Sermon – The Worthy Lamb Jan 15, 2006

I have a confession about communion. When I close my eyes and meditate on what the bread and the wine represent, I always run into a dead-end trying to figure out how the body and blood of Jesus eliminate my sins. The truth is none of us can fully understand this mystery. It is one of those deep spiritual realities that I must accept without fully grasping it. 1 Corinthians clarifies that we cannot expect to understand everything until we are completed in Paradise.

1 Cor 13:12
Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

Even though we cannot fully understand the ultimate blood sacrifice, we are nevertheless given minds to grasp as much as we can of this spiritual mystery. So today we are going to explore the precept of blood sacrifice and why the sacrifice of Jesus can cleanse us. After all, if we are basing all our hope in this single act, we should know as much about it as possible.

Covenant God
We need to begin by understanding the constancy of our God.

James 1:17
Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.

Heb 13:8
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

Since the very beginning, God has dealt consistently with man. God has always been a covenant God. Covenants between God and man are all through the Bible and God’s covenants have four consistent elements:

Parties
Practices
Promises
Piercing

The major covenants in the Bible are represented in this chart:

Abrahamic- Parties:Abraham/God- Practices: Walk w/ God- Promises: Great nation- Piercing: Circumcision

Isaaiac- Parties: Abraham/God- Practices: Walk w/ God- Promises: Bless all nations- Piercing: Isaac/ram

Mosaic- Parties: Israelites/God- Practices: Ten Commandmnts- Practices: Physical Blessing- Piercong: Anml Sacrifice

New Covenant- Parties: Believers/God- Practices: Discipleship- Promises: Reconciliation- Piercing: Jesus

In each of these covenants, there are specific parties the covenant applied to. There are practices that had to be followed. For instance, Abraham was told to walk in the ways of his God, the Israelites were to practice the Ten Commandments and laws, and we are to follow Jesus. Under promises, Abraham was told he would be a great nation, the Israelites were promised land, crops, and peace. We are promised forgiveness, the Holy Spirit and Paradise. There are usually negative promises as well if the covenant is breeched. The Israelites were warned of many curses, which later came true. We are warned of hell. The piercing, or ratification in covenants is vital. It seals the agreement with blood and makes a symbolic statement that if either party should fail to adhere to their part of the practices, what was done to the sacrifice may be done to them. The common blood ratification in Old Testament covenants was to cut an animal in two. As the vows were made, the parties would walk between the halves.

Gen 15:9-10
9 So the LORD said to him, "Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon."

10 Abram brought all these to him, cut them in two and arranged the halves opposite each other; the birds, however, he did not cut in half… 17 When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces. 18 On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram…

Cutting the animal apart was a vivid reminder of the punishment they were agreeing to should they fail. Perhaps if we went back to this practice when a business deal was made we would clear our courts of fraud cases. If I agree to buy a piece of land I would have to walk with the seller between a gory severed cow and say, “May this happen to me if I cheat you.” It would make me think twice before I missed a mortgage payment.

Jer 34:18-20
The men who have violated my covenant and have not fulfilled the terms of the covenant they made before me, I will treat like the calf they cut in two and then walked between its pieces. 19 The leaders of Judah and Jerusalem, the court officials, the priests and all the people of the land who walked between the pieces of the calf, 20 I will hand over to their enemies who seek their lives. Their dead bodies will become food for the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth.

Connected Covenants
All this background on covenants is important if we want to understand why Jesus was sacrificed on the cross. As we said, God is consistent. It is not as though the precept of a victim dying for our sins suddenly fell out of the sky in 33 AD. Since the very beginning, God abided by covenants. It is amazing how all the covenants are connected. Examples:

Abrahamic Connection
The promises in the Abrahamic covenant are connected to the New Covenant.

Gen 22:17-18
17 I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, 18 and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me."

All the nations were blessed because, through Abraham’s offspring, the Jews, God demonstrated He wanted a relationship with a special people, and because Jesus came through Abraham’s descendents. All nations were blessed by Jesus. That is the connection to the New Covenant.

Another example was when Abraham was about to sacrifice his son Isaac and at the last minute God provided a substitute ram. 1,800 years before Christ, that action foretold the provision of God’s Son, the Lamb of God, as a substitute for our eternal death for sin under the New Covenant.

