Rabbi Schneider - Passover and The Blood of the Lamb
I'm going to be talking today about the most important concept in the entire Word of God. We're going to be talking today about the blood of Jesus, the blood of the Lamb. We are facing an identity crisis in the church today. A recent study showed that 70% of people that identify themselves as Christians don't believe that Jesus is the only way to God. They feel uncomfortable forcing their point of view on other people. In their minds, many of those who call themselves Christians think as long as someone is sincere and a good person, who am I to say that they would go to hell? But Yeshua taught, "I am the Way, the truth and the life. No man or woman come up to the Father, but through Me".
Why is Jesus' claim so exclusive? Not inclusive, but exclusive. He's saying, "I am the only way". Beloved one, it gets down to who He is and His blood. He's the perfect innocent one that sacrificed His life, giving it up for us, shedding His blood so that you and I, the guilty ones, could be made free. He gave up his life. He that knew no sin gave up His life so that you and I could be made whole before our Creator. I want to go through several scriptures today. And I'm praying that this truth will get imparted to your soul in such a way that you will know that there is no name under heaven by which men can be saved but the name of Yeshua of Nazareth. And that you'll also as a result of this message, be empowered and emboldened to take a stand for Him, sharing your faith with your neighbors, friends, and other people that you come in contact with in life, because that's the mission of the church to be His witnesses.
We're going to begin today with the Gospel of John chapter 1, verse 29. Yeshua is coming to be immersed in the Jordan River by Yohanan or John the Baptist. And as John sees Him, John points at Him and says, "Behold the Lamb of God". I think sometimes we miss what John was saying there. Some people think John said he was a Lamb because Jesus must have been all soft and cozy like a stuffed animal. Oh, it would feel so good to hold a stuffed Lamb next to my chest. That's not the point that John was making. John was pointing back to the blood of the Passover Lamb. 1 Peter in chapter 1, verse 18 and 19 says that we've been redeemed with the precious blood as of a Lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ. John was not pointing to a warm fuzzy animal, John was pointing to the blood that was applied to the doorpost of the children of Israel when God redeemed them and saved them out of Egypt and the wrath that was about to fall on the sin of the Egyptians.
1 Corinthians 5:7 says, "Christ our Passover has been sacrificed". Yeshua is linked one in one fuse together with the concept of the blood of the Passover lamb, which was the agent that delivered Israel out of Egypt and saved them from God's judgment of sin that fell upon the entire Egyptian nation. Let's go back to the Torah, to the book of Shemot or the book of Exodus. The Lord instructs the children of Israel there to "take a lamb for themselves, according to their father's household, a lamb for each household". I want you to get that phrase. A lamb for each household. Every family had to have their own lamb. I want you to get the personal application here. It wasn't just enough to have a lamb from afar. It wasn't just enough to believe in a lamb that was crucified on a cross 2,000 years ago. You had to take that lamb into your own household. It had to become your personal lamb.
The text continues in the fifth verse of Exodus 12, "Your Lamb shall be an unblemished male a year old..". Continue in the sixth verse, "You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month..". So they took the lamb and then they kept it with them. It actually became part of their family. So the lamb became familiar. The lamb became part of their household. They now had a personal attachment to the lamb. The lamb was part of the household. And then the scripture goes on to say, "...then the whole," get that word, "the whole," everybody, "the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel is to kill it at twilight".
What's the point? The point is, is that each family took a lamb. Very personal. They developed a relationship with it. Then every member of the household had to take a part in putting the lamb to death. Why? Because it was your sin and my sin, it was everybody's personal sin that put Jesus on the cross. Get it once again, the Father in ancient Israel of every household didn't take the lamb politely outside to the back of the home where no one else could see. No, everybody in the household had to take part in putting the lamb to death. Let's continue on. Then they were to take, in verse seven, "the blood and put it on the two door post and on the lintel of the houses in which they ate it. They shall eat the flesh that same night roasted with fire, and they shall eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs".
