The Easter Message

The Bible is very clear, mankind cannot ever behave in a way that satisfies the holy God.  We have all sinned at times and have rejected God’s rule in our lives. So what hope have we?  Our only hope is not in our religious activities but that Jesus died as our substitute, taking the penalty for our sin.

The Old Testament

The Old Testament foreshadows the coming of Christ and teaches that it is he who will pay the price for our sin.  God’s Messiah, who will come while the temple was still standing, would be God’s suffering servant.  Isaiah wrote about what the Messiah would achieve 700 years before Jesus:

“Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” Isaiah 53:4-6

This prophecy directly describes God’s Messiah taking our sins upon Himself.

This substitution was demonstrated at Yom Kippur, the Israelite Day of Atonement that God ordered to be enacted every year when a goat was pictured as taking the sins of God’s people. Our word ‘atonement’ literally means being made ‘at one with’ Almighty God! Obviously an animal cannot do this or be responsible for our sin, this enactment looked forward to the day when God himself would become our substitute:

“When Aaron has finished making atonement for the Most Holy Place, the tent of meeting and the altar, he shall bring forward the live goat. He is to lay both hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the wickedness and rebellion of the Israelites—all their sins - and put them on the goat’s head. He shall send the goat away into the wilderness…” Leviticus 16:20-2

When the Israelites had been subjugated as slaves in Egypt for 400 years, God himself set out to free his people through Moses.  The last of the ten plagues was the death of the Egyptian firstborn. The Israelites were told to bring a passover lamb into their family and to stop eating any yeast, that represented sin, for seven days before the great day. They then had to sacrifice this lamb and place its blood on the doorposts and lintels of their homes. The angel of death passed over those homes who were protected by the blood or death of the Passover Lamb:

“The animals you choose must be year-old males without defect… Take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the doorframes… When I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt.” Exodus 12:5-7, 13

This message is repeated throughout the Bible, the blood of the Lamb is our protection.

The New Testament

The Passover Lamb prefigures Jesus, whose blood protects us from God’s judgment.  This is the message that Christ’s apostles repeatedly emphasise in the New Testament.  Paul alludes to the Passover when he wrote:

“Get rid of the old yeast, so that you may be a new unleavened batch—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.” 1 Corinthians 5:7

John the Baptist introduced Jesus to his followers with significant words, he described Jesus as the ultimate sacrificial Lamb of God:

“Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” John 1:29

Jesus himself often taught that the ultimate reason he had come was to give his life as a ransom for others.  His death would enable people of all ages to become acceptable to God.

“The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Matthew 20:28

The repeated message of Christ’s apostles was that Jesus died as our substitute, because of his love for us, so that our sin could be forgiven:

“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8

This was a repeated message, Jesus took on our sins so we could receive the gift of God’s righteousness.:

“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” 2 Corinthians 5:21

The reason there was darkness for three hours when Jesus died was to show God’s sorrow and hatred of sin as Christ became a curse for us when he was crucified:

“Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole.’” Galatians 3:13

This has always been the Christian message, that Jesus bore our sins on the cross.  Thus Peter wrote:

“He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; ‘by his wounds you have been healed.’” 1 Peter 2:24

This echoes Isaiah 53, which tells of Christ’s future substitutionary atonement.

Peter keeps stressing that God’s Messiah, his Righteous One, would come to die for us who are naturally unrighteous in God’s eyes.

“For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.” 1 Peter 3:18

This teaching must never be overlooked, Jesus, God’s Christ or Messiah, died in our place to reconcile us to God.  He bore all the sins of his people once and for all.

“So Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many . . .” Hebrews 9:28

The death of Jesus can have a profound effect on those who accept what he has done for us.  We sinful people have been given the status of being righteous in God’s eyes.  It was this realisation that changed the Pharisee Saul into the apostle Paul so he could write:

“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile.  For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: ‘The righteous will live by faith.’” Romans 1:16-17

The Old Testament foreshadows Jesus as the sacrificial Lamb, and the New Testament confirms that He took our sins upon Himself. His death on the cross was a substitution for our innate rejection of God’s rule in our lives, so fulfilling God’s plan of redemption. Anyone can experience God’s forgiveness and empowerment today if they turn back to God, that is to repent, to rethink the direction of our lives, and follow the one God who has revealed himself in his Son:

“Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.” John 1:12

Forgiveness is not automatic, it is not ours because we are members of a Christian society, a church or a Christian family, God demands a personal response of lifelong repentance from every individual.

BVP