the scarlet thread of redemption--part 1

The Word for today:
Joshua 8

mark this: Joshua 2:18-19
When we come into the land, tie this cord of scarlet thread in the window...and anyone who is with you in the house, his blood shall be on our head if a hand is laid on him.

The Bible is a wild collage of stories, poems, letters, reports, genealogies, histories, songs, and prophecies. Its 66 books were written by 40 authors over at least 1600 years. What holds it all together? What connects all of its parts?

It is held together by a single blood-red "thread" that weaves all the way through its pages, all the way from Eden to the cross of Jesus Christ. A great Baptist preacher, W.A. Criswell, called this "the scarlet thread of redemption."

Prophecy of the Blood

From the very beginning, the blood is in view. When Adam and Eve sinned, God shed innocent blood in order to make clothes from animal skins (Genesis 3:21). This is a picture of the covering of righteousness that we received when the Lord Jesus Christ died for us.

In Genesis 4 we read that Adam and Eve had two sons, Cain and Abel. They instinctively wanted to worship God. Cain sacrificed the fruit of the ground. Abel had already learned that God demanded blood, so he brought a lamb. God accepted the blood of Abel's lamb, but He did not accept Cain's offering. Why? Because without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin (Hebrews 9:22).

God told Abraham to sacrifice his long-awaited son Isaac (Genesis 22). Just before Abraham plunged the dagger into the heart of his son, an angel stopped him. Abraham saw a ram caught in a thicket. Isaac was set free, but an innocent animal's blood was shed instead.

Then, God wanted to deliver His people from bondage in the land of Egypt. On the night of the Passover, God instructed each house to slay a lamb and put the blood on their door. God told them, "When I see the blood, I will pass over you." (Exodus 12:13)

Rahab was a harlot in the city of Jericho. As the Israelites came to possess the land, her city was destined for destruction—and she along with it. But she was delivered, and her life transformed, simply by tying a scarlet cord in her window:
When we come into the land, tie this cord of scarlet thread in the window...and anyone who is with you in the house, his blood shall be on our head if a hand is laid on him.

And in the tabernacle and later in the temple, thousands upon thousands of sheep, oxen, and doves were killed, their blood spilled, as sacrifices for sin:
For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul. (Leviticus 17:11)

All of these were mere shadows of the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world (Revelation 13:8). John the Baptist introduces him as he strides into time and space:
Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! (John 1:29)

The Lamb then makes his way through the gospels, then through Gethsemane to Golgotha.

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But the blood of Jesus doesn't stop at the cross. Its undiminished transformative power is even now at work.  Tomorrow, in part two, we'll behold the wonder-working power in the precious blood of the Lamb.

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