Daily Bread – February 8, 2023 (The Fourth Day – Genesis 1:14-19) John 1:29 – The next day, John saw Jesus coming towards him and he said, “Look! The Lamb of God, Who takes away the sin of the world.” The Lamb In The Old Testament There are three other offerings similar to the Passover offering in the Old Testament: the whole burnt offering, the Peace offering and the Thanksgiving offering. The whole burnt offering is the oldest of all offerings being the one described in Genesis 22. The whole burnt offering was brought to be sacrificed every evening and morning using a lamb of the first year from the sheep (Exodus 29:38-42). However, the Peace offering and the Thanksgiving offering are eaten just as the Passover offering is eaten. These offerings are in fact the Old Testament equivalence of communion. The Greek word used here for “Lamb” by John is ‘amnos’ and first appears in the Hebrew text in Genesis 30 where it translates the Hebrew word for sheep, ‘kesev’ (13 occurrences) , and also like ‘arnos’ it translates ‘seh’ one time in Leviticus 12:8. The Greek word ‘amnos’ is used to translate ‘keves’ (122 occurrences) which is an identical, but more common, word for sheep. This word describes the sheep-lamb used in the evening and the morning whole burnt offerings in Exodus 29:38. Primarily, when a whole burnt offering was made, it was a sheep. The sheep is seen in the daily sacrifice, the Sabbath sacrifice, and the festival sacrifice (Leviticus 9:3, 23:12,18; Exodus 29:38-41; Numbers 28-29; Ezekiel 46:13). In fact, goats, or goat-lambs, are not used for the public offering, but are only brought as voluntary sacrifices made by individuals. To help clarify the usage of these Hebrew and Greek words, we may understand the more common usage of the Hebrew ‘seh’ and the Greek ‘arnos’ as describing any lamb whether it was a young ram, sheep, or goat (Exodus 12:5). The Passover offering represents the salvation and redemption in Christ Jesus because it is the only offering whose blood is manipulated upon each house instead of on the altar of God. In other words, the blood was placed upon the people and resulted in an immediate release from their bondage. Whereas for Yom Kippur, the blood is placed upon the altar to cleanse the altar and the temple. Also, the blood manipulation upon every house of Israel only occurred one time, even as Jesus Christ has only shed His blood once for all. The final important typology is observed in the crossing over of Israel into their inheritance at the time of Passover (Joshua 4:19, 5:10-15) Blessings, Pastor Mark Spitsbergen
Daily Bread 2/8/2023
