Wednesday, January 27, 2016

The Angel of Death Might Come For Us All


1 Peter 1: 18-19

You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without defect or blemish.

This is straight out of the Old Testament.  Exodus 12, the first Passover.  The blood of a lamb without defect or blemish was painted onto the doorposts and lintels of the Israelites and the angel of death passed over those houses while it proceeded to take the lives of the firstborn of the Egyptians.  It was the tenth and most terrible plague, the one by which the people of Israel were finally freed by Pharaoh. 

It was a ransom, blood for blood, blood of the lamb for the blood of the firstborn.  And Jesus is both the Lamb of God and the Firstborn of God.  Like the lamb, he was slaughtered that the angel of death, the punisher for our sins, might pass over us and we might live forever by the grace of God. 

It is the language of triumph out of sacrifice.  This is the way with humanity.  Talk only of the good, the joyful, and the wondrous, and we are flighty optimists.  Humanity is defined by pain.  We are defined by what bends us, threatens to break us.  So Jesus went to that place where we might be most broken, in death and hell, and from there came back to bring life to us all.

A lot of Christians spend a lot of time talking about how one must be ‘right with Jesus’.  See how far Jesus went to be right with us.

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