I once taught a course, in a secular university, called Biblical Themes and Values.  (The colleague who wrote the course thought this a jazzier title than, “The Bible as Literature.”) The Bible abounds with themes—you can take your pick!  Current preaching emphasizes the theme of the Christ’s Kingdom. Jesus ascended to the throne when He was raised from the dead.  (See Bill Wilder on this—it is one of his favorite teachings.) We are exhorted to see all of culture brought under the rule of Christ.

But a major theme that I find everywhere in the Bible is the theme of sacrifice.  Not the ones we are urged to make, but the ones commanded or orchestrated by God, culminating in the one Jesus made, when he chose to die.  From Eden, where God sacrifices the life of his newly-created animals in order to clothe his naked children, to the Great Throne in Heaven, “the throne of God and of the Lamb,” the theme of sacrifice predominates.

And in between Eden and our future bliss, there is slaughter and blood everywhere.  The glory of the Exodus leaves a lot of lifeless Egyptian children and dead Israeli lambs.  There are the seemingly-endless details of the Levitical system, pages of them—it does seem, if we are to read and heed the whole canon, that sacrifices are of major importance to God. On the Day of Atonement, the High Priest sprinkles blood on the mercy seat, the covering of the ark where God promises to meet his people.  The mercy seat is an empty space beneath the overarching wings of the cherubim—Dr. Ed Clowney referred to it as “a reserved seat”, waiting for Jesus Christ, whose blood is our only access to God.

And is there a more vivid or meaningful old covenant scene than Abraham and his son on the mountain?  His beloved and only son, the son of God’s promise, bound on the altar and his father, with knife in his raised hand.  God’s command is not remanded; God supplies a substitute, a ram.

Skip forward to John the Baptist who proclaims: “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.”  He says it again: “Behold the Lamb of God.”  John’s words define Christ not as King, but as sacrifice--the Lamb of God.  John Piper points out in a recent sermon that the disciples followed Jesus after hearing John say this. (John 1:36, 37). Piper draws the conclusions that the disciples followed Jesus because he is the sin-remover.
Or turn to the epistles: Paul’s brilliant letter to the Romans asks the question, “How can God be just and justify the unjust?”  Paul answers:  In the person of his son, He himself will be the propitiation for our sins.  His body will bear our condemnation.   “And was there then no other way?” the hymn asks.  Jesus asks, as he kneels in the garden, but the Father delivers him up.

I love to think of the glory of the Kingship of Jesus. I long for the day when every knee will bow before the One they now ridicule.  But I pray that I may never forget that this king paid for His kingdom with his blood.  For me, this king wore a purple robe thrown on him by laughing soldiers, who gave him a crown, too, shoving the thorns down hard. His kingdom is his bride, for whom He gave himself. The preparations for this wedding (as Dennis Johnson says in The Triumph of the Lamb) are the “history-long combat in which Jesus the Lamb has been engaged in order to win and beautify his bride”.  “Blessed are those who are invited to the banquet at the wedding celebration of the Lamb.” (Rev. 19:9)