1 Peter 1:19

but with the precious blood of Christ The order of the Greek, and the absence of the article before "blood," somewhat modify the meaning. Better, with precious blood, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot, [even that] of Christ. That blood, the life which it represented, poured out upon the cross, took its place among the things that were not corruptible, and is contrasted accordingly with the "silver" and the "gold." With the exception of the substitution of the "blood which is the life" for the life itself, the thought is identical with that of the two passages (Matthew 20:28; Mark 10:45) already referred to. The minds of the disciples had been directed to the "blood" thus understood, as connected with remission of sins, in what we know as the words of institution at the Last Supper (Matthew 26:28; Mark 14:24; Luke 22:20). In the blood being that of a "lamb," we trace the impression made on the mind of the Apostle by the words which the Baptist had spoken in the hearing of St John (John 1:29), and which are reproduced with so much vividness in the Apocalypse (Revelation 5:6; Revelation 5:12). The question meets us, and is not easy to answer, To what special sacrifice ordained in the law of Moses do they refer? The epithet "without blemish" seems to point to the Paschal lamb (Exodus 12:5), but neither of the adjectives which St Peter uses is found in the LXX. version in connexion with the Passover. As connected with the deliverance of Israel both from the angel of death and from their bondage in Egypt, the blood so shed might well come to be thought of as the instrument of redemption. Had a lamb been sacrificed on the day of Atonement, that would have seemed the natural type of the death of Christ, but there the victim was a goat (Leviticus 16:7); the daily morning and evening sacrifice of a lamb (Exodus 29:38) fails as being unconnected with any special act of redeeming love. On the whole, perhaps, it is best to think of the comparison, suggested originally by the Baptist's words, as pointing to the fact that whatever typical significance had attached to the lamb in any part of the complex ritual of the law had now been realised in Christ.