This message is primarily for those who call on the name of Jesus Christ as their own Lord and Savior from sin, and serve as a Chaplain or a gospel minister in a jail, prison or a follow-up ministry such as a rescue mission – in the United States.
All Scripture quotes are usually taken from the New King James Version (NKJV) of the Bible, copyright 1979, 1980, 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. When quoting a text, any deviation from the NKJV text is placed within parenthesis signs (). These usually occur as direct translations from the original languages, or as notes from the original setting to help apply the text to today’s culture.
ALL CAPITAL LETTERS are sometimes used to emphasize words in a text, or to make a comment about a biblical text, or emphasize a statement.
In the Hebrew language, Yĕehowshuwa (Jesus) is Mashiyach (Messiah). The New Testament equivalent of “Messiah” is “Christ”. Jesus is the Christ. The Christ is an OFFICE, not a personal name.
The words Messiah and Christ mean the Anointed One. He is anointed by God the Father, to three offices in one. He is Prophet, Priest, and King.
As true believers’ High Priest, Jesus both offers sacrifice for the sins of His people, and IS the SACRIFICE Himself. This month I want to ask you to teach believing inmates about Jesus as OUR PASSOVER AND OUR PROPITIATOR. Both of these words relate to what He alone did in His sacrificial death for His people, including inmate believers.
Going back to the Jewish celebration commanded by God in Exodus 12, as the first celebration of their calendar year, the word "Passover" as used in the Bible can mean one of three things depending on its use in the context of a sentence.
It could refer to the whole feast season (the feast of unleavened bread), or to the special meal to be eaten on the fourteenth day of the first month (equivalent to our March-April) now known as the Seder, OR TO THE ACTUAL LAMB THAT WAS SLAIN IN SACRIFICE AND THEN EATEN. (See John 2:23 and 6:4, then Mark 14:12-15 and lastly, Luke 22:7)
In 1 Corinthians 5:6-8, a passage that deals with purity in the fellowship of believers, we read:
6 … Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?
7 Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us.
8 Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
Although this passage that links Christ’s sacrifice to believers purity, has the only New Testament verse that refers to Jesus as the believers sacrificial Passover, the NT also refers to Him as the sacrificial (Passover) Lamb no less than thirty-one times. Twenty-seven of those times are in the book of the Revelation alone. That is so because believers will worship Him throughout eternity, in heaven, as their Passover Lamb.
Note these verses in Revelation 5:8-12.8 … the twenty-four elders (symbolic of the redeemed church in heaven) fell down before the Lamb, each having a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.
9 And they sang a new song, saying: " You are worthy to take the scroll, And to open its seals; For You were slain, And have redeemed us to God by Your blood Out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation,
10 And have made us kings and priests to our God; And we shall reign on the earth."
11 Then I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne, the living creatures, and the elders; and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands,
12 Saying with a loud voice: " Worthy is the Lamb who was slain To receive power and riches and wisdom, And strength and honor and glory and blessing!"
Note also Revelation 7: 9-14.
9 After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands,
10 and crying out with a loud voice, saying, "Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!"
11 All the angels stood around the throne and the elders and the four living creatures, and fell on their faces before the throne and WORSHIPED God,
12 saying: "Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom, Thanksgiving and honor and power and might, Be to our God forever and ever. Amen."
13 Then one of the elders answered, saying to me, "Who are these arrayed in white robes, and where did they come from?"
14 And I said to him, "Sir, you know." So he said to me, "These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
As the believer’s Passover Lamb, He is the One that delivers them from death and judgment. For inmates that have repented and believed the biblical gospel - to have Jesus as their Passover, means the SENTENCE of God against their sin, does not fall on them. Tell them that they will not be eternally judged by God for their sins, and that - that judgment fell on Jesus, who is their Passover!
Thinking of Jesus in this way and then worshiping Him, relates to an appreciation of God’s grace (we did not deserve it) and MERCY, for believers did not GET THE JUDGMENT THEY DESERVED. Camp on that with the inmates. It would be good to take them back to Exodus 12:1-30 and teach that passage to them. Especially show them verses 12 and 13, which say:
12 ‘For I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night, and will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the LORD. (the judgment of an all holy God against their sin of idolatry)
13 Now the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you; and the plague shall not be on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.
When the Israelites obeyed and put the blood of the sacrificial lamb on their doors it was an act of faith in what the true God said. They had a choice, believe in the false worship of the Egyptians all around them OR believe in the God of the Bible, and do what He says.
