Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

The Lamb of God

“You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without defect or blemish.”

1 Peter1: 18-19

In this chapter we will explore the sixth major covenant God made with his people. It is the most important and was inaugurated by Christ upon the cross.

The blood of Christ

We have seen, the importance of blood in the sacrificial system and how the sacrificial animal stood in place of the person who sought forgiveness and cleansing from sin. Jesus himself made clear the connection between the Old and New Covenants and the importance of blood. The day before Jesus’ death, when he was eating with his disciples, Jesus used the symbols of bread and wine for what was to happen to him on the cross. He had previously spoken of himself being the bread of life[1]. As he took the cup and passed it around his disciples he referred to it as the cup of the new covenant[2] saying, “Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”[3]

The New Testament writers understood the death of Jesus as a sacrifice to atone for sin.

The Apostle Paul wrote about this to many churches, including to the church in Corinth, “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures.”[4] The Apostle John wrote of Jesus, “You know that he appeared, to take away sins, and in him there is no sin.”[5] The Apostle Peter wrote, “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the Spirit.”[6] The writer to the Hebrews said in reference to Jesus’ death, “now when all ages of time are nearing the end, he has appeared once and for all, to remove sin through the sacrifice of himself.”[7]

We will explore the sacrifice Jesus made for the forgiveness of sins in some detail below. However, in addition to our understanding Christ’s death as a sacrifice for the forgiveness of sin, it also must be seen in the context of setting free from sin. Jesus’ death not only ensures our forgiveness but ensures our freedom from the slavery, oppression, or bonds, of sin. Paul, writing to those who had turned to Christ in Rome said that, “sin will no longer have dominion over you, [or be your master,] because you are not under law but under God’s grace.”[8]

So, to fully understand this aspect of Christ’s sacrificial death we need to return to the Old Testament and the Exodus.

The Lamb of God

The Hebrew people had found themselves welcome in Egypt during a time of famine in their own lands. We can read about all this in the later chapters of Genesis. However, over time the Hebrews were perceived as a threat to Egypt as their population grew. Eventually, the Egyptians enslaved and oppressed them.[9] The Hebrews sought a saviour who would release them from their bondage and give them their freedom. Moses immerged as that saviour. The book of Exodus is essentially a record of his long and eventful life and how God worked through Moses to bring about the freedom his people desired.

Exodus chapter 12 chronicles God’s instructions to Moses about how his people would be freed. There would be death in the land. However, if the Hebrew people sacrificed a lamb and used its blood to mark their houses, by painting it onto the door posts, death would pass over them and leave them untouched. The lambs used were to be without blemish; that is, they were to be perfect in every way. As a result, the Pharaoh of Egypt released the Hebrews from their bondage and gave them their freedom. Moses consequently led them through the waters of the Red Sea and into the desert. Many years later they settled into the land that God had promised Abraham. Jews remember this act of God to this day in their Passover celebrations.

Returning to the New Testament, we read in the Gospels how John the Baptist understood Jesus as, ‘the Lamb of God.’ At the start of Jesus’ ministry, he was in Bethany (not the village of the same name near Jerusalem, but on the eastern side of the river Jordan). John the Baptist was there too, with his followers, including Andrew who subsequently became a disciple of Jesus. He pointed out Jesus to them saying, “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”[10]

So, we have three ways of understanding John’s declaration of Jesus as the “Lamb of God.”

First, is that through his death on the cross Jesus made a sacrifice for the atonement of sin. In the same way that an animal sacrifice served to take away the sin of the sinner so Jesus “takes away the sin of the world.”

Second, through his death Jesus sets us free from the slavery of sin. In that sense he is the new Passover Lamb. The first gave the Israelites freedom from slavery in Egypt, Jesus gives freedom from the slavery of sin.

Thirdly, we can understand Jesus as the Lamb of God in terms of both a sacrifice for the atonement of sin and the Passover Lamb that sets us free from the bonds of sin. The two are not mutually exclusive.

Jesus’ sacrifice

On the cross the Lamb of God was sacrificed. It is important to understand Jesus’ death not simply as an execution but as a sacrifice. Jesus himself said, “I lay down my life for the sheep”[11], and referring to his life, “No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.”[12] Christ is both priest and victim. The sacrifice Christ made was of himself, it is his blood that was shed, not the blood of an animal. Notice too, that Christ was an unblemished sacrifice - a perfect sinless sacrifice.

When writing to the church in Ephesus the Apostle Paul helped the church (and us) to make connections between Christ’s death on the cross and the sacrifices of the Old Testament. He wrote, “Christ loved us and gave up his life for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”[13] Paul was alluding to the comment God made to Noah. Noah offered a sacrifice of thanksgiving for bringing him, and all in the ark, through the flood and keeping them safe. “Then Noah built an altar to the Lord, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird, and offered burnt-offerings on the altar. And when the Lord smelt the pleasing odour, the Lord said in his heart, ‘I will never again curse the ground because of humankind.”[14]

Also, we read, in Leviticus 1:9 (a passage about burnt offerings), “Then the priest shall turn the whole into smoke on the altar as a burnt-offering, an offering by fire of pleasing odour to the Lord.”[15] (Other Old Testament references to a sacrifice creating a pleasing aroma can be found in Exodus 29: 18, 25, & 41 and Leviticus 1: 13 & 17.)

The writer of the Letter to the Hebrews also makes a connection between Christ on the cross and the sacrifices of the Old Testament.

