Thursday, February 7, 2008
Genesis 22:7 "But where is the lamb for a burnt offering?"
THE NAMES OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOR: THE SACRIFICIAL LAMB OF GOD
The picture that comes to our minds most readily when we think of the Lamb of God is that of sacrifice. There was hardly a sacrifice in the Temple at Jerusalem that did not involve a lamb. Long before the Temple was built, we hear Isaac asking: "But where is the lamb for a burnt offering?" (Gen. 22:7) The books of Moses are full of instructions regarding sacrifices. Many required lambs. For certain feasts, seven lambs were offered. Sometimes we read the number of lambs offered on special occasions and wonder about it -- thousands! (1 Chronicles 29:33) In Leviticus 4:32-35 we read that the one who sacrificed the lamb for a sin offering had to lay his hands on it and the blood had to be put on the horns of the altar as "an atonement for his sin."
When we think about it, it is quite obvious that no Jew could ever hear Jesus called the Lamb of God without thinking of Him as the sacrifice or offering to God in atonement for sin. How deeply the idea of sacrifice was embedded in their thinking is shown when Antiochus Epiphanes, the Old Testament Antichrist, stopped all the Temple sacrifices and installed a heathen idol there. As Daniel was informed in advance, "His [Antiochus'] armed forces will rise up to desecrate the temple fortress and will abolish the daily sacrifice. Then they will set up the abomination that causes desolation" (Daniel 11:31). The year 70 AD was also a sad year for the Jews. They were under siege of the Roman armies and the starving people had no sacrificial lamb to offer.
