The Mystery of the Lamb

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Derek Vaughn

West Point Road Church of Christ

Sermon • Submitted 2 years ago • Presented 2 years ago • 32:17

Lamb of God

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Clara loves scooby doo. She loves the characters. She loves the colors. She loves the mystery. No one ever likes a mystery where the mystery is solved before the story begins. But i have done that this morning with our scripture reading. The scripture reading from John gives away the mystery. The mystery of the lamb has been solved. John solves the mystery for anyone with any knowledge of jewish history.

Exodus 5:2 CSB

2 But Pharaoh responded, “Who is the Lord that I should obey him by letting Israel go? I don’t know the Lord, and besides, I will not let Israel go.”

There were so many gods in Egypt. Pharoah asks, what is so different about your god? I don’t know him, I don’t recognize him as a god. What makes him special? What is so unique about your faith that I should embrace it?

“There is probably no better answer to that question (what is so unique about this God and what is so unique about his ways and this faith?) than this famous passage (the Passover) because for those faiths that accept the biblical vision of ultimate spiritual reality (Judaism and Christianity), this is the center of it.For Jews, the Passover meal is the central thing that makes them who they are. For Christians, a revised Passover meal, the Lord’s Supper, is the central act of Christian worship. In other words, when Pharaoh asks the questions, “What makes this faith so unique?” and “What makes this God so unique?” here it is, but look at what is at the center of it. Look at what is at the center of this thing: the bloody death of a helpless victim.”

The plotline of the Bible is the story of the Lamb.

How many of you have ever eaten lamb? Gyro place in Cleveland. Lamb at restaurant in Nashville.

The Lamb of Abel

Genesis 4:4–5 CSB

4 And Abel also presented an offering—some of the firstborn of his flock and their fat portions. The Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, 5 but he did not have regard for Cain and his offering. Cain was furious, and he looked despondent.

What we know for sure is that “the LORD looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor” . We also know that God looks on the heart (1 Samuel 16:7). There was something in Cain’s motivation and heart attitude, and possibly something in his performance, that made his offering unacceptable to God. It was obviously something that he was aware of and could remedy, since God tells him after the fact, “You will be accepted if you do what is right” (Genesis 4:7, NLT). Abel knew God’s promise to Eve and the serpent. He also knew where his parents and he had fallen short. He knew he was only alive by God’s grace and mercy because his parents deserved death for their disobedience. I was finishing Killing the rising son. Bill O’Reilly makes a case that if the atomic bomb hadn’t been dropped, his father would likely have died during the land invasion of Japan and he would have never been born. He is thankful for the atomic bomb. Probably most of us have a story not dissimilar from that. Abel, on the other hand, had the proper motivation, the proper procedure, and the proper relationship with God. That relationship was based on faith: “By faith Abel offered God a better sacrifice than Cain did” (Hebrews 11:4). Ever since the beginning, people must come to God in faith. “Without faith it is impossible to please God” (Hebrews 11:6), and faith is evidently what Cain lacked.

Abel, by faith in God’s promise, brought his worship. And the proper motivation, procedure, and relationship was with the firstborn lamb. We will see this theme go hand in hand with the lamb throughout scripture. So much so that in the case of Abraham, it is just assumed that a lamb would be the appropriate sacrifice.

When the law was established, a person could give a burnt offering at any time. It was a sacrifice of general atonement—an acknowledgement of the sin nature and a request for renewed relationship with God. God also set times for the priests to give a burnt offering for the benefit of the Israelites as a whole, although the animals required for each sacrifice varied:

There is a promise

The Lamb of Noah

Genesis 7:2–3 CSB

2 You are to take with you seven pairs, a male and its female, of all the clean animals, and two of the animals that are not clean, a male and its female, 3 and seven pairs, male and female, of the birds of the sky—in order to keep offspring alive throughout the earth.

Genesis 8:20–21 CSB

20 Then Noah built an altar to the Lord. He took some of every kind of clean animal and every kind of clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. 21 When the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, he said to himself, “I will never again curse the ground because of human beings, even though the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth onward. And I will never again strike down every living thing as I have done.

