Tim and I are rereading one of our favorite books, “The Rest of the Gospel” by Dan Stone and Greg Smith.  What a blessing to be reminded of the truths that really changed our lives.  So many believer’s are trying and striving to live the Christian life, instead of understanding what really happened at the cross and trusting Him.  Hope this encourages you.

As with so many New Testament truths, this one is foreshadowed in the Old Testament. In fact, God painted a billboard-sized picture of it. We call it the Passover. In Exodus 12, before God sent the death angel to kill all the firstborn in Egypt, God told the Hebrews to set apart a lamb from the flock, kill it, and smear the blood on the doorpost of their dwellings. When God saw the blood, He would pass over that house and spare the firstborn inside. The people only had to apply the blood to the doorpost.

This part of the Passover foretells the blood side of the cross. The lamb died for the household. The household did not participate in that death; the lamb died for them. When they applied its blood to their doorpost, they escaped the wrath of God that came upon the land. Their firstborn son was spared.

The parallel to the blood side of the cross is obvious. Christ died for us. He shed His blood as payment for our sins – a satisfaction of the righteous judgment of God. When, by faith, we apply Christ blood (His death) to our lives, we are spared the wrath of God upon us. Our sins are forgiven.

One day, though, I saw something different in the Passover story. When the children of Israel were in captivity under Pharoah, what country were they in? Egypt. After they put the blood on the doorposts of their houses, and the Lord passed over, and their firstborn was spared, what country were they still in? Egypt.

I saw that as long as our revelation knowledge is limited to the blood side of the cross – Christ dying for us – we may still have our firstborn. That is, our sins are forgiven. But experientially we continue living in captivity. We are still living as though we are in subject to the capriciousness of the Pharoah’s in our lives, in bondage. We are still carnal Christians, striving to overcome by our own effort, trying to become spiritual. It’s great to have our sins forgiven. But after a while living as if we still captives take the glamour off being forgiven.

God has a solution to the Hebrews’ captivity. The solution was to provide them with sustenance, or life, to get them out of Egypt. So, He instructed each household, after they had smeared the blood of the lamb on the doorpost, to roast the lamb and eat it as nourishment for the upcoming journey. That’s the body side of the cross. You take the lamb (Christ) into you as life.

God is showing us here that the lamb they used for blood on the doorpost was the same lamb they ate for the journey. In other words, everything that is necessary for living the life comes from the lamb. It isn’t the lamb dies for you and then you are sent out to do the rest on your own (with His help, of course). The lamb is the total answer. The lamb that gave its blood for them also gave its life to them. They took its meat into them, and that became their nourishment, strength, and vitality for their journey. They lived their life out of the lamb’s life. They walked in its energy. They killed one lamb for two purposes: for the Passover and for the walk.

Paul calls the New Testament life a walk. What is the sustenance, the life, of that walk? It isn’t us trying to walk for God. It may look like that on the outside, but we have taken the Lamb of God into us. He is not only the forgiveness of our sins. He is also the life within us, from whom we make the journey. (or live life)

We can walk around for years with a sense of forgiveness, but no sense of life. We have the life in us, but we don’t know it. We try to generate the life ourselves, but we are doomed to failure, because it’s impossible for us to generate the life. God is telling us, “I will share My glory with no man. Only I can live My life. But I will impart the life to you. I will give you the life. I will live it through you.”

Romans 5:10 – “For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.”

Excerpt from: The Rest of the Gospel: When the Partial Gospel has Worn You Out.
Chapter 5