So the 4 days of inspection of the lamb are over. Jewish families have chosen their lamb that is without blemish for the sacrifice and now are ready to prepare for the Passover meal. At this same time Jesus himself would be preparing to partake of the meal with His disciples. They would take the 1st cup of Consecration and then the 2nd cup of Plagues and finally it would be during the 3rd cup of the Passover meal, the cup of Redemption, that Jesus would identify with and thus set the stage for what we now know as The Lord’s Supper. This third cup would finally be fulfilled in His blood, which would be the redemption to all who believed and thus applied His blood by faith to the doorposts of their hearts. This would be the New Covenant that God would make, not like He made in Egypt all those years ago. As the third cup is passed to the disciples the Lord would then hold up the fourth and final cup, the cup of Hallel or Praise, and announce that He would not drink this cup until He would drink it anew in the Kingdom with us. The Passover had now begun and Jewish families were sitting down to their Seder meals. It was during this time that Jesus would have been praying in the garden for the Father’s will and during the same dark hour when Judas would betray Him and have Him arrested. During the next few hours, Jewish families would be remembering what God had done for them as they partook of the unblemished sacrificial lamb, while Pilate would now declare that he finds no fault in Jesus (the final Passover lamb). For according to Exodus 12:5 the Passover lambs had to be without spot or blemish. It would now begin on this day over 2000 years ago that our final Passover lamb would be declared spotless and would begin His journey to Calvary to offer His life as their Lamb. Jewish families would also be hiding the Afikomen (the broken piece of bread wrapped in a linen cloth) that would be hid away until the THIRD cup. This would all happen as Christ Himself offered His body, at which time He would be wrapped in linen cloth and buried (hidden away) for THREE days.
There is no longer any need to sacrifice a lamb on Passover as the perfect, final sacrifice was made on Calvary. Now the Passover is to be kept only in remembrance of Christ and how God has once again fulfilled His promises to His children and has set them free from the bondage of sin and the eternal judgement of death. For the Word tells us in 1 Cor 15….For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, after that those who are Christ’s at His coming, then comes the end, when He hands over the kingdom to the God and Father, when He has abolished all rule and all authority and power. For He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet. The last enemy that will be abolished is death. Just as the 10th and last plague of Egypt brought death to the firstborn, so Christ is the firstborn of the first fruits who will be passed over when the final, eternal death comes and that last enemy is abolished. Oh that we would begin today by accepting and remembering that Jesus is our perfect sacrificial lamb and apply His blood to the doorpost of our lives!
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