By John Hames
"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." - Exodus 12:13
In the Old Testament God took great care to teach His people that the cleansing of the soul could only be had through the blood. This was the meaning of every smoking altar and the rivers of blood which flowed from the Jewish altars. On the dark night when Israel left Egypt, blood played a big part in their deliverance. In the twelfth chapter of the book of Exodus, we have a full description of the slaying of the Passover Lamb and the sprinkling of the blood. There are several points about the lamb and the blood which are striking and typical.
I. The lamb was to be without blemish. The Christ of Christianity was without spot or blemish. This was true of His human body. Christ could have lived on earth ten thousand years and have been as fresh and pure as the June rose. "Thou hast the dew of thy youth."
II. At the appointed time the Lamb was to be slain by the whole congregation of Israel. Jesus the Lamb of God was delivered by the Jewish Sanhedrin and publicly crucified about the time of the evening sacrifice. Ten thousand could have witnessed the crucifixion of Jesus. The Apostle said, "For this thing was not done in a corner." Acts 26:26. We are not saved by His example but His death.
III. The sprinkled blood. They were to take the blood and sprinkle it on the doorpost of their houses. It was their only safety. Every member of the household was safe where the blood was sprinkled. Thank God, we can go into a covenant with God for our whole house. "The promise is unto you and your children." Hold on to God for them. Hold up His Word before Him. Plead its promises. God cannot deny His word; He cannot deny His Son, and He cannot deny a God-inspired prayer, one that is formed in the Spirit, fanned into a Heavenly flame until it is caught up into that intercessory current and borne to the very ear and heart of God. Sprinkle the blood by faith over the past, present, and future and claim your household for God.
IV. Eat the whole lamb. The next thing was the eating of the Lamb. In like manner we are to get saved and cleansed by the blood and then feed and feast on the Lamb. Love is the very blood of spiritual life. Truth is perceived by the intellect, digested by the faith, and through the constant in-breathing of the divine Spirit, this truth digested is turned into love which constitutes the very substance of the spiritual man.
Notice, the whole Lamb was to be eaten with the legs and pertinence thereof and nothing of it was to remain until the morning. Just so we are to eat all of God's Lamb. That is eat all of His divinity, His Virgin Birth, His life miracles, His death and glorious resurrection, ascension, and second coming. Is it not strange how the masses of professed Christians will accept the new birth but ignore the second crisis. The Apostle sounds a note of warning to the Galatian Christians for said he, "Are you so foolish, having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?" They took their place as hopeless sinners at the foot of the Cross, and then they went about trying to sanctify themselves by their own self-denials and ineffectual struggles. Well did the sainted Dr. A.B. Simpson write nearly forty years ago a timely warning:
"The same old doctrine of evolution has got into the teachers of the Gospel. They are telling that they do admit a miracle of regeneration, but that our subsequent experience is just a development. Yes, even some of the scientists admit a creation somewhere, but after that the world can take care of itself. So they tell us that when a soul is regenerated, the work is complete; you have everything in embryo and after that it is just a development. By a progress of growth in grace you will become a Saint, and if you do not you wilt at least grow old, and the course of nature and the power of passions will decay; and if you do not become holy you will at least become harmless.
"These teachers tell us at conversion we receive the Holy Spirit and that there is no such thing as a later baptism of the Holy Ghost except for special service.
"The teaching of the New Testament is very different from this vague, unsatisfactory theory. It tells us of a crisis as distinct as conversion and a new experience as marked and radical as regeneration. There is a crisis up to which we must come and through which we must pass in death and resurrection, and exchange the human for the divine and our poor imperfect struggling for God's victorious life."
There is a remarkable passage in I Cor. 1:30, "Of Him are ye in Christ Jesus who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption." "Ye are complete in Him." - Col. 2:10. Our sanctification like every other blessing is in Him. It is not character with a little culture, slowly built up in us and then stereotyped and crystallized for life. "Christ is made unto us Sanctification." He does not give us a few virtues to cultivate and develop unto Holiness. He gives us His heart, His mind, His holiness, His indwelling life to keep us pure and holy. Christ is made unto us redemption. The word redemption has a larger meaning than our mind can conceive. It not only means deliverance from sin in its twofold nature; but redemption in Christ takes in our body. It means the Lord for the body. The resurrection life begins to reach us even here. We read, "But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you."
This is the secret of divine healing. It is the life of Christ in our mortal body. Divine healing is not just a mere touch of power upon our body which restores and then leaves it to its own resources of natural strength. It is nothing less than a measure of the resurrected life, quickening, strengthening, inspiring the human frame with Divine life and vigor.
Oh, friends, let us eat all of the Lamb. You can trace the weakness of the present day Holiness movement to this very thing. They have failed to eat the whole Lamb. Eat all of His Virgin Birth, glorious life, sacrificial death, and glorious resurrection.
Christ is not only everything in redemption, but He is everything in Heaven. The attraction in Heaven is not golden streets and walls of jasper but "The Lamb." You will doubtless remember John the Beloved when he started to describe the City of God. He began with the walls and the gates, then coming inside he said that the streets were paved with gold; when suddenly lifting up his eyes, he said, "I saw a Lamb." Have you noticed he never said any more about golden streets? The Lamb had absorbed all of his attention. For the moment he lost sight of everything else. So shall it be with us when we enter the gates into the City. The one great theme song will be unto Him who loved us and washed us in His own blood. To Him be glory throughout all ages world without end. Amen.
