While the Lord was preparing both Himself and His disciples for His death, the opposers—the leaders in the Jewish community—were busy looking for an opportunity to arrest Him and put Him to death. The Lord’s sovereignty was exercised here, for this was the year in which Messiah had to be cut off, that is, the year in which the preordained Savior had to die. Furthermore, the exact month and day had been prophesied in the Old Testament. It was crucial, therefore, that the Savior be put to death on the exact day prophesied and typified in the Old Testament.
It was not easy for everything to be arranged so that the Man-Savior would be put to death at the exact time and place. This certainly required the exercise of the sovereignty of the Triune God. The Son prepared Himself to die. The Spirit and the Father were also working to prepare the environment so that the Son would die on the cross exactly according to what was prophesied and typified in the Old Testament.
In Luke 22 we see that while the Man-Savior was preparing Himself to die, the opposers were busy with their plot, their conspiracy. At the same time, the enemy of God, Satan, also was busy. Whenever God is busy, Satan is busy as well. Hence, in chapter twenty-two both the Triune God and Satan were busy. In particular, Satan was actively using Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve apostles appointed by the Man-Savior. Satan instigated Judas’ betrayal of the Lord Jesus. Satan injected into Judas the thought of finding an opportunity to deliver the Lord into the hand of those who wanted to kill Him. Therefore, in this chapter we see both the plotting of the opposers and the working of Satan. On the one hand, “the chief priests and the scribes were seeking how they might do away with Him” (v. 2). On the other hand, “Satan entered into Judas, who was called Iscariot, being of the number of the twelve. And he went away and conversed with the chief priests and officers as to how he might deliver Him up to them” (vv. 3-4).
In 22:7-23 the Man-Savior instituted His supper as a replacement of the Old Testament Passover. In the Old Testament the Passover was a great matter, a matter that may be considered equal to God’s creation. In the Old Testament we first have the record of God’s creation. Then we see that the man created by God fell and eventually went down into Egypt. When God was about to save His people from bondage in Egypt, He ordained the feast of Passover. The Passover was the time when God’s people were saved and brought back to their right, which had been lost. The observance of the Passover lasted for more than fifteen hundred years, from the time of Exodus 12 until the night in which the Man-Savior had the last Passover with His disciples.
Luke 22:7-23 is a crucial section of the Word, for it marks the ending of the Old Testament Passover. Here we see that the Man-Savior instituted His supper, the Lord’s table, to replace the Old Testament Passover. From this we see that the night in which the Lord instituted His supper was a time of transition. A transition was taking place from the Old Testament Passover to the New Testament supper of the Lord. This is a matter of great importance.
In Luke 22 we must see the distinction between the Passover and the Lord’s table. Verses 7 through 18 are concerned with the Passover, and verses 19 and 20, with the Lord’s supper. Verse 7 says, “And the day of Unleavened Bread came, on which the Passover must be sacrificed.” The feast of Unleavened Bread is a feast of seven days (Lev. 23:6). It is also called the Passover (Mark 14:1). Actually, the feast of the Passover was the first day of the feast of Unleavened Bread (Exo. 12:15-20).
Luke 22:7 speaks of the day on which the Passover was sacrificed. In the Jewish calendar, which was according to their Scripture, a day began with the evening (Gen. 1:5). In the night of the last Passover day, the Man-Savior first ate the Passover feast with His disciples and then instituted His supper for them. Following that, He went with the disciples to the Garden of Gethsemane at the Mount of Olives. There He was arrested and brought to the high priest, where He was judged by the Sanhedrin late in the night. In the morning of the same day, He was delivered to Pilate to be judged by him and was sentenced to death. Then He was brought to Golgotha and crucified there at the third hour (today’s nine o’clock) in the morning, remaining on the cross until the ninth hour (today’s three o’clock) in the afternoon (Mark 15:16-41), for the fulfillment of the type of the Passover (Exo. 12:6-11).
In Luke 22:15 the Lord said to His disciples, “I have earnestly longed to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.” The Greek words translated, “I have earnestly longed” literally mean, “with longing I have longed.” The Lord longed to eat the Passover with the disciples before He suffered, that is, before He went to the cross. The eating and drinking in 21:15-18 were the keeping of the last feast of the Passover before the institution of the Lord’s supper in verses 19 and 20.