The PERFECTION of Jesus as the LAMB of God whose precious blood, can take away all sins
This lesson comes to the heart of this GLORY series. At the heart of the gospel of Christ, we find the cross of Christ --or rather the death which God's Son suffered upon that cross as a sacrifice
Going back to John chapter one, the chapter from which each of our GLORY lessons is drawn, we read in verse 29 the statement of
"Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the
The outline for this series of lessons is an acrostic on the word GLORY (from the statement in
Peter reminds us that we have been redeemed "with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot... foreordained before the foundation of the world"
The term "Lamb" is of course a metaphor, referring to Christ as a sacrificial offering for sins. We understand that Jesus is not only the "Lamb", but also
In the Jewish religion, various animals, including lambs, were killed and offered by priests as sacrifices for the sins of the priests and all the people. But these sacrifices could not really, by themselves, take away sins. Sins were forgiven through those sacrifices only because they were prophetic symbols of the true Lamb of God. It is He who
In thinking about Jesus as the Lamb, we can consider four aspects, and you will notice each of these mentioned in the passages quoted above. These four aspects can be summed up in four words: Perfect, precious,
What do these four words stand for? God accepted Christ's sacrifice because Christ was perfect and without spot or blemish of sin. But Christ was the dearly beloved Son of God --what could be more precious to God than the blood of his only Son? Yet God
loved us so much that he preordained that his Son would die for us before we ever came into existence. The potency of that blood to take away sin is unlimited, for whosoever will may come to God for forgiveness through the Lamb. Let's enlarge
God in times past accepted animal sacrifice as a type or symbol of the true sacrifice to come. God decreed that the animal offered must be perfect. "Your lamb shall be without spot or blemish"
When Jesus offered himself as the final sin offering to end all other sin offerings, he presented himself perfect. Although he was, as we saw in lesson one, truly human and in all points tempted as we are, yet he was without sin
It is truly amazing that a human being, living in this wicked world, could remain free from sin. It is easy for us to pass it off by saying, "Oh but of course he was God, and God wouldn't sin would he?" Although he was the Son of God he was also the Son of Man, and we must be careful not to imply that his divine nature somehow lessened or altered his human nature and his
Two saucepans may both be steel, yet one is capable of going rusty, whilst the other is stainless steel. You may mistakenly think of yourself and Jesus like that. You accept that you and Jesus are both human, but you think you are the kind of human who is easily corroded by sin, whereas Jesus is "stainless human" in the sense that he could not be corrupted, and that's
I think that is a false idea, because the scriptures tell me that Jesus came into this world as much prone to sin and vulnerable to corruption as you. The only difference is that he kept himself pure
When Peter says that we are redeemed "by the precious blood of Christ" he is saying
Many ministering Christians become concerned that words such as "the precious blood of Jesus" become mere verbal forms and lose their meaning. That's no reason to change the words. But when we repeat those words, we ought to understand
What we are talking about here is the love of God for his unique Son whom he loved more dearly than any of us can imagine. When we quote, "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son" we usually emphasise God's love for the world. But the measure of God's love for the world is his love for the Son whom he gave for the world. When we realise the cost, that God had to give what was most precious of all to him, then we begin to appreciate the "so" in
We live in a bloody and violent world where the bloodshed and suffering of innocents is commonplace. God is deeply grieved by man's inhumanity to man. We may be sure that God keeps account of every drop of blood, and every tear, shed in unjust suffering. But what must God have felt when the blood of his only Son was shed. This time God was not grieving for another's son,
In some interpretations of the story of Jesus, his death on the cross was a turn of events that temporarily frustrated God's purpose, and required God to revise and postpone his plans. According to this view, God purposed that Jesus be crowned,
The Bible tells us that the slain Lamb was foreordained before the foundation of the world. Even before the human race existed, God knew of humanity's future plight, and made his decision
The crucifixion was forseen. John the Baptiser foresaw the crucifixion of Jesus when he pointed to Christ and said, "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world." Centuries earlier, Isaiah foresaw the same thing
By the potency of the sacrifice, we mean what it had the power to accomplish. What was its potential? Was the Lamb limited in his power to take away sins? In other words, was his blood shed for some but not for others? Or did his blood have the potential to save
When Jesus died "as a ransom for all" was that "all" or "many" fewer than the number of all mankind?
To put this question in more immediate terms, what about you, dear reader. When you read John 3:16 aren't you personally included in the "world" and the "whosoever"? Didn't Jesus shed
We realise sadly that not everyone will have their sins forgiven, but that is because some reject the Lamb, not because the Lamb
The Lamb was slain for all the sins of all people. He was slain for you. I trust that you will not reject him, but "be washed in the