A burnt offering meant to ascend. To send up in smoke. In the story of Noah, we get a clearer picture of the point of offering sacrifices. First, it was worship, thanksgiving and acknowledgment, by faith, for God keeping his promises. Second, it was atonement for the life or lives that had been spared. Noah deserved to die in that flood. But God saved him through the ark and through his merciful instruction. Noah, as the new firstborn of creation, his life is God’s. Third, it reorders the heart of the sacrificer. You had to admit your life wasn’t your own.

There is a mercy

The Lamb of Abraham

He must have thought that was an insane command. That’s why he was anguished?

Ancient people in ancient cultures did not have aspirations for individual prominence, individual prosperity, or individual success. That’s not what you hoped for. That’s not what you aspired to. You aspired for the success and the prominence and the prosperity of your family. You didn’t think in such individualistic terms. In ancient cultures, you wanted your family to succeed.Secondly, in ancient cultures, if some member of the family failed or acted in a very shameful way, the entire family was responsible. If one person acted shamefully, that shame belonged to everyone. Modern Americans, Western people, and especially Americans, even more than Europeans, are the most radically individualistic people. This is the most radically individualistic culture ever.

We are much more a product of our family than we think.

Having said that, let’s go back. In ancient cultures who didn’t think of themselves as individuals but as families and at a time in which the firstborn got the whole estate, God sent a message that was unmistakably clear to them but is opaque to us. In the book of Exodus 22, and in the book of Numbers 3 and 8, there was a message God sent which was opaque to us. Here’s what it is.He said over and over again in the Mosaic legislation, “The life of every firstborn is mine unless you redeem.” Every year they had to put up so many shekels. There was a redemption price on the head of the firstborn of every family. Their lives are forfeit unless they’re redeemed. That’s what the Law of Moses said.To us, that’s completely opaque, but it was an unmistakable message to ancient people who immediately understood, because in the firstborn all of their hopes were embodied. All their hopes for themselves and for their families were embodied in the firstborn. God was sending an unmistakable message, and that is that there is a debt over every family on the face of the earth. There is a debt of sin. There is a debt that is owed God on every family on the face of the earth. Your firstborns are liable for the way in which you are living, and their lives are forfeit unless they’re redeemed

What that means, and it’s very, very important to understand, is when God said to Abraham, “Offer up your firstborn as an offering to me,” if Abraham had heard the words, “Go into the tent and kill Sarah,” Abraham rightly so would have said, “I’m having a hallucination,” or “That’s a demon, because God would not call me to do something absolutely at variance with his righteousness and with his Word and his will.”When God said, “Offer up your firstborn,” Abraham did not say, “What a monster!” Abraham realized God was calling in the debt, that God was doing something he had a right to do, that Isaac was about to die for Abraham’s sins. Oh, Abraham struggled, of course, but he didn’t say, “How can you be so unjust?”What Abraham was saying in his heart was, “How can you be both just, which you have a right to be (you’re a just God), and still a God of grace? Because you’ve promised great things to happen through me and my son in the world. How can you be both just and justifier of those who believe? How can you be both just and a gracious God? How can you be a God both of justice and a God of the promise? How can you do it?”

Genesis 22:7–8 (CSB)

7 Then Isaac spoke to his father Abraham and said, “My father.” And he replied, “Here I am, my son.” Isaac said, “The fire and the wood are here, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” 8 Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” Then the two of them walked on together.

Genesis, Volume 2 (4. Abraham (and Isaac?) Pass the Test (22:9–11))

“Should Abraham succeed in killing his son there would be no Israel. And yet amazingly all this is done in willing obedience to the command of God. God had given the son through miraculous means after several attempts by Abraham and Sarah to produce an heir by their own devices. Here Abraham gives up on such pretensions. The child is God’s gift, and he is God’s to take away. But the narrator indicates the pathos by describing Isaac not as “the young man” or “boy” but as “his son.”

God, in his test of Abraham, is asserting and affirming that you serve the creator, not the created. The creator has supremacy. Abraham’s future isn’t his. It is God’s future. Abraham’s pride and joy is God’s. It isn’t his. He would have had all his hopes and dreams for his family tied up in Isaac. He had been sitting around daydreaming of the greatness that God was going to make his family through this son of laughter. And God needs to remind him, the firstborn that you put all your faith in, it is mine to redeem. His life is mine. It isn’t yours. Reorder your heart.