Similarly today, we all have a choice: believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ so that righteous judgment passes over us - OR go along with a Christ rejecting society all around us. Your inmate population must be confronted with this faith choice.
Now in addition, Jesus as the one that provided PROPITIATION for believers, also centers on His giving up His life at the cross of Calvary. But, with Him being the PROPITIATOR, comes another important fact.
Whereas Jesus as our Passover sacrifice looks more at the benefit experienced by the believer, namely that they are not judged because Jesus shed His blood for them, Jesus as the Propitiator, relates to how that believer stands before God’s holy perfect law.
As the Passover Lamb, Jesus took the judgment due to believers for their sins. But in PROPITIATING the Father, He SOOTHED AND APPEASED GOD’S HOLY WRATH against those sins. Believing inmates’ appreciation should be in the idea that God is no longer angry at them for their sins. His rightful anger has been satisfied and soothed by Jesus.
There are four New Testament passages that speak of Jesus’ death as the believers’ propitiation. I want to show you two of them that I want you to teach your inmates from.
The first is in Hebrews 2: 9, 14-17
9 … we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, that He, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone.
14 Inasmuch then as the (human) children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, (Because Satan tempts sinners - and sin brings death)
15 and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. (In bondage to the fear of death and impending judgment)
16 For indeed He does not give aid to angels, (who are spirits) but He does give aid to the seed of Abraham. (This ultimately refers to Abraham’s spiritual descendants - true believers)
17 Therefore, in all things He had to be made like HIS BRETHREN, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make PROPITIATION for the sins of THE PEOPLE.
The antecedent to "the people" in verse 17, are "His brethren." They are the ones that God the Father gave to Him. This is clear from verses 11-13 in the preceding context of Chapter 2, which say:
"For both He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of one, for which reason He (Jesus) is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying: (This is what Jesus says to God the Father and about Himself) "I will declare Your name to My brethren; In the midst of the assembly I will sing praise to You." And again: "I will put My trust in Him." And again: "Here am I and THE CHILDREN whom God HAS GIVEN Me."
Compare that last part of Hebrews 2:13 with what Jesus said to His Father in John 17:6-12.
6 “I have manifested Your name to the men whom You HAVE GIVEN Me out of the world. They were Yours, You GAVE THEM to Me, and they have kept Your word.7 Now they have known that all things which You have given Me are from You.
8 For I have given to them the words which You have given Me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came forth from You; and THEY HAVE BELIEVED that You sent Me.
9 “I pray for them. I do not pray for the world but for those whom You HAVE GIVEN Me, for they are Yours.
10 And all Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine, and I am glorified in them.
11 Now I am no longer in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep through Your name those whom You HAVE GIVEN Me, that they may be one as We are.
12 While I was with them in the world, I kept them in Your name. Those whom You GAVE Me I have kept; and none of them is lost except the son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. (Notice five times here, believers are referred to as a gift).
Explain to believing inmates that THEY ARE A LOVE GIFT from God the Father to God the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ! That fact will go a long way in countering the low image of themselves they are faced with almost every day!
Then, the second passage that speaks about Jesus as the believers’ PROPITIATOR, that I want to bring out is in 1 John 4:9-10. It says,
9 In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him.
10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the PROPITIATION for our sins.
God’s LOVE IS SHOWN as He sent His Son as a Lamb to be put to death in the believers’ place, so that judgment would pass over them AND so that His full holy wrath against their sin would fall on Him so that He (God) would be appeased, or propitiated.
The words of the fourth verse of the old hymn, recently made popular by the Vicki Cook melody, "Before The Throne of God Above" state it clearly.
"Because the sinless Savior died, My sinful soul is counted free;
For God, the Just, is satisfied To look on Him and pardon me."
The sinful believer’s soul is COUNTED FREE FROM JUDGMENT by God, BECAUSE Jesus, the perfect sinless Passover Lamb died for them. Then too, those same believers are to know that God’s rightful wrath against their sins HAS BEEN SOOTHED, SETTLED DOWN, SATISFIED, AND PROPITIATED! Therefore, they do not have to go around being weighed down by the thought of facing God’s wrath, like unbelievers should!
Praise God for providing Jesus as our Passover and our Propitiator.
Rich Hines
Minister to Chaplains, Aurora Ministries’ Chaplain Help Ministry
