The Lamb of God that takes away our sins

[minsdad21]

Day 24 – A Living Sacrifice

“I took the instrument and quickly slit the still passive lamb’s throat.� (P.164)

When John the Baptist saw Jesus coming to him at the River Jordan for baptism, he said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!� (John 1:29). Most people, even those who don’t go to church, have heard of this event and the words John spoke, but very few know and understand the full significance of John’s statement and the testimony he gave to Jesus as “The Lamb of God.�
To understand its significance, we must understand the sacrificial system God set up in the Law. As we know, it is mainly laid out in the book of Leviticus, and it is known as the law of sacrifice and atonement, that is, being made right with God through an intermediary or substitute, which was mainly through that of a lamb. But it actually had its beginnings with the original sin and the sacrifice offered by God Himself (Genesis 3:21).
When Adam and Eve fell for Satan’s temptation and sinned, they saw their nakedness and tried to hide it from God by sewing fig leaves together. But there is nothing humanity can do that can ever make itself right before God. Instead, it takes a sacrifice, that is, it takes the death of an innocent animal to atone for sin. And so what is recorded for us in Genesis 3 is the very first death of those animals that were sacrificed to cover their nakedness. These animals were innocent of the crime, but they had to pay for it with their lives. So the sin cost the death of an innocent.
The sacrificial death of an innocent animal had to be without spot or blemish, that is, they needed to be practically perfect in every way. Whenever a sacrifice was made they had to make sure that the animal had no defect, and that it was a perfect sacrifice. The offering to God was to be undefiled, upright, whole, and not stained with any defects. In fact, offering anything less would be an insult to God (Deuteronomy 17:1).
Throughout the law of sacrifice, the priests were to lay their hands upon the heads of the animals, and in essence transfer the sin of the guilty onto the innocent animal, which would then cost the animal its life (Leviticus 16:21). The Bible makes it clear that the wages of sin is death in Romans 6:23. The sins of the guilty were forgiven by transferring them onto the innocent animal and that animal’s death as a result. But why do they have to die? It is tied up in the atonement through substitution. The writer of Hebrews says in Hebrews 9:22, In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.
This chapter is a good reminder of how it is through the blood of our mediator, Jesus Christ that our sins can be forgiven. And so it is through the law of sacrifice and the death and the shedding of an innocent animal’s blood that forgiveness and atonement for sin is obtained.
Thank You Jesus for humbly and willingly becoming the Lamb of God that takes away our sins through Your substitutionary death on the cross.