Genesis, Volume 2 (5. Isaac Is Spared through the Lord’s Provision (22:12–14))

The narrator’s explanatory comment, “On the mountain of the LORD it will be provided” seems to come from the time when Jerusalem had been established as the place of the temple. In the sacrificial system the LORD had provided for Israel a way to sustain and renew a relationship with him. By linking the sacrifice of a ram in place of Isaac to the Temple sacrifices there seems to be an indication that at least some of the Temple sacrifices were regarded as substitutionary. Animals were sacrificed as substitutes for human sacrifices. Abraham praised the LORD for providing a substitute sacrifice for the child given to him as part of the LORD’s promises.

Two objections to this test

That there really is a sin debt for everyone on earth. We can’t even live up to our own standards for others (invisible tape recorder). No one even lives up to that.

God can just forgive. No he can’t, not without payment. Psychologically, if we are wronged, we can make them pay it down by making them hurt, suffer, excluding them. If you do this, it may eventually make you feel better, but it will make you a hard person. Or, you can forgive but you have to pay. When you want to hurt them, slice up their reputation to others, you don’t. Your anger will subside because you are paying down the debt. Sociologically, you can’t just let a murderer off because he is sorry. If you do, society and the family of the victim have to pay. There is no such thing psychologically and sociologically as a really serious wrong that can be forgiven without payment.

Abraham isn’t an american individualist. He knows God created him, sustains him, provided him with a son and a future. We owe him everything, even our most prized firstborn son. Our hope for a future.

We also owe it to our neighbor. And we don’t so there is a debt and it is to the God of the universe.

God will himself provide the lamb. But he provides a ram. Isaac isn’t the lamb. A lamb isn’t the lamb. The ram isn’t the lamb. But God will provide the lamb. So where is the lamb.

The Lamb of the Passover

God has called Pharaoh to release the hebrews over and over. And each time there is a plague. And pharaoh agrees to release them when they come but when the hardship is gone, he refuses. Like any politician that makes a deal and then once the imminent threat is gone reneges. So here comes the final stroke.

Exodus 12:11–13 (CSB)

11 Here is how you must eat it: You must be dressed for travel, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. You are to eat it in a hurry; it is the Lord’s Passover.

12 “I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night and strike every firstborn male in the land of Egypt, both people and animals. I am the Lord; I will execute judgments against all the gods of Egypt. 13 The blood on the houses where you are staying will be a distinguishing mark for you; when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No plague will be among you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.

Exodus 12:22–23 (CSB)

22 Take a cluster of hyssop, dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and brush the lintel and the two doorposts with some of the blood in the basin. None of you may go out the door of his house until morning. 23 When the Lord passes through to strike Egypt and sees the blood on the lintel and the two doorposts, he will pass over the door and not let the destroyer enter your houses to strike you.

One of the basic laws of the universe is that violating God’s design leads to destruction, disintergration, and chaos. “I have, as it were, scrolled ahead in time and on one night, in one place eternal, divine, judgment-day justice is coming down. There’s going to be a temporary, preliminary, but devastating judgment day. Not just the forces of destruction, disintegration, and chaos that are out there in general that whenever you disobey the design leads to disintegration and chaos, but for that one night, down will come the destroyer.” Wow. A preliminary, temporary judgment day.

“I’m about to unleash the most inexorable, irresistible, unstoppable force in the universe: the destroyer. It is going to go through the greatest military and political power the world has ever seen, Egypt. It’s going to go right through it like a knife through hot butter. There’s only one thing that will protect you. There’s only one way you can face the ultimate force of the universe. A lamb.

Wait? what? A lamb? The weakest, meekest, and mildest creature on earth? Yes. The only way to face the ultimate force of the universe is to kill a lamb, eat it with your family and put it on the doorposts.

The only hope is a lamb to stand up against the supreme power of the universe. When it comes to this power there are two principles that play out.

Equality before the destroyer

You can’t go out of your house. The destroyer isn’t just coming for Egyptians. If you don’t let the lamb protect you, you will be destroyed with the people you hate the most in this world. The destroyer is no respecter of persons. This is what is so amazing. He said, “Look, Israelites. You are the oppressed; they are the oppressor. You worship the true God; they worship idols. Yet in yourselves, if you were to meet judgment tonight, you would find, whether it’s on the Ten Commandments, whether it’s by the Golden Rule, or whether it’s by the tape recorder standards, you would be lost tonight. In yourself, you are absolutely no better than the Egyptians.

