Who Are You Killing?

We, as humans, have a desire to advance oneself, and in times of one seeing someone else with something that you don't have, the desire in humans is to go and kill and take that. Whether verbally doing an assassination of another's character, or putting down others, defaming them, or whatever, in order to get something for oneself. Or to actually walk in and kill them, literally, is a long human practice. If we look down through human history, we see this evidence from the very beginning. See it in Cain and Abel, for instance.

As we go on, you can see in the life of Abraham, there were individuals such as the king of Shinar, came down and made war with Sodom and Gomorrah, and with other kingdoms in that area. They plundered that whole region. In fact, in Genesis 4, verse 11, it says that, "...he took all of their goods, and all of their provisions, and he took lots, and all of his goods, and took that plunder home." When you look at Egypt, you see a country who goes out along highways and routes, and kills, and conquers, and brings home booty.

You see an individual, David, who saw something that he wanted, in fact, a best friend's wife, and he killed or had his friend and loyal supporter, Uriah, killed so that he could get something for himself. We see the king of Assyria, Artaxerxes II, going through country after country after country, just as a way of life, killing and taking plunder, and writing in his memoirs about all the plunder he took, including coming down into the temple in Jerusalem, and taking the gold from it, and taking people, the northern ten tribes away as sort of slaves, along with their goods.

Babylon, under Nebuchadnezzar, came down, once again, besieged country after country, including Judah, took the gold out of the temple, and took slaves back to Babylon. When you get to the time of Rome, if you pass through Medo-Persia, who did the same thing, Greece, who did the same thing, Rome was a conquering country, just tentacles that went everywhere, taking more, bringing booty back, and bringing people back, and enslaving people, couldn't get enough. But those are just the big countries. Then you have the smaller groups, the Visigoths, the Vandals, the Lombards, the Goths, others who were coming down and invading, and taking, and going home.

We're familiar with the Franks, the Vikings, the Normans, who, as a way of life, just went out and plundered and took. When you go up into the area, say, of the border of Scotland and England, you had tribes whose life just was basically raiding. I'm related to some of those who are called the Reavers, the Raiders, the Robbers. They were just killers and plunderers.

That's basically what made up the country. At one point, southern England was made up of Vikings, who had come in and were raiding and plundering people, and using that as a base across the way. You had the Normans. You had the Vikings' sort of other base that came from many cultures, actually. Not just one set up the Vikings, but many raiding cultures across Holland, Denmark, up in Scandinavia. This is just a way of life. London Bridge is falling down, is maybe a tune that we know, because it fell down regularly.

It was a wooden bridge, and when people came in raiding, they burned the bridge and raided London and went home with the booty. Finally, somebody built it out of stone and made a little bit better defense. When we come to the 600s AD, we find the warriors of Islam. They attacked Rome. These warriors sacked St.

Peter's and St. Paul's. They sacked that region all the way up to the Alps. Italy, in return, began learning how to raid. Italy began raiding the Western Mediterranean. Then the kings of Europe began to follow suit. The popes began to get involved, and they would authorize raiding parties on other countries, led by the French, and calling them crusades.

They would grab foreign ports. They would grab foreign investments. Portugal became really good with its seafaring, and it got very good at killing and raiding and taking foreign ports itself, along with Spain, who became perhaps the world global model of raiding and pillaging and killing across the Atlantic Ocean.

Going in and even torturing peoples to find out where their gold was and hauling the booty home. Turkey became good at it. England wasn't so good at going out and doing that, though it tried. It couldn't really find it. So it became a country whose official policy sanctioned by the crown was to go out and raid Spanish galleons.

So their little navy of smaller ships became very versatile attacking larger ships, especially returning Spanish galleons filled with gold and other types of booty.

