Deliverance

When we behold the One John the Baptist called "the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world" (John 1:29) dying on the cross, our minds often take us to that night in Egypt when Moses instructed the enslaved Hebrews to slaughter the lambs which had been living as a part of their households for four days.  As each family did this, the blood of the slaughtered lamb was placed over the doorposts of the house so that deliverance instead of judgment would come to those within it.  The Hebrew Passover comes from this night.  The blood of the lamb provided deliverance.

 

There was blood shed that day on the cross.  It was blood of the Holy One from heaven, the Son of God, the One who was born for the expressed purpose of saving His people from their sins.  While we would rather think of Jesus dying there in some sanitized and clean fashion, it was dirty and bloody business which was enacted on Calvary that day.  As the slaughtered lamb and the blood on the doorpost reminded the Hebrews that deliverance was costly, in an even greater manner the slaughtered bloody body of the Lamb of God reminds us that our deliverance is not without great price.  Jesus has died for each one of us.

 

But, to take it a step further is to recognize that Jesus died not just for the masses of humanity, but for the single individual whom we see each time we look in the mirror.  Jesus took upon Himself the punishment which is rightfully mine as a result of my sins.  The punishment deserved for sin is death and separation from God.  His shed blood and His death is not what He deserved, but what I should get from God because of my sin.  But, because of the blood of the Lamb of God, I stand now as one who can receive the free gift of eternal life in Christ Jesus. (Romans 6:23)  Such is my deliverance and such is the power of this shed blood of Jesus.  Thanks be to God!