This is another in a series of excerpts from The Book of Life: What the Bible Says about God’s Registry of the Redeemed from High Street Press and available at Amazon. This except comes from Chapter 3: the Lamb’s Book.

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Why is the book of life also called the Lamb’s book? When we think of Jesus as the Lamb of God, and we see Scripture identify the book of life as belonging to the Lamb, we should note that lambs play a key role in redemption.

The Passover lamb is the means by which obedient Israelites are spared the wrath of the angel of death, who comes to claim the firstborn in Egypt (Exod. 11 – 13). This lamb must be young, spotless, and precious. Brought into the house for several days to be examined, he becomes a familiar and beloved member of the family who must then die, and whose blood, sprinkled on the doorposts, is a sign to the destroyer to pass over the house.

Other Old Testament passages depict the Passover lamb as a type of Christ. Isaiah 53, for example, tells us of the coming Messiah being led like a lamb to the slaughter:

He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth. Like a lamb led to the slaughter and like a sheep silent before her shearers, he did not open his mouth. He was taken away because of oppression and judgment, and who considered his fate? For he was cut off from the land of the living; he was struck because of my people’s rebellion. He was assigned a grave with the wicked, but he was with a rich man at his death, because he had done no violence and had not spoken deceitfully (Isa. 53:7-9).

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