This was just the world. When you think about some of the history that we know, the Barbary Pirates, these were just a way of life. It's getting on the high seas and going out and attacking and killing and raiding. From the Danube River to the Caucasus Mountains, from Scandinavia to the New World, our not too long ago history was just filled with kill and rob. Privateering, it was called, was authorized by kings, including England. Even by George Washington. After America got its independence, the twelve colonies were not united. The economy began to fall apart because they were blockaded from international travel. So one individual, John Kendrick, appealed for approval from the president to privateer and got approval. He took his little ships out and he got two big British ships. After all, that's what the British did. So we did it too. And that was kind of the war. That was kind of the way you did things. You went out and you took it. And so as people sailed around to this part of the world where we are and began to look up and down the coast, you had individuals who were coming for gold, coming for this, coming from trade routes, wanting to access China, which itself was being raided. It was divided. Its ports were being forced to give up goods. Japan, which had sort of locked itself down into the samurai kingdom of fighting tribes. The port on the way, being Hawaii, was in a civil war of each island and its kings, its rulers fighting each other. In this area, you had the Indian tribes fighting each other. It was so dangerous here that the first sort of European discoverers who came in ships would not enter Puget Sound. The Salish Sea area is too dangerous. The Indians were killing everybody and they would kill them. They were hanging out on the west side of Vancouver Island, mostly, and down the Oregon coast. It was a very dangerous time. We had the World Wars. What were they about? You know, coming in and pillaging and taking and trying to grab. Let's go to James 4, verse 1. Make this a little more personal. James 4, verse 1 says, Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? This is a human tendency that humans have. Male and female, young and old, all peoples. Me first. And if I don't have it, I'll find a way to get it. People can do theft. They can do white collar crime. It's nicer. It's cleaner, but it's still crime. Verse 2, You lust and you do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war.

You know, it's interesting here that you can put this in a religious context. And if you look at religion globally, down through time, all the religions, what do they basically want? Advancement of self. I want to get all that I can get from me, and I want eternal life. Some of those religions have been very involved in torture, mutilation, grabbing themselves, people aligning and trying to get things in this life. And also force or grab or pay for or somehow manipulate somebody to give them the next life. Just look at the pharaohs and how they basically enslave certain seers and diviners to make them a route into heaven and in their afterlife to have the craft that would get them there and the way to get them there. This is not pretty. But you and I are to come out of this world. And we're to be reconciled to God. Let's look at verse 4 here in James 4. Adulters and adultresses. Now, you can't go over to that side. If you're betrothed to Jesus Christ, it would be committing adultery to go dabble with Satan, the other suitor. He says here, Do you not know that friendship with the world, the society, is enmity with God? Whoever, therefore, wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. So we have to stop this. We have to turn around. We're to come out of this world. We're to be reconciled with God and His mindset. Killing and taking for oneself is human. Loving and sacrificing what has to give it to others is divine. Let's dwell on that concept for a minute. It's human to want and to take and to kill for what you want. It's of God to sacrifice oneself and what you have in order to give to others. Today, let's examine killing and receiving and see how it applies to us in the New Covenant. The title of the sermon today is, Who Am I Killing? Who Am I Killing? We are actually assembled today here to get something. Something we don't have. That's kind of rough terms to put it in there, but I imagine when you thought about coming to church today and making the extra effort to be here, you came to get something. What is it that you and I really want? What's the basis of our desire to be part of this covenant? To do all that God asks of us. Why are you here? What do you want? And the answer is eternal life. You and I want eternal life. God has put that in our hearts, something we desire. How can you and I get eternal life? In Romans 5 and 12, we're presented with a barrier to our getting eternal life. Romans 5 and 12 says, Therefore, just as through one man's sin entered the world, and death through sin, there's the wall. You and I are sinners, and eternal death comes from sin. We have built up this siege mound, as it were, to keep God out of our life. And yet God is the only one with life. We have built up these sins, you see. It says, And thus death spread to all men, because all sinned. You and I can't get eternal life. There's no way that you and I can take it, that we can sin more, that we can somehow become ingenious and demand it.

It creates a paradox, doesn't it? We want eternal life, but we've earned eternal death. We just read that. Can I take eternal life? Can I earn eternal life? Can I rob for it? Can I take someone hostage? Can I kill somebody and get eternal life for myself? You know, sometimes people will take a hostage. They'll go to a rich person. They'll take him hostage. Give me your money or I'll kill you. It's very common. And so the rich people tend to dwell in forts with moats or security systems or armed guards or, you know, more and more isolated and insulated to try to protect themselves.

Let me ask this question. Since life is through Jesus Christ, can I kill Jesus Christ and get life? Can I go take His life? And thus, I killed Him so because I can kill Him, then I can live. Does that work? Let's ask Jesus. John 10, verse 17. Jesus tells us the answer to that little question.

