Just as in an orchestra the various notes and chords of the musicians' instruments express the one central idea of the composition they are rendering, so whatever chords are touched by the hands of the holy writers in God's Book, one keynote vibrates, that is, salvation through the blood of the Lamb.
"The blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanses us from all sin," is the testimony of St. John. "Ye know that ye were redeemed by the precious blood of Christ," is the plea of Saint Peter. "Justified by His blood," is the Gospel of St. Paul. And the voices of heaven blend with those of earth, for thus is the saints' eternal song: "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain and hath redeemed us to God by His blood." And this is the Church's theme on this particular Sunday, as it reads in the Epistle: "Christ by His blood hath obtained eternal redemption for us." The past Sundays in Lent have we been seeking to learn what sin is and what sin does; how could we more appropriately spend this service than to consider how we may be saved from sin, and in that may the Scripture selected profitably aid us.
Eight times had Pharaoh's hardened heart brought sorrow upon the people of Egypt. As one calamity after another was fulfilled, he seemed softened for a while and willing to comply with God's command to let His people Israel go, but no sooner was the pressing plague removed than he again defied the Lord of heaven. And now the tenth, the last and most dreadful and desolating of visitations, was to be sent. The king and his people are informed that, if Israel were not allowed straightway to depart, the first-born in every home shall, at one and the same hour, be slain.
But before the destroying angel started on his sorrowful mission, the Israelites were directed to kill a lamb, to take its blood and besprinkle therewith the headpiece and the two sideposts of their dwellings. This was God's sacred mark. Wherever that crimson sign would appear, the messenger of judgment was to pass over and spare.
It was as told. At the hour of midnight the avenging angel swept over the land. All the first-born were slain. Not a house where there was not one dead. In Pharaoh's palace and in the pauper's hovel, stricken hearts bewailed the countenance of their eldest suddenly darkened by death. Only in the houses of the Hebrews there was security and peace, because the blood was on their doors. Such is the simple historical event connected with our text, designed by God to foreshadow a far greater and more important event, an event that was to bear upon the whole race of man wherever, whenever, and however found.
Three leading thoughts are suggested thereby: I. All men, like the inhabitants of Egypt, are exposed to the destruction and penalty of death. II. A means of escape has been supplied. III. One condition that connects with that escape. And may God's Holy Spirit work enlightenment and conviction!
That man, to take up the first point, is exposed to destruction and death, is the clear and abundant testimony of Scripture, and it tells why. "All have sinned," it says, and, "The wages of sin is death." "The soul that sinneth, it shall die." And is there a single heart among the sons and daughters of Adam that dare offer remonstrance?
Since the time that the first human pair, smitten by the sense of guilt, hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden, and their first-born son, with his hands reddened by a brother's blood, declared that his punishment was greater than he could bear, down to the ignoble disciple who, after selling the life of his Master for filthy lucre, unable to bear the upbraidings of conscience, went and hanged himself, the consciousness of having broken God's Law and exposed one's self to the righteous displeasure of the great Lawgiver, has haunted and pained man everywhere and at all times, and filled him with a fear which all his own efforts and every human appliance is powerless to remove. Why go farther than our own selves? Is there a person here who can declare that never for a moment has his soul's surface been disturbed by feelings of regret, who can truthfully affirm that he has never known what it means to experience remorse for duty neglected, for wrong spoken or done? We have sought on previous Sundays to drive home to your conscience the terrors of the law on matters of the Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Commandments; and do you mean to say that in a review of your past life you have no slightest pain of self-reproach along these lines? If not, then your spirit has been cast in a different mold from all others, or your memory and conscience are both fast asleep. I take it that all are ready to acknowledge not only that there is a law, a law written in God's Word, as well as in your own hearts, but that we have also broken that law time and again, and thereby—to quote the familiar words of our Catechism—"have we exposed ourselves to God's wrath and displeasure, temporal death, and eternal damnation."
This is the A B C of Christianity. And is there a way of escape, as in the case of Egypt's death and destruction? no possibility of its being said: "I will pass over you"? Ah, it is here that we come to the heart and center of our holy religion, its pith and core, its Holiest of Holy. Sprinkled upon the headpieces and the two posts of their doors was the blood, God's own sacred mark. A lamb, none over a year old, none with the slightest taint or blemish upon it, was made to yield up its life in sacrifice to secure that blood. Need I inform you what that typified, of whom that lamb was a type and shadow? That unblemished lamb of sacrifice referred to Christ, "the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world." That innocent blood which turned aside the angel of death foreshowed the blood of Christ, who through the Spirit offered Himself without spot to God. Yonder upon that post with its two beams, reddened by crimson drops, is the fulfillment, the realization, of it all. Simple, is it not?
God, by the application of a coat of blood upon its homes, could redeem Israel from the avenging stroke. It was not for any among them to speculate about it, to doubt and refuse it. To do so would have meant disaster. Only in that blood was security, safety, and deliverance.