Day 33 - Jesus Becomes our Passover Lamb

​Matthew 3:13-15
Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John. 14 But John tried to deter him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”
15 Jesus replied, “Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.” Then John consented.
(NIV)
               We have been talking about how the Lord Jesus Christ by fulfilling all righteousness was taking the Old Covenant to a new place.  The Old Covenant punished the wrongdoer.  But it did not restore to God what He had lost.  The Lord had created man to be in relationship with man, but sin stole this away.  The righteousness of the law punished sin, but it never restored the relationship that God desired.  Go back and read the first day of fulfilling all righteousness.  The law simply reminded people of their sin.  It did not bring them back to God.  Perhaps they obeyed to not suffer the consequence, but the law never established a loving relationship between God and man, nor could it because man was unable to follow the law.  But Jesus, representing mankind, followed it perfectly.  Yesterday, we saw how Jesus followed the law perfectly by becoming a priest.  The Old Testament priests were not really worthy to offer sacrifices, but Jesus was the perfect priest without sin making him worthy to offer our imperfect sacrifices to the Lord.
               But Jesus also became the sacrifice.  The first sacrifice the nation of Israel offered to the Lord was the Passover Lamb.  This sacrifice represented the personal sin.  Each family sacrificed their own lamb and everyone ate the lamb because everyone had sin.  But the sacrifice was not perfect.  True it was physically without blemish, but a lamb is never tempted to sin.  A lamb can be innocent, but not perfect.  Perfection drives away evil.  The Old Testament lamb was innocent like Adam, but the New Covenant lamb was perfect.  Jesus had been tempted but never sinned.  Jesus had overcome the devil.  He was perfect.  And He became our perfect Passover lamb. 
               In the Old Testament, on the 10th day of the month of Nisan, each family was to go and choose their Passover lamb to be slaughtered.  On that same day, Jesus, the Lamb of God came riding into Jerusalem on a donkey and the people of Israel went out to meet him in large crowds shouting Hosanna.  The perfect Passover lamb of God was chosen.  On the 14th day of Nisan which would start on our Thursday afternoon and go into Friday, the Passover lamb was to be slaughtered.  Jesus was arrested Thursday afternoon and died on Friday afternoon.  One the lamb was slaughtered, they were instructed to put some of its blood at the top and sides of the doorposts.  When Jesus died, His blood was on the top and side beams of that cross.  None of the lamb was to remain the next day.  And Jesus’ body was removed from the cross before the next day.  Jesus was our Passover Lamb. 
               The purpose of Passover was to get Pharaoh to let the nation of Israel go.  He didn’t want to do this because they were slaves to Egypt.  The Lord sent plagues to change Pharaoh’s mind and the last one was for the spirit of death to come over Egypt and take the life of every firstborn child in all of Egypt.  But when the Spirit of death saw the blood on the doorposts of Israel, it would pass over.  God honored this sacrifice. 
               The Bible says the wages of sin is death.  The Passover lamb saves us from the consequence of our sin which is death.  Our sins are forgiven.  When The Spirit of death Passover the homes of Israel that night, it was the forgiveness of God.  And if God honored that sacrifice of a dirty animal by unholy people by causing death to Passover them, how much more confident can we be that God will forgive our sins by the sacrifice of the perfect Passover Lamb.                
               No matter what you have done, when you confess your sins to the Lord, He is faithful to forgive them.  God has accepted the offering of Jesus, the Lamb of God, on our behalf.  Even though our sins deserve death, our faith in Jesus is that the spirit of death will pass over us.  Our sins are forgiven.   The Bible says not only are our sins forgiven, but the Lord forgets them.  When we stand before God one day, do not expect him to lay out all of your sin.  No, if you have accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior, this His death is the sacrifice that blotted out all of your sin.  And if you don’t believe it can be true, just remember, God did it for the nation of Israel when unholy people offered a dirty animal, how much more when Christ offers Himself on our behalf.
1 John 1:9
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
(NIV)