Mosaic Connection
The same prophetic connection exists between the covenant of Passover and the New Covenant. Under the Passover covenant, if a lamb was sacrificed and the blood applied to the doorway of the home (symbolic of the doorway to our heart), then death would pass over. That foretold that if we claim the blood of Jesus, the lamb of God, as protection over our heart, then eternal death will pass over us.

Another clear prophetic connection is between the covenant of the fiery serpents, and Christ’s death on the cross. In the wilderness the Israelites sinned and were dying from poisonous snake bites. God told them to raise up a bronze snake on a pole and whoever looked at the snake was healed. This is another foretelling of the coming covenant with Christ where if we look to Him on the cross we are saved.

All the Old Testament covenants were connected to, and culminated in, the New Covenant in Christ.

The New Covenant
In the Old Testament, God foretold of this New Covenant.

Jer 31:31
"The time is coming," declares the LORD,
"when I will make a new covenant…”

Jesus said:

1 Cor 11:25
“This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me."

Hebrews tells us:

Heb 9:15
For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance-now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.

This verse provides an important insight into why the other covenants are connected to the New Covenant. All the other covenants had to roll up into the New Covenant because the piercing used to ratify those covenants could not actually forgive sins.

Heb 10:1-4
10:1 The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming-not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. 2 If it could, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins. 3 But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins, 4 because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

The old covenants only shadowed the one perfect and complete covenant, the New Covenant.

It Hinges on Jesus
Why is the New Covenant the perfect and final one? Because of who the One sacrificed was. It all hinges on who Jesus is. A few weeks ago, I had a conversation with an unbeliever about the unpopular claim of Christians that Jesus is the only door to God. To him, that claim smacked of pride, exclusivity, and narrowness. First, I pointed out that it is not a claim that Christians came up with but one that Jesus Himself made.

John 14:6
"I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

John 10:7-9
"I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep. 8 All who ever came before me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. 9 I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved…”

Secondly, I pointed out to my friend that Jesus is part of God through the Trinity. Several times Jesus said things like:

John 10:30
“I and the Father are one.”

Heb 1:3
The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.

In His mercy, God can make some accommodation for those who never have the opportunity to hear the name of Jesus or the gospel. There is some scriptural support that Christ is made available to some after death. However, woe to the stubborn soul who hears the gospel and rejects Jesus. They are not rejecting just a man, or a great teacher, or a prophet; they are rejecting a part of God Himself. No wonder hell is reserved for unbelievers who have condemned themselves.

John 3:16-19
"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son. (Now, here comes the real reason some choose unbelief) 19 This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.

Jesus alone was uniquely qualified to be the ultimate sacrifice. He is the only one in the universe worthy to unlock this incredible mystery of how the sins of all mankind can be transferred to part of the Trinity and there be extinguished. In the Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis calls this the deep magic. This deep spiritual mystery is unlocked by understanding:

1) God’s consistency in covenants through history and
2) by understanding who Jesus is.

Jesus is the Key. He alone is worthy to unlock the scroll and open the mystery and power of sacrifice.

We will conclude today by reading chapter 5 of Revelation, then moving directly into a prayer of worship.

Rev 5

5:1 Then I saw in the right hand of him who sat on the throne a scroll with writing on both sides and sealed with seven seals. 2 And I saw a mighty angel proclaiming in a loud voice, "Who is worthy to break the seals and open the scroll?" 3 But no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth could open the scroll or even look inside it. 4 I wept and wept because no one was found who was worthy to open the scroll or look inside. 5 Then one of the elders said to me, "Do not weep! See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals."

6 Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing in the center of the throne, encircled by the four living creatures and the elders. He had seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. 7 He came and took the scroll from the right hand of him who sat on the throne. 8 And when he had taken it, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each one had a harp and they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. 9 And they sang a new song:

"You are worthy to take the scroll
and to open its seals,
because you were slain,
and with your blood you purchased men for God
from every tribe and language and people and nation.
10 You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God,
and they will reign on the earth."

11 Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders. 12 In a loud voice they sang:

"Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain,
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength
and honor and glory and praise!"

13 Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, singing:

"To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb
be praise and honor and glory and power,
for ever and ever!"

14 The four living creatures said, "Amen," and the elders fell down and worshiped.

Prayer