In the final spiritual analysis, if you, the morally ethical, the biblically righteous, the doctrinally proper, go out tonight and try to meet judgment on your own and you do not sit under the blood … If you go out there on your own, your race, your pedigree, your ethnicity, your religion, your beliefs, your doctrine, your ethical behavior, none of that will help you. You will be as lost as the people in the world who you disdain the most, the Egyptians.” That is an amazing statement. There’s the principle of spiritual egalitarianism.

Substituition before the destroyer

In every house, there was a dead son or a dead lamb. Either the family gave up their hope for the future as payment for the universal disintegration of God’s design, or they gave up a spotless lamb. The bloody death of a helpless victim. The lamb was a substitute and paid the debt of the family instead of the son.

Every firstborn son in every Hebrew home looked at the table and recognized, I’m not dead because it is. Psychologically, socially there is a debt. Most cultures understand that. We struggle with that. If we could understand the debt, we would see the beauty in the horror of the substitute.

Combined, you see there is still a debt and you can’t pay it yourself without being destroyed. “Even though I am delivering you tonight, it’s not the ultimate deliverance you need. You are still in a debt of sin. You need a deeper deliverance than the one tonight. As important as the one is tonight, as incredible as this one is, you need another one. As important as this lamb is, you need another Lamb. As important as this deliverance is, you need a deeper one, a more radical salvation, because you have a bigger debt. You have a bigger problem. You have a bigger and deeper kind of spiritual bondage.”

There is a substitute

The Lamb of the Prophets

Isaiah 53:1–7 (CSB)

1 Who has believed what we have heard? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? 2 He grew up before him like a young plant and like a root out of dry ground. He didn’t have an impressive form or majesty that we should look at him, no appearance that we should desire him. 3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of suffering who knew what sickness was. He was like someone people turned away from; he was despised, and we didn’t value him. 4 Yet he himself bore our sicknesses, and he carried our pains; but we in turn regarded him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. 5 But he was pierced because of our rebellion, crushed because of our iniquities; punishment for our peace was on him, and we are healed by his wounds. 6 We all went astray like sheep; we all have turned to our own way; and the Lord has punished him for the iniquity of us all. 7 He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth. Like a lamb led to the slaughter and like a sheep silent before her shearers, he did not open his mouth.

11-12

Isaiah 53:11–12 (CSB)

11 After his anguish, he will see light and be satisfied. By his knowledge, my righteous servant will justify many, and he will carry their iniquities. 12 Therefore I will give him the many as a portion, and he will receive the mighty as spoil, because he willingly submitted to death, and was counted among the rebels; yet he bore the sin of many and interceded for the rebels.

There is a person

The Lamb of the New Passover

Jesus on the night in which he is betrayed, celebrates the passover meal. He is the one in the place of the father, presiding over it. He’s supposed to do the explaining. And there was serious penalty if you didn’t do the meal the way it had been commanded. They expect to hear him say, “This is the bread of our affliction. Our ancestors suffered in the wilderness so we could be free.” Instead, he gets up and says, “This is my body. This bread is my body.” What he’s saying is, “This is the bread of my affliction I am going to suffer to give you the ultimate freedom, freedom not just from physical and political and economic bondage but from sin and death itself.” That’s the first shock, because when he says, “This is my body,” in the place of the presider at the Passover meal, he is saying, “Now it’s my suffering that’s going to be the ultimate liberation for you.”

Here’s the second shock. When he stood up, the disciples looked down … There are three things you have at a Passover meal. You have the unleavened bread. There’s Jesus breaking the bread. You have the four cups of wine.

Exodus 6:6–7 CSB

6 “Therefore tell the Israelites: I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from the forced labor of the Egyptians and rescue you from slavery to them. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and great acts of judgment. 7 I will take you as my people, and I will be your God. You will know that I am the Lord your God, who brought you out from the forced labor of the Egyptians.

