Not a Bone Broken

Thanks Morguefile.com

Yesterday we talked about Jesus as the Passover Lamb. Do you still have any doubts that Jesus is the ultimate Passover Lamb? Well then, check this out: (Tweet that!)

God is into details. He gives us the broad picture so we will "get it"—whether that's a message He is communicating to us (such as Jesus is our Passover Lamb) or a prophecy of something that is to come. But then He also throws in a detail or two…just in case we might think something is just coincidence instead of believing it is the invisible God at work. (Tweet that!)

One detail in the story of the Passover lamb in Exodus seemed strange to me from the first time I read it: God strictly instructed that none of the bones of the slain Passover lamb were to be broken.

Seriously, how could the bones of a dead lamb possibly matter? Well, it matters because this is yet another detail that connects the Passover lamb to the sacrifice of Jesus, the ultimate Passover Lamb.

In the instructions for that first Passover, God said:

"It must be eaten inside one house; take none of the meat outside the house. Do not break any of the bones" (Exodus12:46).

God, through Moses, reiterated the instructions for future Passover remembrances in Numbers:

"They must not leave any of it till morning or break any of its bones. When they celebrate the Passover, they must follow all the regulations" (Numbers 9:12).

King David wrote prophetically of the Messiah about 1,000 years before the birth of Jesus. In Psalm 34, speaking of God, David wrote:

"He protects all his bones, not one of them will be broken" (Psalm 34:20).

When the event of the crucifixion of Jesus occurred, John records not only what happened to the ultimate Passover Lamb, but John directly connects Jesus to the above prophecies of the Messiah (Tweet that!):

"But when they came to Jesus and found that he was already dead, they did not break his legs… The man who saw it has given testimony, and his testimony is true. He knows that he tells the truth, and he testifies so that you also may believe. These things happened so that the scripture would be fulfilled: 'Not one of his bones will be broken'" (John 19:33, 35-36).

That not a bone was broken in the crucified Lord Jesus Christ is an amazing detailed prophecy fulfilled. (Tweet that!)