“From the Foundation of the World”

Read Revelation 13:8; Acts 2:23; and 1 Peter 1:19, 20. How could

Christ be considered “slain from the foundation of the world”

(NKJV)?

“All who dwell on the earth will worship him, whose names have not

been written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation

of the world” (Rev. 13:8, NKJV). What’s crucial here for us is the idea

of Christ’s being “slain from the foundation of the world.” Obviously, we

must understand this in a symbolic sense (the book of Revelation is full

of symbols), because Christ wasn’t crucified until thousands of years

after the earth’s Creation. What this text is saying is that the plan of salva-

tion had been put in place before the Creation of the world. And central

to that plan would be the death of Jesus, the Lamb of God, on the cross.

Read Titus 1:2. What does this verse teach us about how long ago the plan

of salvation, which centered on Christ’s death, had been in place?

“The plan for our redemption was not an afterthought, a plan

formulated after the fall of Adam. . . . It was an unfolding of the

principles that from eternal ages have been the foundation of God’s

throne.”—Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, p. 22.

That plan was revealed first to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden

(Gen. 3:15, 21), and it was typified by every blood sacrifice throughout

the Old Testament. For instance, while testing Abraham’s faith, God

provided a ram to be sacrificed instead of Isaac (Gen. 22:11–13). This

replacement typified even more clearly the substitutionary nature of

Christ’s atoning sacrifice on the cross.

Thus, central to the whole plan of salvation is the substitutionary

death of Jesus, symbolized for centuries by animal sacrifices, each

one a symbol of Jesus’ death on the cross as “the Lamb of God, which

taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).

Animal sacrifices are gruesome and bloody—that is true. But

why is this gruesomeness and bloodiness precisely the point,

teaching us about Christ’s death in our place and what the ter-

rible cost of sin was?