Four Days For Worshipful Appreciation | Grace & Truth, Inc

Worship – November 2008 – Grace & Truth Magazine
Four Days For Worshipful Appreciation

“On the tenth of this month every man shall take for himself a lamb ...
Your lamb shall be without blemish ...
You shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month.”
Exodus 12:3-6 NKJV

For many years it had been my understanding that the lamb for the first Passover had to be watched for four days to determine if, in fact, it was truly without blemish – that is, absolutely perfect.

But why should the sacrificial lamb be examined for this long to determine that it was perfect, when that perfection had already been determined, as it had already been chosen for the Passover?

As the lamb typifies our Lord Jesus Christ, how dare we think that we need to examine Him to see if He was fit and able to be the Passover sacrifice? God has already determined and openly declared His intrinsic perfection: “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Mt. 3:17).

It is not our place to examine Him to see if He is unblemished; instead, we may consider Him to enjoy the beauty of His many perfections. Some of the thoughts we may have include these:

He is God’s provision: “God will provide ... the lamb for a burnt offering” (Gen. 22:8).
He is the redemption for the unclean: “Every firstborn of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb” (Ex. 13:13).
He is very special to God: “You shall bring your offering ... a male without blemish ... a burnt sacrifice, an offering made by fire, a sweet aroma to the LORD” (Lev. 1:2-3,17).
He is the One who meets our needs: He is our peace offering, “a peace offering ... without blemish before the LORD” (Lev. 3:1). And He is our “sin offering” as well as our “trespass offering” (Lev. 4:3-5:6).
He is the voluntary sacrifice: “He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth” (Isa. 53:7).
He is the hated and rejected One: “But I was like a docile lamb brought to the slaughter; and I did not know that they had devised schemes against Me, saying, ‘Let us destroy the tree with its fruit, and let us cut Him off from the land of the living, that His name may be remembered no more’” (Jer. 11:19).
He is the One whose work can save each one who comes to Him: “The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, ‘Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!’” (Jn. 1:29).
He is the priceless, sinless One: “You were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold ... but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot” (1 Pet. 1:18-19).

Our Savior should always be the subject of enjoyable, profitable, worshipful appreciation!

“This day shall be to you a memorial;
and you shall keep it as a feast to the LORD throughout your generations.
You shall keep it as a feast by an everlasting ordinance.”
Exodus 12:14

By Hank Blok