A Divine Exchange

He paid a debt He did not owe. I owed a debt I could not pay. 

This line from a song sums up the sacrifice the Lord Jesus did for each and every one of us at the cross of Calvary more than 2,000 years ago. 

As we celebrate the Lenten season this week, I wanted to write an article that would remind us of the sacrifice of Jesus, and also something that would encourage us to live our lives worthy of that sacrifice He made.

Why did God allow His Son to die, a horrible death on a cross at that, for us? The answer to this can be found in the bible, and I believe most people have heard this verse at least one time in their lives. John 3:16 says that 'For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.'

Love. Because God loves us so much. And because of that love, He sent His own Son to die in our stead, because we owed a debt we could not pay. He became the payment for our sins, so that if we believe in Him and ask Him to be Lord of our lives, then we receive eternal life.

In Israel, almost during the same time, they celebrate a feast called Passover. This feast commemorates how God delivered them from Egypt when they were in slavery for more than 400 years. God brought them out of Egypt by sending Moses as their leader. This story, if you'd like to know more, can be found in the book of Exodus 12. And this year 2018,  the Holy Week and Passover are exactly on the same dates.

So the Jewish people were in slavery for so long, they needed and asked for deliverance. So God sent Moses, and after several displays of God's power, He instructed them to slaughter a lamb that was a year old and without blemish, and they should sprinkle the blood on their doorposts, and on the lintel of their houses. 

This picture is to show you how they sprinkled the blood. So they Jewish people did as they were told, and that night, the angel of God passed through all the houses in Egypt, and all of the firstborn there, both men and animals, died. But in the Jewish camp, there was not one death, because the blood on their doorposts was to be a sign for the angel to 'pass over' that house, not bringing death. The blood sprinkled protected and covered them from death. And then, the king of Egypt drove them away, and hence, they left Egypt in haste, and they were finally delivered from bondage.

Today, Israel still celebrates the feast of Passover as a commemoration of the miraculous deliverance that God did for them during that time.

What has Passover got to do with the sacrifice of Jesus Christ then? In the New Testament, in the book of the gospel of John, in the first chapter, verse 9 talks about the apostle John exclaiming when he saw Jesus coming, said, 'Look! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!'

Remember that during the Passover in Egypt they slaughtered a lamb without blemish? Jesus Christ became the Passover lamb for each one of us. And it was during the feast of Passover that He died. In the 12th chapter of the same book, the first chapter says there were six days before the Feast of Passover began. In a series of events, Jesus started telling His disciples that He would soon leave them, and prepared them for what was to come. The disciples did not understand everything at that time, but after He rose from the dead, they remembered His words.

Before His death, He celebrates the Passover dinner with His disciples, and we have come to celebrate this as the Lord's supper, or better known as communion. Right after dinner, they went to the Garden of Gethsemane, where He prayed until sweat in the form of blood came out of Him, and then He was arrested, crucified and died for us.

So why did He have to die in such a cruel way? Why death on a cross? At that time the nation of Israel was under the Roman empire, and death on a cross was a very popular way of putting away bad elements of society. They would crucify criminals and put them on display in a place where a lot of people pass by, as a public spectacle, that way, people are discouraged to commit crimes. Cos if they did, then they'd die a horrible way.

So, the King of kings, the Son of God, the Messiah, who knew no sin, died on the cross, so that by the shedding of His blood, our sins could be washed away, and upon receiving Him into our lives, become a new creation. The whole story unfolds from chapter 12 until the 21st chapter, when He rose again and showed Himself to His disciples.

In essence, the Passover lamb in the Old Testament pointed towards the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. The lamb during that time was a substitute of the sacrifice. But since He already came, and He already paid the debt we could not pay, we can rejoice and thank Him for taking our place.

What a wonderful exchange indeed! A divine exchange. No amount of animal blood can ever wash away our sins, but by the blood of Jesus, our sins are washed away.

In the book of 2 Corinthians, chapter 5, starting from verse 17 says, 'This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun. And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to Himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to Him. For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, no longer counting people's sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. So we are Christ's ambassadors; God is making His appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, "Come back to God!" For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ.

What do we do then to thank Him for the sacrifice He made? The passage above says we are ambassadors, we are now to speak about His great love, about His sacrifice to other people, so that all who believe and receive Him will have eternal life.

We are to live our lives worthy of the sacrifice He did for us. We are to love one another, forgiving each other readily, helping each other whenever an opportunity arises. We are to thank Him for all the He has done, for all that He's doing, and for all that He is going to do.

I leave you with this encouragement then. The bible says that the greatest commandment is this: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all  your strength. And the second most important is this: Love your neighbor as yourself.

Let us celebrate this season by loving God and loving one another. Happy Passover!

PS:
By the way, did you know, the character made from sprinkling the blood on the doorposts and on the lintel is the same Hebrew alphabet character for life. Coincidence? I don't think so. When we receive Christ, we are given a new life. To life then! Or, as they say in Hebrew, L' chaim, which means, to life!

For more articles like this please go to this page.