“When Christ came as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation), ¹² he entered once for all into the Holy Place, not with the blood of goats and calves, but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption. ¹³ For if the blood of goats and bulls, with the sprinkling of the ashes of a heifer, sanctifies those who have been defiled so that their flesh is purified, ¹⁴ how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to worship the living God! ¹⁵ For this reason he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, because a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions under the first covenant.” [16]

In this letter Jesus is referred to as the High Priest, a priest being the person who not only conducted sacrifices but acted as a go-between or mediator between people and God. As the priest interceded for the sinner and made the sacrifice on behalf of the sinner, so, on the cross, Jesus made the sacrifice for the sins of the world.

Through his death sin is atoned for, we are left guiltless, our consciences cleansed from the defilement of sin.

In the light of the crucifixion, we are now able to read Isaiah’s prophecy that,

“Surely, he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”^[17]

We have seen that the punishment for sin is death. Just as we saw with the Old Testament sacrifices that the sins of the sinner were imputed upon the animal that was sacrificed, so Christ stood in our place and represented us; he took the penalty that we deserve.

Each of the key New Testament writers emphasise this substitutionary nature of Christ’s death. Paul wrote: “God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith”^[18]. John highlights Christ dying for our sins. “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”^[19] Peter, referring to Isaiah, wrote: “He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.”^[20] Jesus himself said; “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command.”^[21]

The New Covenant God had promised the world through Jeremiah has been inaugurated by Christ’s blood shed on the cross. Christ’s death has taken away the sin of the world making the old sacrificial arrangements obsolete. All sin has been atoned for.

The Old Covenant promised life in the land promised to Abraham and his descendants,[22] a land of plenty, flowing with milk and honey[23]; the New Covenant promises life eternal in the land of God’s Kingdom.

The writer of the Letter to the Hebrews also made connections with the Exodus and the release of God’s people from oppression and bondage. He did this in two ways. First, we recall how the lambs whose blood marked the door posts of Hebrew families as a sign for death to spare these households, were to be lambs without blemish.[24] So, making the connection with Christ, we read In Hebrews 9:14, “how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to worship the living God! In his first letter, Peter also writes about Christ as a “lamb without blemish or defect.”[25]

Secondly, the connection is made between the Hebrews’ freedom from their slavery in Egypt and Christ’s death giving freedom from the slavery of sin. The writer to the Hebrews says.

“Therefore, my friends, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, ²⁰ by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain (that is, through his flesh), ²¹ and since we have a great priest over the house of God, ²² let us approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.”[26]

To fully understand this passage, we need to understand the floor plan of the Temple in Jerusalem. It was designed with an outer courtyard into which anyone was permitted to enter, Jew or Gentile. It was known as the Court of the Gentiles. Beyond that was the Court of the Treasury, also known as the Court of the Women. Only Jews could enter this Courtyard. Women were not permitted to go through into the next area but were able to overlook it from a balcony to observe the sacrifices. The western gate of the court, led to the Court of the Israelites, a portion of the Court of Priests open to all male Jews. The Court of Priests contained the sacrificial altar and surrounded the inner sanctuary. The sanctuary building contained the Holy Place within which stood the Holy of Holies. This was the most sacred area of the Temple. It was here that the Ark of the Covenant (containing the Ten Commandments) was kept and where God was thought to dwell. Only the High Priest was allowed to enter the Holy of Holies, but only once a year on the Day of Atonement.[27]

The Holy of Holies was separated from the Holy Place by a curtain, see Exodus 26:31-33. At the very moment Christ died, the curtain was torn in two, from top to bottom.[28] The destruction of this curtain symbolises Christ’s atonement for sin and the tearing down of the barrier, that sin had erected, between humankind and God. The tearing of the curtain as Christ died symbolises the opening of the way into the presence of God. The new covenant was established allowing men and women to have direct access to the Father. By faith in Christ and his atoning sacrifice upon the cross we are freed from the bondage of sin and free to enter through the curtain to live in the presence of God.

When we read about Christ’s death for the forgiveness of sin it is often referred to in many different ways, each helping us to grasp what his sacrifice means. Among the terms the New Testament writers use are ransom, propitiation, and justification. We will explore what these terms mean and how, together, they help our understanding of the enormity of Christ’s work upon the cross. That, and the importance of faith, is the focus of our next chapter.

Points for reflection

1. How does it make you feel that God sent his only son into the world to die for you?

2. What does the sacrifice Jesus made upon the cross mean to you and for your relationship with God and with others?

3. What connection do you make between the kezazah ceremony we discussed in chapter 1 and the tearing down of the curtain in the Temple as Christ died on the cross?

4. What barriers might we seek to pull down that we have erected that inhibit people developing a personal relationship with God?

Prayer

Merciful and loving Father, we give you thanks and praise, for by the death of Jesus, you brought salvation to the world. Through his sacrifice you tore apart the barrier that separated us from you, offering us forgiveness and freedom from the shackles of sin. When we offer you our prayers, acknowledging and confessing our sin, accept them as a fragrant offering that, turning once again to you, we may begin anew. We pray in the name of Jesus our Saviour. Amen.

[1] See John 6

[2] 1 Corinthians 11:23

[3] Matthew 26:27-28

[4] I Corinthians 15:3

[5] 1 John 3:5

[6] 1 Peter 3:18

[7] Hebrews 9:26 (GNT)

[8] Romans 6:14 (NRSV) [ESV]

[9] Exodus 1

[10] John 1:29

[11] John 10:15

[12] John 10:15

[13] Ephesians 5:2

[14] Genesis 8:20-21

[15] Leviticus 1:9

[16] Hebrews 9:11-15

[17] Isaiah 53:4-6

[18] Romans 3:25

[19] 1 John 4:10

[20] 1 Peter 2:24

[21] John 15:34

[22] Genesis 17:7-8

[23] Exodus 3:8

[24] Exodus 12:5

[25] 1 Peter 1:19

[26] Hebrews 10:19-22

[27] Hebrews 9:7

[28] Mark 15:38