Looking Back and Looking Ahead A guest column written by Lois Pasinella
I have spent the last so many months to weeks of this past year looking back on how terribly I have failed God my whole life. Like scenes of a movie, my sins and shortcomings have passed before my eyes day after day, leaving me broken in tears and confession of the countless times I have broken God’s heart by my selfish choices. On, January 1, 2021, I was reading about the Passover celebration in the book of Exodus chapter 12, what that celebration would mean perpetually to God’s people, and how they were to “remember” by keeping the festival. God delivered Israel out of slavery in Egypt with the promise that they would be His people, He would be their God, and, as hope for their future to look forward to, He would give them the land He had promised to Abraham centuries before. The Passover also marked the beginning of a “new year” for the Israelites on the Hebrew calendar (Exodus 12:1). A new year indeed! No longer living as oppressed slaves in a foreign land, the Israelites were brought out of Egypt to be brought into fellowship with their Faithful Creator God. How was all this accomplished? By the substitutionary death of a carefully selected animal “without spot or blemish”, and by the Israelites obeying God’s Word to put some of the blood of the slain animal on the top and sides of the doorframes of their homes. When God saw the blood, He would “pass over” the Israelites and the Destroyer would not enter their dwellings. (Exodus 12, specifically v. 23). It was God’s way of “salvation”. He saw the blood and was satisfied. The Passover feast, instituted by God, was also a way to keep that memory alive for the generations to come as one generation retold the story of God’s great deliverance of Israel to the next generation. As Christians, we have been given the Divine privilege of holding in our hands this great book, the Bible, which tells the whole history of God’s dealings with His people and working out His plan to save humanity. We can turn the pages of our Bibles and look back on the story of God, learn about Him, what is important to Him, and how all the substories point to one Person -- the Lord Jesus Christ. What the Passover foreshadowed, Jesus accomplished on the Cross. The Cross is the hinge of history! Sin is the problem. Death is the result. Jesus the Christ is the cure. The Bible teaches us that we are sinners. Adam and Eve sinned in the perfect Garden of Eden, and because sin was perpetuated in human flesh forever, God cast them out of the Garden. But before He did that, the “proto-evanglium” was preached in Genesis 3:14-15. Below is an excerpt taken from Ligonier’s Tabletalk Magazine regarding this truth: “Verse 15 is known as the proto-evangelium — the first Gospel. It proclaims that God’s people will finally triumph over the serpent (see 1 John 3:12). The “seed of the woman” is a collective noun, indicating corporate victory. However, if left to ourselves, we cannot win this war. No, it took Jesus, Eve’s seed par excellence, to deliver the crushing blow (Col. 2:15), and if we are in Him, we share in and extend His victory (Matt. 28:19; Rev. 20:4).” Following this, Genesis 3:21 states, “The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them”. My understanding of this verse is that something had to die and shed its blood to cover their shame. And thus we see the first sacrifice, which all of the family line of Jesus commemorated until this scene in the Passover enlarged upon the deliverance of God, yet not fully at that point. The fullness of God’s justice, mercy, forgiveness and deliverance from His wrath against sin came with Jesus dying on the Cross.
Jesus instituted a new ceremony. It is the celebration of communion, or the Lord’s table. In the book of Luke in the New Testament, Jesus says these words to his disciples prior to his death: “When the hour came, Jesus and his apostles reclined at the table. And He said to them, ‘I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer…. And He took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is My body given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.’ In the same way, after the supper He took the cup, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is poured out for you.’” (Luke 22:14-15, 19-20, NIV) What Jesus accomplished on the Cross for our forgiveness of sins and salvation is SO complete that even our sins are not remembered in heaven (for commentary on this thought, please see “The Message of Exodus”, J.A. Motyer, pp. 149): “But when this priest (Jesus) had offered for all time ONE sacrifice for sins, He sat down at the right hand of God… For by ONE sacrifice He has made PERFECT FOREVER those who are being made holy (this is the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit in the life of every believer)…” Then the Holy Spirit adds: ‘Their sins and lawless acts I will remember NO MORE.’ And where these have been forgiven, sacrifice for sin is no longer necessary.” (Hebrews 10:12a, 14, 17, 18, NIV) Jesus Christ’s sacrifice of Himself secures our salvation and the Holy Spirit seals us for the day of redemption (Ephesians 4:30). We have forgiveness with God through the shed blood of Jesus Christ on the Cross, and that blood speaks perpetually into all eternity, so holy is His blood. Christ’s perfection recommends us to God in such a way that, in Him, we are brought back into a right relationship with God that frees us from the penalty of His just wrath against our sin. This is deliverance indeed! As Ephesians 3:12 states in the Living Bible, “Now we can come fearlessly right into God’s presence, assured of His glad welcome when we come with Christ and trust in Him.” I believe what the Lord is showing me through these Scriptures is that, yes, it is important to look back. But what we look back on matters. That is, we are no longer to look back with regret. Regret is a snare. The enemy accuses God’s people and makes them feel condemned. Yes, the Holy Spirit will continue to convict us of our sins, and the Christian life is one of daily repentance (1 John 1:9). Our God covers and forgivesI our sins. “There is NO condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). But the enemy will also try to accuse God to us. We need to remember His mercy as it is displayed throughout the Scriptures, culminating in the death of Christ on the Cross. God also continues to encourage us to HOPE as we look forward to the coming full and final redemption of all things when all of His creation will be brought back into harmonious obedience to the perfect will of our Creator God in a promised land “where righteousness dwells” (2 Peter 3:13). We have been given an “eternal hope” and promises from God that He will never go back on, to encourage our souls until that day when we are brought into His kingdom with everlasting joy! No matter what comes, we have a Faithful God Who continues to work out His redemptive plan and WILL complete the work He so graciously started in His people! To Him be the glory forever and ever! Happy 2021!
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