Don't put it behind anybody to try anything to get eternal life. But here's what Jesus said. John 10, verse 17. Therefore, my Father loves me because I lay down my life that I may take it again. Notice verse 18. No one takes it from me. You can't kill Jesus Christ. No one takes His life from Him. You can't go up and rob Him of it. You can't go up and threaten Him. You can't sort of do a switcheroo. Okay, I'll kill you and therefore I'll live. No one takes it from me. But I lay it down myself, He says. In other words, this is going to be a gift. This is not going to be something you're going to take. Notice, I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This command I have received from my Father. So nobody's going to take Jesus' life. Only Jesus can give His life, and He will restore it again through God the Father. Now, if somebody thinks they're going to take Jesus' life from Him, let's read Matthew 26 and verse 53. Matthew 26 and verse 53. In other words, we can't be on some marauding quest here for eternal life, and we're going to go and just take the shh. Matthew 26 and verse 53 says, To those who were assembling, thinking they were going to do something of their own, or do you think that I cannot now pray to my Father, and He will provide me with more than twelve legions of angels? Now, if just one angel showed up, that would be a big defense, right? But are you going to take twelve legions of angels?

Verse 54.

This is something God had planned from the foundation of the world. The Scriptures said it would be fulfilled this way, and it's God who is making it happen in the way that it happens. Verse 56.

So Jesus Christ and God the Father are in charge of salvation. And if you and I want it, we have to obtain it through the process that they have established. Let's ask this question. What do my sins require? Sometimes I hear people say, Oh, my sins require the death of Jesus Christ.

We've got to think about that a little more carefully and see what the Bible says about what our sins require. Ezekiel 18 and verse 20 is very clear. Ezekiel 18 and verse 20. The soul whose sins shall die. That's what my sins require. My sins require my death. The Son shall not bear the guilt of the Father. In other words, my Father's sins don't require my eternal death. The Father cannot bear the guilt of the Son. My sins don't require my Father's eternal death. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon Himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon Himself, but it's the soul whose sins shall die.

In John 5 and verse 28, Jesus shows here that there's a responsibility, just as it said in Ezekiel, that each of us has. John 5 and verse 28 says, Do not marvel at this, for the hour is coming, in which all who are in the graves will hear his voice and come forth.

Those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, or those who have sinned, broken God's holy law, to the resurrection of condemnation.

So what did my sins require? My death. Evil, it says here. Those who have done evil have a resurrection of condemnation.

My sins didn't require God to do anything. I'm not that important.

My sins did not require that God do anything, except to kill me. It does require that God kills me. There is that requirement, because the person who sins shall die. That's the guilt penalty, or the death penalty. And guess what? I qualify for that. So it's important for God to carry through. So we read in Revelation 21 and verse 8, God has not gone soft. Revelation 21 and verse 8.

The cowardly, the unbelieving, the abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death. So that's God's responsibility to me, is to burn me in the lake of fire.

In verse 7, however, God speaks of a path to eternal life that is available in a covenant that He makes with us. And to those who overcome, they will inherit all things and be the Son of God. Sons of God.

In Ezekiel chapter 18 and verse 13, Ezekiel chapter 18 and verse 13, He's asking the question here, if a man has lived in sin, what's going to happen there? Ezekiel 18, 13. If a man has lived in sin, now we go into the verse, shall he then live?

He shall not live. If he has done any of these abominations, he shall surely die, his blood shall be upon him.

In James chapter 5 and verse 20 is an interesting statement. James chapter 5 and verse 20, here we are solidly into the new covenant, way down the line, as it were, from the beginning of the New Testament church. And James says here, Let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way, notice what he's saying here, a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death. See, that death penalty is still there, isn't it? The soul who sins will die, and a sinner who is not turned will die. Now, let's ask this question. Did my sins require Jesus's death? Did my sins, and I'm placing the word here on the word, or the emphasis on the word sins, did my sins require Jesus's death? Well, let's ask Jesus. In John chapter 8 and verse 23, John chapter 8 and verse 23, it's the same word that we hear from the beginning. John 8 and verse 23 says, And Jesus said to them, You are from beneath, I am from above. You are of this world, I am not of this world. Verse 24, Therefore I say to you that you will die in your sins. And, sorry, for if you do not believe that I am he, you will die in your sins. Does Jesus, is he somehow required to die for our sins? No. You are required to die for your sins. I am required to die for my sins. That's what the requirement is.

