The Final Passover, The First Communion
Notes
Transcript
The Final Passover (vv 14-18)
The Final Passover (vv 14-18)
The message of Passover is that God delivers through the judgment of sin by the death of an innocent substitute.
All the Old Testament sacrifices were symbols of that reality.
But those animal sacrifices were not, in themselves, sufficient substitutes, or such offerings would have ceased Heb. 10:1–2.
1 For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near. 2 Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sins?
No person has ever been delivered from divine judgment by the death of an animal Heb. 10:4.
4 For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.
Through the centuries, the people of Israel waited for the sacrifice that would be satisfactory to God, the one to which all the countless animal sacrifices had pointed.
That long-awaited sacrifice would be offered the next day, Friday, while countless thousands of lambs were again being sacrificed on the Passover.
At that very time, God offered His sacrifice.
He poured out His wrath against sinners on an innocent substitute. John 1:29
29 The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!
Jesus was the perfect, final, and complete sacrifice for sin, making this the last Passover approved by God.
Symbolic animal sacrifices pointing to the true sacrifice were no longer necessary once the Savior had been offered.
The First Communion (vv19-20)
The First Communion (vv19-20)
It is impossible to overstate the monumental change these few simple phrases introduce.
Christ’s words signaled the end of the Old Covenant, with its social, ceremonial, dietary, and Sabbath laws, and installed the New Covenant.
With these words, Jesus marked the end of all the rituals and sacrifices, the priesthood, the holy place, and the Holy of Holies, the curtain of which God would soon split from top to bottom, throwing it wide open Mark 15:38.
38 And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom.
All that the Old Covenant symbolism pointed toward would be fulfilled in the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Sin can only be forgiven when satisfactory payment to God in the form of the death of the perfect sacrifice has been rendered.
The Lord Jesus’ death was that payment.
As the infinite God incarnate, He was actually able to bear the sins of and suffer God’s wrath for those sins on behalf of all who would ever believe, rescuing them from divine judgment by fully satisfying the demands of God’s justice.
Regular observance of the Lord’s Supper is to be a constant reminder to Christians of the Lamb of God, chosen by God, sacrificed for sinners, whose death satisfied the demands of God’s justice, and whose life was poured out on our behalf so that our sins can be fully and forever forgiven
Why Did Jesus do This? John 13:1.
Why Did Jesus do This? John 13:1.
1 Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.
15 And he said to them, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.
Jesus truly loved His disciples, we spent every moment He could with them.
He loved them.
He loved us, even before we were ever born He loved us enough to die for us.
The love that He had for us is what allowed Him to suffer and die in the most horrible way possible, all because He loved us.
The Father loved us enough to turn His back on His Son and pour out His Holy and Righteous Wrath on Him so we did not have to take it.