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Saturday, April 7, 2012

JESUS: OUR PASSOVER LAMB

JESUS: OUR

PASSOVER LAMB



While speaking to his disciples, John (the Baptizer) saw Jesus coming and said, "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world" (Jn. 1:29, 36). This was not a new concept in God's Word, for approximately two thousand years before, Abraham had said, "My son, God will provide Himself a lamb for a burnt offering" (Gen. 22:8). The prophet Isaiah described Him as "as a Lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers" (Isa. 53:7). This verse from Isaiah was the one the Ethiopian eunuch was reading when Phillip joined him in his chariot (Acts. 8:32).

The Apostle Paul, not only recognized Jesus as the Lamb of God, he understood Him to literally be our Passover Lamb (1 Cor. 5:7). The Apostle Peter described Jesus as being qualified to be our Passover when he wrote, "Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things.... But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot" (1 Pet. 1:18-19; Ex. 12:3-5). Jesus is also described as the resurrected Lamb of God twenty-seven times in the Book of Revelation. Perhaps the most revealing of those is "And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world" (Rev. 13:8).

Because Jesus was born before Herod the Great died in 4 B.C., and it is believed He lived at least thirty-three years, theologians estimate His birth to be in 5 B.C. and His death somewhere between A.D. 26 and A.D. 36 (the years Pontius Pilate was the Prefect of the providence of Judea). Their estimate has to do with Jesus being "about thirty" when He began His ministry (Lk. 3:23), and the number of Passovers mentioned in the Gospel of John (Jn. 2:13; 6:4; 11:55; 19:14). Therefore, it is quite possible that Jesus actually was thirty-three when He was crucified, because in the year A.D. 28, the Passover Lamb was slain on a Wednesday.

Because Matthew 12:40 describes Jesus as being dead for three days and three nights, a Friday Crucifixion is impossible. Jesus rose on the first day of the week (Sunday - sometime after sunset on our Saturday); counting backward seventy-two hours, He would have had to die just before sunset on Wednesday. Regardless of tradition, it appears that the Lamb of God was "selected" on the tenth of Nissan, examined by the religious rulers over the next three days, and then sacrificed on Wednesday, the fourteenth of Nissan (Ex. 12:3-6). That would make His triumphal entry into Jerusalem on Friday, the ninth instead of Sunday as we now celebrate it as Palm Sunday.

The Feast of Passover involved selecting the Lamb, waiting until the fifth day, and then sacrificing it. Because Jesus was our Passover Lamb, and He died as such on the fourteenth of Nissan, a Wednesday, I believe the meal we call the "Last Supper," was simply one of the evening meals between the tenth and the fourteenth of Nissan, specifically, the evening meal of the thirteenth. I do not believe it was a Passover Seder, as many have declared it to be. But, that is just how I see it.

Regardless of the day, Jesus died right on time for the sins of all mankind!
Better yet, He rose right on time to be Lord of all who will believe!

REPOSTED FROM Skip's Lighthouse

http://skipslighthouse.blogspot.com/2012/04/jesus-our-passover-lamb.html

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