Thought for Thursday

And He said unto them, With desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I say unto you, I will not anymore eat thereof, until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God. Luke 22:15,16

Some groups of Christians tell us that we ought to observe the Passover. They point out that the Lord Jesus observed the Passover, as recorded in our text, and they note that the Passover observance foretells the sacrifice of Christ that has led to our deliverance. But these people miss an important fact in our text: the Lord Jesus Himself will not eat the Passover until it is fulfilled in the Kingdom of God. If He is not going to participate, why should we? No, our Lord had other feasts in mind as He gathered with His disciples that night. Temporarily, He would institute the Lord’s Supper, that would enable His disciples, and the untold numbers of Christians since then, to remember Him every week. This temporary feast – until He come (1 Corinthians 11:26) – will be replaced with an eternal feast in Heaven. I believe He was referring to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb.

Will the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, as described in Revelation 19, be a Seder meal, the formal supper eaten by faithful Jews for thousands of years? I doubt it, although this has been a question that Christians have debated for years. And it really doesn’t matter. But there are aspects of that Marriage Supper of the Lamb that relate directly to the Passover and all of its great meaning. One thing we can be sure of is that the Marriage Supper of the Lamb is a celebration for those who have been delivered from their sins through the application of our Saviour’s blood, and not a celebration for Israelites who were delivered from Egypt by the application of blood to the doorposts and lintels of their homes.

As great an event as the original Passover was in the deliverance of Israel from the bondage of Egypt, its significance is even greater when we consider that each of those lambs slain that night in Egypt is a little picture of the One Who the apostle Paul identified as Christ our Passover Who is sacrificed for us (1 Corinthians 5:7). Those of us who will attend the Marriage Supper of the Lamb will be less concerned about the deliverance of Israelites from Egypt than about our own deliverance from the penalty, power, and presence of sin. Clothed in wedding garments of His righteousness, we will be there to celebrate His grace toward us. The wonderful lessons that the Passover foretold will be precious to us as our understanding becomes clear. The simplicity of the Lord’s Supper will be unfolded in its incredible richness and preciousness to us. Things that we grasp so faintly now will burst into glorious wonder.

Describing the Marriage Supper of the Lamb is impossible because it goes so far beyond our imagination. But this we know: we will eat that feast in the presence of our Lord. – Jim MacIntosh