In Acts chapter 18 and verse 5, Acts chapter 18 and verse 5, it says, When Silas and Timothy had come from Macedonia, Paul was compelled by the Spirit and testified to the Jews that Jesus is the Christ, he is the Messiah. Verse 6, But when they opposed him and blasphemed, we just read that Jesus said, If you do not believe that I am he, you'll die in your sins. And here are those who were told that Jesus is the Messiah, and they opposed Paul, and they blasphemed, for Silas and Timothy, they blasphemed, He shook his garments and said to them, Your blood be upon your own heads. Notice, your blood be upon your own heads. That's what you and I have essentially worked for in our life. That's where we have come. Blood that's on our own heads. Now, let's ask this question. What required Jesus's death? What is it that required Jesus's death?

The answer is, your eternal life. You see, you and I want eternal life, but we've just seen we can't get it by sinning. We can't get it by killing. We can't get it by taking. We can only get it if Jesus dies for us to live. That's the requirement of Jesus's death, is for our life.

In Romans chapter 5 and verse 21, we see this major shift in our thinking from, Oh, I sinned so he had to die. No, he didn't.

But if we say, Oh, I can have eternal life because he died, now that is positive, isn't it? That is a wonderful opportunity. Well, that could just break us into a whole Holy Day season about the plan of salvation and how Jesus's death provides an opportunity for us to live. We can't live unless he dies.

It says in Romans 5, 21, So that as sin reigned in death, death and sin are linked. That's where we are. Even so, grace, God's divine favors and gifts, might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. That's what we receive. Eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Through his death, through his blood, through his resurrection, and through him living in us.

Notice back up in verse 10, For when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son. That is what brings us a connection with life. And much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. We shall be saved by his life. What does that mean? Saved by his life.

We are saved by the giving of his life.

One of the commentaries, Adam Clark, said that he gave four different explanations for this. The principal explanation for saved by his life is this. For as he died for our sins, so he rose again for our justification and his resurrection to life. And this is the grand proof that he has accomplished whatever he had purposed in reference to the salvation of man.

See, he is dying so that your sins and my sins don't kill us. He didn't die because he sinned. He died so that we could have life and do away with the penalty of our sins.

Why did Jesus Christ die? Romans 5, verse 8. Let's just back up. Romans 5, verse 8. But God demonstrates his own love towards us. See the disconnect between selfish humans that are out taking and getting and everything? God demonstrates his own agape love toward us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. God didn't come and take something from us. He gave us all that he had. He gave us everything that he had, his only begotten Son. He gave everything he possibly could. He sacrificed to give to us. That's the opposite of pirating or conquering or slandering.

Much more, verse 9. Having now been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. Wrath being our eternal death. Destruction. God's destruction, the lake of fire. Notice. By his blood we are justified that we shall be. We are not saved yet. We were saved from the death penalty originally. We are being saved, the Bible says, and we shall be saved when we are resurrected. Jesus said, He who endures to the end shall be saved. So we are in this process then. In verse 11, and not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we now have received the reconciliation. And just through that loving sacrificial gift to us and our coming into a covenant with God, that we can be reconciled to God, for we like sheep are going astray.

The Bible's answer to who killed Christ is given in the Gospels. We can see some background in Matthew 20, verse 17. It was part of this human plundering. People trying to get what they could, take what they could. What was that about? You had individuals who were leaders, and they didn't want this new, greater miracle-working leader to take their place. They were against Him. They wanted to assassinate Him by character. If that wouldn't work, they wanted to assassinate Him any way they could.

Verse 17 of Matthew 20, Jesus going up to Jerusalem took the twelve disciples aside on the road and said to them, Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn Him to death. This was all planned. The prophets had prophesied it. This was planned from before the foundation, the creation, the physical world.

Verse 19, And they will deliver Him to the Gentiles, to the Romans, to mock and scourge and to crucify, and the third day He will rise again. So this is part of the gift that Jesus Christ submitted Himself to and dictated, This is what will happen. He and the Father dictated. This is what will happen.

No one is going to take this from Me. I am going to do it on my own terms. And here before anything ever took place, He dictated all of those specific terms. In Luke 23, verse 13, we pick up this story now after Jesus was arrested. Then Pilate, Luke 23, verse 13, Pilate, when He had called together the chief priests, the rulers, and the people, all these people, didn't want Jesus Christ to succeed, you see.

