Easter Retreat: The Prophecies and the Purposes of Jesus’s Death and Resurrection

Pastor SEYI OSANYINBI

[biblegateway passage=”Psalm 40: 7″ display=”Psalm 40: 7″]; [biblegateway passage=”Hebrews 10: 7″ display=”Hebrews 10: 7″]

Every one of us has a book that is written of us and interestingly most of the things that have been written concerning us are in the scriptures. There are things written about us that we need to fulfil and it is important that we pay careful attention to them ([biblegateway passage=”John 15:25″ display=”John 15:25″]).

God deliberately put certain accounts in the Bible for specific reasons, and if we do not understand these reasons, we will miss out. One of the important activities that happened in the life of Jesus was his triumphant entrance ([biblegateway passage=”John. 12:12-16″ display=”John. 12:12-16″]) into Jerusalem. For over 500 years Israel had had no king from the lineage of David. So, when Jesus came and was being worshipped as the Messiah with the shouting of “Hosanna” ([biblegateway passage=”Mark.11:9″ display=”Mark.11:9″]), it was a symbolic action that God used to establish the fact that Jesus was the Messiah. By that, God was validating who Jesus was as the son of David.

David was yet alive when he anointed Solomon his son as King. Hence, it is possible to have two kings. So there can be a King and a Son who is also a King which was a prophetic type of God and Jesus Christ.

[biblegateway passage=”Zechariah 9:9″ display=”Zechariah 9:9″]; [biblegateway passage=”Isaiah 62:11″ display=”Isaiah 62:11″]

From the Old Testament scriptures, we observe that when a King comes riding into Jerusalem on a donkey/ass, it is a sign of coronation as king. Jesus rode upon an ass demonstrating His victory before time in front of the enemy.

Why then was Jesus betrayed and why was it by a friend? 

The story of the betrayal was not a significant event that had any direct bearing on our salvation per se. Nevertheless, it was so significant that God predicted that it would happen and it must have been for a major reason. The first thing about the betrayal was the fact that the spiritual authorities needed to think Jesus life was equal to a slave that is accidentally killed by an Ox. In the Old Testament, the price paid for the accidental death of a slave by an ox was 30 pieces of silver (Ex.21:32). To them, he was a nobody.

There was no way Jesus could have gone to the cross if he had not been betrayed because the authorities did not know where he stayed each night (Lk.9:58) and they needed a person close enough to lead them to him when the people would not be there to protect Jesus (Mk. 14: 10; Matt. 26: 47 – 52).

Why was it important that Jesus had to be betrayed with 30 pieces of silver?

We need to understand that 30 pieces of silver weren’t a big sum of money in those days.

Then, the value of a servant who was killed by an Ox was 30 shekels of Silver and Jesus was equally priced as one. So it was compulsory that he must be sold for that amount and someone had to be there to receive the money. They needed to pay for the betrayal and Judas availed himself as the one to receive the money (Ex. 21:32; Zech. 11:4 – 13).

Why did it have to be Judas?

At the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, we learn that Judas’s name was in the book of life (Lk.10:7-10) but it is important to ask what could have happened to him to have made him turn? Judas just did not betray Jesus for the fun of it. I suspect that he did it because he had lost faith in Jesus as the Messiah, as the one who will save Israel. It could also be that God could want Jesus to partake of all human sufferings and this could be a reason (Heb.4:15).

During the time of Jesus, Satan had specific interests in 3 of Jesus’s disciples but God protected their hearts and Satan could not access them. However, Judas was a thief; Judas was a man who loved money. It was when Jesus gave him permission to go do whatever was in his heart to do that he lost the covering of God over him and Satan entered into him. Lesson: If God doesn’t shield us, there is no way we would be able to overcome or resist Satan.

If Israel had accepted Jesus as their Messiah, we would have not been saved by now. It was deliberate that God blinded them because they had all the evidence before them to have believed Jesus but they couldn’t. However, God gave them enough opportunities for repentance but they didn’t yield.

The cross was not an accident; it was a deliberate programmed work. Satan did not have an intention to see Jesus go to the cross because from the beginning, he tried discouraging Jesus from going to the cross. However, when he saw the doggedness of Jesus, he decided to frustrate His life and that made him push Judas to betray Jesus. I guess he wanted Jesus to give up his pursuit by what he will suffer but he underestimated the resolve of Jesus.

When Jesus was crucified, Pilate had them put an inscription “Jesus of Nazareth, King of Jews” which when interpreted in the Hebrew way would read YHWH which is pronounced as YAHWEH. God was declaring Jesus then as His own Passover Lamb.

From Hebrews 9: 7 – 14, we would observe that the purpose of the Old Testament sacrifices was defeated because it could not make the worshippers perfect. Hence, the need for the perfect sacrifice. The root of man’s problem was the conscience and God needed to deal with that. He needed to first of all purge our conscience.

The cross was technically not only to obtain the forgiveness of sins but also for the cleansing of sins. So the purpose of the cross was not only to forgive our past records of sins but also deal with the conscience. This is why we need to continually come back to the cross for the cleansing by the blood.

The blood was made for our heart, it was not shed for fun, it was not shed for our house or our cars as our practice of sprinkling the blood now is. The protection that we enjoy is because of the work of the angels and not the blood. It is the blood in our heart that the angels’ see that makes them perform the work of protection.

May the LORD purge our conscience from dead works and cleanse us by the power of the BLOOD of the Lamb that was shed. Let the Lord touch us again so that we can be made whole and free to serve God.

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