Basic in the plan of salvation is Christ’s sacrifice for sin, which provides both ransom and reunion. “Christ...hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:18). The innocent must suffer for the guilty. The Sinless One must take the sinner’s place.
From the day that man fell, God sought to reveal His wonderful plan. In the sacrificial system He showed that He would accept a substitute in the sinner’s place. In His wisdom God gave man an opportunity to exercise both faith and choice by participating in the sacrificial ceremonies. When, through Moses, God instituted the sanctuary service in the wilderness, He more fully revealed the significance of the plan of salvation.
In our imagination let us visit the court and observe the worshipers as they enter, longing for freedom from their burden of sin. One man leads a bullock, another has a goat, a third brings a lamb. We watch the man with the lamb approach the altar and place his hand upon the lamb. Leviticus 4:33 makes the meaning clear: “And he shall lay his hand upon the head of the sin offering.” The laying of his hand upon the lamb implies confession—and genuine confession is specific. (Leviticus 5:5 in its description of the trespass offering points this out: “He shall confess that he hath sinned in that thing.”) In symbol his sin has thus been transferred from himself to the lamb. And so the lamb must die.
Who slays the sacrifice? The repentant sinner who has transferred his sin to the substitute. “And he shall...slay it for a sin offering in the place where they kill the burnt offering” (Leviticus 4:33).
Notice the steps involved. “Day by day the repentant sinner brought his offering to the door of the tabernacle and, placing his hand upon the victim’s head, confessed his sins, thus in figure transferring them from himself to the innocent sacrifice. The animal was then slain” (GC 418).
There are further steps in the service of atonement, but now let us note the lessons that this typical shadow has for you and me. “It is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins” (Hebrews 10:4). In all ages man’s only hope has been Jesus Christ, the True Sacrifice. Hence, to every sinner the message comes, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).
In the typical service when the contrite sinner transferred his sin to the innocent lamb, it became a sin bearer. So concerning Christ the Scriptures state, “Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree” (1 Peter 2:24). As the repentant sinner brought a substitute that died in his place, so every penitent person can come to Calvary and, looking at the crucified Son of God, say, He “loved me, and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).
But there is more. The man who sought forgiveness slew the sacrifice. It was not enough that the penitent should confess his sins and transfer them to the substitute. He must raise his hand to take the lamb’s life. So as we bring our sins to Jesus and lay them on His head we are to linger at Calvary and behold what our sins do to our Substitute. Here we can find true repentance.
“When they look on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn” (Zechariah 12:10, RSV). Whom do we see pierced? Yes, Jesus on the cross—His hands and feet pierced with nails, His brow pierced with thorns. “When they look on him whom they have pierced...” Who will look? Those who pierced Him. And with what result? “They shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child.”
But when you and I come to Calvary, we face an infinitely greater tragedy, for we see Jesus slain, not by an accident, but by our deliberate sin. We have broken God’s holy law. And as we see Him die, the just for the unjust, the nature of sin begins to dawn on us. We confront a love so deep that God took our sins upon His innocent soul. No wonder Satan tries to keep us from looking at the cross!
You see, people sin because they want to sin. Something must happen that will cause sin to lose its hold. If I put my finger on a hot stove, I pull it away at once. Why? It hurts me! But suppose I keep my hand on something while saying to you, “Oh! is is so hot it hurts me; it burns me!” You would think, “It must not hurt you very much or you would take your hand off!”
When we keep on losing our temper, when we continue going to places of worldly amusement, when immodest fashions hold us in their grasp, when we criticise and gossip again and again, it is simply because these things don’t hurt us enough.
But if we will come to Calvary, we will see what those sins have done to Christ. “Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death” (James 1:15). And when we look at what sin did to Jesus, we see what it will do to us if we hang on to it. It will take us into the darkness of separation from God, where we will weep and wail and gnash our teeth.
Jesus longs to show us what sin costs. He seeks to reveal to us what sin does to God’s heart. In the dying lamb by the altar in the court, He wants us to see the dying Lamb hanging on Calvary. He wants us to understand that our sins nailed Him there.
“But,” someone may reason, “I wasn’t there. Roman soldiers drove the nails in His hands.”
Granted, but nail wounds didn’t kill Him. Jesus died of a broken heart, broken under the weight of sin, and unless it was your sin that broke His heart, where will you find forgiveness, cleansing, and deliverance? “It is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul” (Leviticus 17:11).
If you and I want to have the power of sin broken our lives, if we want sin taken out of our hearts, we must do in the antitype what repentant sinners did back there in the type. We must lay our sin on the innocent head of the Saviour. We must transfer our sin to Christ and then watch Him pay the price. We must “behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).
Some things can be caught in a ash picture, but other take a time exposure. Have you seen the photographs of distant galaxies? Some of those photographic plates were exposed for hour after hour as light from the faraway stars accumulated on the plate. Similarly, we need more than a brief glimpse of Calvary. It would be well for us to spend a thoughtful period every day contemplating Jesus’ life, especially the closing scenes of His life. Why? at we can see His love for us and thus realize how terrible sin is. Thank God, we have a place of deliverance.
If, as you look into the mirror of God’s holy law, you see yourself a transgressor, will you not come and put your sins upon the Lamb? God has no other way to separate you from your sins. And no matter how little your sin may seem to you, it murdered the Son of God.
“Just as I am, without one plea But that Thy blood was shed for me,
And that Thou bid’st me come to Thee, O Lamb of God, I come.” R&R WDF
