Old Testament Parallels of New Testament Salvation — Part 3
The Saving Blood of the Lamb
Scripture Ref: Exodus 12:1-13, 14, 46; 13:1-16
Matthew 26:17-29
John 1:29; 3:5-7
1 Corinthians 2:2
1 Peter 1:18-19
Hebrews 10:14, 29
Other Ref: All the Messianic Prophecies of the Bible, Lockyer
The Bible Knowledge Commentary
1. Introduction
a. Paul Brand wrote in the March 4, 1983 issue of Christianity Today:
Blood spatters the pages of mythology and of history. Drinking it gives strength and new life: to the ghosts of the dead in The Odyssey, to the Roman epileptics who dashed onto the floor of the Coliseum to quaff the blood of dying gladiators, to Kenya’s Masai tribesmen who still celebrate feast days by drinking blood freshly drawn from a cow or goat.
In early history, blood assumed a mysterious, almost sacred, aura in human relations. An oath held more power than a person’s word, but blood made a contract nearly inviolable. The ancients, unashamed to act out the physical literality of their symbols, would sometimes seal blood contracts by cutting themselves and mingling their blood.
We moderns inherit quaint symbolic tokens of the intrinsic mystery of blood: a wedding ring on the "/leech finger," which was believed to contain a vein that led directly to the heart, or perhaps a child’s game of "blood brothers" in which two participants solemnly and unhygienically act out their undying loyalty. We echo misconceptions, too, when we use such terms as "pure blood," "mixed blood," "blood relations," harking back to the days when blood was assumed to be the substance of heredity.
Even after blood has been analyzed in laboratories and demythologized, it still retains some power, if only in the queasy feeling it evokes when we see it shed. There is something horribly unnatural—to some, physically nauseating-about watching the juice of life seep uncontrollably out of a living body. No wonder religions throughout history have exalted blood to sacral status. A ravaging plague, a minor drought, a desire to triumph over enemies, a decoy for the gods’ anger—anything of major import may prompt a bloody sacrifice in a primitive religion.
Although worshipers feel increasingly uncomfortable with the thought, Christianity too is inescapably blood based. Old Testament writers describe blood sacrifices in painstaking detail and their New Testament counterparts layer those symbols with theological meanings. The word "blood" occurs three times as often as the "/cross" of Christ, five times as frequently as "death." And daily, weekly, or at least monthly (depending on denomination), we commemorate Christ’s death with a ceremony based on his blood.
b. Last week we learned how the fiery serpent fashioned by Moses’ hand paralleled Christ’s crucifixion and resulting salvation.
c. Today we are going to look at how the Passover lamb and its sprinkled blood parallels the depiction of Christ as the Lamb of God and how His shed blood performs the same function for us.
2. Prologue
a. Moses and Aaron are negotiating with Pharaoh to let the Jews go and Pharaoh is not coopering.
b. Because Pharaoh’s heart is hardened, he and his people are subject to a number of plagues, each successively worse than the other:
(1) The Nile turns to blood, the fish die, the river stinks, and its water is undrinkable.
(2) The land is inundated with frogs, and the land reeked with the smell of their death.
(3) Gnats aggravate man and beast alike.
(4) Flies are everywhere except where the Jews were, and the land was destroyed by them.
(5) All the Egyptian livestock are killed, but not of the Jews’ animals suffered.
(6) All the Egyptians and their livestock are plagued with boils.
(7) All Egyptian crops, and all Egyptians, their slaves, and their livestock not brought into shelter are destroyed by hail.
(8) Locusts come and destroy any plants not destroyed by the hail.
(9) For three days the plague of darkness demoralize the Egyptians, but not the Jews, for they still have light in their homes.
(10) Death to all the firstborn — Egyptian, Egyptian slave, and Egyptian cattle.
c. Moses told his people of God’s drastic purpose and warned them they must be ready to leave Egypt the blow struck.
d. Following the plagues, Israel had a relationship with God in worship, fellowship, and service in a way they never had before.
3. A Comparison
a. Read Exodus 12:1-13
b. Surviving the first nine plagues required no actions on the parts of the Israelites, however surviving the final plague did.
(1) Each home had to off and slay in the evening a male lamb without blemish.
(2) The blood of that lam then had to be sprinkled on the two sideposts and the lintel of the door of every house.
(3) The blood-sprinkled doors assured those behind them that when the spirit of death was doing is work in Egypt they would be untouched.
c. Egypt suffered the sentence of death, yet Israel received mercy from death through the blood of atonement, blood provided by a lamb without blemish or fault. We too are saved by a lamb without blemish or fault, the Lamb of God.
d. There were explicit rules for how the lamb of their salvation was to be eaten, rules that are full of spiritual meaning.
(1) Eating the meat with unleavened bread suggests separation from all that is alien to the holy nature of the unblemished lamb. Leaven is frequently metaphorically associated with sin.
(2) The bitter herbs remind us to remember all that the Lamb suffered for us.
