Bibledoorajar: Seismic Changes

     With the Passover came changes in perception of the chosen lambs. First God told the households to single out a lamb. Then the word of God said the lamb was to be without blemish. Then the lamb was referred to as your lamb, a male of the first year.  These changes are earthshaking in purport or the progressive meaning conveyed. A fully virile male lamb was to die for the household. There was to be salvation and peace through no other lamb and the truth of it being God's but also theirs had to be embraced. The truth of it. The truth of it was that God was going to look upon the shed blood of "their" singled out lamb and spare the household. They needed faith to lay hold of such a great truth.

     Many years later, John the Baptist said to the Jews, "Behold the Lamb of God which takes away the sins of the world".  Jesus was singled out.  The truth that He was the One who pleased God to carry out the act of salvation had to be believed and received in faith. Jesus was described by Peter as "a lamb without blemish or spot". Jews hearing these words would immediately hearken back to the Passover which they had been celebrating for years and to the prophecies of the Old Testament about the coming Redeemer. But the truth had to be believed and their faith had to lay hold of such a great truth.

     As a sign, the world which had been marking time in various ways such as "in the reign of or in the time of such and such Pharoah, etc., whould now mark time BC and AD. The truth of the Lamb of Jesus being able to become our Lamb would be forever established in how civilizations marked time. A man named Lew Wallace did not believe it and set about to research and write a book denying it. While in the midst of writing the first chapters, the Holy Spirit overcame him and broke through his disillusionment. He fell to his knees at the foot of the cross and embraced the unblemished Lamb. He later wrote Ben Hur: A tale of Christ, a film that is still being viewed and that is still impacting the lives of people everywhere. Seismic changes wrought by God. Praise Him.