TYPES OF CHRIST IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
A
Bible Study - Commentary by Jim Melough
Copyright
2000 James Melough
CHRIST,
GOD'S LAMB
In
Gen 3:21 we read, “For Adam also and for his wife did the Lord God make coats of
skins, and clothed them.”
Many
have supposed that God miraculously produced two skins, and in making that
unwarranted assumption, have robbed this verse of its proper import.
The consistent teaching of Scripture is that, “without shedding of blood is
no remission” (Heb 9:22), and Adam’s sin was no exception to this principle.
There could be no remission of his sin until atoning blood had been shed.
Throughout
the OT age atonement was made when the sinner brought the offering prescribed by God
(usually a lamb or kid), placed his hand upon its head, thereby identifying himself
with it, symbolically transferring his sin to it, confessed his sin, and slew the
animal, offering to God that innocent substitute which died the death the man should
have died.
By
this ritual the offerer was confessing that in sinning he had forfeited his life, but
in bringing the substitute ordained by God, he was confessing that he believed God
would accept the life of that animal in lieu of his. The ritual of course, points to Calvary where the Lord Jesus
Christ, God’s Lamb, died as the sinner’s Substitute. That death is effective to atone for my sin, however, only when I
do what is symbolized in the offerer’s laying his hand on the lamb’s head: I must
identify myself personally with that Substitute by believing that He died for me on
account of my sin that had rendered my life forfeit.
It
is improper exegesis that sees the remission of Adam’s sin by any other means than
the death of an innocent substitute. The
plain teaching of Scripture makes clear what happened when Adam and Eve were clothed,
each one with a skin. To make possible
God’s remission of their sin, each one had to bring a lamb to die as the divinely
appointed substitute. As they looked on
those two slain lambs, Adam and Eve learned several lessons.
First, sin brings death. Second,
a gracious God was willing to accept the life of an innocent substitute to make
atonement (cover) for that sin. What
they may not have seen as clearly as we do today, in the light of Calvary, was that each of those two lambs was a type of the Lord Jesus Christ, designated by John
as, “The Lamb of God Who beareth away the sin of the world.”