Four cups for the four words

Bring, rescue, redeem, and take

There’s Jesus Christ pouring out the cup, obviously. Then there’s the lamb. There’s no reference to a lamb. There’s no lamb. “What kind of Passover meal is this?” say the disciples. There’s no lamb on the table.Do you know why? Because the Lamb was at the table. The lamb was deliberately removed from the Passover meal because Jesus Christ is saying, “Tonight, I am the lamb. My death is the central event to which all of the history of God’s relationship to the world has been moving. Tonight, I am giving you that ultimate salvation even Moses understood that Passover was pointing to when God said, ‘I’ll take you out politically, but if you get out from under the blood of the lamb, you still have a debt of sin on you. I’m removing it tonight.’

I will bring you out from the dominion of satan. I will rescue you from your slavery to sin, i will redeem you from the great acts of judgement by the destroyer and I will take you as my people, I will be your God. I will bring you to the land the I swore (in my Father’s kingdom).

There is a death

Behold the Lamb

John wasn’t just saying there He is! He was saying I get it! Our firstborns were saved because God has given up his firstborn.” Jesus is the answer to the death of Abel. Like Abel, Jesus was slain by those who should have been his closest friends. Jesus is the true and better Abel who, though innocently slain, has blood now that cries out, not for our condemnation, but for acquittal. That’s the answer to Abraham. God was saying, “Abraham, I’m going to walk up a mountain with my Son, and I’m going to lay the wood on him, and nobody will be able to say, ‘Stop.’ Abraham, the reason your only beloved son won’t have to die is because mine did.” He’s the answer to the passover because he wouldn’t force them to stay inside for protection by the blood of the lamb but because of his blood, would go out into the world without fear of the destroyer and to pass on this good news. He’s the answer to the prophets because how could a meek, weak lamb be led to slaughter and take on wounds that would heal us? How can the wounded heal wounds? How can the afflicted take away affliction? How could someone submit to death and bear the sins of others?

Jesus says, I am the promise. I am the mercy. I am the debt payment, I am the substitute, I am the person.

The Mystery of the Lamb is solved

Genesis 22:8 (CSB)

8 Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.”

25 God presented him as the mercy seat by his blood, through faith, to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his restraint God passed over the sins previously committed. 26 God presented him to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so that he would be just and justify the one who has faith in Jesus.

The Lamb of the Apostles

1 Peter 1:18–21 CSB

18 For you know that you were redeemed from your empty way of life inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of an unblemished and spotless lamb. 20 He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was revealed in these last times for you. 21 Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.

Paul says in Romans 12 that we are to be the living sacrifice holy and pleasing to God, not being conformed to this age but to the renewing of our minds. 2 corinthians 2:15 we are the fragrance of Christ, the pleasing aroma to God that he still smells as the triumphant outcome of his sacrifice on the cross

There is a holiness

The Lamb of Eternity

Revelation 22:1–5 CSB

1 Then he showed me the river of the water of life, clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2 down the middle of the city’s main street. The tree of life was on each side of the river, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree are for healing the nations, 3 and there will no longer be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will worship him. 4 They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. 5 Night will be no more; people will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, because the Lord God will give them light, and they will reign forever and ever.

There is a home

John 4:13–14 (CSB)

13 Jesus said, “Everyone who drinks from this water will get thirsty again. 14 But whoever drinks from the water that I will give him will never get thirsty again. In fact, the water I will give him will become a well of water springing up in him for eternal life.”

There is a promise

There is a mercy

There is a debt

There is a substitution

There is a person

There is a holiness

There is a home

The blood of the lamb doesn’t get sprinkled around the edge of the altar. It buries and drowns your old, self righteous, evil, sinful, obsolent, destructive self. It suffocates the serpent. It chokes him out. The blood of the lamb will choke out the guilt of your sinfulness in the waters of baptism and by the power of the spirit choke out the power of the sin lurking, crouching in your heart until you die or the Lord comes again. Who is the Lord that I should obey him?

He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world

Maybe you believe Jesus lived and died on a cross. Maybe you even believe he rose again. Maybe you’ve read about him and studied him. Maybe you’ve even followed him by trying to live like him.

But if you haven’t been touched by his blood, you haven’t been justified, redeemed, reconciled, and cleansed.

This morning, you can go to an altar and worship and serve God in His way, plead for the atonement of the life that you have lived that deserves nothing but death and reorder your heart to admit that from here forward my life is not my own.

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