Moses was preparing to lead the people of Israel out of Egypt as God had commanded him, but he was dealing with an obstinate and rebellious king who refused to acknowledge the LORD. Pharaoh was the most powerful man on planet earth at the time, and as he continued to harden his heart, the God of all creation was humiliating him and embarrassing him through a series of plagues.
Although Moses had forewarned Pharaoh prior to each of the first nine plagues, the obstinate king continued to be rebel against God. Leading up to the tenth and final plague, Moses warned him that the next plague would be devastating. It would claim the lives of the first born of everyone in Egypt, including the home of Pharaoh himself.
In order to be spared from the angel of death—the messenger sent to afflict judgment upon the people, they had to kill a lamb and put the blood on the doorposts and lintel of their homes as a sacrifice to the LORD. If the blood was there, the messenger of death would pass over the house sparing the life of their firstborn. This was the background for the historic Jewish feast known as Passover. This feast was commanded to be held as a memorial day throughout Israel’s history (Exodus 12:14).
Each year, the Israelites would do as God commanded by separating a lamb and offering it up as a sacrifice to God. They would remember what the LORD had done and teach the truth to their children. Phil Ryken observes:
Once the lamb was chosen, it was kept in the house for four days, during which time the family fed it, cared for it, and played with it. In that short time they would have identified with the lamb, so that it almost became part of the family. ‘This is our Passover lamb,’ they would say. Then it was slaughtered, which was a messy, bloody business. The head of the household took the lamb in his arms, pulled back its head, and slit its throat. Red blood spurted all over the lamb’s pure white wool. ‘Why, Daddy?’ the children would say. Their father would explain that the lamb was a substitute. The firstborn did not have to die because the lamb had died in his place.1Philip Graham Ryken and R. Kent Hughes, Exodus: Saved for God’s Glory (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2005), 332.
When King Josiah celebrated the Passover, he slaughtered more than 37,000 sheep.2Read 2 Chronicles 35 regarding King Josiah and the observance of Passover. Each year, lambs were slain in observance of God’s command to remember how they had been rescued from the wrath of God and delivered from the slave market of Egypt. Generation after generation would come and go and the Passover memorial would remain in place as God directed his people.
As the first century Jews continued to observe the festival days and memorial of Passover, their worship had been greatly corrupted by legalistic practices of the Pharisees. The worship of God’s people had been twisted into a list of rules and regulations and monetized for financial gain. The corruption of the worship of God was clearly evident when Jesus entered the temple and turned over the money changers’ tables and scattered the animals. What God intended for good the people had polluted by evil motives.
Jesus as the Lamb of God
As John the Baptist ministered in the countryside, multitudes of people flocked to him. Some people came out of genuine desire to hear the message while others came out of curiosity. As John thundered the good news of God to the crowds, there came a moment where his work as the Forerunner of Christ came to a climax. As Jesus passed by, John pointed to him and made a powerful statement.
The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks before me, because he was before me.’ I myself did not know him, but for this purpose I came baptizing with water, that he might be revealed to Israel.”3John 1:29-31 – ESV
The language John used to point to Jesus is both intentional and provocative. For you to call someone a lamb in your present context would most likely not cause anyone great concern. However, for the Jews to hear the language of “lamb of God” being directed at a man would communicate something of great seriousness to the people.
When you read John the Baptist’s words as he referred to Jesus as “the Lamb of God” you must hear it with the striking symbolism that John’s original audience felt in their day.
When you read John the Baptist’s words as he referred to Jesus as “the Lamb of God” you must hear it with the striking symbolism that John’s original audience felt in their day. What John was signaling by his words was that every part of the sacrificial system in the old covenant was to be ultimately fulfilled in the work of Jesus as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
Under the old covenant system, the Jews would separate a lamb from their herds according to the details provided in God’s law. According to Exodus 12:5, the lamb was to be a male and it was to be without spot or blemish. In other words, it was not to be diseased or crippled. It was to be a proper sacrifice offered up to God.
