The Lamb of God

TROWEL & SWORD

The Lamb of God

Rev. Albert Esselbrugge

It won’t take too many sermons or Bible studies in which the Word of God is addressed in a faithful and serious manner before those who had no grasp at all of what our title could refer to, understood that this is also a Title of the Lord Jesus Christ. What does it really mean though? Have you ever wondered where such a strange title has come from? I call it strange, because what on earth does a man have to do with a lamb?

We use lambs for their wool to make clothing and blankets. We use their meat for food, and their fat for ointments, so a man, or a woman for that matter might be a shepherd or a farmer in relation to sheep, or a shearer, or perhaps a slaughter man, a butcher or a chemist, but why would God refer to His Son, the One sent into the world as the Saviour from sin and the judgement of God, of all who turn to Him in faith? How does He get that title of “Lamb of God”?

Let me invite you to imagine if you will, what it was to live in the times of the Old Testament as a member of the Old Testament church.

Go back in your mind to the time when the people of God were in slavery in Egypt and God instituted an amazing ritual called the Passover (Exodus 12). The people were to take a lamb or a goat that was without defect or blemish. An animal with even the smallest hint of disease, or the tiniest wound was not allowed for a Passover. God would not accept it as a suitable and sincere sacrifice. The animal had to be without defect.

A careful and detailed inspection of the animal was not all that was required.

The lamb to be offered at the Passover was to be selected four days before its sacrifice, and to be kept apart. If a family was small, it could combine with a neighbouring family, but for four days the lamb chosen to be offered, was taken away from the rest of the flock and kept alone by itself. You can imagine that the lonely animal would have bleated incessantly in its separation. It has been suggested that this would have made the family much more aware of the solemnity of the feast which was to be celebrated, but I think that the reason was more about giving time to the family to ensure that it truly had no defect or injury that would render it unacceptable to the Lord.

Then, when the day assigned for the Passover arrived, the lamb was to be killed, and in the time of the slavery, it was killed in the house of the owners, but when the people were liberated from their slavery, God no longer allowed them to kill the lamb in their own homes but appointed a place for its celebration (Deut 16), first in the tabernacle, and later in Jerusalem.

Now put your mind to how the sacrificial lamb was to be slaughtered. If you are squeamish, I urge you to overcome it, because this is so full of instruction concerning salvation as it has been purchased by the Lamb of God - the Lord Jesus Christ. First the blood of the lamb was to be caught in a basin, usually a golden basin. Then, as soon as it was taken, the priest standing by the altar on which the fat was burning, threw the blood on the fire or cast it at the foot of the altar. What a scene that must have been. It’s not one we are used to in our modern and sanitised world, and most of us would turn away from it. Tens of thousands of lambs sacrificed, and the blood poured out in a dark river. Next, the lamb was to be roasted, but not one bone of its body was to be broken.

Think again of the first Passover feast. As the sun was setting and the Egyptians were making their way home, every house of the people of God brought their Passover lamb inside. To the Egyptians it must have been obvious that these people were about to celebrate something important. In the house the father would no doubt have made one last inspection of the lamb, and satisfied that all was in order, he would have taken his knife to kill it. With a basin at the ready, the blood was collected, and when it was dead, with a reminder to his wife that not a bone was to be broken, the animal will have been taken to be roasted on the fire. Then, taking a bunch of hyssop, and dipping it into the basin, the blood was put on the sides and tops of the doorframes of the houses where the lambs were to be eaten, because the Lord had declared, “on that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn...and when I see the blood, I will pass over you” (Ex 12:12).

Once the lamb was cooked, the family were to eat in haste, dressed and ready for a quick departure. This was not to be a leisurely meal. It was a solemn night. They were about to leave the land of slavery and make their way to the Promised Land. This was to be the night the Lord God would deliver them, and gradually as the night deepened, a terrible grief was heard across the land. The father will have murmured to his children, “Stay close. Do not go outside. The angel of death is passing over, but the blood will save us!” Outside however, a terrible despair grew in volume as each Egyptian family found their first born, dead. It wasn’t long before the Egyptians came running to God’s people, and ordered them to leave. Their eldest sons lay dead.

Can you imagine it? The blood is what gave safety to the people of God. The blood of the lamb!

Jesus Christ - The Lamb of God

Now look to the Saviour. Jesus Christ came into the world, sent of the Father in heaven, and He came without defect, unblemished, born of the virgin, conceived by the Holy Spirit. Not a hint of sin was upon Him or in His soul. He took our infirmities and bore our sorrows on the cross. He was in all points tempted as we are, but was without sin. A lamb without blemish, a male who in his prime at 34 years of age was sacrificed for our sins, of whom it was said, “no one ever spoke the way this man does” (Jn 7:46), and though His enemies lied and brought false charges against Him, Pilate declared, “I find no fault in him.” (Jn 19:4).

“The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world”, that’s how John the Baptist described Him as he saw Jesus coming toward him to be baptised. The apostle Paul leaves us in no doubt about it, “For Christ, our Passover lamb has been sacrificed” (1Cor 5:7). Jesus Christ has taken the place of the Passover lamb. He is the Passover for all who turn to Him in faith, and the angel of death will never touch them, for His blood saves!

