The Grace of the Lamb

This sermon, delivered during the Lenten and Easter season, presents two Old Testament stories about a lamb: Genesis 22 (Abraham's offering of Isaac) and Exodus 12 (the night of the Passover). The pastor uses scholar B.B. Warfield's illustration to emphasize that the Old Testament is a shadow while the New Testament provides the light that reveals the full picture. Both stories form the theological foundation of the Passover meal that Jesus Christ observed on the night before His crucifixion.

The sermon provides detailed historical background: from Joseph being sold into slavery in Egypt, raised by God to become prime minister, to the descendants of Israel being enslaved for 430 years. After nine plagues, God sent the tenth judgment—the death of every firstborn throughout Egypt, from Pharaoh's heir to the livestock. The only protection for each household was not ethnicity or moral standing, but the blood of a lamb painted on the doorframes.

The pastor emphasizes a key theological point: outside the protection of the lamb's blood, whether Israelite or Egyptian, righteous or wicked, all shared the same fate—death. This reflects the truth of Romans 6:23, that the wages of sin is death. No one was saved by morality or works, but only by the blood of the lamb—this is pure grace.

The sermon traces the image of the lamb across multiple eras: from Isaac's question to Abraham about the lamb in Genesis 22, to Isaiah's prophecy in Isaiah 53:6-7 about one led like a lamb to the slaughter, to John the Baptist pointing to Jesus and declaring, 'Behold, the Lamb of God!' (John 1:36). This is the Lamb that Abraham said God would provide, whose blood replaced the entire sacrificial system of the Old Testament.

The application affirms that since the blood of the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, was shed on the cross, no more lambs need to be slaughtered. At the final Passover meal, Jesus instituted the Lord's Supper, connecting His body and blood to the bread and cup. The grace of the Lamb does not merely save from physical death as in Israel's day, but grants eternal life in the glorious kingdom of Heaven—where there will be no more mourning, sickness, or death.