Don’t just skim through the book of Exodus and see it only as an ancient historical record. I love the little details the Holy Spirit recorded, and I believe when you take time to search out the Scriptures, the eyes of your understanding will be opened and you will see revelations of Jesus you had never seen before and experience healing and deliverance. I love seeing Jesus in the Passover.
For instance, look at God’s instructions in the verses above on how the Israelites were to eat the Passover lamb. They were told not to eat the Passover lamb raw. How does this apply to us?
When we partake of the holy Communion, we should not be focusing on our Lord Jesus’ life in raw form before He had been “burned” by the fire of God’s judgment on the cross. We should not be seeing Him as a baby in a manger or as He is recorded in the Gospels before the cross.
Yes, He is a great teacher and leader. Yes, He is God incarnate. He is Immanuel, God with us. And yes, He lived a perfect life, but it wasn’t His perfect life that saved us. It was His sacrifice and death on the cross.
In other words, we need to see Him “roasted in fire.” That’s what we need to meditate on when we partake of the Communion.
The children of Israel were also told not to eat the lamb “boiled at all with water.” I believe this means we should not water down or sanitize what Jesus did for us at the cross.
Because of the scourging and beatings He endured before He was led to Calvary, our Lord’s visage, or face, was beyond recognition at the cross. His form was marred more than that of any man (Isa. 52:14). Whenever you partake of the holy Communion, picture Jesus on the cross and remember how He suffered for your forgiveness and healing.
God also told the children of Israel to eat the lamb “roasted in fire.” That’s a picture of God unleashing the fire of His judgment on Christ.
Sin had to be punished, and as Jesus hung on the cross, He cried, “I thirst!” (John 19:28) because the fire of God’s holy vengeance and righteous indignation against our sins fell upon Him. He came under the judgment of God so you and I will never come under God’s judgment (Rom. 5:9–11 NLT).
Because our sins have been punished in the body of our substitute, it would be unrighteous for God to punish the same sins twice. Today God’s holiness and God’s righteousness are on our side, demanding our justification, demanding our forgiveness, demanding our healing, and demanding our deliverance.
The next time you partake of the Communion and hold the bread in your hand, see His body burnt and smitten with your sins and diseases on the cross, and begin to walk in the full benefits of all He accomplished for you at the cross.
This devotional is taken from the book The Healing Power of the Holy Communion—A 90-Day Devotional. Joseph Prince