INTRODUCTION:
Sacrifice - first port of call - Collins Reference dictionary:
"Giving up something for the sake of something else."
Giving up something valuable. Involves great cost.
Sacrifice - parachute bloke.
POINTERS TO JESUS IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
I used to think reading the OT was on the same level on the boredom scale as watching every single episode of 'Dad's Army' back to back.
I love the way the whole Bible points to Jesus.
Bronze snake
Always good to have a visual aid and I couldn't find a bronze snake at such short notice, so I've brought some jelly snakes.
Numbers 21: 4 - 9
They travelled from Mount Hor along the route to the Red Sea, to go around Edom. But the people grew impatient on the way; they spoke against God and against Moses, and said, "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the desert? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!" Then the LORD sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, "We sinned when we spoke against the LORD and against you. Pray that the LORD will take the snakes away from us." So Moses prayed for the people. The LORD said to Moses, "Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live." So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, he lived.
(People were impatient and rebellious - sacked off with God. Grumbling about being brought out of Egypt (easy for us to criticise them, but we often do the same). Lack of faith - not honouring God. v 6 - seriousness of rebellion against God - death. While we were still sinners and totally didn't deserve it, God sent his Son). All that is needed is faith in both cases. They didn't need to do anything else, and neither do we. Salvation is available to all, but they needed to look in order to live.
John 3: 14 - 16
Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
We need to believe in Jesus.
2 Cor 5: 17 - 21
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
God doesn't count our sins against us. Death is what we deserve for our rebellion against God.
Snakes - serpent represents sin (see creation account).
Abraham tested
Genesis 22: 1 - 13
Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, "Abraham!"
"Here I am," he replied.
Then God said, "Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about." Early the next morning Abraham got up and saddled his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. He said to his servants, "Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you." Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together, Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, "Father?"
"Yes, my son?" Abraham replied.
"The fire and wood are here," Isaac said, "but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?"
Abraham answered, "God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son." And the two of them went on together.
When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son.
But the angel of the LORD called out to him from heaven, "Abraham! Abraham!"
"Here I am," he replied.
"Do not lay a hand on the boy," he said. "Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son."
Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son.
v2 - "Only son who you love"
v8 - "God will provide the lamb - prophetic
Hebrews 11: 17 - 19
By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had received the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, even though God had said to him, "It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned." Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead, and figuratively speaking, he did receive Isaac back from death.
Through Isaac, God had promised to produce the Jewish nation (God's chosen people). Similarly, through Jesus God had promised to reconcile both Jew and Gentile to him - wouldn't have been possible without the resurrection.
Abraham trusts God's promises (v5 - "we will come back")
Isaac experienced 'substitutionary salvation' - the lamb literally died in place of him.
John 3: 16
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
(I used to think 'What the heck does lamb of God mean?')
John 1: 29
The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, "Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!
Romans 3: 21 - 25
But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished - he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.
- Atonement (Reconciliation - 'At-one-ment)
"Scapegoat" - priest laid hands on it and transferred the guilt of the people to the animal. It was released into the wilderness to show the removal of guilt.
Isaiah 53: 7
He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.
Passover Lamb
Exodus 12: 1 - 13 and 21 - 23
The LORD said to Moses and Aaron in Egypt, "This month is to be for you the first month, the first month of your year. Tell 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. If any household is too small for a whole lamb, they must share one with their nearest neighbour, having taken into account the number of people there are. You are to determine the amount of lamb needed in accordance with what each person will eat. The animals you choose must be year-old males without defect, and you may take them from the sheep or the goats. Take care of them until the fourteenth day of the month, when all the people of the community of Israel must slaughter them at twilight. Then they are to take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the doorframes of the houses where they eat the lambs. That same night they are to eat the meat roasted over the fire, along with bitter herbs, and bread made without yeast. Do not eat the meat raw or cooked in water, but roast it over the fire - head, legs and inner parts. Do not leave any of it till morning; if some is left till morning, you must burn it. This is how you are to eat it: with your cloak tucked into your belt, your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand. Eat it in haste; it is the LORD's Passover.
"On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn - both men and animals - and I will bring judgement on all the gods of Egypt. I am the LORD. The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are; and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt....
Then Moses summoned all the elders of Israel and said to them, "Go at once and select the animals for your families and slaughter the Passover lamb. Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it into the blood in the basin and put some of the blood on the top and on both sides of the doorframe. Not one of you shall go out the door of his house until morning. When the LORD goes through the land to strike down the Egyptians, he will see the blood on the top and sides of the doorframe and will pass over that doorway, and he will not permit the destroyer to enter your houses and strike you down.
v5 - lambs without defect
v7 - wiped the blood on the door frames of their houses
v13 and v23 - will not be destroyed if wiped with the blood.
