If the instructions to Israel were very explicit, so that no one could well misunderstand them, they were also severely inflexible. No room whatever was left for human opinion as to what was right and proper that night, and no deviation was permitted from the strict letter of the divine word. The blood of the lamb was the divine requirement. and nothing else could be accepted in its stead. Here is Jehovah’s message to the people “I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will 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 token upon the houses where ye are: and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt” (Ex. 12:12-1312For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will 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 the Lord. 13And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are: and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt. (Exodus 12:12‑13)).
Suppose some in Israel had pleaded that their lives were so much better than their neighbors’, that therefore there was not the same urgent necessity for putting the blood upon the door-post, what would have happened? The angel of death would have swept through that dwelling, even though the people therein were in very deed the most upright and the most religious in the land. Jehovah did not say, “When I see your excellent lives,” but, “When I see the blood.”
Again, suppose some had objected to slaying the lamb, their minds revolting from the gruesomeness of shedding blood, and had instead tied the living animal to the door-posts of their houses, would this have been accepted? By no means. Jehovah did not say, “When I see the lamb,” but “When I see the blood.”
The blood was the confession on the part of those who sprinkled it that they were personally only worthy of death, and that they sheltered themselves under the death of another. To God the blood witnessed that death had already entered the houses upon which it rested; and this justified Him in bidding His ministers of judgment pass such houses by.
How simple are these lessons, and yet how difficult it is to get men to take them in, albeit they concern their eternal peace! How many plead their moral and religious lives as if excellent living should exempt them from the holy judgment of a sin-avenging God. Again, how many profess for the living Christ, admiring His perfect ways, and acclaiming Him as the great Preacher to whom all men would do well to hearken. “Back to Christ,” they say. “Let us live according to the principles of the Sermon on the Mount, and all will be well.” Vain delusion! False hope! Men’s great need is not a holy example, nor a teacher of good, but a sin-atoning sacrifice. This is found alone in the precious blood of Christ. He has made peace through the blood of His cross (Col. 1:2020And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven. (Colossians 1:20)), and in no other way could peace ever have been made between men and God. Apart from “shedding of blood is no remission” (Heb. 9:2222And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission. (Hebrews 9:22)). A millennium of holy living and divine teaching on the part of the Son of God would have left the sin question just where it was before He came to earth. Sin could only be expiated by blood.
God be praised for the atoning death of Christ. It has made it righteously possible for Him not only to exempt from judgment the sinner who believes, but also to take such a one into His, heart of love forever and ever. No wonder the redeemed on high ascribe all worthiness and glory to the Lamb who was slain.