A living lamb. This one might have spots and blemishes, but the Lamb of God didn't.
Christ’s sinless life is of the utmost importance for our
salvation. He
needed to be sinless in order for His sacrifice to be acceptable on our
behalf. He could only bear our sins
because He had none of His own. Indeed,
we ‘were not redeemed with
corruptible things, like silver or gold, … but with the precious blood
of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot’ (I Pet 1:18-19).
However, this is not the only significance of
Christ’s sinlessness for our salvation.
Christ’s sinless blood, shed for us, secures the forgiveness of our
sins. Yet this only brings us back to
the state of Adam and Eve at the beginning in the Garden of Eden. At that time they didn't have eternal life. They would have had to continue in obedience
to God (keep His covenant) in order to be established in righteousness and
receive eternal life. Yet Christ, like
Adam, is our covenantal representative.
As such, He not only died our death, but also obeyed God fully and
perfectly on our behalf. This is the active
obedience of Christ; His perfect observance of all God’s law. Christ’s active obedience plays a hugely
important role in our salvation, for it's because of His active obedience
that we can have His perfect righteousness imputed to us in justification. Romans 5:19 sums this up: ‘by one Man’s
obedience many will be made righteous.’ That means, not only did Jesus die for me: He lived for me too!
