As he shared his last evening with his friends, Jesus Christ told them, “Take heart; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). That night he was arrested, and the following day he was executed.
What went wrong?
Let’s join him in the upper room in Jerusalem, on the night before the Passover feast. ‘When Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end’ (John 13:1). All four Gospel records present accounts of that precious evening. Jesus washed their feet, comforted them, prayed with them, shared a meal and gave them the commandment, “Do this in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19). Ever since, his faithful disciples have shared that simple feast to celebrate their fellowship with him and with each other.
And he warned them of what was approaching:
“Behold, the hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home, and will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me. I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world” (John 16:32–33).
Preparation For His Death
He knew that he was going to die, he was prepared for it (John 10:17–18). He was concerned to prepare his disciples for it, as well as he possibly could. They did not yet understand what he had to do—that he was the Lamb of God, who was going to take away the sins of the world (John 1:29).
Fifteen centuries earlier, God delivered the nation of Israel from slavery in Egypt. The first chapters of Exodus describe how He sent His servant Moses with the demand, “Let my people go!” (Exodus 9:1). Pharaoh refused, and God entered a trial of strength with Pharaoh and his gods, by means of a series of plagues by which Egypt was systematically humiliated and demolished. In preparation for the tenth and final plague, which finally forced the Egyptians to let them go, God told the Israelites to kill selected lambs and daub their blood on their doorways.
“For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgements: I am the LORD. The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt” (12:12–13).
That was the origin of the Feast of Passover, which Jews have observed on that day of the year ever since.
On the afternoon that Jesus died on the cross, Jews all over Jerusalem were slaughtering their lambs in preparation for keeping the feast. None of them would have any idea that that year, God Himself was participating in the ritual—not with a lamb, but by the death of His Son, the perfect man, Jesus Christ, as a sacrifice for the sins of the world (John 3:16).
The great events of the Passover were a shadow, pointing forward in time to their ultimate fulfilment: the shedding of the blood of Jesus Christ.
‘All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation* by his blood, to be received by faith’ (Romans 3:23–25)
How to Overcome
We live in a world which is (for the most part) godless and hopeless, like Egypt in which the Hebrews were enslaved. If we do nothing, we are under sentence of death. But if we put our trust in God’s power and promise, and take refuge in the blood of the Lamb which He has provided, then we will be saved from death and freed from tyranny. The Exodus story is not just history, it’s an illustration of God’s plan of salvation.
There is a magnificent vision in the Bible’s final book, in which a song is sung to Jesus Christ: “You were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation” (Revelation 5:9).
So, far from being a defeat, the obedient sacrifice for sins of Jesus Christ, the perfect Son of God, was a momentous victory. He has overcome the world, and he invites you and me to share in his victory.