Justified

The feast of Passover is called Pesach in Hebrew, which means passing over or protection, and is derived from the instructions given to Moses by God. This festival was instituted to remind the Israelite of the exodus from the land of Egypt, from slavery to freedom…

Jesus, the Passover Lamb, was betrayed on the night of Passover. He personally instituted the breaking of bread and partaking of the cup in the midst of this festive celebration also known as the Last Supper. Hence, the breaking of bread and partaking of the cup superseded the feast of Passover as the new era arrived through His death on the Cross. The feast of the Passover was the shadow of the real event to come and Jesus, the Real Passover Lamb was then, about to accomplish all that the prophets had spoken in the Old Testament.

On the resurrection Sunday, Jesus again appeared to His disciples and personally illustrating how a church is to conduct the Sunday Service with the breaking of bread and partaking of the cup.

Luke 24:30-31 ~ When He was at the table with them, He took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized Him, and He disappeared from their sight.

From the light of this passage, the breaking of bread certainly opens our spiritual eyes and releases our spirit to recognize the resurrected Jesus and leads us to our understanding on the truth of His Finished Work. I want to stress again, it is recognizing the resurrected Jesus! But you may say, “Brother, I know Jesus, He died for me on the cross and He is my Saviour!” Yes, what you say is true but do you recognize Him as the Resurrected One?

If you can recognize Him as the Resurrected One, the nail pierced marks on His hands are telling you that all your sins have been forgiven…, past, present and future! If you believe that all your sin has been forgiven, then the way you approach the Table is not by the confession of your sin but the confession of your righteousness you already have in Christ. He prepares the Table in front of your enemies to celebrate victory instead of mourning for your sin and shortcoming. When we break bread and partake of the cup, we proclaim His death until He comes again. Every time a ram horn is blown in the Old Testament, His death was proclaimed, victory followed. In the New Covenant, every time we break bread and partake of the cup, we proclaim His death, and it is a reminder to the kingdom of darkness that victory belongs to us.

How do you recognize Jesus? Do you recognize the life when He was ministering on this earth? Or when He was at the Cross? If we fail to recognize His resurrection, we are only embracing half of the Gospel. The full gospel completed with His resurrection and indeed, the Lord wants us to recognize Him in His resurrection. His death on the Cross took away all our sin, sickness, curses and bondage while His resurrection justifies that we are righteous! Now if Christ is preached that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty.

The breaking of bread is powerful providence to enable believers to walk on this earth because as we come together to break bread, we remember once again what the Lord had done and we are also be reminded of our righteous status and a righteous man has no sin but righteousness, no sickness but divine health, no curses in their life but abundant blessing, no bondage but freedom with abundant life. But is it so in the body of Christ? It was not so at the church in Corinthian during Paul’s time and the situation in our time is no any better either. Let see what Paul had to say about communion…

1 Corinthian 11: 28-30 ~ that a man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep.

What did Paul meant by examine himself? The examine himself here means examine the man or the manner he partake the bread and cup? The illustration in Verse 29 says the manner of how man partake not the man who partake. It is our manner of how we recognize His body. Do we believe that His Finished Work at the Cross had already given us the righteousness or we believe that He did not do a good job at the Cross and our present and future sin are not forgiven yet and need us to bring out one by one? It is a wrong manner to come to the Lord’s Table recognizing our own sin for he said, “It is finished!” When we come with a wrong manner, we eat and drink judgment on ourselves. The consequence is weakness, sickness in our midst and many fallen asleep.

When we believe the wrong thing, we are not walking in the truth and the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, is unable to witness and manifest His power in our life for He only bears witness with the truth. Believer who has fallen asleep is passive and is not threatening to the kingdom of darkness.

So the good news is, if we can understand what Paul was saying and come to the Lord’s Table recognizing the Lord’s body and not our sin, we shall be strong, healthy and is not sleeping!

Romans 4:25 ~ He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.

By His grace we are justified... My heart is burning within me now and with this burning heart, I wish you a blessed Easter Holiday and may your holiday be happened with His happening!