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Psalm 79:9-13. 9Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of your name; deliver us, and atone for our sins, for your name's sake! 10Why should the nations say, “Where is their God?” Let the avenging of the outpoured blood of your servants be known among the nations before our eyes! 11Let the groans of the prisoners come before you; according to your great power, preserve those doomed to die! 12Return sevenfold into the lap of our neighbors the taunts with which they have taunted you, O Lord! 13But we your people, the sheep of your pasture, will give thanks to you forever; from generation to generation we will recount your praise.

Asaph knows that every drop of servant’s blood must be accounted for. Like the blood of Abel, blood outpoured in injustice cries out from the ground to the Lord’s righteous ear. But what Asaph can’t see is the blood of Christ. The blood of God’s servant spilled at the cross, the blood that should be avenged, will be the blood of our atonement. The blood of our deliverance.

The blood of Christ, while avenging every wrong, will never itself be avenged. It will cry out forever, never silenced, always speaking a better word, a more gracious word than Abel’s (Heb. 12:24) or Israel’s.

To live is Christ is to live in this dual knowledge of God’s avenging and atoning. Christ alone accomplishes both.

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