19 Knowing Jesus Christ Sin is very serious to God. So God taught Adam and Eve and the people of Early History that the penalty for sin is death, but He would accept the sacrifice of a perfect lamb as a substitute for their death. Watching an innocent lamb die as a sacrifice for their sins reminded the people of the seriousness of sin. All these sacrifices were pointing forward to The perfect Lamb of God. In about 2000 BC God chose Abraham to start a new nation for the purpose of blessing all nations. He later named this nation Israel. Through Israel God gave two primary blessings to the nations - the gift of His Son and the gift of The Bible. In The Bible the prophets foretold the virgin birth of God’s Son, His miracles & teaching, and even His death and resurrection (100’s of years in advance). And God gave Israel strict regulations on how to offer sacrifices for sin, because all of their sacrifices were pointing forward to the sinless Lamb of God. God’s Son would leave His glory in heaven and become a man so He could die for our sins. Think about His love: He lived a life without sin and then offered Himself as a perfect sacrifice for our sins. 4 Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. 6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. 7 He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. Isaiah 53:4–7 (NIV84) 700 years before Jesus became a man God told the prophet Isaiah about His Son’s sacrifice, and this is what Isaiah recorded: