Christ Institutes the New Testament Passover
Jesus had been keeping the Passover all His life! (Luke 2:41).
Now, in the very last Passover, just on the very eve of His MURDER, Jesus left some definite and specific COMMANDS.
Notice it, in John the 13th chapter: "And supper being ended [during supper, according to the Greek] the devil having now put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him; Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he was come from God, and went to God; he riseth from supper, and laid aside his garments; and took a towel, and girded himself.
"After that he poured water into a bason, and began to wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded" (verses 2-5).
Notice! This ceremony of the washing of the feet of the disciples had NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with the Old Testament observance of the Passover! It was occurring on the very eve of the murder of Jesus Christ!
This was something NEW, something DIFFERENT! It was being instituted for the first time by Jesus Christ Himself!
IF Jesus wanted to "nail to His cross" ALL laws, Holy Days, and everything that God ever gave including foot washing, then WHY did He go to such great lengths and pains to show His disciples how to observe the Passover from then on?
Surely Jesus would have been busily explaining to them that immediately after His crucifixion there would be no further obligation for them to keep the Passover, had He intended to nail God's Holy Days to the cross!
Instead, He was taking this last-minute opportunity to institute an observance which He COMMANDED His disciples to keep!
Peter argued with Him — saying he wasn't going to have Christ wash His feet! Men today argue the same thing. Jesus explained that unless Peter entered into the foot washing ceremony, he had NO PART with Christ!
Jesus, after washing the disciples' feet "said unto them, Know ye what I have done to you? Ye call me Master and Lord, and you say well, for so I AM! If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; YE ALSO OUGHT TO WASH ONE ANOTHER'S FEET"! (John 13:12-14). Yes, Jesus said anyone who acknowledges Him as "Master and Lord" ought to wash one another's feet!
He went on to say, "For I have GIVEN YOU AN EXAMPLE, that you should DO as I have done to you. . . if you know these things, HAPPY are ye if you DO them"! (John 13: 15-17)
Now turn to Luke's account and notice that Jesus commanded us to do something else. "And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and said, Take this, and divide it among yourselves: For I say unto you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine, until the kingdom of God shall come" (Luke 22:17-18).
Jesus took wine, the fermented "fruit of the vine" and divided it among the disciples and then explained "This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you" (Luke 22:20). Jesus showed that the wine was to symbolize His shed blood! Then, "He took bread and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you, this DO in remembrance of me"! (Luke 22:19)
Here again, in instituting the new symbols of the wine and the bread, showing His shed blood and broken body for the forgiveness of our spiritual AND physical sins, Jesus gave a COMMAND. He said, "This DO — in remembrance of me!"
The world is not WILLING to DO what Jesus says!
Are you?
HOW Does God Forgive Sin?
The Apostle Paul was inspired to write that "ALL have sinned, and come short of the glory of God"! (Rom. 3:23)
And the wages, the reward, the automatic penalty for sin is DEATH! (Rom. 6:23).
Further, God tells us that sin IS the transgression, or the breaking of God's spiritual Laws! (I John 3:4)
You and I have both sinned! And, since we have sinned, that means unless or until we have had that penalty removed and expiated, we are under the penalty of death! But it is given to ALL men to die once! (Heb. 9:27). Whether righteous or unrighteous, rich or poor, rebellious or obedient, all men must DIE — once! This, then, is not the penalty for sin! God was speaking of eternal death!
Only by having this terrible, brain-chilling sentence removed from you can you get from under this terrible load, and be freed from the horrible sentence of being burned to a crisp! The penalty is remaining dead, gone, forgotten — for all eternity!
God reveals in His perfect plan, that only by the shedding of blood is there remission for sins!
In the "golden text" of the Bible, God said, "for God so loved the world [yes, this rotten, sin-sick, crime-ridden world] that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not PERISH, but have everlasting life"! (John 3: 16)
Jesus was led like a dirty criminal, made to carry His own stake, until He fell under the weight of it — and then was hauled roughly up and had to feel huge spikes being pounded mercilessly through the flesh, pinning His hands and feet to the wood. He had to suffer a merciless beating which tore His flesh open, disfiguring Him, causing Him to bleed from dozens and even hundreds of open gashes and cuts! He was beaten and whipped with a "scourge," which was a whip of many leather thongs, with bits of lead and metal tied in the ends of them.
Then, after having to feel his own body weight ripping and tearing at the flesh where the nails had been driven through, without any relief in sight, Jesus had to feel a huge, sharp metal spear jamming into His side, cutting the tissue and the organs, severing blood vessels and flesh, and perhaps even cutting open His stomach! Christ DIED in a hideous, merciless, depraved, BRUTAL death — such as a normal man would not think of inflicting upon a rabid dog!
And Jesus did this — VOLUNTARILY! He did this for US, and for the whole world!
Christ's Life for Ours
Jesus is GOD! He is not God the Father, but He is a member of the family called GOD! (John 1, Heb. 1)
The One who became Jesus Christ is the LORD, the God of your Old Testament! By Him, and through Him, and by His spoken word were ALL THINGS created, and brought into being!
