“Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” In this profound statement is contained the Alpha and Omega of God’s redemptive plan for mankind.
In our quest to know God and His beloved Son as the Lamb of God, we are led into the amazing path that is God’s way of reconciling man to Himself. Every footstep of this way we are reminded of the fact that—
“God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life”. (John 3:16).
The entire plan is based on probation before salvation, as it has been so ably written: “All things are ordered by God, but His providence takes in our free agency, as well as His own sovereignty.”
The salvation of man is brought about by his ability to conform to God’s law of reconciliation, as the breach that came about through Adam’s transgression is closed by the Lamb of God. Absolute obedience was necessary and was fulfilled in our Lord Jesus Christ, and this obedience was that which was essential to declare God’s holiness, justice and righteousness. As the Apostle Paul declares— “The wages of sin is death ; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Rom. 6:23).
It was God that sentenced man to death because of disobedience, and it is God that gives eternal life because of obedience. Absolute obedience was found only in our beloved Master, whose will was entirely subjected to that of his Father. Not that his obedience was without severe trial, as we read in the Hebrews—
“Though he were a Son, yet he learned obedience by the things he suffered : and being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him.” (Hebrews 5:8).
His suffering was counter balanced by the Eternal power that dwelt in him, so that during his agony he was enabled to say, “Not my will, but thine be done.” (Luke 22 :42) .
The simplest definition of sin is that it is disobedience to God’s law. As sin alienates from God, it was necessary that God outline the path that we must follow in our desire to come to Him and gain eternal life. The great difficulty for us is our ability to realise that we cannot come to God unless we approach on His terms—it is God’s way. Each generation struggles with the mind of the flesh, as each individual is caught in the warfare wherein the issue is life or death. The greatest difficulty, it would seem, is in our desire to write our own specifications for life eternal. As we approach an understanding of God’s Eternal Word, we begin to realise that He is the great King who pronounced the sentence of death, and He it is that outlines the path of life.
It is a Divine principle that without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin. (Hebrews 9:22. The reason advanced is that the life is in the blood. (Leviticus 17:11-14. Actually, it is the pouring out of life that is the testimony to God’s righteous judgment, for it was God that sentenced man to death. We mention this point because some have placed great emphasis on the actual blood of Christ, and in doing so, distort the true import of Christ’s death. It was not the fact that Christ’s blood was poured out, but the fact that the blood represents his life poured out, even unto death. His final triumph was in the statement — “It is finished.” Death had seemingly conquered, but not truly so, as we shall see. For understanding of which it will be necessary to go back to the beginning.
We are all familiar with the temptation of Eve by the serpent, of her subsequent failure, and of Adam’s disobedience, with the resultant curse of death. When God told the serpent “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed ; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel,” (Genesis 3:15) the groundwork was laid for the ensuing years of struggle and final triumph of Christ over sin.
We are aware of the fact that Adam and Eve covered themselves with aprons of fig leaves, (Genesis 3:7), which was not satisfactory. God made them a covering of skins which necessitated the slaying of animals. We are not told in so many words all that transpired in the garden, but it is apparent from subsequent instructions as to the use of animals in sacrifice, that Adam and Eve, along with Cain and Abel, were instructed in the basic elements of redemption through the shedding of blood, and forfeiture of life as a declaration of the Holiness of God.
We pause for a moment to reflect. It is natural that men and women should ask, “Why did God require an animal’s blood poured out ?” Actually the animal was not the guilty party. Animals were created for the service of man in the beginning and the offering of the animal’s life was a testimony that the individual who offered the sacrifice, was guilty and should die. However, God in His mercy made the way open for man, who was made in the image and likeness of the Elohim, to approach Him acceptably in this manner, provided he mentally (and without reservation) acknowledged that the animal’s blood was representative of his own. It is our ability to grasp God’s way to life, through the Lamb of God, that reconciles us to God, not our own way in any manner.
As the life is in the blood, and the pouring out of the blood of Christ portrayed his sacrifice of his life as the Lamb of God, whose perfection of character exonerated him personally from the fundamental law of disobedience unto death, he voluntarily laid down his life as an offering, bearing our sins in his own body, which was a body of sin, and nailed it to the cross. As he, himself, knew no sin, his resurrection was assured as the first begotten of the new creation. God is indeed just, ever-loving and is constantly working towards the redemption of all those who, realizing their own inability to extricate themselves from death, seek His way in Christ Jesus.
As the Israelite under the Law, presented his sacrifice before the priest, placing his hands on the head of the victim, he witnessed to the fact that because of sin, he was guilty of death and that the animal’s blood poured out testified to that fact ; so we, after a belief of the gospel message and in open testimony before witnesses, are baptised into Christ, thus acknowledging by this act that we pass from Adam into Christ and become partakers of the atonement for sin. As the apostle Paul writes :
“There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for (or because of) sin, condemned sin in the flesh.” (Romans 8:1-2-3).
