Friday, December 20, 2006
1 Peter 1:17-19 And if you call on the Father, who without partiality judges according to each one's work, conduct yourselves throughout the time of your stay here in fear; knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.
PERFECT SACRIFICE, SUFFICIENT RANSOM
It is true, isn't it? Little babies are little sinners and grown-up people are big sinners. This is the way it has been ever since Adam and Eve disobeyed God in the Garden of Eden. The apostle Peter speaks of this as our "aimless conduct received by tradition from our fathers." Our sinful nature has been passed down to us. Our situation is desperate.
But "money talks." Surely there must be some way for us to buy our freedom from sin. But no amount of silver or gold can rescue us, for silver and gold are corruptible things.
What about the payment of life for life? How about animal sacrifices? God Himself commanded animal sacrifices in the Old Testament. Could these sacrifices redeem us? No, for the Bible says: "It is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins." Obviously, the animal sacrifices did not remove sin, for they had to be repeated day after day, year after year.
What, then, is the sufficient ransom price for lost souls? "The precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot." You see the Old Testament animal sacrifices were only pictures and previews of what God had in mind from eternity. Those animal sacrifices had to be animals without blemish and without spot, because they pointed ahead to the true Lamb of God, which really does take away the sin of the world. Jesus Christ is that Lamb of God, pure and spotless indeed, the only Baby ever born without sin. Even when He was still in His mother Mary's womb, He was the Holy One, the Christ, the Son of God, without any stain of sin -- a true human being, yet without human sin.
The blood of Christ is precious blood, because, as the Bible emphasizes in many places, it is the blood of the Son of God. It is the blood of Him who is God. "The blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanses us from all sin." "He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself."