Jesus did not come to abolish the law of God. He came as a man born of a woman, born under the law, for the purpose of upholding and fulfilling every aspect of God’s righteous decree. Jesus said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.”4Matthew 5:17 – ESV The word Jesus used, “abolish” comes from the Greek term, “καταλύω” which means “to destroy or dissolve or bring to naught.” The purpose of Jesus’ ministry wasn’t to overthrow the law of God. The purpose wasn’t to obliterate what God instituted. Jesus was one with the Father (John 10:30) and he made it clear that His purpose was to fulfill God’s law.
John the Baptist had a role to fulfill as the last of the great prophets. He was to serve as the unique prophet who stood between the old and the new covenants. His calling was to serve as the Forerunner in order to prepare the people to receive the King. The Forerunner’s task was to go before the King and smooth out the roads, lower the high spots, and raise the low spots in the roadway. This was an important task during ancient eras of history with primitive road systems. It was for the purpose of making the entrance smooth for the King’s arrival. That was precisely what John the Baptist was doing as he prepared the people to receive their Messiah. His task was spiritual rather than physical in nature.
As John the Baptist directs people’s attention to Jesus as the Lamb of God, he is introducing the Messiah to Israel in an official capacity. This was the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. It’s in this scene that John introduces Jesus as the Lamb of God and God the Father speaks out at the baptism and introduces him as the Son of God. Such powerful statements cause the mind to think of Abraham offering his son Isaac up to God upon the altar only to be stopped by God with a substituted offering of a ram caught in the thicket. In this next scene of God’s redemptive story, God’s Son would become the substitute offered as God’s lamb upon the cross in the place of every one of God’s children.
Passover, Last Supper, and Lord’s Supper
When Jesus was born, the Jews had been observing Passover for centuries. That process would continue on through Jesus’ lifetime. When Jesus gathered his disciples for the observance of the annual Passover meal, it served as three specific meals at one table. It was the yearly Passover celebration instituted by God. It was also the last supper with Jesus and his disciples before he went to the cross. This meal also served as the initiation of the Lord’s Supper which the church of Jesus continues to this very day for the purpose of remembering the body and blood of Jesus in his sacrificial offering.
The Jews had different feasts they observed on a yearly basis. They had a very strict worship calendar that included the following:
- Feast of Pentecost: Feast of Weeks: Celebration of God’s provision in harvest.
- Feast of Tabernacles (tents): Remembering their wandering in the wilderness and how God provided for them.
- Feast – Day of Atonement (Yom Kipur): Highlighted the sacrifice of the offering in the Holy of Holies.
- Feast of Dedication (Hanukkah): Remembering God’s provision for His people during the period between the Old and New Testaments.
- Feast of Trumpets: Celebration of the New Year.
- Feast of Passover & Unleavened Bread: An 8-day feast remembering God’s salvation from Egypt – by the sacrifice of a lamb.
The Last Supper meal with his disciples served as the foundational event for the institution of the Lord’s Supper. Jesus transformed the Passover meal into a new covenant meal, symbolizing His body and blood by pointing to His sacrificial death. The Lord’s Supper holds deep spiritual significance as a means of grace, a memorial and proclamation of Christ’s work, and a source of unity and fellowship among believers.
The Lord’s Supper also serves as a memorial and proclamation of Christ’s sacrificial death and the good news of saving grace. As believers partake of the bread and wine, they remember Christ’s atonement, His victory over sin and death, and anticipate His second coming (1 Corinthians 11:26). As Jesus took the cup, gave thanks, and offered it to His disciples, saying, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Matt 26:28) he ushered in the practice of the Lord’s Supper. The bread represents the body of Jesus as the sacrificial lamb. The cup represents the new covenant in Christ’s blood, shedding light on His sacrificial death as the ultimate atonement for sin.
As the Lamb of God, Jesus embodied the sacrificial system established by God in the Old Testament—under the old covenant. By celebrating the Passover meal with His disciples, Jesus fulfilled the ultimate purpose of the Passover lamb—to bring deliverance and redemption through His sacrificial death. He transformed the Passover meal into a new covenantal meal that would have lasting spiritual significance for His followers that will continue among the church of Jesus until his return.
