On this episode of Preaching the Text, John Hoyum and Steve Paulson talk about the Beatitudes in Matthew 5. We learn how these characteristics of the Christian aren't virtues to be conjured by hard work and devotion, but are descriptions of what happens to the Christian once faith in the promise has been given.
We need the Son of God, Jesus, to set us free. Not by the Law, not by a social gospel, but by the blood-mark of the Lamb and a sacred eating and passing through the sea of baptismal regeneration.
No slogan encapsulates biblical Reformation theology as well as the one drawn from this verse. It is justification by faith apart from works and if apart from works, then the justification of the sinner is by faith alone, sola fide.
The Passover is about deliverance even more so than the Day of Atonement and, unlike the Day of Atonement, the Passover is about resurrection life, new life.