Throughout the Antediluvian age, the Patriarchal age and the elaborate and intricate divine ritual of the Mosaic age, all of God’s laws pointed forward to Christ as the Lamb of God, by whom should come the reconciliation. The offering of Isaac provides a landmark that distinctly points to the Lamb to be provided by God. The divine covenant of promise given to Abraham, even before the birth of the seed, that— “All the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever.” (Gen. 13:15) is confirmed by the Apostle Paul in Galatians 3:16 as Christ the true seed, of which Isaac was but a type.
When Isaac, the child of promise was born ,it was Divinely arranged that Abraham, and all that should follow, who are the Sons of God, should unmistakably see the plan of God that was to provide the Lamb of God. The journey to Mount Moriah (Genesis 22) of Abraham and Isaac where Isaac was to be offered, was the supreme test of Abraham’s faith. The apostle Paul refers to this incident as an accomplished fact. (Hebrews 11:16-19). When the angel arrested Abraham’s hand as he was about to sacrifice Isaac, the promised seed was figuratively given back by resurrection. God thus declaring that He, and He alone, would provide the Lamb.
The intricate pattern of the tabernacle, so carefully given to Moses in all its detail, was so designed to instruct the Sons of God in Israel of reconciliation to life through the Lamb of God. The pattern of it all foreshadowed in type, the great anti-type to come. The foursquare camp, the functions of the priesthood, the tabernacle with its coverings, vails, altar and ark, all find their counterpart in the Lamb. The beautiful types contained therein are outlined for us by Brother Roberts in his book “The Law of Moses.” It is unquestionably true that a basic understanding of the Law of Moses is essential if we desire to grasp the beauty of God’s purpose in the Lamb. Brother Barling has also handled the subject most ably in his book “Law and Grace.”
Let us take two illustrations from the law—the daily sacrifice of the lamb morning and evening, and the Day of Atonement. The high priest was to replenish the oil in the seven-branched candlestick daily, and offer incense before the vail every morning and evening; and on the great altar he was to offer a lamb. The candlestick reflects our minds, illuminated by the Word of God, as we offer our prayers (signified by the incense) through the Lamb of God, who makes intercession for us before the throne. The unblemished lamb offered daily, lovingly and with an enlightened mind, by the high priest, foreshadowed our Lord Jesus Christ as the Lamb of God who was, in due course of time, to remove the vail of the flesh and make the way open into the Holiest of all for all those who are baptised into Him and maintain their integrity in the Holy Place, into which we have now entered.
“Having therefore, brethren, boldness (liberty or confidence) to enter into the holiest (holy place, R.V.) by the blood of Jesus,
By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the vail, that is to say, his flesh ;
And having an high priest over the house of God ;
Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.”
The significance of the daily sacrifice as applied to our lives is in the fact that we are now in the Holy Place, separated from the Most Holy by the vail of the flesh. Even the flesh loses its condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus, who walk after the spirit— “For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made us free from the law of sin and of death.”
The sacrifice of the one lamb and the freeing of the other on the Day of Atonement, reveals to us reconciliation through the blood of the one, and the gift of life in a new environment on the part of the other. The two were needful to show that death itself, without life, does not complete the sacrifice of the Lamb of God. The transfer of the sins of the people to the space goat, along with the one sacrificed, thus signified that our Lord Jesus Christ bore our sins to the cross in the pouring out of his life and in turn, through resurrection, continues as our High Priest at the present time. As Peter so ably describes it—
“Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers : but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you.” (I Peter 1:18-19).
In the book of Revelation the expression “the Lamb” (or an equivalent) is found about 30 times, which shows to us the importance God in Christ attaches to the sacrifice which is the basis of all “good things to come.” It is the Lamb as the Lion of the tribe of Judah that is worthy to unseal the scroll and reveal to His servants the apocalyptic panorama.
The late Brother C. C. Walker, in his pamphlet “The Atonement,” brings this cut most beautifully “The Lamb,” by divine paradox proclaimed in the context as “the Lion of the tribe of Judah,” opens the divinely-sealed scroll of human history, and receives the ascription of the praises of the “redeemed” for whom he was slain (Rev. 5). Under the “sixth seal” the whole pagan world comes to an end before “the wrath of the Lamb” (6 :16) , another divine paradox. Then there is the vision of the new world of “the Israel of God” (7:9, 14, 17) “before the throne and before the Lamb” in “salvation.” “By the blood of the Lamb” these “redeemed” ones overcame the world (12:11) and maintained their separation from the “wild-beast” apostasy that hunted them to death as it did him (13:8, 11; 11:8). “They stand at last “on Mount Zion” with the “Lamb” (14:1. 4, 10) and “sing the song of Moses the servant of God and the song of the Lamb” (15:3). They have been with the “Lamb” in his victory over the kings who made war upon him (17:14) and are united to him in anti typical “marriage” (19:7-9). By another figure they are “the holy city, new Jerusalem,” “the bride, the Lamb’s wife” (21 :2, 9, 14, 22, 23, 27), incorporating “wall” and “temple,” “light” and “life.” And the book ends on the theme of “the throne of God and of the Lamb” (22: 1, 3), and the assurance that he “comes quickly,” to which the apostle says fervently in conclusion, “Even so, come, Lord Jesus.”
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One