His Sacrifice — My Salvation

The OT is filled with commands, rituals and events that point ahead to the day when God would offer Himself as a sacrifice for our sin. The first hint is in Genesis when He covered the nakedness of Adam and Eve, obviously killing animal skins to replace their inadequate attempt to do it with leaves and without the shedding of blood.

The sacrificial system was about God’s promise to provide forgiveness for sin. The lambs were to be perfect, hinting that His sacrifice would be without sin.

Another clue came later when He commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac. Without protest, this man of faith took the boy up a mountain with intention to obey. When the boy asked about a lamb, Abraham said, “God will provide for Himself the lamb.”

Centuries passed. The people were trusting God that the lambs they offered covered their sin until the promised Messiah would come. All through the OT are clues to His identity. He would descend from David and restore God’s people. He would give Himself as an atonement for sin. Yet even then, the prophecy included the horror that He would be rejected by His people.

Isaiah 53:1–12. Who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.

When Jesus came, He was just as Isaiah said 600 years earlier. He was rejected and despised, at least by the most religious. Even those who loved Him did not understand that His deliverance was not political but spiritual, and their real enemy was not Rome but sin.

Jesus also did more than shed His blood to cover sin; He undid sin’s curse and by His death released all who believe from sin’s penalty, power, and eventually sin’s presence as He opened the way to the Father and to eternal life. His sacrifice ended the sacrificial system because the blood of lambs could not do what He did:

Hebrews 10:12–14. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.

GAZE INTO HIS GLORY. Maybe we talk about it too much without thinking deeply about it. Maybe we take for granted forgiveness and our freedom in Christ. Maybe what He has done too easily becomes an “of course” instead of a great wonder. While resting in His love is far better than struggling with the pressures of life, I’m often in need of giving this wonder deeper thought, and in need of remembering the reason I am still on this earth. As Ephesians 5:2 says, I’m to “Walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” This means a life of sacrifice, of yielding my ‘I-wants’ to the One who yielded all to make such sacrifices possible, even desirable. Thank You, Jesus.