Tag: Christ our Passover Lamb

Posted on

Christ, Our Passover

“Christ, our Passover lamb has been sacrificed” ( 1 Corinthians 5:7).

Just a few weeks ago Christians worldwide remembered our Lord’s crucifixion and resurrection. Every year this coincides with the Jewish festival of Passover. This is because Jesus’ death was during the Passover season. Even more important is the fact that he is the fulfillment of everything Passover symbolizes.

While there are many symbolic features in the Passover ceremony, I will point out just a few. Passover tells the story of Israel’s national redemption and rescue from slavery in Egypt. The ceremony was unique to the Israelites. No other ancient civilization had anything like it. The Bible tells us that Jesus is uniquely the only savior and redeemer.

The redemption pictured in Passover involved the sacrifice of a lamb. It was to be unblemished. The first Passover lamb was to be killed and its blood smeared on the lintels and doorposts of the houses of the Israelite people. The blood of the lamb was for the protection of the believing families as the angel of death “passed over” them when God’s judgment descended upon Egypt. Jesus, the New Testament tells us, is “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). He is “a lamb without blemish or defect” (1 Peter 1:19).

Every year after that, a lamb was to be roasted and eaten in the Passover supper, in memory of the Exodus from Egypt. The meal also included bread baked without yeast, or leaven. Leaven, in the Bible, is a picture of sin. Unleavened bread is sold today as matzah. It looks like a large saltine cracker. It is baked in such a  way that it is pierced with tiny holes and it has brown spots like bruises. Jesus said he is “the bread of life” (John 6:35). When Jesus ate the Passover meal with his disciples, he held up the bread, broke it, and said, “This is my body given for you” (Luke 22:19). This reminds us of a prophecy: “But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him and by his wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5).

At the Passover supper the head of the household would lead the family in ceremoniously drinking four cups of wine, the cup of blessing, the cup of praise, the cup of redemption, and the cup of the kingdom. This would be accompanied by the reading of relevant scriptures and singing of psalms. At the last Passover with his friends, Jesus lifted the cup of redemption, and declared, “This is my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. I tell you I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it anew with you in my Father’s kingdom” (Matthew 26:28-29).

Clearly, the New Testament is teaching us that Christ is the center of attention, the object of worship. The Passover was observed by the Jews in the spring of every year. It was a pointer to the ultimate sacrificial lamb whose blood brings redemption and spiritual security. For Christians, the Lord’s Supper is a reminder of these truths.

Jesus is the perfect Lamb of God “chosen before the creation of the world” (1 Peter 1:20). The annual killing of the Jews’  Passover lambs represented the sacrificial death of the Lord Jesus. “He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth” (Isaiah 53:7).

The Bible says that while Jesus lived a sinless life, it was not his perfect life that atones for our sins. It was not his good example, as wonderful as that was. It was not his love or compassion alone that secured our redemption. He had to die for sinners. “Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3). “You were slain and with your blood you purchased men for God” (Revelation 5:6-9). “Christ our Passover lamb has been sacrificed” (1 Corinthians 5:7).

There were seven annual festivals on the Jewish calendar. Passover was to be observed as the first one of the year (Exodus 12:2). Each one of those subsequent festivals was an important picture to us of our Lord Jesus Christ and the panorama of God’s salvation. We shall explore these feasts of the Lord (Leviticus 23) in the coming weeks in this blog. I invite you to read these articles and share them with others on your favorite internet platform.

Pastor Randy Faulkner

Posted on

Not a Bone Was Broken

“These things happened so that scripture would be fulfilled” (John 19:36).

Recently I was reading the story of a young astronomer, David Block, who was drawn to the idea of a personal Creator by the elegance, beauty and immensity of the universe. He became a Christian through the influence of friends who encouraged him to read the New Testament. He was intrigued by the fact that “Jesus had fulfilled all the messianic prophecies in the Hebrew Scriptures (where the Messiah would be born, how he was to die, and much else besides). . . . I knew that I had found him and that all I had to do was respond to his free offer of grace.”

Fulfilled prophecy is one of the convincing evidences that the Bible is God’s word. The predictions about Jesus, the Messiah of Israel, are remarkably precise. The New Testament frequently refers to prophecies written five hundred to a thousand years before the time of Jesus. He fulfilled them in detail.

Paul Little wrote, “One cannot deny the force of fulfilled prophecy as evidence of divine guidance. Furthermore, there are prophecies which could not possibly have been schemed and written after the events predicted.”

The apostle John was an eyewitness to fulfilled prophecy. He knew his Bible and he knew what was taking place before his eyes (John 19:35). He brought the two together when he wrote his gospel. In his account of our Lord’s crucifixion, he called attention to four details which he says were predicted in the Hebrew Bible: the soldiers gambling for Jesus’ clothes, the wine vinegar they gave him, the fact that his bones were not broken, and the fact that his body was pierced by nails and a spear.

In John 19:31-34 we may read how the executioners wanted to hasten the deaths of those who were being crucified with Jesus. They broke their legs so that they could not put their weight on them as they hung dying. In Jesus’ case, however, they found him already dead. To make sure, one of the soldiers thrust his spear into Jesus’ side, from which flowed blood and water. They did not break the bones in his legs! This fulfilled a prophecy found in Psalm 34:20, “He protects all his bones, not one of them will be broken.” John quotes this in John 19:36.

This is significant because the lamb in the Hebrew Passover ritual was to be roasted, eaten with unleavened bread and bitter herbs, and the people were commanded not to break any of its bones (Numbers 9:12, Exodus 12:46). John the Baptist had declared that Jesus is the Lamb of God (John 1:29). Paul wrote that Jesus Christ is our Passover Lamb who has been sacrificed for us (1 Corinthians 5:7). In his death on the cross, Jesus fulfilled the deeper meaning of the Jewish Passover sacrifice in exquisite detail.

John said he was writing these details of prophecy and fulfillment to help us believe in Jesus (John 19:35). These facts of history and scripture support and validate the claims of the Christian gospel. Read the gospel of John as if for the first time. John wrote, “These are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:31).

Pastor Randy Faulkner