Let's go back and review just a moment here these two verses that I just read. They were to take the blood and put it on the doorposts and the lentils of their home. It wasn't put on the doorposts of the city, it was put on the doorposts of their home. It's not enough right for your parents to be believers. Sometimes I ask people about their relationship with Yeshua, and they started telling me about their parents' relationship with Yeshua. No, it has to be on our own home. It has to be personal. It's not enough to believe that Jesus died for our sins and shed His blood. It's not enough to just believe it, we need to apply it to our own hearts and to our own lives.
The text continues in the 13th verse. "The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live; and when I see the blood," the Lord is speaking, "I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt". So what was it that caused the wrath of God and the judgment of God to pass over the children of Israel? It was, beloved one, when he saw the blood on their personal residence. You see, we find in verse 22 of the same chapter that originally the children of Israel collected the blood of the lamb that each one had slain in a basin. They put the lamb to death, and when they put the lamb to death, they gathered that blood in a basin. But note it wasn't enough to gather the blood in a basin.
That was the first step. What saved them was when they took the blood that was in that basin and with a hyssop branch put it over the doorpost of their own life by putting it over the lintels and doorposts of their homes. "You shall take a branch of hyssop and dip it in the blood which is in the basin, and apply some of the blood that is in the basin to the lintel and the two doorposts; and none of you shall go outside the door of his home until morning".
And so we see from the very birth of the nation of Israel the primary foundation and importance of blood. There is no other name under heaven by which you or I can be saved, that your neighbor can be saved, that your in-law can be saved, that your employer that can be saved, that anyone anywhere in the world can be saved. There's no way to be saved but to have the blood of Jesus applied over our individual souls. When God sees the blood of His Son on our soul, His judgment for sin passes us over. Beloved, there is no other way. It doesn't matter how sincere somebody is, it doesn't matter what a good person somebody seems to be, it doesn't matter how many righteous deeds, or how much to charity someone has given. It's only when God sees the blood.
I want you to consider with me, as we dwell further into the word of God, blood, and the efficacy that it has to save and heal and cleanse us. I'm going to the book of Exodus now chapter 24, verse 7 and 8. Moses had just got done from coming down the mountain where he received the ten commandments and the covenant between the God of Israel and His people. Moses comes down the mountain, and he reads the words of the covenant to the people. Notice what happens as I read here Exodus 24:7-8. "Then he" speaking of Moses, "took the book of the covenant and read it in the hearing of the people; and they said, 'All that the Lord has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient.'"
Notice what happens next. "So Moses took the blood, B-L-O-O-D, he took the blood and he sprinkled it on the people, took the blood and sprinkle it on the people and said, 'Behold the blood of the covenant, which the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words". Israel entered into a relationship with God and then they were sprinkled with blood. Blood. Blood. Don't you get it, friends? It's the blood of Jesus. That's the only provision that God has made for people to stand acceptable before Him that have been disobedient in His presence.
The Book of Leviticus 17:11, says, "For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to make an atonement for your soul; saith the Lord, for it is the blood by reason of its life that makes atonement". It's only through blood. When an innocent one sheds his blood on behalf of the guilty one that a guilty one can be released of his sin. The Bible says Jesus has released us from our sins through His blood. There is no other way. He is the only way. There's a scripture that's kind of obscure meaning that it's so detailed that many of us don't realize how it applies to our life. It's in the book of Vayikra or Leviticus. It has to do with the cleansing of someone that had leprosy. It's a mysterious verse, but let me read it for you to focus, once again, on the primacy of blood as we celebrate the blood of Jesus the Passover Lamb.
Did you know in the book of Revelation Yeshua is referred to as the Lamb, pointing back to the blood of the Passover lamb? Book of Revelation, Yeshua is referred to as the Lamb of God at least 25 times. The lamb, speaking of the Passover lamb. Listen to the verse. Leviticus 14:4-7. "The priest shall give orders to take to live clean birds and cedar wood and a scarlet string and hyssop for the one who is to be cleansed. The priest shall also give orders to slay the one bird", so one bird dies, "in an earthenware vessel over running water". Water is of a cleansing power.