Dropping down to verse 20, Pilate therefore, wishing to release Jesus, He found Him innocent. Again He called out to them, verse 21, but they shouted, saying, Crucify Him, Crucify Him. These individuals wanted to kill Jesus Christ. Verse 23, after He said, Oh, third time, He's innocent. Notice, they were insistent, demanding with loud voices that He be crucified. And these voices of these men and of the chief priests prevailed.

Sing here, Who killed Jesus Christ? Verse 24, so Pilate gave the sentence that it should be as they requested. There's the Gentile. He gives the sentence that it should be as they requested. And of course, Jesus Christ was killed and crucified. Now, seven weeks later, these individuals who had done the pilgrim feast for the Passover in the days of Unleavened Bread, and many of them had gone home. Jerusalem, Samaria, and other countries around the world now make a pilgrimage feast back for Pentecost. So they're back in town again. In Acts 2, verse 14, we pick up the familiar story of the beginning of the New Testament church.

Acts 2, verse 14, but Peter, standing up with the eleven, raised his voice and said to them, Now, let's get the scene here. Remember how Jesus stopped with the eleven on the road to Jerusalem, and he told them what was going to happen? They were not part of his crucifixion. They were not demanding that he be killed. Now we come to Pentecost, and we have the eleven. Peter, standing up with the eleven, raised his voice and said to them, Men of Judea, and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you.

He's talking to the same people who had gathered the death of Jesus Christ, and we're requiring, chanting, demanding that he be killed. So the ones yelling, Crucify him. Verse 36, he continues here, and he says, Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.

He didn't say, Whom we crucified. He said, Whom you crucified. Now it's interesting if you read that Gospel account. During that crucifixion, there was still a lot of mockery going on, but in the end, one of the soldiers said, Wow, the earthquake happened. It got dark, remember. Graves opened. A lot of things were taking place. And even the Roman soldiers said, This was the wrong man. This was an innocent man. Something big has taken place here.

It says there that the people, I believe it was, grabbed their breasts. There was a recognition there that they had done wrong. There's an indication that they realized they had done wrong. And now, Peter speaks to them, and he says, Let this be known to you. This Jesus whom you crucified is both Lord and Christ. What's God's fundamental purpose for our observing the Passover? It's important when we think of the Passover to understand what the purpose of the Passover is.

The purpose of the Passover isn't for you and me to have eternal guilt. It's not the annual guilt festival of our involvement in killing Jesus Christ. We somehow come and celebrate or relive or God wants to stick our nose in it. What is it? What is the purpose for Passover? Is it guilt or is it admiration? Is it despondency or is it respect? Is it revulsion or is it the greatest opportunity you and I have ever dreamed of?

Eternal life. That which we desire, that which we seek. We have an avenue, we have a path, we have an opening, we have a way. In John 3, verse 16, we're given the answer from God as to what this Passover is to remind us of. John 3, verse 16, For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

That's the message of Passover. God is so loving and so giving and so wanting to help others that He gave His Son so that we could have that eternal life that we desire, that He'd put in us to desire. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world. It's not condemnation God is looking for. It's not guilt. But that the world through Him might be saved. The opening to the annual festivals of God speak of God's plan of salvation. And this wonderful gift is the highlight. It's the opening to all paths toward salvation. In 1 Corinthians 11, verse 24, we see what Jesus Christ told Paul was the purpose of the Passover.

1 Corinthians 11, verse 24, he says, I'm telling you what I've received from Jesus Christ myself. He said, In the same manner He also took the cup, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood. This do as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. He said, The same thing with the bread. As often as you eat this bread, do this in remembrance of me. Not in remembrance of you.

It's not some celebration for me, my sins, what I've done. It's a celebration of life. He is the way, the truth, the life. He is the gift of God for life. We need to pause with deep appreciation for this awesome gift and revere the God and the Christ who gave it to us.

Verse 25, For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death till He comes. We're remembering Jesus Christ. We're remembering that gift. We're remembering the offering of someone to pay our eternal death penalty. I can't do it. You can't do it. We can't steal it. We can't rob for it. It has to come as a gift.

