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Let's open the Word of God, open your Bible to Luke chapter 22...Luke chapter 22. Of course Jesus said many things that are remarkable, many things that are stirring and stunning, all of them absolutely true. Among the many unforgettable statements that Jesus made, one of them that is so very important is this statement, "No man takes My life from Me. I lay it down by Myself." That is a stunning statement.
You might assume that the Jewish leaders took the life of Jesus. You might assume that the Romans took the life of Jesus. And while the Jewish leaders wanted Him dead and the Romans executed Him, no one took His life from Him. He laid it down by Himself. It was a willing sacrifice in complete submission to and agreement with God the Father. God chose His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to be the final Passover Lamb, to pay the penalty for sin for all who would believe.
Our Lord Jesus came to die. He knew He would die. He knew how He would die, on a cross being lifted up. He knew where He would die, in Jerusalem. He knew at whose hands humanly speaking He would die, the leaders of Israel and the Roman soldiers. He knew when He would die, He would die on the Passover day in the middle of the afternoon on a Friday in A.D. 30 in the month of Nissan on the fourteenth day as God's Passover Lamb. He would die at the very same hour Passover lambs by the tens of thousands were being slaughtered. He knew every detail about His coming death.
And so He lived it every day in vivid limitless anticipation. The cross loomed in front of Him every conscious moment of His life. He knew perfectly what the plan was. He knew perfectly where and by whom and when it would happen....
