What Jesus Has Done For Us (ft. Ravi Zacharias)Sample

Day One: Jesus is the Lamb God is Offering

It is hard to resist the sobering portent behind the designation. The average Jewish family grew up with lambs and sacrifices. The temple probably reeked of animals and their slaughter, especially on the Day of Atonement. The exterior grandeur of the temple housed only a rather grim and messy altar. Every lamb sacrificed was from the possessions of the petitioner and was thus, a lamb of men offered to God. In fact, it was not even a representative from among men, an equal. It was a lamb owned by men; a dumb, unsuspecting animal brought into the temple, never to return.

Now, in this appointed moment in history, an offering came from God Himself and was given by God on behalf of humanity. This was the Lamb of God. But how could such a thing be? One born for the designed purpose of being sacrificed on the altar someday? Would not that have provoked a different question from those wanting to become His disciples, especially since that was the jolting introduction chosen by John?

Someone well versed in the Scriptures would have probably harkened back immediately to the narrative in Genesis 22, in which Abraham was called upon to offer up his long-awaited son, Isaac. As father and son walked toward the mountain, Isaac asked the obvious question, “The fire and the wood are here, but where is the lamb?” As the story unfolds, Isaac himself was laid upon the altar and readied as a sacrifice.

At the last moment, as Abraham’s hand holding the blade descended upon Isaac, God exclaimed, “Stop! There is another I will provide.” God, who had planned this all along to test Abraham, providentially trapped a ram in the thicket to serve as a substitute for Isaac, even as it represented a different lamb that would come on a different day.

John’s announcement, in effect, said, “Here He is – the Lamb of God who was promised long ago.” The day was approaching when there would be another hill and another altar, and this time the hand of the Father would not stop the slaying. (pp. 25-26)