Jesus is the Executive Member of the God Family, the One who brought life itself into existence, Who created all matter, all energy and force, and everything that you can come to see or know by your senses!
Therefore, when this member of the Godhead had voluntarily been changed into a man — had become a physical, air-breathing, water-drinking and food-eating human being, confined to this earth, and had been MADE flesh — there was no second member of the Godhead in Heaven!
Jesus was on this earth — as a human being, a man.
His one life, since He was the very One who had been used to create all life, was worth FAR MORE than all the rest of our lives and the billions who have lived and died put together! Had Jesus been ONLY a man, His death could have paid perhaps for only one other man! But Jesus was GOD — IN THE FLESH!
His life is worth FAR MORE than all the rest of human life put together! Thus it is, that by EMPTYING Himself, being made of low estate, and taking upon Himself the sins of the world, Christ became the perfect and complete sacrifice for all sins ever committed!
Only through complete REPENTANCE, the acceptance of Christ's sacrifice, and then living in OBEDIENCE to God can you be saved!
The SIGN by which you PROVE TO GOD you are WILLING TO OBEY, and that you REALLY DO accept Christ's blood to pay for your spiritual sins, and His broken body to atone for your physical sins — that SIGN IS THE KEEPING OF THE PASSOVER AND THE DAYS OF UNLEAVENED BREAD!
Christ OUR Passover
Just as the ancient Israelites' houses were PASSED OVER by the death angel sent to kill the firstborn of Egypt, so will OUR homes be PASSED OVER by the ETERNAL DEATH that is the penalty for SIN!
David wrote, "BLESSED is he whose transgression is FORGIVEN, whose sin is COVERED — BLESSED is the man unto whom the Eternal imputeth not iniquity" (Ps. 34:1-2). Yes, WHAT A BLESSING!
That Christ, through His TREMENDOUS sacrifice has willingly become OUR Passover "Lamb" that the filth of the world, the DISEASES of the world, the SINS of the world, and the ultimate DEATH of the world will PASS OVER us!
It is only when we have PROVED Jesus IS the Christ — when we have humbly, with BROKEN-HEARTED REPENTANCE, accepted HIS SHED BLOOD — that we have the forgiveness we seek!
The Apostle Paul was inspired to write, "PURGE OUT therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even CHRIST OUR PASSOVER is sacrificed for us" (I Cor. 5:7).
GROW in Grace and Knowledge
This defiant world wants to CLAIM Christ as its Savior — to "receive" Christ, to appropriate His NAME — but they WILL NOT OBEY Christ!
The whole picture of the Days of Unleavened Bread show our coming OUT of sin, putting the human VANITY and CARNALITY OUT of our lives — GROWING in grace and knowledge.
Just as our forefathers were told to eat their Passover with their loins girded, with their staff in their hand — looking apprehensively at the world around them — preparatory to FLEEING from Egypt, so WE are to GO ON after the Passover, to OBSERVE THE DAYS OF UNLEAVENED BREAD!
Because the world wants to believe in a TWISTED concept of "grace" that actually means "permissiveness" to DO EVIL — because they have NOT OBEYED God in observing His Holy Days, they have LOST SIGHT of the great PURPOSE in human existence. They do NOT KNOW there is anything to DO — anything that could be called "works" they REJECT!
Think of this!
If the worldly churches understood ONLY THE PASSOVER AND DAYS OF UNLEAVENED BREAD — if they didn't know anything else of the Holy Days — THINK of all the TRUTH they would have!
First, they would know that Jesus WAS HUMAN! They would know that there is NO immortal soul, since He died by the shedding of His BLOOD! They would know the true manner of His death, and the real PURPOSE for it. They would know WHAT SIN IS — and WHAT REAL REPENTANCE is! They would KNOW Christ is ALIVE, since they would be accepting the only sign He left as proof of His Messiahship! They would know we are to COME OUT OF THE WORLD — to be CHANGED from our old ways of life — they would know GOD IS THE RULER! In short, they would know literally DOZENS of great, overall principles of the PLAN of God of which they are in total ignorance today!
THAT IS WHY GOD COMMANDS US TO KEEP it!
We are never to forget the PLAN He is working out here below, and our vital PART in that plan!
Paul exhorted the Gentile Christians, "LET US KEEP THE FEAST" (I Cor. 5:8). He showed HOW we are to keep it, and said, "let a man examine himself, and so LET HIM EAT of that bread, and DRINK of that cup . . ." (1 Cor. 11:28).
These commands mean YOU! God is offering us the PRICELESS, MATCHLESS PRIVILEGE of being BORN of Him — becoming HIS OWN CHILDREN! The PASSOVER and Days of Unleavened Bread show the BEGINNING of the PROCESS of Salvation!
Brethren — let's all be OBEDIENT to our God — LET US KEEP THE FEAST!