ANIMATED BIBLE - The StorySample

Lighting the Way

Have you ever been in a strange city and didn’t know your way around? Or gotten lost out on a hike?  If you have, you know what it is like to desperately look for something familiar to try to get a handle on where you are. We need familiar things, things we know, to point the way to safety and security.

In telling His salvation story, the God of all creation provided many pointers and illuminations to both our need for salvation and to how salvation would eventually come.

To make it abundantly clear so everyone could understand, God gave us the light of Creation. In fact, the Bible says (Romans 1:19) that He has made it plain to all mankind.

Another light God provided can sometimes be painful. God graciously gave us the gift of conscience (Romans 2:15). This is the voice inside us that serves as umpire, helping us determine our decisions and actions as “right” or “wrong.” Even though the Fall has significantly affected our consciences, it has clearly not destroyed them.

In His brightest light, God foreshadowed how this sacrifice for salvation would come. When the first man and the first woman decided to willfully sin and disobey, God killed His newly created animals to cover their sin and shame. He led Abraham to the point of lifting a knife to kill his own son before providing the timely substitute of a ram caught in a thicket. God gave Moses clear instructions about blood sacrifices to atone for the sin of God’s people.

In all these, God Himself was revealing that the ultimate sacrifice was coming. That sacrifice would be divine, and only it would be appropriate and powerful enough to cleanse from all sin (Hebrews 9:24).

The light of Christ was God’s final and great point, light, and sacrifice. We need to pay attention to this final bright light because no other pointers remain (Hebrew 10:26).