LifeLink Devotional

Thursday, April 09, 2020

For me personally, the most significant aspect of studying the Bible is discovering the fulfillment of the Old testament symbols in the New Testament. One such symbol is the Passover. Do you remember the story from Exodus 22?

God is about to set the Israelites free from slavery to the Egyptian nation. The final plague upon Pharaoh and his people would be the death of the firstborn children in the land. This would include the Israelites, except for God’s provision of mercy. If any household sacrificed a lamb, and spread the blood of that lamb on the doorposts of their house, the angel of death would pass over that house and the firstborn child would be saved.

The timing of the death of Jesus was not coincidental. Jesus was crucified at the time of the killing of the Lambs for the Passover celebration in Jerusalem. Christ became the Passover Lamb, as noted by the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 5:7.

“For Christ our Passover lamb has been sacrificed”

The innocent Lamb was slain for our sins, so that we might be rescued from certain death.

The sixth statement of Jesus from the cross is His recognition that his suffering is over and his task is completed. He has sufficiently carried the weight of man’s sin and sacrificially suffered the wrath of God against that sin. He cries out,

“It is finished.” John 19:30

What was finished? The redemption of sinful mankind. The sin that had separated every human being from eternal relationship with God could now be removed as a barrier by faith in the “FINISHED” work of Jesus on the cross. Mankind could now, by faith, become eternal children of God, never to be separated from Him again. Sin no longer has any power to separate because the ONE who paid for that sin is eternally accepted and restored to the throne as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. By faith in Jesus Christ, we are brought into a loving and eternal relationship with God, and nothing can ever separate us from Him.

What was finished? My redemption and reconciliation to God. Jesus did it! The Once-For-All Passover Lamb has been slain. His blood has been applied to my life. Death has been conquered. IT IS FINISHED!

Here are some verses to encourage you.

Psalm 109:26-27 Help me, O LORD my God! Save me according to your steadfast love! Let them know that this is your hand; you, O LORD, have done it!

Psalm 22:30-31 It shall be told of the Lord to the coming generation; they shall come and proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn, that he has done it.

1 Corinthians 15:54-57 “Death is swallowed up in victory.”  “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Romans 8:31-39  What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.  For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Pastor John