What It Means to be Filled with the Holy Spirit # 17

"And When the Day of Pentecost was Finally Come" (continued)

Christ is Our Passover

Christ is not saying I give you the Bread of Life; He is saying, "I AM the Bread of Life," and only as you partake of ALL THAT I AM will God have what He desires in your life. Only than will you have the True Reality that I AM in your life, for "I AM the Way, the Truth and the Life." And as we have seen for those who would wholly follow Him, this includes the partaking of the sufferings of Christ (1 Peter 4:13; Col. 1:24). So many of His disciples turned away and followed Him no more; many were offended at His Words, for His Words indicated that Life came out of death. In Luke 9:22 and 23, we find this confirmed when the Holy Spirit significantly places the following Words of Christ just after he feeds the 5,000. We find Him alone and praying, and His disciples were with Him, and He said: "The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be slain, and be raised the third day." And He said to them all, "If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me."

Oh, may we be like Peter and the others who continued to follow Him, however imperfectly, all the days of their lives. May our answer be the same as theirs  when the Lord asks,

"Will you also go away? -
Are ye also wishing to withdraw?
Will you refuse to take ME as your ALL?"

Then Simon Peter answered Him,
"Lord, to whom shall we go?
Thou hast the Words of Eternal Life.
And we believe [we have learned to believe and trust] and 
are sure that Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God".

"These Things are Written That Ye Might Have Life"

When we believe in Christ, we are given Eternal Life; and when we partake of Him, our life in Him is sustained by Him. All of this came about because He, Who is the True Passover Lamb, shed His Blood for us upon the Cross! All this came about because He, Who is the Incorruptible Unleavened Bread, gave His Incorruptible Life for us! But, beloved, we would never have Eternal life in Him, nor the privilege of partaking of Him as Life, if He had not been Resurrected from the dead. That is why when God decreed that the Feast of the Passover be celebrated on the 14th day of Nisan (usually our month of April), and that the Feast of Unleavened Bread be celebrated on the 15th day of Nisan, He also decreed that on the following day, the 16th day of Nisan, "ye shall bring a sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest," an offering of the Firstfruits of your Harvest, a wave offering before the Lord (Lev. 23:9-11). The wave offering always symbolized Life - "But now is Christ Risen from the dead, and become the Firstfruits of them that slept" (1 Cor. 15:20).

The sheaf of the Firstfruits was to be waved on the morrow after the Sabbath, the day after the feast of Unleavened Bread began. This was the day that Christ Rose from the grave, this was the Third Day. And in Revelation 1:17 and 18, we find the Resurrected Lord of Glory, the Lord Jesus Christ, THE I AM, summing up what took place in those three days; not just days according to our time, but Three Eternal Days in God's Eternal Purpose:

I AM the First and the Last:
I AM He that Liveth, and was dead; and behold, 
I AM Alive for Evermore, Amen ...

And in John 14:19 where He is speaking of His Cross, and His Resurrection, He says: "Because I Live, ye shall live also."

~T. Austin-Sparks~

(continued with # 18 - "Upon that Great Day of the Feast ... Out of His Belly Shall Flow Rivers of Living Water")