Gen 22:12 And he said, Do not stretch out your hand upon the boy, nor do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me. (13) And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and there behind him was a ram, caught in the thicket by its horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up for a burnt offering in place of his son. 1 Pet 3:18 For Christ also has suffered once for sins, the Righteous on behalf of the unrighteous, that He might bring you to God, on the one hand being put to death in the flesh, but on the other, made alive in the spirit.
The Lamb of God who replaced the Son of God was our substitute. As the ram was killed instead of Isaac, so the Lamb of God suffered crucifixion for us. When as a boy I heard the preaching of the gospel in which we were told that Christ suffered death on our behalf, I could not understand it fully. Only when I saw the clear picture in Genesis 22 was I able to understand how Christ was our substitute. The ram was killed for Isaac. This is a picture showing that Christ, the Lamb of God, was crucified on the cross for us. We all should have gone to the cross, but God replaced us with the Lamb of God. This indicates that Christ's death was for redemption, not for martrydom. On the cross He was our Substitute and bore our sins; He, the righteous One, was judged on behalf of us, the unrighteous, by the righteous God according to His righteousness, that He might remove the barrier of our sins and bring us to God. This was to redeem us from our sins back to God, from our unrighteous manner of life back to the righteous God.
Bible verses are taken from the Recovery Version of the Bible and Words of Ministry from Witness Lee, Life-study of Genesis, 1987, pp. 771 and footnote 2 of 1 Peter 3:18. Both are published by Living Stream Ministry, Anaheim, CA. Please visit us at www.emanna.com. Send comments to: [email protected].
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