Passover and Good Friday

 

One of the more ruinous consequences of the popular notion in much of Christendom is the Church has replaced Israel. ‘Ruinous’ because Satan has robbed the Church of much of its power to bring the gospel message to the whole world.

 

I don’t know what advocates of that Satanic-inspired idea do with the 11^th chapter of Romans, or the prophecies of Ezekiel, or the Revelation of Jesus to the apostle John (to name only a few of the texts on the subject in God's eternal word) – I don’t know what they do with them, other than either ignore them or engage in some fancy theological gymnastics to twist the plain words of Scripture.

 

But I digress.

 

The reason I thought of the widely accepted heresy of ‘The Church has Replaced Israel’ is because today is Passover. On this day, at sundown 2000 years ago, the Lord Jesus sat at a Passover table with His twelve Jewish apostles to commemorate what God did for Israel as recorded in those early chapters of Exodus.

 

If it’s been a while since you’ve read Exodus, I hope you will turn to the first 12 chapters of that Jewish book and read the story yourself. If nothing else, read the 12^th chapter which speaks specifically of when the Angel of Death ‘passed over’ the homes painted with the blood of the sacrificial animal – blood painted on the lintel and two doorposts of their homes.

 

See the scene in your mind’s eye: Lintel and two doorposts – making the sign of a cross with the sacrificial blood.

 

How can the Church expect to really understand Good Friday without a working knowledge of the Passover and Israel’s subsequent Exodus from Egyptian bondage? Indeed, how can Christians really understand ANY of the New Testament without a working knowledge of the Old Testament?

 

And I wonder, does the average person in the pulpit and in the pew know that the New Testament writes quote or allude to the Old Testament nearly 900 times?

 

Nine-hundred times.

 

God’s rescue of Israel during the Passover is an illustration of an even more powerful freedom gained for us on the Good Friday cross – a rescue from the bondage to sin, death, and the powers of darkness.

 

The Jewish apostle Paul understood the link, which is why he wrote to the Christians at Colossae: “For He [the Father] rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” (Colossians 1:13-14)

 

It’s why he wrote to the Roman Christians: “For whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, so that through perseverance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.” (Romans 15:4) And it’s why he wrote to the Corinthians, “Christ our Passover has been crucified” (1 Corinthians 5:7).

 

Today Jews around the world will sit at a Passover table and recount the history of Israel’s freedom from Egyptian bondage. And it remains a tragedy to the Church that Satan has been so successful in disconnecting the Old Testament from the New in the minds of so much of the Body of Christ. If he had not been so successful, then more Christians would also be sitting at a table to celebrate not only Israel’s freedom from Egypt, but also their own freedom from sin, death, and the devil which Jesus – the sacrificial Lamb of God – secured for us on Good Friday.

And so, to all who read this – Jew and Christian – may you and your family have a blessed Passover. Amen.