But now we come to another thing: God laying the foundation of it all; and mark first, He does not effect it hastily. There are many who think it would have been exceedingly good if God had at the beginning given His Son to die for sinners. Instead of this He waited for 4000 years. Why so? In the word we get the key to the difficulty. " When the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son," etc. It was not on the first day of the first month that the Passover was instituted, that great standing type of Christ slain for sinners, but on the fourteenth day. Was not God in this delay signifying the fullness of time?
First, He leaves man to his own way; and then, lest man should complain that he had gone astray because abandoned to himself, God took him in hand and tried him under law. So Israel, as the center of mankind, was placed under His government. What was the result? After all possible pains the bad tree bore more bad fruit. Israel at the close was worse than at the beginning. The end of man was the Cross of Christ. They hated the Son and the Father. Therefore do we hear of, Christ's death at the consummation of the ages. It is not a chronological expression; but God had tried man in various ways, which ended in nothing but wickedness and ruin. What does God do then? He displaces man's religion and his failure by the infinite work of redemption; and this is what we have in the Passover.
Verse 5, "In the fourteenth day of the first month, at even, is Jehovah's passover." What was the great principle of this feast? God had come down to deliver His people from the house of bondage. It was not because of any good in them, for the children of Israel at that time were worshipping false gods, and were utterly indifferent to the glory of the True. But next, if God delivers them, He must deliver them righteously. Pay particular attention to this. It is not simply a question of mercy in forgiving those who are wicked, but He will have them before Him on a foundation of right. He is a just God and a Savior. Hence on that night He sent through the land a destroying angel to avenge sin. It was judgment of evil, and the first thing done. He came down by that angel to deal with whatever was offensive to His character. And there was but one thing which stayed the hand of the destroying angel. What was it? The blood of the slain lamb. Wherever it was not on the doorposts or upper lintel, death reigned. Not that God was yet judging all mankind. It was a sample, which testified what sin deserved, and what alone could screen from God's judgment. God declared, in that blood on the sprinkled doorposts of the children of Israel, that death only could stay judgment.
It was in the last degree solemn-the lamb judged for sin. But what wondrous grace! Judgment falling on the lamb; not on the guilty, but on their substitute! It was the judgment of God because of our sins which Christ had to endure, the spotless Lamb of God. What was it made the Lord Jesus sweat, as it were, great drops of blood? Was it the mere act of dying? This would lower the Lord below yourself if you are a believer. Why, a Christian rejoices in the thought of departing to be with Christ, who alone suffered and died for our sins.
What was the meaning of that cry, "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" It was the judgment of sin which then fell on Christ. It was not what the Jews did, nor Pontius Pilate, nor Herod, nor man in general laid on Him. I know the popular hymn says, "I lay my sins on Jesus." But the truth is far better than that: God laid them there. If it had been you or I that must bring our sins for expiation, we might have forgotten many; but Jehovah laid our burden on Him. And hence the Lord suffered on the Cross as never did before either any other or Himself. For if He had been bearing sins all His life, as some say, either He must have been forsaken of God all His life, or God must have acted as if sin was tolerable till then. Is either thought true? Neither; indeed, without even an appearance of truth. Christ suffered once for sins.
This judgment of God falling on the Lamb alone explains what sin is and deserves; and the sprinkling of the blood on the doors answers to the believer's application of Christ's' blood by faith to his own case. In this and this alone was seen that which has made it a righteous thing to put away sin. God's judgment fell on His Son, because He is His Lamb, who was able to bear it. The blood of the Lamb is the witness of the judgment, but in richest fullest grace because it was on His Son it fell. This was God's view of it; and you must remember that in these types we are considering not what Moses or others understood, but what God said and faith receives in and through our Lord Jesus. Do you ask my authority for all this? Turn to 1 Cor. 5:7, "For even Christ, our Passover, is sacrificed for us." Is not this ample authority? And God says this to those who had been Gentiles and now were His church; for He was looking far beyond the Jew on to another day, and this is the day in which we find ourselves. Christ's death is the groundwork of all our blessing, the blood of the slain Lamb, the Lamb of God that beareth away the sin of the world. We may see too, that it was not a question of continuous or repeated offering; as the apostle argues in Heb. 9:26, "For now once in the end of the world hath He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself." Further, " He bore," as Peter says, " our sins in His own body on the tree." The consequence of His work is perfect peace to the believer. If it were continually going on, one could, one ought, never to have settled peace. The perfect efficacy goes with the singleness of Christ's offering, through righteousness as the apostle teaches in Rom. 5