The Lamb of God

who takes away the sin of the world!

This is the third post from Chapter 4 of Friends With God: Living The Life Of Jesus In Us.

In the second post we examined the historical and scriptural context of the bread and wine, and why it is used to symbolize the body and blood of Christ.

The Passover Lamb Of God

John the Baptist called Jesus the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! (John 1:29)

And Paul tells us that Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us. (1Cor 5:7)

As Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us, you would have to wonder why any Christian would not keep the Passover? It’s about as Christian as any event could possibly be!

Jesus is also seen as a lamb sacrificed for us in Acts 8:32 and 1Peter 1:19.

This image of Jesus being the slain Passover lamb is reiterated 28 times throughout the Book of Revelation.

To therefore remove the ‘taking of the bread and wine’ from the context of the Passover is to ignore the rich historical and prophetic meaning of this annual festival, and to totally ignore the sacrificial role of Christ as portrayed in scripture.

However, while Christ’s death at Passover is very important, it’s just the beginning of the sequence of events in God’s plan.

By ignoring the Passover you also ignore all the other festivals that also symbolize the rest of the plan of God. Keeping the Christian Passover is only the first essential step that God expects of us, there is much more.  

The Family Of God

While partaking of the body and blood of Christ through keeping the Christian Passover is very important, it is only the first essential step that God expects of us. There is much more portrayed in the rest of God’s Holy Days.  

Unfortunately, focusing on “communion”, in having it on a weekly or monthly basis, actually undermines the richness and complexity and great meaning of everything else that God has done for us. God had created a plan and structure for the entire year of worship of him. Passover is only the beginning, it’s not the end of God’s plan!

By having the “communion” bread and wine symbols weekly or monthly you ignore the fact that Passover is meant to be a family meal, in the family home, not a symbolic ritual conducted in a liturgical setting.

Unfortunately, by making “communion” a regular religious ritual, (which must be undertaken by a religious leader presiding and handing out the bread and wine) it serves to create and perpetuate an authoritarian governmental structure within the Church.

Such an authoritarian structure for the Church is the exact opposite of what Christ commanded his followers to adopt. (Matt 20:25-28, Mark 10:41-45, Luke 22:25-26)

This important subject of how God expects the Church to be structured, is addressed in Chapter 5 of Friends with God: “God’s Government Of Love”, which will be serialized on this Substack over the next few months.

However, by Christians keeping the annual Passover (which includes the commemoration of the institution of the New Covenant) as a family meal rather than a ritualistic formal church ceremony, it emphasises the Family relationship that God the Father and Jesus Christ our brother desire to have with us. The role of the family as the foundation of society and of the church is therefore reinforced by keeping the Passover as an annual family meal.

In addition, the role of the Church is put in its rightful place of supporting the family structure, as is stated in the fifth commandment:  

Honour your father and your mother, as the Lord your God commanded you, that your days may be long, and that it may go well with you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. (Deut 5:16)

By parents, as leaders of their families, being central players in the commemoration of the Passover, God has ensured that the family unit is supported as the foundational structure in worship of him. This is emphasised by Christ when he said:

For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. (Matt 18:20)

The great value and importance therefore of keeping the Passover on an annual basis is such that to keep it any other way is of comparatively little value in truly worshiping God, for it is not following the commandments of God, but of men:

But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. (Matt 15:9) 

The Festivals Commanded By God and Jesus For Us To Follow

Passover is the first of eight festivals of God given to Israel:

these are the feasts of the Lord, which you shall proclaim to be holy convocations, even these are my feasts. (Lev 23:2)

While God initially gave his festivals to Israel, they were also kept by Christ and the Apostles. And after the Resurrection of Christ the entire Church continued to keep these festivals. (Matt 26:17-20, Mark 14:12-17, Luke 22:7-13, Act 2:1-4, 1Cor 5-7-8) Take the time to read these verses, they are very clear.

From this we can see that these great festivals of God were never done away with by any requirements or directives in the New Testament. We should also not change the scriptural terms for them, such as calling the Passover “the last supper”, or calling the bread and wine “communion”. These unscriptural terms just undermine the God-given status and purpose of God’s commands.

While these were harvest festivals in ancient Israel, they are Christian in every way, as they all provide various details of the many spiritual aspects of God’s plan for harvesting people unto eternal life. (John 4:34-38)

As discussed in the previous post, Christ is the first sheaf of the harvest, while Christians are the rest of the harvest. (Lev 23:9-14, Rom 8:23, Rom 16:5, 1Cor 15:20-23, James 1:18, Rev 14:4)

As the plan of God is enacted within our individual lives, we produce the fruits of the Spirit, as pictured by these harvest festivals.

All of this vital Christian understanding, and much more, is revealed through his festivals, which God gave to Israel. However, we as individual Christians are able to keep these festivals with a deeper and more profound understanding of their purpose than even the prophets of physical Israel were ever given:

For truly, I say to you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it. (Matt 13:17)

These God-given festivals spell out that living God’s way of life is a process of growth, not merely a one-off event, such as having a penalty paid on our behalf, as is discussed in the first post in this series.

A detailed summary of these festivals has been provided in previous posts, including how they picture many and various aspects of the life and work of Jesus for us, both now and in the future.

By annually going through the memorialization of these festivals we remind ourselves of the great events, of both the New Covenant and the Old Covenant, which God has initiated in order to explain to us his great plan and purpose for all mankind.

The Beginning Of God’s Festivals

By establishing the New Covenant at the Passover, Christ showed us its spiritual meaning. It is the first festival, and begins God’s plan for mankind, both in the New and Old Covenants. The release from the bondage of slavery parallels the release from the bondage of sin. (John 8:34-35)

It is the beginning of how God is working with us. To neglect keeping the Passover, as shown to us in Jesus’ example, is to try to begin a relationship with God on your own terms rather than on God’s terms.

Taking of the Bread and Wine should not be removed from this broader context in which it was initiated. To teach people to do so is to deceive them and to teach them to show disdain and contempt toward God’s revealed word, and only to steal and kill and destroy. (John 10:10)

Jesus warned us not to be deceived by people preaching that he is the Christ:

And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name, saying I am Christ; and shall deceive many. (Matt 24:4-5)

Jesus established the New Covenant in the specific scriptural and historical context of the Passover. To worship God outside of the context of what he revealed is to risk worshiping God in vain. (Matt 15:9, Mark 7:7) To change God’s word in this way is to deceive people and to teach the commandments of men rather than the commandments of God.

God’s festivals are His appointed times, when we are invited to rejoice with Jesus Christ and God the Father, and to learn the elements of God’s plan for creating in all mankind the ability to come into the Family of God.

For preachers to change this commanded annual reiteration of the New Covenant into a more frequent event, is to undermine its significance rather than to enhance it.

We need to keep God’s commandments, and to do so in the way he tells us:

If you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love. (John 15:10)

In the next post we will examine the role of animal sacrifices in both the Old and New Covenants, and how this is used as an analogy for the sacrifice of Christ.