Providence and Passover
The providence of God is God’s divine governance of his creation according to his sovereign plan. This divine providence is clearly on display throughout the whole of Scripture. There is not a story or a scene in God’s Word where we find God absent or disengaged. According to the Psalmist, “the steps of a man are established by the LORD.”5Psalm 37:23 – ESV According to Proverbs 21:1, “The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD; he turns it wherever he will.” It’s obvious that God is arranging the details of this world according to his divine plan. We see this in the story of Jesus’ birth when God put into the heart of Caesar to order an official registration that would cause a very pregnant Mary to travel with Joseph to his hometown of Bethlehem which would establish the birthplace of Jesus in fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy—right where Micah had foreseen (Micah 5:2).
There is not a story or a scene in God’s Word where we find God absent or disengaged.
Now as we look to the death of Jesus, we once again see the clear providence of God in full operation. Throughout the Gospels, there are verses that point to a divine calendar and timeline regarding Jesus’ life and appointment with death that stick out if you’re paying attention. For instance, in John 7:30, the Jews were seeking to arrest him, but the text says, “no one laid a hand on him, because his hour had not yet come.” In the very next chapter, we find the same language. They were seeking to arrest Jesus, “but no one arrested him, because his hour had not yet come” (John 8:20). The point is obvious. Jesus was not to be arrested and killed until the appointed time.
As Passover was approaching, Jesus set his face to Jerusalem where he would arrive at the right time for the drama of the crucifixion to unfold. Every detail was arranged in such a way to have Jesus in Jerusalem at Passover. The city was filled with people and the annual celebration was in full motion when Jesus was betrayed, arrested, tried for blasphemy in the middle of the night, and led to the cross. Jesus was foreordained to be the Lamb of God!
The Sacrifice
The city of Jerusalem was swelling with people at Passover. Approximately 2.5 million people would have been walking the crowded streets and preparing for the annual celebration of Passover—including the money changers and farmers who would setup shop all around the temple for profit. Passover would not be fulfilled without a sacrifice. The central aspect of the feast itself is the sacrifice which is intended to look back and remember how God spared his people by means of the blood of the sacrificial lamb. In order for Jesus to fulfill the will of the Father who sent him, he had to do more than eat the Passover meal with his disciples. There had to be a sacrifice offered up to God. The sacrifice was to be without spot or blemish. Jesus had to die as God’s lamb.
According to Josephus, the ancient Jewish historian, several hundred thousand lambs were herded through the streets of Jerusalem every Passover. Three years after his public ministry was launched, Jesus is betrayed and rejected by his own Jewish people and herded through the same streets after his arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane.
After a series of providential details played out in the arrest and trial of Jesus, he was turned over to be executed on the Roman cross. He was ordered to be scourged by Pilate. According to Eusebius of Caesarea, the severe and brutal tortures inflicted upon early Christian martyrs during the Roman Empire included them being scourged. This is precisely what Jesus endured prior to his crucifixion. Eusebius explains that the martyrs “were torn by scourges down to deep seated veins and arteries, so that the hidden contents of the recesses of their bodies, their entrails and organs, were exposed to sight.”6Eusebius of Caesarea, “The Church History” Book 5, Chapter 1 When Pilate offered up a choice between Barabbas and Jesus to be released, the mob requested Barabbas who was a thief and murderer (John 18:39-40; Luke 23:19). Jesus came unto his own and his own people did not receive him (John 1:11). Instead, they cried aloud, “Crucify! Crucify!”7See Luke 23:21
In Mark 14, we find Jesus being led to the place of execution called Golgotha. It was literally a hill of death and a shameful place for criminals to be executed publicly. As the text reveals in Luke 23:33, “And when they came to the place that is called The Skull, there they crucified him, and the criminals, one on his right and one on his left.” This place of death was outside of the city in a condemned
The Roman cross was a brutal way to die. It was reserved for the violent criminals and those who committed crimes against Rome. Beyond the brutality of the cross was the humiliation. It was an ignominious and painful death. Crucifixion as a method of execution was invented by the Persians, but it was practiced by various groups such as the Phoenicians, Carthaginians, and Egyptians. However, it was the Romans who perfected the art of crucifixion. By the time Jesus was led to the cross, the Romans had executed more than 30,000 criminals. The Romans referred to the cross as “the infamous stake.” Phil Ryken observes:
It was late in the afternoon on the eve of Passover. At twilight, lambs would be sacrificed by every household, according to the Law of Moses. All over the city fathers were getting ready to make the offering, gathering their families together and saying, “God has provided a lamb for us.” Over at the temple the high priest was also preparing a lamb to present as an atonement for Israel’s sin. Then there was Jesus, hanging on the cross, with the sacrificial blood flowing from his hands and side. He was the Lamb of God taking away the sins of the world.8Philip Graham Ryken and R. Kent Hughes, Exodus: Saved for God’s Glory (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2005), 331.