God brought them deliverance from Egypt - the land of slavery (start of the exodus). God has also brought us out of our own personal 'Egypt' - slavery to sin.
Passover celebrated with the feast of the unleavened bread.
"Passover" to pass over, to spare
Unleavened bread - no time to prepare it.
v46 - No bones broken (see Numb 9: 12) John 19: 36 - Jesus' bones weren't broken.
Passover demonstration at uni - really opened my eyes to the symbolism. (Roast lamb, unleavened bread (matzo), bitter herbs, minor condiments and 4 cups of wine).
Breaking of the matzo and hiding of the middle part for three hours etc.
1 Peter 1: 18 - 19
For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.
1 Cor 5: 7
Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast - as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.
Last supper was a passover meal.
Mark 14: 12 - 25
On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, when it was customary to sacrifice the Passover lamb, Jesus' disciples asked him, "Where do you want us to go and make preparations for you to eat the Passover?"
So he sent two of his disciples, telling them, "Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him. Say to the owner of the house he enters, 'The Teacher asks: Where is my guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?' He will show you a large upper room, furnished and ready. Make preparations for us there."
The disciples left, went into the city and found things just as Jesus had told them. So they prepared the Passover.
When evening came, Jesus arrived with the Twelve. While they were reclining at the table eating, he said, "I tell you the truth, one of you will betray me - one who is eating with me."
They were saddened, and one by one they said to him, "Surely not I?"
"It is one of the Twelve," he replied, "one who dips bread into the bowl with me. The Son of Man will go just as it is written about him. But woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man! It would be better for him if he had not been born."
While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, "Take it; this is my body."
Then he took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, and they all drank from it.
"This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many," he said to them. "I tell you the truth, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it anew in the kingdom of God."
Lord's supper (communion) came to replace passover for believers in the same way that baptism has come to replace circumcision.
Wipe the blood of Jesus on the door frame of your life.
The people wouldn't have bothered putting blood on the door frames if they hadn't been aware of the danger that was coming.
[see also Matt 26: 2; Mark 14: 1; John 18: 28; John 19: 14 and Luke 22: 15]
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Intermission in the middle - joke
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WHAT JESUS' SACRIFICE DID FOR US
Steve's talk brought out the holiness of God and the seriousness of sin. This is the appropriate context within which to look at what Jesus did on the cross.
Justification - paid debt we owed (Judge example). Satisfied righteous requirements of the law. Need to recognise the universality of sin:
Romans 3: 22 - 23
This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
Jesus is the fulfilment of the law and the fulfilment of sacrifice.
(Sometimes I catch myself fishing around for a clever way of saying something, when in actual fact the Bible says it best)
Romans 8: 3 - 4
For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.
Salvation - Not punishable by death any more. Jesus has beaten death by rising again. Substitution (like Isaac) - Christ died in our place - we deserved death.
Life ring example: Imagine it was a lovely sunny day (quite hard, I know) and you decided to go for a swim. You're swimming merrily along and someone on the shore says 'Don't panic - I'll save you!' and chucks you a life ring. You'd think they were mad and would probably chuck it back. But imagine the same scenario, but first they shout, "There are dangerous tides round here that can whisk you away to certain death before you know it. Grab this life ring and I'll pull you to safety." You'd then be grateful and hold on tightly to the ring, because you'd understand the danger you're in. However, some people still end up drowning because they think they can manage on their own; or they don't realise they're drowning and need help; or they don't trust the bloke throwing the life belt. People can't accept Jesus until they've understood why he died and their need for the salvation he offers.
Parachute analogy: doesn't make journey more comfortable, but saves us from certain death. Important to have a heavenly perspective.
Atonement - restoring the relationship between us and God
Jesus endured separation from God so that we don't have to.
Cellar of church in Camden - paintings of an anaemic looking Jesus with neat red dots on his hands and a serene look on his face. The cross hurt. Sometimes we forget that the cross was painful for Father and Son ("My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?")
Jesus - high priest. We can have a direct relationship with God. He intercedes for us.
William Barclay: "The essential fact of Christianity is that God thought all mankind worth the sacrifice of his Son."
God was prepared to pay the price because of his love - justice and mercy meet at the cross.
Sanctification - cleansing from sin
1 John 1: 9
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
Being set apart for God.
We need to open the gift and accept Jesus. Rich to talk more about our response and responsibility and how we should be living sacrifices as a result of Jesus' sacrifice on the cross.
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Notes for small groups
Going into small groups to explore some of this stuff further and apply what we've learnt.
Having a great intellectual knowledge of the Bible without a living relationship with Jesus is like being an expert car mechanic and not being able to drive.
Pray for small group time
