The Gospel is God’s own answer to the question He Himself has raised about man and his sin. None could raise the question, and none could answer the question but Himself; that answer is Christ, given by God freely in His love—Christ lifted up upon the cross as a sacrifice for sin—Christ raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, and Christ ascended into the heavens.
Now Ex. 12 speaks about a lamb, whose blood, shed and sprinkled upon the houses of the children of Israel, secured them when God passed in judgment through the land of Egypt. The Lord Jesus Christ is the great substance of which the lamb of Ex. 12 was only the dim shadow. What a blessed, wonderful spring is imparted to the soul when this is believed, that the Lamb, whose blood must be shed as an atonement for sin, is the only begotten Son of God, provided, given, sent, by God into the world for this very purpose. As it is written, “In this was manifested the love of God toward us, in that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him.” There is one point of great value and importance in Ex. 12—everything is done under the hand of God. He provides all, so to speak, and then assures by His Word; this is most blessed to apprehend. The security of an Israelite in that night consisted in his being in a house whose lintel was marked with the blood of the appointed lamb, previously shed in death; the sense of his security, or the known enjoyment of it, consisted in his simply believing God’s testimony—“When I see the blood I will pass over you.” I would say a little about the security. Nothing less than that mysterious mark on the lintel would suffice, and nothing more was required; the blood shed told of atonement made: “it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul” (Lev. 17:1111For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul. (Leviticus 17:11)). It was no question as to what an Israelite was, or what he felt; what God looked for as He passed through the land that night was the lintel sprinkled with the blood of the appointed lamb; wherever there was such before His eyes God was satisfied, and they were secure. “When I see the blood, I will pass over you,” proclaimed both the one and the other. So is it now, the security consists in my having to do with Christ, who went down into death to put away sin; nothing less would meet our dreadful case than the blood-shedding of Christ. He bore the judgment in His own body on the cross—He gave up His life—in His death we can say, “mercy and truth are met together, righteousness and peace have kissed each other.” Every righteous claim of God has been met by the death of Christ; all that was contrary to God has been for the believer put away for ever. How secure is the soul in such an answer!
Now, in order to bring this out more clearly, allow me to put a case. We will suppose an Israelite, who has followed out, in every particular, the direction of God as to the lamb, and also as to the sprinkling of the blood upon the lintel; he retires into his house, and passes that terrible night in fear and anxiety. Whether he will be the next to fall under the judgment he knows not; if he could, he would go outside the door of his house, and satisfy himself by gazing on the blood. But this he cannot do, and follow out the direction of God, and so he passes a wretched night, comfortless and miserable. But I take another case, that of an Israelite who, equally with the former, has followed out the commands of God as to the lamb and its blood; he, having also sprinkled the lintel, retires, restful, quiet, happy, and assured—the thought of judgment awakens no alarm in his breast. Which of the two is safest? The latter, do you say? If so, you make the security to consist in something else beside the blood being on the lintel. But do you not see that, because in both cases the blood was there, both were equally safe, equally secure? Both were not equally happy, both were not equally certain of their security. And why? Simply because both did not equally credit the testimony or word of God. The blood outside made both equally secure, but the testimony of God, carried inside and believed, was needed to make both equally assured—when I say equally assured, I mean as far as any could be at that time. Thus I trust we have seen that testimony to our ruin as sinners is borne by the word of God equally with testimony to our safety, “if we believe on Him who raised up Jesus, our Lord, from the dead.”