As Jesus suffered under the wrath of God, he cried out, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
As Jesus hung upon the cross, he experienced immense physical and emotional pain. Every single movement of the body as he pressed upward to grasp another breath sent signals to his brain that his body was under a mountain of pain. His open wounds that he experienced at the pleasure of the Roman guards by his beating and stripes left his back with open wounds that would greatly intensify his suffering with every attempt at another breath. As Jesus suffered under the wrath of God, he cried out, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”9Mark 15:34 – ESV
Just as the original Passover would not have been possible without blood, the ultimate fulfillment of the Passover in Jesus’ substitutionary death would not have been possible apart from the shedding of his blood. According to Hebrews 9:22, “without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin.” In 1 John 1:7, John the Apostle writes, “the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin.” Paul explains to the church at Ephesus that we have been brought near to God “by the blood of Christ.”10See Ephesians 2:13
Alas, and did my Saviour bleed?
And did my Sov’reign die?
Would He devote that sacred head
For such a worm as I?11Isaac Watts, “Alas, and did my Savior bleed” – 1707
Have you come to grips with the reality that there is nothing you can offer up to God that will be received as a sufficient sacrifice for your sin? You must come to God through the sacrifice of the Lamb of God.
With striking precision, Jesus fulfilled every detail of the sacrificial system, beginning with the Passover sacrifice. Every last one of God’s children are saved by Jesus’ blood sacrifice—including those in the Old Testament. Have you come to grips with the reality that there is nothing you can offer up to God that will be received as a sufficient sacrifice for your sin? You must come to God through the sacrifice of the Lamb of God. A.W. Pink writes:
An Israelite might have selected a proper lamb, he might have slain it, but unless he had applied its blood to the outside of the door, the Angel of Death would have entered his house and slain his firstborn. In like manner today, it is not enough for me to know that the precious blood of the Lamb of God was shed for the remission of sins. A Savior provided is not sufficient: he must be received. There must be ‘faith in His blood’ (Rom. 3:25).”12Arthur Walkington Pink, Gleanings in Exodus (Chicago: Moody Press, 1962), 84.
References
| 1 | Philip Graham Ryken and R. Kent Hughes, Exodus: Saved for God’s Glory (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2005), 332. |
|---|---|
| 2 | Read 2 Chronicles 35 regarding King Josiah and the observance of Passover. |
| 3 | John 1:29-31 – ESV |
| 4 | Matthew 5:17 – ESV |
| 5 | Psalm 37:23 – ESV |
| 6 | Eusebius of Caesarea, “The Church History” Book 5, Chapter 1 |
| 7 | See Luke 23:21 |
| 8 | Philip Graham Ryken and R. Kent Hughes, Exodus: Saved for God’s Glory (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2005), 331. |
| 9 | Mark 15:34 – ESV |
| 10 | See Ephesians 2:13 |
| 11 | Isaac Watts, “Alas, and did my Savior bleed” – 1707 |
| 12 | Arthur Walkington Pink, Gleanings in Exodus (Chicago: Moody Press, 1962), 84. |