"As for the live bird, the priest shall take it together with the cedar wood and the scarlet string and the hyssop and shall dip them and the live bird," listen now, "in the B-L-O-O-D, in the blood of the bird that was slain over the running water. He," meaning the priest, "shall then sprinkle seven times the one who was to be cleansed, the leaper, from the leprosy and shall pronounce him clean, and shall," listen, "let the live bird go free over the open field". The blood and the water forgive and cleanse the leper, and then the live bird that was sprinkled with the blood goes free, speaking of the freedom and release that we have through the shedding of blood. In this case, the innocent bird was a symbol ultimately of King Jesus who cleanses us from our sin and our sickness and disease. Isaiah 53 talks in depth about he atone for our sins and our sickness.
I love what Jesus said in the gospel of John 6. "Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in yourself, for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink". In verse 53, "So Jesus said to them, 'Truly, truly I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life and yourselves. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.'" Verse 56, "He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me and I in him". Think about the Passover. They had to apply the blood over their lives by putting it over the doorposts of their home, and then they actually eat the Passover lamb. Jesus is the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. But the question is, do you believe in Him from afar? Or have you received Him into your life by making Him your Lord?
Many of us have heard this Scripture: If we believe in our heart that God raised Yeshua, Jesus from the dead, and confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord we'll be saved. This is Paul's prescription for salvation in the book of Romans. But a lot of times we don't understand. It's not just an objective confession that Jesus is Lord that God is looking for. Even the demons believe that Jesus is Lord. When the Scripture says, "If we confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord we'll be saved," it's not some glib, objective confession about the fact that we believe that Jesus is Lord, somebody was crucified in the cross 2,000 years ago, and we have some type of doctrinal agreement with that fact. No. What God is saying there is we need to confess in spirit and in truth that He truly has become our Lord.
I'm talking about you individually as a person. I'm talking to myself individually as a person. Not just that Jesus is Lord, but that He's our Lord. We're confessing Him personally as our Lord. What does it mean if we confess Him as Lord? It means that we do what He says. Jesus said to the hearers of His day, "Why do you call Me Lord, Lord and then don't do the things that I say"? If we're truly confessing Jesus is Lord with the type of confession that saves, what that means is we've submitted to His Lordship. And so every day, beloved one, we're asking ourselves, what is the Holy Spirit leading us to do? It's an inward knowing. I'm not saying that we have 100% clarity all the time. But we're continually looking with our spiritual antennas up, as we navigate each day, how to make right decisions, how to keep our heart in order, how to make sure that our words are pleasing to God.
Jesus said, "Straight and narrow is the way that leads to life and few there be that find it". And so the question is, as we talk about the blood of the Passover Lamb, Yeshua the Messiah, we have to ask ourselves, have we applied His blood over our life? Have we received His love by submitting to it? Because Jesus said in John 14, "If you love Me, you'll keep my word". Every day is a day of dying to self to submit to the Lordship of Christ, that in spirited and truth His blood is covering our life. And at the end, it's going to make all the difference.
We get to Revelation 5:12, we hear the angels saying, and we hear the elder saying, in fact, all of creation will say, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing". All of creation. Every knee shall bow and every tongue confess from those that are above the earth, those that are on the earth, those that are under the earth, every knee shall bow and tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Revelation 7:14, "These are the ones who came out of the great tribulation, and they have washed their robes and made themselves white in the B-L-O-O-D of the Lamb".
It culminates, beloved, in Revelation 19:9. "Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb". The Lamb that shed his blood, will you receive His invitation today? He's knocking at the door of our heart. He said, "If you'll open up and let Me in, I'll come into you and we'll live life together". And I'm not just talking to those of us that have said the sinner's prayer. I'm talking to all of us that every day we're opening our hearts by letting Him in deeper and deeper to become the Lord of our lives. Beloved, He loves us so much He gave His full life for us. Let's love Him back by giving our full complete life back to Him. Victory!