The LORD our Passover

We are about to retreat to the garden after partaking of the feast as a testimonial of all that had been in the commandment of God, the Mosaic Law, Psalms and the Prophets, which both John the Baptist and Jesus now have fulfilled in all righteousness. We must realize that with the inquiry of the gentiles early on in the day of preparation Jesus know His time of completion was upon Him as recorded by John in chapters 12:20-34, 13:1. We are still in the same day time period because according to God's time table a day starts at sun down and runs until the sunset of the next day. Listen with attention to each account of the LORD's apprehension as it unfolds in the following accounts.

We have been given to us an insight into the Pharisees, Sadducee's and scribes unbelief and denial of who Jesus was and calmed to be in no uncertain terms and language. John in his rendition of events beginning just before the Last Supper (in chapters 11 through 20) and continuing from there reveals much about our spiritual state that was about to come about. The new thing promised to Adam in Gen. 3:15 and then Abraham, Psalms and the Prophets. But we must become willing to change and then allow the change for it to happen within us, this is to say, we have to take position of it. This is what our Repentance is all about, our willingness to change direction and bad habits in preparation for greater revelation of Him, Christ Jesus. (the hidden question of Mat. 11:29) It is these habits that hurt when they fall off or die. I cannot leave you hanging as on a cliff with nothing to catch or support us, I must continue with John's revelation as recorded in the following accounts of chapters 15 through 20, for chapter 21 through Acts 2 carries on with the same theme as the completion of all things solely Israel. Israel being a people, a nation through whom God would bring about the promise spoken in both Genesis 3:15, 12:3c. And the seed which is in all mankind and especially the seed of redemption which will bring about our Salvation through Christ our LORD. As the LORD of our Passover which will bring us back to the estate of man in Genesis 2:7 by the same action of verses 21 through 23 of Gen 2, in reverse. Where Jesus as Christ and LORD is the second Adam, of the same seed.(1Cor. 15:22, 45) For this to happen we must accept the yoke of Him our Shepherd.(Mat. 11:29) Beginning with chapter 15 of John's synoptic gospel written many years after the LORD's return in the person of the Spirit of Holiness and Truth as seen in Acts 2:1-4, where the LORD is still speaking.

Christ is the LORD,

Father, husbandman and husband and the true Vine,

or mighty Oak into which all Sons are grafted.

“I am the true vine, and My Father is the husbandman. Every branch in Me that bears not fruit He takes away: and every branch that bears fruit, He purges it, that it may bring forth more fruit. (this is the definition of the word LORD and the word yoke) Now you are clean through the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. For the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can you, except you abide in Me. (this indicates that we cannot do what Hebrews and other Epistle's warn us not to do or become) I am the vine, you are the branches: He that abides in Me, and I in him, the same brings forth much fruit: for without Me you can do nothing. If a man abide not in Me, he is cast forth as a (dead and worthless) branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you shall ask what you will, and it shall be done unto (come into being for) you. Herein is My Father glorified, that you bear much fruit; so shall you be My disciples. (to learn and acquire understanding, not just a student) As the Father has loved Me, so have I loved you: continue you in My love.(Agape) If you keep My commandments, you shall abide in My love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in His love. (AGAPE) These things have I spoken to you, that My joy might remain in you, and your joy might be full.

Our relationship to each other

This is My commandment, That you love one another, as I have loved you. Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends, if you do whatever I command you. Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knows not what his lord does: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of My Father I have made known to you. You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that you should go and bring forth fruit, and your fruit should remain: that whatever you shall ask of the Father (being, is implied here) in My name, He may give it you.(NOT guaranteed) These things I command you, that you love one another.

We are to encounter hardships and expect persecution

this goes against the grain of many of those trapped by Religion.

If the world will hate you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. (when through the yoke we acquire His character this comes to bear) If you were of the world, the world would love his own: but because you are not of the (this) world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I spoke to you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept My saying, they will keep yours also. But all these things will they do to you for My name's sake, because they know not Him that sent Me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they had not had sin (man in the age of innocences before Noah's flood, but now have sin): but now they have no cloak (pretense or covering) for their sin. He that hates Me hates My Father also. If I had not done among them the works which no other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both Me and My Father. (the signs, wonders or miracles were to teach and reveal GOD in Jesus as the promised Messiah to Israel, for the purpose of bringing about change from idolatry and fornication of mans religion, to GOD) But this has not come to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated Me without a cause.* (Psalm 7:4, 35:19, 69:4, 23-29 with the abolition of the Mosaic rites and ceremonies in verse 31 compared with Isaiah 66:3, Psalm109:3, see John 2:17 and 19:28)

 

Christ and our LORD is our Advocate

But when the Comforter is come, Whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of Truth, which proceeds from the Father, He shall testify of Me: And you also shall bear witness, because you have been with Me from the beginning.”

*John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible states this: "they hated me without a cause; without any reason for it, Christ having given them no provocation, or just cause of offense, anger, or hatred. This sin of hating without a cause, is represented by the Jews as a very heinous one, and as the reason of the destruction of the second temple; under which they observe, that men studied in the law, and in the commandments, and in doing of good; and therefore ask why it was destroyed? the answer is, because there was under it, שנאת חנם, "hatred without a cause": to teach us, that hatred without a cause is equal to the three (capital) transgressions, idolatry, adultery, and murder, for which they say the first temple was destroyed (w). This is a tacit acknowledgment that the sin here mentioned was a reigning one, or that it much abounded in the time of Christ." (w) T. Bab, Yoma, fol. 9. 2. Hieros. Yoma, fol. 38. 3.