By Austin B. Tucker
Surely
there are elements of truth in all of these ways of looking at the atonement of
Christ, though most of them are very inadequate. All of them taken together cannot
plumb the depths of this divine mystery. Christ our Passover Lamb is the Sinless
One who is a substitute for the sinner. Paul said, “You see, at just the
right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly” (Rom.
5:6).
Step
three: the blood is applied.
The
blood was applied on both doorposts and above the opening. It is not enough that
Christ died for our sins if we do not by faith appropriate that sacrifice to ourselves.
Not that our believing is in any sense a work of merit that pleases God. The death
of the Lamb is the satisfying sacrifice, but receiving Christ as our personal
savior is the way God chooses to apply that atonement to our souls. Have you by
faith appropriated the sacrifice of Christ to your soul?
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Step
four: Holy God is satisfied.
The
Old Testament Passover was only one of many periodic sacrifices in the Law. But
then Jesus the Lamb of God died for us, and “we have been made holy through
the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (Heb. 10:10b). Now
dear struggling sinner, if Holy God is satisfied with that sacrifice, can’t
you be satisfied?
C.
H. Mackintosh was a Bible teacher and preacher among the Plymouth Brethren in
Ireland. God greatly used him in the revival that swept Ireland in 1859 and ’60.
We know him best, however, from his writing — especially his five little books
of Notes on the Pentateuch. About the Passover, he wrote: “The loftiest estimate
which the human mind can form of the blood must fall infinitely short of its divine
preciousness; and therefore, if our peace were to depend upon our valuing it as
we ought, we could no more enjoy settled peace than if we were seeking it by ‘works
of law.’” 2
The
ancient Israelites in Egypt were not saved by their thoughts about the blood but
simply by being under the blood. Our redemption from start to finish is God’s
work. If it is our work, it will never work. When the blood is applied, however,
the Lord is satisfied. (Austin B. Tucker)
1
Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible. s.v. “glory.”
2
Mackintosh, C. H. Notes on Exodus. Neptune, NJ: Loizeaux Bros., 1880, p.
142.
____________________
Sermon
brief provided by: Austin Tucker, a writer and adjunct professor
in Shreveport, LA