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GOOD NEWS FROM THE REDEEMER
November 11, 2000 RADIO MESSAGE #345
Christ in
Exodus #40
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(Continued from preceding message.)XXIV. The Passover lamb was to be eaten in a state of preparedness (v.11) - because the moment when they would be called to depart Egypt was at hand. They therefore were to eat "with a belt on your waist, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. So you shall eat it in haste." Christ is to be eaten in a state of preparedness - because the moment when He calls His people to depart this world is at hand (Matthew 24:42). They are to gird their waists with truth (Ephesians 6:14), shod their feet with the gospel (Ephesians 6:15), take in their hands the staff of "sojourners and pilgrims" (as Christians are called in 1 Peter 2:11) -- and partake of Christ now!
XXV. "You shall let none of it remain until morning" (v.10). The entire lamb was to be eaten at one sitting.
Christ is to be eaten in His entirety. He cannot be divided (1 Corinthians 1:13). He is not a buffet from which one may choose one part but decline another. He must be received as both God and man; as both Lord and Savior; and in all His mediatorial offices, Prophet and Priest and King; as both Alpha and Omega - and every thing between; "all in all."XXVI. Passover was to be memorialized (v.14): "this day shall be to you a memorial; and you shall keep it as a feast to the LORD throughout your generations. You shall keep it as a feast by an everlasting ordinance." Passover is memorialized in a two-fold manner through Christ its antitype.
The Passover instituted in Egypt was a type of Christ, who is therefore its antitype (Colossians 2:16f). All that comprised Passover is now found in Him, and no longer in it. All that was required concerning it is now directed to Him, and no longer to it.
1. Passover is memorialized through living the Christian life as festival of praise for what Christ has done as the Passover Lamb. This is the meaning of Paul the apostle's admonition in 1 Corinthians 5:7f: "For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast ...." In this spiritual manner, Christians are to fulfill the requirement regarding the Passover to "keep it as a feast by an everlasting ordinance."
2. Passover is memorialized through observing the Lord's Supper. Christ, in obedience to the command of verse 14, observed Passover on the night before His death as the Passover Lamb (Matthew 26:17-30). Toward the end the Passover meal (vv.26ff), Christ blessed the Passover bread and gave it to His disciples to eat as the symbol of His body. Then He blessed the cup of Passover wine (the third cup of wine, called the "cup of blessing" in 1 Corinthians 10:16) and gave it to His disciples to drink as the symbol of His "blood of the new covenant." Thusly He instituted the Lord's Supper out of the Passover meal. And He thereby replaced the Old Covenant meal which looked forward to His death with that of the New Covenant which looks backward to His deat! h. And He memorialized the Lord's Supper in the same manner in which the Passover meal had been memorialized (1 Corinthians 11:24, 25): "do this in remembrance of Me." Paul the apostle emphasizes the memorial aspect of the Lord's Supper by adding, "For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death till He comes."
XXVII. Fathers were to instruct their children regarding this ceremony (vv.26f). "And it shall be, when your children say to you, 'What do you mean by this service?' that you shall say, 'It is the Passover sacrifice of the LORD, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt when He struck the Egyptians and delivered our households.'"
Fathers today are to instruct their children regarding Christ the Passover. It may be that when your children observe Christians observing the Lord's Supper, or when they observe Christians living their lives as a festival of praise to Christ, they may ask, "What do you mean by this service?" Teach them that Christ is the Christian's Passover, and how He fulfilled all that it typified in Old Testament times. Exhort them to find refuge in His blood, and to find all their spiritual sustenance in Him, so that God will pass over them in the day of judgment.
(To be continued.)