Jesus as the Passover Lamb: Fulfilling Prophecy in Jerusalem

Jesus arrived in Bethany six days before the Passover (John 12:1). Everything in Israel comes to a halt for the Passover festival. During Jesus' time, Jerusalem's population grew from one million to two and a half million, with pilgrims from around the world. The Lord waited in Bethany until four days before Passover, presenting Himself to the Jewish people as the Passover lamb on the tenth day of Nisan, in fulfillment of Moses' command.

³Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each man is to take a lamb for his family, one for each household. ⁴If any household is too small for a whole lamb, they must share one with their nearest neighbor, having taken into account the number of people there is. You are to determine the amount of lamb needed in accordance with what each person will eat. ⁵The animals you choose must be year-old males without defect, and you may take them from the sheep or the goats. ⁶Take care of them until the fourteenth day of the month, when all the people of the community of Israel must slaughter them at twilight (Exodus 12:3-6; emphasis added).

God directed the Jewish people to select a pure, spotless lamb for each household on the tenth day of the month and keep it until the fourteenth day. During these four days, the lamb was examined to determine its worthiness as a substitute for the family. When Israel was enslaved in Egypt, God declared that He would judge the Egyptians for refusing to release Israel from slavery. The Lord told the Israelites that a destroying angel would pass through Egypt, and judgment would be withheld from the Israelite homes if the blood of a substitute lamb was on the doorposts and lintel (Exodus 12:12-14). If the angel saw no sacrificial lamb's blood on the door, he would take the lives of every firstborn. The blood served as a sign that a substitutionary, sacrificial lamb had been slain for the house's inhabitants.

As Israelite families celebrated that first Passover, freeing them from Pharaoh and Egypt each year, they remembered that the blood of the sacrificed lamb protected them from judgment (Hebrews 11:28). It is intriguing to think that the Messiah would undergo four days of scrutiny by the religious elders and the people before being crucified as the Passover Lamb to save them from Satan's and sin's captivity. Jesus was crucified at the same time the Passover lambs were sacrificed for Passover.

The blood of an innocent lamb had to be shed for the Israelites to leave Egypt, the land of slavery. In the New Testament, the writer of Hebrews states, "In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness" (Hebrews 9:22). The lamb was to be pure, without spot or defect. Of course, this was a shadow picture of what God would do when Jesus the Messiah came. His blood would make atonement for all who trust His sacrificial death to deliver them from slavery to sin and Pharaoh/Satan. In God's plan, the Messiah is the One slain before the foundation of the world (Revelation 13:8), the Lamb of God, innocent, pure, and faultless. Thank God for His deliverance! Keith Thomas

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Shortened from the series on the Book of Luke, study 52. The King Comes to His Temple.