How could you become guilty of the death of Jesus Christ? Verse 27, Therefore whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup with the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. That's not what God wants us to be guilty of. He doesn't want us to go there. The purpose is to proclaim God's love, to recognize the depth of that love, and then to respond. Let's go to 1 John 3, verse 16. 1 John 3, verse 16. By this we know love because He laid down His life for us. That is love. He laid down His life for us. As if a corsair, a privateer, one of those pirates sailed into port and said, Look what I brought everybody. Look, I've come here to serve you. I've come here. I've brought goods. I want to make your life better. Here you can have my ship. I'll give you everything I have, including my life. That would be an interesting arrival from a pirate, wouldn't it? Total opposite here. Total opposite here. And so by this we know love that someone, as it were, sailed into port and laid down His life for us. Wow, that's different. No one ever did that before. And now it says, And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. What does that mean? Well, if He sacrificed His life, if He died for you and me, what should you and I be doing?

We should be dying likewise.

Let's continue. Who are you killing? That's the title of the sermon today. Who are you killing? Let's go to Romans 6. We'll begin in verse 3. Romans 6. Romans 6 is great about the covenant, about our baptism, about how it all takes place and what we're supposed to do.

Verse 1, shall we continue in sin that grace abounds? But we'll drop down now to verse 3. Do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?

Therefore, we were buried with Him through baptism into death. So you and I are supposed to die. You and I, in a sense, are to kill ourselves, not in a sacrificial way, not in some sort of suicide, but we're supposed to kill the old man, as Paul goes on to call it. An old nature. The old self-seeking, killing, marauding, bringing home the booty person that you and I have been. That just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so, we also should walk in newness of life. We should be a new creation, a new person. For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, determining that my old self has to die, and only I can kill it, I have to go and take care of that old person, symbolically through baptism. And then later on, as I go through life, to find those sins and keep putting to death the old man.

Certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection. That's how eternal life comes. It actually comes through killing somebody. And it's not other people. It's certainly not Jesus Christ. To kill ourselves in that sense. Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin. Verse 8. Now, if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him. It's important that you and I are killing somebody. That's the terms. We've got to die to that old way of life. We've got to die to that old person. We've got to be a new person. And that doesn't just happen at baptism by poof! We come out of the water like, I'm perfect! I'm just like God! I'm just loving and serving. I have no evil thoughts.

It doesn't happen, does it? Your own death can't save you, but the true death of you, your old man, can link you with Christ's death. See, that's the point. Your own death, even in baptism, can't save you. But it does link you with life. It does link you with Jesus Christ. You notice there in Romans 6 how we are buried together with Him. We die together with Him. We have to be attached to His death so that we can then live.

When we are linked to Jesus Christ's death in baptism, something profound takes place. Absolutely profound. It's found in verse 22.

It's right there. For the wages of sin is death. Still are. Verse 23.

In conclusion, we've seen that a person's sin requires a death. But my sin didn't require Jesus to die. It required me to die. God, however, loved you and me and all humans so much that He provides an alternate death, if I choose to work for that gift, if I will go and work at killing somebody and get rid of that. Because God can't have that in His kingdom. He can't have the old Corsair pirate in His kingdom. We've got to die to that.

Repentance, baptism, Holy Spirit, the body of Christ, all those link us to life. And the annual festivals celebrate opportunities for life to begin with the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, that gift to us.

I'd like to close by reading 1 Corinthians 10 and verse 16. A wonderful thing takes place through this process. 1 Corinthians 10 and verse 16. A relationship develops that is unparalleled in human history. It says, 1 Corinthians 10, 16, The cup of blessing which we bless. We're told to pray over that, just as Jesus did at the Passover. Is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break. Is it not the communion of the body of Christ? In other words, we have a connection. We have a relationship with God. We have a relationship with that blood. We have a relationship with His life. Verse 17, For we, though many, are one bread and one body, for we all partake of that one bread.

When we think of the plan of God, we see this dramatic opportunity that we're presented. Just before we ever even existed, Jesus Christ laid down His life for us as an opportunity to give us life. The next phase is for us then to begin to resemble that bread, that bread of life. As we said, as we read right there, we all partake of that one bread. We need to become godly in our mind, godly in our attitudes. We need to begin to sacrifice our lives, to lay down our lives, like He laid down His life for us. And then as we partake of the days of unleavened bread, we are reminded that body, which we are to become, the life, the living, that's the focus, not the sins, not the death. It is the bread of righteousness and holiness that ultimately the harvest of first fruits pictures the giving of eternal life to. So, brethren, ask yourself the question, who am I killing?