Purification

Spring/Easter 2025

Exodus 12:5 ESV

Hebrews 9:14 ESV

In this day and age generally when we think of a sacrifice it’s not a thing we willingly give up.

In the Cambridge Dictionary the definition tells us, “to give up something that is valuable to you in order to help another person.”

That makes perfect sense. Giving up the thing that is valuable is done for a specific reason.

In Exodus 12:5 we are told, “Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats,” which was the stipulation for selecting a sacrifice.

This sacrifice was not a general sacrifice. It was the Lord’s Passover. God wanted Israel to remember when he “passed over” the homes that were marked and they lived.

It was so they would remember God’s protection for His children. When Moses and Aaron and the people of God were in Egypt God gave them instructions for celebrating the night when God protected His people. The instructions the people of Israel were given included logistics that related to the lamb that was to be slain by every house if Israel. The blood of the lamb was to be painted over the doorpost. Every home that had blood on the doorpost was “Passed-over” by death. Those who painted a mark with the blood of the lamb lived.

God decreed that the Passover marked a new beginning of how the days were to be counted and remembered. It was God’s way of helping Israel to remember everything was about to change.

To remember this change every household was to sacrifice a lamb on the 10th day of that month until the fourteenth day of the same month. The instructions about the lamb specifically stated it should be with our blemish.

For a good part of my life I thought the perfect lamb without blemish was so God (who is perfect) could receive it. I had it backwards. The lamb without blemish was actually for me (us). It was God’s gift to us so we would remember God’s love for mankind.

When Jesus came that became quite clear.

Hebrews 9:14 tells us, “how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.”

The purification wasn’t for God…it was to purify our conscious. It solidified God’s promise of eternal life. We do not earn it. Jesus paid the price.

For all time for all people God Jesus paid the price for all who turn to God. There are some who believe the “turning” needs to be perpetual on our part.. I do not believe that. As I read scripture once we turn God holds onto us as His own. In my estimation that’s what real grace is all about.

In Jesus

Deborah

acrazyjourney.com