Hence, therefore, the paschal lamb, as the ground of Israel's peace, is a marked and beautiful type of Christ as the ground of the believer's peace. There was nothing to be added to the blood on the lintel; neither is there anything to be added to the blood on the mercy-seat. The "unleavened bread" and "bitter herbs" were necessary, but not as forming, either in whole or in part, the ground of peace. They were for the inside of the house, and formed the characteristics of the communion there; but THE BLOOD OF THE LAMB WAS THE FOUNDATION OF EVERYTHING. It saved them from death, and introduced them into a scene of life, light, and peace. It formed the link between God and His redeemed people. As a people linked with God, on the ground of accomplished redemption, it was their high privilege to meet certain responsibilities; but these responsibilities did not form the link, but merely flowed out of it. And I would further remind my reader that the obedient _life_ of Christ is not set forth in Scripture as the procuring cause of our forgiveness. It was His death upon the cross that opened those everlasting floodgates of love which else should have remained pent up forever. If He had remained to this very hour, going through the cities of Israel, "doing good," the vail of the temple would continue unrent, to bar the worshiper's approach to God. It was His death that rent that mysterious curtain "from top to bottom." It is "by _His stripes_," not by His obedient life, that "we are healed;" and those "stripes" He endured _on the cross_, and no where else. His own words, during the progress of His blessed life, are quite sufficient to settle this point.--"I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished." (Luke xii. 50.) To what does this refer but to His death upon the cross, which was the accomplishment of His baptism and the opening up of a righteous vent through which His love might freely flow out to the guilty sons of Adam? Again, He says, "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone." (John xii. 24.) He was that precious "corn of wheat;" and He should have remained forever "alone," even though incarnate, had He not, by His death upon the accursed tree, removed out of the way everything that could have hindered the union of His people with Him in resurrection. "If it die, it bringeth forth much fruit."