Matthew 26:2

Ye know that after two days is the Feast of the Passover, and the Son of Man is betrayed to be crucified.

Jesus had begun His last great discourse to His disciples immediately after leaving the Temple, chapter 24:2, and had continued it on Mount Olivet and also on the way to His lodging-place in Bethany. It did not end all His sayings; for He still intended to give His disciples a farewell talk of a most intimate kind, full of the deep humility and searching love which characterized His ministry, John 13:1; John 14:1; John 15:1; John 16:1; John 17:1. But the Lord here completed His historical, His public prophetic office. Before dismissing His followers for the evening, He reminded them once more of the culmination of His ministry. In two days, on the Thursday of this week, beginning with sunset on the 14 th

of Nisan, the first month of the Jewish church calendar, the Feast of Passover, combined with the Feast of Unleavened Bread, would begin, to last for a whole week, or till the evening of the 21 st

of the month. Jesus was still a member of the Jewish Church, and observed the holidays and festivals of the Jews, the gospels showing Him to have been present at practically every one of the great feasts since entering upon His ministry. But this Passover was to be distinguished as no Passover before or since, by the fulfillment of the type and prophecy in the person of Jesus, the true Lamb of God. As members of the Jewish Church with Him, His disciples were fully aware of the fact that the festival was coming. What He wanted to impress upon them was the fact that He, the Son of Man, literally is delivered up to be crucified, the most terrible death in the catalog of Roman tortures. In His prophetic character, Christ speaks as though the Passion has even now begun. It is immutably fixed in the counsel of God, the betrayal process has even now begun.