The death of our Lord Jesus was neither accidental nor unfortunate, and not one that caught God by surprise. While Good Friday commemorates our Lord’s death during His earthly pilgrimage, it has been foreshadowed long before this. God’s salvation plan will involve the shedding of blood.
Before God sent the 10th plague on Egypt, He commanded the Israelites to slaughter lambs and to smear the blood on doorposts and lintels of their houses. The Lord had declared to them – “The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.” (Exodus 12:13).
The Bible graphically describes the ugliness of sin in man – “The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” (Genesis 6:5).
The Bible describes the holiness of God as having eyes too pure to behold evil and wrong-doing (Habakkuk 1:13). How can we then expect to stand in the courts of heaven one day before the Almighty and Holy God?
The answer is found in the person of Jesus, our Passover Lamb (1Corinthians 5:7). When God sees us, His wrath passes over us because He sees that the blood of Jesus our Lord has cleansed us from all sin.
May this Good Friday help us to renew our appreciation to Jesus our Lord, gaze on Him and exclaim with wonder and gratefulness, “. . . Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29b).
Elder Richard Lai
