Christ our Passover Lamb - GBC Bulletin Column #48

At the evening service on Palm Sunday, I delivered a message from 1 Corinthians 5:6-8 on “Christ our Passover Lamb”, the gist of which I have attempted to distil below for reflection and as something that can be shared with others.

Christ our Passover lamb has been sacrificed (1 Cor. 5:7). Paul references the lamb sacrificed at Passover time according to Jewish custom going back to the Exodus. God commanded Moses and the Israelites to slaughter an unblemished year-old male lamb for every house and to paint the door-posts and lintel of the houses with the lambs blood. While punishing their Egyptian enslavers by killing the first-born of each family, the Lord would pass over those houses that were covered in the blood of the lamb (Exodus 12). In giving himself for our sins, Christ fulfils the laws and rituals of the Old Covenant, including the institution of the Passover. By becoming the Passover lamb of all who believe on him, he splatters his blood on the door-posts and lintel of our lives so that when the world is fully and finally judged in righteousness, God passes over us. Because Christ our Passover lamb has been sacrificed, we can have full assurance that we are positionally sanctified – considered righteous in God’s sight by the righteousness of Christ that now cloaks us – and can know the Spirit’s power as we are being progressively sanctified – growing in Christ-likeness.

Cleanse out the old leaven (1 Cor. 5:7). Alluding to the custom that precedes Passover wherein Jewish households discard all leavened products, Paul urges believers to be rid of “the leaven of malice and evil”, sins of emotion and sins of action stemming from our whole being. There can be a persistent disconnect between belief and behaviour that impedes Christ-centred unity and morality, two issues at the heart of Paul’s first letter to Corinth. The immediate context relates to an arrogant, boasting congregation that doesn’t see anything wrong with quite a few sinful behaviours, but in chapter 5 the incestuous relationship of a man with his step-mother is primarily in view. Sometimes this disconnect is wilfully “perverting the grace of God into sensuality” as Jude would say. At other times it is spiritual immaturity due to a lack of discipleship, cultural pressure, and other factors. Whatever the cause, there is no place for it in the Christian life, even as there is no place for leaven in a Jewish house at Passover time.

Celebrate the festival (1 Cor. 5:8). Getting rid of malice and evil is good and most certainly ought to be done, but when it becomes the focus of Christian ministry or the obsession of Christian life then I am afraid we have spent so much time and energy preparing, that we miss the main event. Don’t we see it? Christ our Passover lamb has been sacrificed. We don’t have to remain crushed by our sin and guilt before a holy God – Christ was crushed for us! We don’t have to linger at the cross to mourn the wickedness that necessitated Christ’s death – he has brought us peace and with the stripes of his flogged body we are healed and counted holy! I am convinced that perpetual reflection on personal wrong-doing is ungodliness masquerading as spirituality. We are invited to celebrate the festival of Christ, the richness of God’s grace personified, with sincerity and truth not sombreness and tears. Instead of tucking into the feast with gladness in our hearts, would we sit sullenly in a corner bemoaning our brokenness? Only if we deny the very means by which we were invited to the festival.  Joyless Christianity is a contradiction in terms, and I have no time for it.

This was printed in the worship bulletin of Grace Baptist Church (Wood Green) on 20 April 2014.