So the apostle wrote to the Corinthian church. So he meant and says "to all that in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ." Why should not that name be yours as well as theirs? It is yours when you believe on Him; and God is calling you in the gospel to believe on Him.
The Passover night in Egypt may well encourage you; especially as Christ is far more than the Passover. He is now for Gentiles as well as Jews. The sacrifice of Christ is far too precious in God's sight to be restricted to any nation. By God's grace He tasted death for everyone. Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Salvation is in. none other, for there is no other name under heaven, that has been given among men, whereby we must be saved.
Yet the Passover, though it may not reveal all that Christ is, tells much to a soul that justly fears divine judgment. So God taught Israel that night. Thus He spoke to Moses and Aaron, "This month shall be to you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year to you. Speak ye to all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb according to their fathers' houses, a lamb for a household; and if the household be too little for -a lamb, then shall he and his neighbor next to his house take one according to the number of the souls; according to every man's eating ye shall make your count for the lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year: ye shall take it from the sheep or from the goats; and ye shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month; and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it between the two evenings. And they shall take of the blood, and put it on the two side-posts and on the lintel, upon the houses wherein they shall eat it. And in that night they shall eat the flesh roast with fire, and unleavened bread; with bitter [herbs] they shall eat it. Eat not of it raw, nor sodden at all with water, but roast with fire; its head with its legs and with the inwards thereof. And ye shall let nothing of it remain until the morning; but that which remaineth until the morning ye shall burn with fire. And thus shall ye eat it: your loins shall be girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; ye shall eat it in haste; it is Jehovah's Passover. And I will go through the land of Egypt in that night, and smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am Jehovah. And the blood shall be to you for a sign on the houses where ye are; and when I see the blood, I will pass over you; and the plague shall not be on you or destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt."
Let your soul dwell on these last words; they concern you deeply and forever. There you may find redemption in Christ through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.
Is not this your urgent and actual want? Without it you are only waiting for death and judgment, the sad portion for sinful man—once to die, and after this judgment. But in the blood of the Lamb is the security which God is now proclaiming in the gospel; and it is for every one that believes.
Undoubtedly if you own not your guilt His gracious message is nothing to you. Not the strong but the sick have need of a physician.
Belie not your conscience. Is pride or vanity fit for God's presence? Deceit, insolence, malice, are they not evil? If indeed you have not wronged your neighbor, have you rendered what is due to God all your life? Have you not defrauded and dishonored Him this day? Be not self-deceived. There is revealed (not yet executed as it surely will be, but revealed) God's wrath from heaven against all impiety, and unrighteousness of men holding the truth in unrighteousness. Here God warns, not profane people only, but those who may be religious in forms and habits, and ever so rigid in their creed.
He calls on souls to own their sins, to repent and believe the gospel. Christ our Passover has been sacrificed; but this can save none that hears the glad tidings unless he believe on Him. It is essential that a sinner should judge himself and confess his sins; it is essential that he should confess Jesus as Lord, Whom God raised from the dead. This was shown by the Israelite putting the lamb's blood on his door-post. This was making it his security on the warrant of the divine word.
So are you, if you believe on Christ, assured that His blood cleanseth you from all sin. Do not think that this as yet means a deep feeling of God's grace, or an adequate estimate of Christ's redemption. A soul in believing passes through many an exercise of heart and conscience. But faith means his resting, not on what he finds in himself, but on what God sees for him in the blood of the Lamb. "When I see the blood, I will pass over you." No thoughts of a saint, even the most mature or instructed, can equal God's sense of Christ's sacrifice, or His value for that precious blood. The Israelite in faith sprinkled it on his own house; and so must every sinner at God's word appropriate it for himself, a lost sinner. But by that blood God's judgment is stayed, and He passes over. He, and He alone, sees its infinite value; and on His value of Christ's blood the believer rests. He knows that he is lost forever without that blood; but his comfort, his security, is, not from what he sees in the blood of the Lamb, but in God's seeing the blood. Thus can he calmly, thankfully eat of the lamb, though it be with the bitter herbs of repentance, the inseparable accompaniment of living faith.