the type. For instance, when Christ announced the free intercourse between Heaven and earth which was to result from His mediation, He described it to Nathanael in the words of Jacob’s vision: "Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man" (John 1:51 ) not that the Lord Jesus was ever to present the appearance of a ladder for that purpose, such as the patriarch saw in his dream, but that spiritually there would be a like medium of communication established and the agency of a like intercourse maintained. In a similar manner, the death of Christ is frequently spoken of under the terms of the Levitical sacrifices, while the application of His atonement to the soul is called the "sprinkling of His blood on the conscience."

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