Daily Devotions
Average reading time is about 4 and a half minutes
When exactly were the sins of the world placed upon the Lamb of God? Was it when He died on the cross, or when they laid His body in the grave? The answer is neither.
According to Hebrew law, the sins of the people were placed upon the Passover lamb before it was slain. During the Last Supper, with the bread and grape juice, Jesus sealed His new covenant to be the Lamb who takes away the sins of the world.
“When Jesus had spoken these words, He went out with His disciples over the Brook Kidron, where there was a garden, which He and His disciples entered” (John 18:1). Jesus went through the Jordan when He began His ministry, and He crossed the Kidron when He began His sufferings.
Then in the garden of Gethsemane, He prayed an intense prayer of surrender three times. On that Thursday evening, He prayed in agony, sweating drops of blood. He said, “Not My will, but Yours, be done” (Luke 22:42–44). From that moment on, Christ had sealed His surrender, fulfilling His destiny as the guiltbearer for the fallen race.
Jesus was now fully a captive of the devil. For the first time in eternity, communion between the Father and the Son was interrupted. He was in “the heart of the earth,” or more clearly, “the depths of the world.” Just as with Jonah, there appeared to be a total, hopeless darkness that surrounded the world’s Redeemer.
There are five Bible verses in which Jesus refers to this Thursday evening as “the hour,” meaning a pivotal transition time in His ministry: Matthew 26:45; Mark 14:41; Luke 22:14; John 16:32; and John 17:1. Each of these affirms that Christ entered a deep darkness in order to bring light to you and me!
KEY BIBLE TEXTS
For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
Matthew 12:40
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The Sign of Jonah
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