Read Exodus 12:21-22 – Then Moses called for all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Pick out and take lambs for yourselves according to your families, and kill the Passover lamb. And you shall take a bunch of hyssop, dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and strike the lintel and the two doorposts with the blood that is in the basin. And none of you shall go out of the door of his house until morning... ” (NKJV)
From God’s earliest guidance to sinful humanity, He has consistently demanded sacrifice for redemption. It’s a theme one can’t miss as He established the various offerings demanded in the Law, and their culmination in Christ’s sacrifice for us underscores God’s demand that something or someone must be sacrificed to reunite us to God. I suppose God could have shaped redemption any way He might choose, so there must be something important in this pattern. And there is! Throughout Scripture God defines love as self-sacrifice. Yes, the punishment for guilt is death, but love can lift that punishment from the shoulders of the guilty. Initially, sheep and other animals would be sacrificed, but this pattern would ultimately demonstrate God’s amazing love in becoming the Lamb for us. Jesus said that love’s greatest demonstration is in one’s sacrifice for others. And that’s a lesson the Israelites began to learn on the night of the first Passover. Lambs died of necessity that night, but one day a Lamb would die due to everlasting love.
– Dr. Mike Clarensau serves as Senior Director of the Healthy Church Network of the Assemblies of God.
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