The Clean for the Unclean

Last weekend I was at my parents’ place building a stall for our foals we need to start working with. As I was putting it together and thinking through what would make halter-breaking them easier, I remembered an old technique—tying a young horse to a donkey. It actually works well, though I feel bad for the poor donkey, being tied to another animal that pulls and fights for hours. As I was reflecting on how donkeys are often used for such difficult tasks, my mind went to a couple of passages I had recently read in Exodus 13:13 and 34:20, where it says, “Every firstborn of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb, or if you will not redeem it you shall break its neck.” I remember thinking, I know this is a command from God but it doesn’t make much sense to me. Yet as I studied further, a beautiful picture began to emerge.

According to Leviticus 11, a donkey is an unclean animal. Even so, donkeys were extremely valuable for transportation, trade, and farming in the ancient world. After the Exodus, God declared that every firstborn of both man and animal belonged to Him (Ex 13:2). But because a donkey was ceremonially unclean and unfit for sacrifice, it had to be redeemed with a clean substitute—specifically a lamb—or else it had to die. Here we see a powerful picture that God has woven into the fabric of Scripture. Humanity, like the donkey, is unclean because of sin and cannot offer itself as an acceptable sacrifice before a holy God. The only hope is redemption through a spotless substitute. The lamb given in place of the donkey foreshadows the greater Lamb to come—Jesus Christ, “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). Through His atoning death and the shedding of His blood, sinners who trust in Him are redeemed and made clean before God.

In the same way, apart from Christ there is no redemption. Those who reject His saving work remain under judgment and face eternal separation from God. How amazing that even in the details of the Law, God was already pointing forward to the gospel. Praise God that the true Lamb has been given, and that through Him guilty sinners can be redeemed by grace alone.

Keanan Fischer