(3) The lamb had to be eaten by those who were prepared to leave behind the land of bondage, darkness, and death, and journey on to the land of promise. Accepting the Lamb of God implies we too are ready to leave a life of bondage, darkness, and death, and begin a new life that ultimately concludes with spending eternity in His presence.
(4) With their coat on, their sandals on their feet, and their staff in their hand, they declared their readiness to leave Egypt and to become pilgrims—pilgrims who were prepared to rely on God for their survival.
e. God ordained this feast to be a memorial to be observed throughout all generations.
(1) For the Jews it was the Feast of the Passover, still celebrated centuries after its inception.
(2) For the Christian, the Lord’s Supper is the memorial feast instituted by God. It was during the Feast of the Passover that Christ gave the feast its fulfillment in Himself as the lamb providing salvation, safety, and sustenance.
(3) Read Matthew 26:17-29 1 We sit at His table and meditate on all He has done for us when as the Lamb he delivered us from the bondage of sin and the fear of death.
f. The lamb of the Passover vs. the Lamb of God
(1) Christ knew he was to die as the sinless substitute for sinners. He knew he was born for that purpose.
(2) His death was voluntary—it was given, not taken.
4. The Lamb of Salvation
a. Most of the events recorded in Exodus give us a glimpse of Christ and of the coming Christian experience.
b. Hindsight being 20/20, we are assured the Passover Lamb was a prediction of the Lamb of God who would be led to slaughter.
c. Prophecy and Fulfillment—7 comparisons
(1) It was a slain lamb—Reread Exodus 12:6
(a) As such, it was a sacrifice, not a living lamb. It protected the Israelites during Egypt’s hour of judgment.
(b) Christ was the slain Lamb of God, protecting us in our future hour of judgment.
(1) Read John 1:29—The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!
(2) Read 1 Corinthians 2:2—For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.
(2) It was an unblemished lamb—Reread Exodus 12:5
(a) A deformed, diseased, or old and decrepit lamb would not have been worthy of offering to a holy God.
(b) Christ was without blemish or spot. That is, He was without sin. Read 1 Peter 1:18-19—For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.
(3) It was a lamb whose blood was applied to door-posts—Reread Exodus 12:7
(a) The blood spread on the doorposts was a sign to the spirit of death to pass by that dwelling.
(b) The covering of Christ’s blood on us is a sign to God that we have been offered refuge through His son’s death.
(4) It was a lamb with unbroken bones—Read Exodus 12:46
(a) Nothing was done to hasten the death of the sacrificial lamb. It was kept intact.
(b) It was the custom during a crucifixion to break the legs of the one being crucified to speed the dying process. For Christ, however, this was not done. Read John 19:36—These things happened so that the scripture would be fulfilled: “Not one of his bones will be broken…”
(5) It had to be a lamb for every home—Reread Exodus 12:3
(a) In every Egyptian home, there was a dead firstborn child or dead firstborn animal. But in every Jewish home there was a dead lamb.
(b) The lamb’s blood, the symbol of its death was their symbol of their deliverance from death.
(c) The Lamb of God is made available to every household, and like the paschal lamb of the Old Testament, His blood is on us, a symbol of our deliverance from spiritual death.
(6) It was a lamb to be memorialized—Read Exodus 12:14
(a) The Passover was established as an ordinance to be observed for generations.
(b) The people were to reckon their life as a nation from that day forward.
(c) God’s lamb came to save us from the bondage of sin and that we might receive a new birth. Our life of eternity is reckoned from the day we accept Christ’s offer of salvation.
(1) Read John 3:5-7—Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’
(7) It was by a lamb the people were sanctified—Read Exodus 13:1-16 2
(a) All the firstborn in Israel, saved by the blood of the lamb, were to be sanctified, or set apart for the Lord.
(b) The New Testament reminds us that having been bought with the price of shed blood, we are also sanctified by the blood of Jesus. Read Hebrews 10:14, 29—Because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy…How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace?
5. Summary
a. The Israelites had been oppressed for nearly 4 centuries by the Egyptians, slaves to a kingdom over which they had no control, forced to do things they did not wish to do, serving a master who was cruel and had no love for them.
b. A meek and mild animal, a lamb, ultimately saved them. That animal, through giving its life, saved them by its applied blood and provided sustenance for them through its flesh.
c. We have, too, have been oppressed, not for centuries, but from the moment we leave our mother’s womb. We, too, are slaves to a kingdom over which we have no control, without help. We, are fooled into doing things we may not like or may not wish to do by a cruel master who has no love for us, a master whose only purpose is to try to defeat and overthrow God from his throne.
d. Like the Israelites, we have been saved or can be saved by a lamb, the Lamb of God. This Lamb gave his life freely that we might have the option of life over death. His blood causes the spirit of death and judgment to pass over us. He provides spiritual sustenance as we grow in this new life.
e. Have you been passed over by the spirit of death?
6. Invitation
