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sermonette: Passover and the Blood of Jesus Christ

Spiritual Completion and Eternal Life
David C. Grabbe
Given 13-Apr-19; Sermon #1482s; 18 minutes

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When God recorded the life of His Son, he gave us more than a simple story. He provided 4 testimonies, each from a different vantage point, each emphasizing unique aspects, each complementing the others. You might remember from John's sermons on the four views of Christ, that when the gospels are compared with the four living creatures found in Revelation 4, the dominant theme of each gospel corresponds to one of the creatures. The first living creature was like a lion, and in the book of Matthew, we see lion-like qualities of Christ's life. In Matthew, the king of kings is represented by the king of beasts. The second creature was like a calf or an ox, and Mark's gospel emphasizes Christ's tireless work. Jesus was like an ox that toils day by by grinding day in uncomplaining service to its master. The third creature was like a man, and Luke's gospel portrays Jesus of the universal man to whom everyone can relate, Israelite and Jew. He was compassionate and he was moved by the plight of the individual. The 4th creature was like an eagle, and in the book of John, we see Christ's ascendants and divinity as something from the heavens. Now, this same principle of multiple facets is also true of the blood of Jesus Christ. Every professing Christian knows that Christ's blood covers sins. Yet many basically stop there, not recognizing that His blood has numerous aspects that all complement each other. Today we will take a brief look at what God has to say about blood, and so when we drink of the cup at Passover, we can drink with understanding and do appreciation, not only of what the Father and the Son have already done, but what they are continuing to do. We'll begin today in Genesis chapter 9. To lay the groundwork for understanding the symbol of blood. Please turn with me to Genesis chapter 9. Beginning in verse 3. God says every moving, moving thing that lives shall be food for you. I have given you all things even as the green herbs. Verse 4, but you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is its blood. This took place shortly after Noah emerged from the ark. As the world was beginning again, God reiterated this principle that blood symbolizes life. In biblical usage, blood is essentially synonymous with life, and I'll give you a couple more places where God repeats this. In Leviticus 17:11, God says, the life of the flesh is in the blood. And a few verses later in Leviticus 17:14, he says that blood is the life of all flesh. Its blood stains its life. Now because blood represents life, we can understand why blood can picture the remission of sins. We know the wages of sin is death, meaning a death is required to satisfy the legal debt of sin. For some sins, God allowed the life blood of an animal to be given in exchange for the life of the sinner. Of course, the life of an animal is not actually worth the life of a human being, but the sin offering is useful in pointing to the work and the worthiness of the savior. And yet the essential symbol of blood is that it represents life, and sometimes it symbolizes the payments for sin. Following on this, blood can represent life even after biological death. For instance, Deuteronomy 12:23 instructs, only be sure that you do not eat the blood, for the blood is the life. You may not eat the life with the meat. In an animal that's eaten, the physical life has ended. The heart is stopped, and the animal is cut into pieces. And yet God says that the blood is still that animal's life. And in this way, blood serves as a record of the life that is no more, and he commands us to treat the blood of animals with respect because he values life, and this is why A land can become polluted through bloodshed. The land holds the record of lives that were taken in violence, and only justice will give atonement for the land. God told Cain that the blood of Abel cried out to him. Blood speaks to God. It has significance even after death. Now a second symbolic usage of blood is for sealing a covenant. And in this usage, blood represents a life given as a pledge of faithfulness. God's covenant with Israel was sealed with blood, as we will see in Exodus chapter 24. Exodus 24. Beginning in verse 5. He says that he sent young men of the children of Israel who offered burnt offerings and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen to the Lord. And Moses took half the blood and put it in basins, and half the blood he sprinkled on the altar. Then he took the book of the covenants and read it in the hearing of the people, and they said all that the Lord has said we will do and be obedient. In verse 8, and Moses took the blood, sprinkled it on the people, and said, This is the blood of the covenant which the Lord has made with you according to all these words. The 3 previous chapters contain the basic covenant beginning with the 10 Commandments, and here Moses seals the covenant with blood. The oxen used were substitutionary sacrifices standing in the place of Israel, representing lifeblood given in a pledge of faithfulness. Moses sprinkled blood on the people, and they accepted their obligation to obey the terms of the covenants. Because the blood of the oxen symbolized their own lifeblood. There is a noteworthy detail here. The blood of the covenant in verse eight came. From burnt offerings and peace offerings as it says in verse 5. And if you remember the series on the sacrifices, the burnt offering pictures, wholehearted dedication and devotion to God. It portrays one completely consumed in service to him. The peace offering symbolizes that the relationship between God and the offer is on good terms, such that there is fellowship, peace, and abundance. And so Israel's covenant with God was sealed with blood that declared the Israelites were committing themselves wholeheartedly to him, and that they had peaceful fellowship with him that they were promising to continue. But notice that there is a conspicuous absence of a sin offering here. Israel did not receive instruction for sin offerings until after they had made the covenant. One thing this teaches us is that God addresses sin after he establishes the covenant. In other words, remission of sin, even in type, such as for the Israelites, comes because of the covenant rather than before it. This might seem unusual this order, but it's actually a significant part of Passover. The Hebrew word for Passover means an exemption. It means to pass by without mention or notice. Ezekiel 20 shows that many of the Israelites in Egypt were unrepentant idolaters, and God nearly destroyed the nation then and there. But God passed over one nation of idolaters. The Israelites and destroyed another nation of idolaters, the Egyptians, because of his faithfulness to his covenant with Abraham. He made an exemption in order to bring Israel out of Egypt and into a covenant within which sins could be dealt with. Israel needed that law that was added because of transgressions, because they did not have the faith of Abraham. Please turn with me to Matthew chapter 26, where Jesus speaks of his blood. On Passover. Matthew 26 Beginning in verse 27. Then he took the cup and gave thanks, and gave it to them saying, drink from it all of you. Verse 28, for this is my blood of the New Covenant, which is shed for many, for the remission of sins. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and even Paul in I Corinthians all say the cup of wine is the blood of the covenant. Matthew is the odd one out, and that he adds that the blood also gives remission of sins. Notice though that the remission of sins does not stand on its own. It's an aspect of the covenant. This took place even before Christ became the sin offering. The covenant provides for the remission of sins, but it includes more. God also promises that He will put his law in our minds and write it on our hearts. He assures us that He will be our God and we will be His people, and he says that we will know Him. On Christ's final prayer on Passover there in John 17, he brings up that promise of knowing the Father and Him. Those making the covenant are brought into a relationship, a fellowship, a knowledge of God far beyond what ancient Israel ever had. Jesus calls this relationship eternal life. It's a life of abundance, foremost spiritual, that continues past the grave in the resurrection of the dead. For us the Passover observance is an annual memorial of Christ's death that sealed the covenant as well as a grateful recognition of the spiritual abundance and hope that we have because of God's faithfulness. It includes forgiveness, but forgiveness is part of a much larger picture. Jesus Christ's blood is the divine pledge, the guarantee that he and the Father have put forward to prove their seriousness. When we drink of the cup, we remember and acknowledge their unstoppable commitment to this covenant, and we also reaffirm our devotion to them in return. The covenant with Israel was sealed through the sprinkling of blood on a representative portion of the people. The blood was a symbol that applied externally, and it came from animals. However, the blood of the New Covenants is the lifeblood of God in the flesh, and it is ingested going all the way into us. And the blood of the New Covenant is received by individuals rather than by a mass of people, even as God's calling is individual, so also with the covenant individual, and it changes us internally because of the quality of the blood. In the closing Benediction in the book of Hebrews, God inspired the author to write confident and uplifting words regarding the blood of Christ. Please turneth me to Hebrews chapter 13. Right at the end of the book. Hebrews 13 verses 20-21. Says now may the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great shepherd of the sheep. Notice this, through the blood of the everlasting covenants, make you complete. In every good work to do his will, working in you what is well pleasing in his sights through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. The blood of the everlasting covenants is the vehicle by which God will make us complete. That completion corresponds with our final redemption, which will take place at Christ's return when we will be completely in God's image with His laws inscribed on our hearts and an intimate experiential knowledge of the Father and the Son. We will be brought to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. He gave His blood as a rock solid guarantee that he and the Father will carry out this extraordinary purpose in us, a purpose that goes beyond forgiveness and culminates in spiritual completion. The Passover wine is a vivid token of God's unswerving commitment to make us complete. Paul asked rhetorically in Romans 8:32, He who did not spare his own son, but delivered him up for us all, How shall he not with him also freely give us all things? God has already given the most precious blood that has ever pumped through human veins. He will certainly supply whatever else that we need. However, we should also keep in mind that when we drink of the cup, we also accept whatever God requires for us to become complete. In this regard, Hebrews 10 warned strongly against counting the blood of the covenants, a common thing. Those words are part of the most solemn admonition in the Bible, and the warning has to do with not valuing the blood of the covenant. The covenant is a framework in which God completes us spiritually. Forgiveness is part of the covenant because we need that throughout this process. But if we sin willfully, we terminate the covenant that provides access to the blood of forgiveness, and without that we die in our sins. Now there is a third aspect of Christ's blood we will consider today. His blood is the only blood that God allows us to consume, and indeed we must consume it, for it is the guarantee of eternal life. Please turn with me to John chapter 6. John 6 beginning in verse 53. Then Jesus said to them, most assuredly I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. For the third aspect is that drinking Christ's blood gives eternal life. God considers Christ's blood to still be life, it's eternal life, even though he died nearly 2000 years ago. If blood is his life and his life was perfect. His blood is a record of a sinless life, and thus his blood represents a supreme quality of life, a life without a single failure or a single miss of the mark. However, Christ's quality of life did not have to do with comfort or enviable phy physical circumstances. His was not an easy life, physically, emotionally, socially. His needs were provided for, but what made his life abundant was his connection with the Father. The father and he are one, and he looked forward to returning to the Father. The carnal man cannot appreciate that because his focus is on life under the sun. Becoming one with God does not motivate him or stir him to anything. The prayer in John 17 is just so many words on the page, because carnality does not cherish or seek to deepen that oneness, and yet that oneness, that peaceful fellowship is eternal life. When we partake of Christ's undefiled blood, we take in the flawless life that he lived, the life that was one with the most high God. If we are his, that blood begins to change us internally, and those changes become manifest in how we live. Jesus Christ pledged to make us complete, but we must not resist Him, and we must not neglect this great salvation. If we truly want that above the sun life, we have God's promise that you will make us complete and able to live as he lives. But if our thoughts are only under the sun, we are in danger of counting the blood of the covenant as a common thing. If we set our minds on earthly things at some point, the precious blood of infinite and eternal worth will mean less to us than something temporary, something of the flesh, something of the world. The remission of sins does not by itself give eternal life. Rather, eternal life comes through the ongoing covenantal relationship. And in partaking of the Passover, we commemorate abiding in God, and he in us, and the spiritual abundance that comes because of his faithfulness. Jesus Christ's blood has multiple facets, and they meet together in the wine of Passover.

DCG/aws/

 

 

Sermon Topics

False Gospels

Jesus Christ's Return

Life after Death

Repentance

Resurrection

The Gospel

The Kingdom of God