The very first thing I want to note, is that the Cross is a very important part of the Gospel, but if we stop there at only the forgiveness of sin, we miss the entirety of what Christ did for us. Christians need to understand that the entire Gospel consists of the Cross, the Resurrection and the Gift of the Spirit. We will always find deeper Spiritual truths as we study the Old defined by the New. Jesus as the revelation of the very essence of the Father, and who He is, re-defines the Old to the New. The Old is full of shadows of the reality, which is found in Christ.
I want to share some “revelational knowledge” with you. This is that knowledge God puts into our spirit so that we can understand “spiritual things”. The carnal man cannot understand the things of God, only the spiritual man.
Let us look at Exodus 12, the story of the Passover. In this story we find that Israel was instructed to set apart a Lamb from the flock, kill it, and smear the blood on the doorpost of “their dwelling”. When God saw the blood on the doorpost of their dwellings, He would pass over their house and spare the first born inside the home. The people only had to apply the blood to the doorpost.
This story foretells the blood side of the Cross, the necessity of the shed blood of the Lamb to give us “forgiveness of sin”.
Many read over the other parts of this story and most of historic Christianity, has missed “the rest of the story”, not because God wasn’t waiting to reveal it to His people- the Ekklesia, but because of the traditions of men they have been blinded by teaching that keeps them in the consciousness of sin, rather than the other side of the cross and the rest of the Gospel truth that would bring them into “Christ consciousness”.
The parallel to the blood side of the cross is obvious. Christ died for us. He shed His blood as payment for our sins, thus the wages of sin, death passed us over in Him.
When by faith we apply Christ blood to our dwelling (our living selves) , we are spared the wrath of God.
As long as our revelational knowledge is limited to the blood side of the Cross- Christ dying for us, we may still have our firstborn, that is our sins are forgiven, but experientially we will still live in captivity. We will live as if still subject to the capriciousness of Pharaoh, (here a typology of Satan- adversary) and sin. You remain a “carnal Christian”, trying to overcome sin by your own power, trying to be spiritual. Having a form of godliness but denying the Power thereof. It’s wonderful to have our sins forgiven but after awhile living as if we are still captives takes much of the joy of “just” having our sins forgiven. Our hearts know there is something more, and for many it may take years of failure and frustration before they finally see the “rest of the story:.
I know for me this was my story, saved by His blood at age six with the simple faith of a child, but it took me years to grow from there to a young person and finally a Father, as described in the 3 stages of maturity in the writing of I John. This subject to be written on at a latter time.
Now for the rest of the story – let’s us look at the entirety of the Gospel.
Back to ancient Israel and their captivity. God had a solution for their captivity as He does for you and I, and that is to see to the other side of the cross, RESURRECTION and the GIFT OF THE SPIRIT.
Here is the rest of the story as written in the Old Testament
The solution God had for the Hebrews captivity. The solution was to provide them sustenance, or life, to get them out of Egypt. So he instructed each household, after they smeared the blood of the Lamb on the doorpost, to roast the Lamb and eat is as nourishment for the upcoming journey. That’s the body side of the cross. You take the Lamb (Christ) in you as LIFE!
God is showing us here that the Lamb they used for the blood on the doorpost was the same lamb they ate for the journey. In other words, everything that is necessary for living the life comes from the Lamb. It isn’t that the Lamb dies for you and then your sent out to the rest on your own or with His help (as popular and “incomplete Gospel”- traditional Christianity practices and teaches). The Lamb is the total answer. The Lamb that gave the blood for them also gave its life to them. They took the meat into them, and that became their nourishment, strength, and vitality for the journey. They lived their life out of the Lamb’s life. They walked in its energy. They killed one Lamb for two purposes!
Paul calls the New Testament life a walk. What is the sustenance, the life, of that walk?
It isn’t trying. It isn’t us trying to walk for God. It may look like that on the outside, but we have taken the Lamb of God into us. He is not only the forgiveness of our sins. He is also the life within us, from whom we make the journey. He is resurrected and in so doing He gave of Himself to us, by the gift of the Spirit, he came to dwell within us, and our only hope and life is in Him. You can’t live the Christian life, but He can, but you must partake of the meat of the Lamb as well as the Blood. He said you must drink my blood and eat my body. Today as then most Christians have no comprehension of this and what it means for them spiritually. They only see it as a sacrament they do now and then in the church under the traditions of men originating with the Catholic Church.
We just like ancient Israel must not only have the blood of the lamb upon the doorpost of our lives, but we must also eat of the Lamb, for it is His life within us that is our spiritual nourishment, it His life, lived in us, through us and as us, that enables the Christian to not only have forgiveness of sin but to overcome sin. It is the other side of the cross.
Another parallel in this story of Exodus is how they were commanded to eat unleavened bread. Grace upon grace and not mixed with law is the spiritual meaning here. The leaven of the Pharisees that Jesus warned the Disciples about was their traditions, their laws that had no meaning without the life of the Spirit. One can’t put the blood of the Lamb upon their lives by His work, then turn around and think living the Christian life is lived by law- or leavened bread. He is the unleavened bread from heaven. We are told to eat to eat Him for He is true bread. Take the meat and put it into your body. Put the life in you by faith. This is where we agree with Him and the Word of God, that says, Christ in you, the hope of glory. We are complete in Him, He is not just the author of our faith but the finisher as well by the life of Him inside of us, by the gift of His indwelling Spirit.
Just as He said he could do nothing without the Father- meaning living His holy life on this earth, no Christian can do anything holy without His life within them. The whole story is that Christ died that we died with Him at calvary, and as He was raised from the grave, we with Him have been raised up in newness of life, and just as He promised He would come again He came by the gift of His life indwelling us, that we might be more than conquerors in Christ Jesus, because it is He that lives His life in us, as us and through us. The reason that the traditions of men and the religious keep Christ always dangling on the cross, is their inability to believe the Word of God, by faith, that we are NEW CREATIONS in Him and they insist on believing in their own carnality that by their own efforts of externals they will be able to obtain the life. The life is Christ, and it is the other side of the Cross!
May you not only know the blood for forgiveness may you come to know the meat for power over sin in your life. He is that real meat, eat of Him, partake of Him, and quit eating the stale leavened bread of religion, and you will LIVE! I promise by experience.
A special thanks to Dan Stone and David Gregory from which I borrowed some of this from their wonderful book entitled " The Rest of the Gospel" When the partial Gospel has worn you out", A wonderful affirmation of things God had taught me in my life in Him. I highly recommend this book to all Christian readers, it is published by " One Press" I found the book at a local Christian book store.
until next time....may you enjoy the meal!
Dr. J.
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