And so He was led to Jerusalem to the place where God had declared it should be, and there He was crucified, and His hands and feet were pierced, and not a bone was broken, and His blood was shed for you, if you believe. Christ is the fulfilment of the Passover, and indeed the entire system of sacrifice.

The Old Way and the NEW Way

The book of Hebrews is the full and complete explanation of the radical transition from the seemingly endless blood and gore of the Old Testament to one sacrifice of the Lamb of God. As you read this letter, the writer is at great pains to see that we grasp what he is getting at and his purpose in writing. By repetition and careful explanation he drives the point home - Christ is the single all fulfilling sacrifice to which the entire sacrificial system that began at the Passover pointed.

Hebrews 9:1-7 describes the old period of history and the way the people of God worshipped in it. These verses tell us there was an earthly sanctuary, and that this sanctuary, or tabernacle, had an outer part, called “the holy place,” with a lamp stand and table and bread. They tell us that behind the outer part was the Holy of Holies with an altar and a chest with sacred relics and carved cherubim above the altar, and they describe the priests entering the outer tent continually, and the high priest entering the Holy of Holies only once a year to make atonement for the people, and he did this by taking the blood of animals, because the blood stood for the death of an animal, and the death was in the place of the death of the priest and the people. God counted the blood of the animal as sufficient for cleansing the flesh, the ceremonial uncleanness. But the old system of sacrifice was never intended to be permanent. Under the Old Covenant, the priests were busy all day long, from dawn to sunset, slaughtering and sacrificing animals, but no matter how many sacrifices were made, or how often, they were ineffective. They could never provide access to God, and they could never remove sin because they only dealt with the externals. The law prescribed repeated animal sacrifices for sin, and the very repetition of the sacrifices showed that they could never make the sinner perfect. Nothing decisive and once for all happened to deal with sin. The Old Testament sacrifices were mere shadows and pointers to the real thing that came in Christ Jesus. Only His sacrifice was effective because it was God’s will all along. The main plan was always Christ!

The way to God was very limited in Old Testament days. His presence was sealed off behind the outer tent. He could only be approached in atonement once a year, and only the high priest could go, and he had to go with blood, including blood for his own sins. This is where we have to remind ourselves that the whole point of the book of Hebrews is to say that the coming of the Son of God into the world, is the ending of the old way of relating to God, and the beginning of the superior way, where Christ Himself replaces the high priest and the temple and the blood of the animals and the food and drink rituals.

Under God’s sovereign purposes, everything of the Old Testament was pointing to a new, fuller and richer period of history that began with Jesus, and in which we continue to live. Back then, all the blood, and there were rivers of blood, could never touch the guilty conscience of the priest and the people. There was no animal blood that could cleanse that, and the people knew it (Is 53 & Ps 51). So in the new order a new high priest came, Jesus the Son of God came with a better sacrifice, Himself.

Jesus Christ - THE Substitute Lamb

The result is that all the sins of His people in the Old Testament were covered by the blood of Jesus. The animal sacrifices begun with the Passover foreshadowed the final sacrifice of God’s Son, and the death of the Son reaches back to cover all the sins of God’s people in the old order, and forward to cover all the sins of God’s people in the new order.

What the old covenant could not accomplish in taking away human sin, since “It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sin.” (Heb 10:4) the new covenant completes and promises will be taken away because the foundation of the new covenant is a better sacrifice, the sacrifice of God’s own Son. This is the full and final way in which God deals with sin to make us right with Him. This is how He deals with the guilt and condemnation of sin, by sending his Son to die for sinners and bear our guilt so that there is forgiveness and cleansing, and a guilt free conscience before God. The basis of Christianity is the shedding of Christ’s blood and the death of Christ. By His blood He purchased our justification, and our sanctification. He took away our guilt and He’s taking away our corruption.

Christ died for our sins, and He had to die for our sin because forgiveness demands blood.

We find that hard to grasp in our sanitised modern world how bloody and messy the old sacrificial system was, but blood is a symbol of death, and no one could ever be mistaken about how all that blood was a continual reminder that the penalty of sin is death. Our Lord makes sure we don’t forget it either, when at the last supper He took the cup and said, “This is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins” (Matt 26:28). The purpose of the blood was to symbolise sacrifice for sin, which brought cleansing from sin. Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.

“He took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered Him stricken by God, smitten by Him, and afflicted. But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed.”(Is 53:4-5).

Here is something real from which we may take genuine comfort and by which our faith may be greatly strengthened. I invite you to rejoice as you look on Him whom was pierced, and see His blood, as the lamb’s blood, sprinkled on the top and the sides of the door frame to your soul, and you see His unbroken body. Can anyone consider this, and not feel their eyes prickle with a tear, and rejoice to see Him suffering so that we may see He satisfied God, and see how we ought to have suffered in the torment of hell forever and ever, but His blood saved us!

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