OUR PASSOVER LAMB

Another Old Testament example of healing for everybody is found in the story of the Passover Lamb in Exodus 12:5-13. You know the story well, how the Lord sent plagues on the land of Egypt when Pharoah refused to release the Children of Israel from their slavery. The last plague was when the death angel was going to pass through the land one night and kill the oldest child in each family. To escape this tragedy, the Israelites were instructed to kill the Passover Lamb and sprinkle its blood on their doorposts. The death angel would then pass over every house where he saw the blood and the oldest child would not die. Then they were to roast the flesh of the lamb and eat it.

What was this all about? The blood was for protection from the death angel, and the meat that was eaten provided strength and health for the long journey ahead.

Approximately three million people left Egypt that fateful night. Did you ever stop to think how many sick people there would be among three million people? The crippled, the ones bent over with age, those with arthritis, etc. Some may have had broken bones -- who knows? Where could you ever find three million people where absolutely no one had a broken bone or illness of one kind and another? How would such people ever be able to travel so far on foot when they were sick? Know what? Not one person among them was sick!

Can we prove that by Scripture? You bet! Read Psalm 105:34-38. Part of verse 37 says, "there was NOT ONE feeble person among their tribes." Can you imagine that? Not one sick or even feeble person among nearly three million people. Why? They had eaten of that Passover Lamb; and as a result received physical strength, or healing!

Now let's look at the counterpart in the New Testament in I Cor. 5:12 where it tells us that "Christ, our passover, is sacrificed for us." Read John 4:48-58 where it tells us to eat of His body. There you have it: (1) Christ is our Passover Lamb, and (2) we are to eat of His body. And isn't that what we do every time we take communion? The bread and the wine. The blood and the broken body.

Just as under the old covenant the Passover Lamb was for protection and healing, under the new and BETTER covenant we talked about yesterday, our Passover Lamb, the Lord Jesus Christ, was sacrificed not only for our spiritual protection (saving us from spiritual death, in other words) but He was also crucified for our physical strength, or healing.

So we see that both salvation and healing are part of the Atonement and are for all who avail themselves of Christ, the Passover Lamb!

Wish we had time and space to go into this in a lot more detail! But perhaps these Biblical illustrations will give you something new to meditate on regarding Divine healing for us today.

Preacher's Kid