your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump? Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us: Therefore, let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth,
I Cor.5:7-8
In dealing with a particular sin in the Corinthian church, Paul tells them to purge out the old leaven. This led to the brother, in question, being cast out of fellowship for a time, until he repented.
Whilst Paul was giving his advice on the matter, he makes this remark: Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us He continues by linking his thoughts to the feast of unleavened bread. The Apostle doesn’t expound on it any further, but takes it as read that the Corinthians understood what he meant. No doubt Paul would have expounded these truths when he spent time with the Corinthians.
It is the purpose of this series of articles to focus on the statement: ‘Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us’. We must remember, that all of scripture testifies of Christ, Jn.5:39. When Jesus said this, He was referring to the OT. So, under the inspiration of the Spirit, Paul points us to the fact that, the Passover recorded in Exodus speaks of the Lord Jesus Christ, and His eternal efficacious sacrifice at Calvary.
Firstly, we will look at the background to the Passover, see what God required of the Israelites and then we can see how this typifies the Lord Jesus Christ.
1. Background to the Passover
At the end of the book of Genesis, we see that, because of famine Jacob and his family all ended up dwelling in Egypt; in the land of Goshen to be more specific. At the beginning of the book of Exodus, we see that over time the Israelites became numerous and the Egyptians saw them as a threat.
As a result of this fear the Pharoah began a programme of cruelty in various guises. The result was that the Israelites were greatly oppressed, so much so that they were crying unto God for deliverance.
The time came when God called out a man to lead the Israelites out of Egypt. Moses was that man. God sent Moses to command Pharaoh to release Israel from his grip. This Pharaoh refused to do, so God sent a series of plagues on Egypt to judge them. The last of these plagues was the death of the first-born, and it was this that instigated the Passover.
2. The Passover described
And the LORD spake unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, this month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you. Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for an house: And if the household be too little for the lamb, let him and his neighbour next unto his house take it according to the number of the souls; every man according to his eating shall make your count for the lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year: ye shall take it out from the sheep, or from the goats: And ye shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month: and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening. And they shall take of the blood, and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door post of the houses, wherein they shall eat it. And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire, and unleavened bread; and with bitter herbs they shall eat it. Eat not of it raw, nor sodden at all with water, but roast with fire; his head with his legs, and with the purtenance thereof. And ye shall let nothing of it remain until the morning; and that which remaineth of it until the morning ye shall burn with fire. And thus shall ye eat it; with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and ye shall eat it in haste: it is the LORD’S Passover. For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the LORD. And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are: and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt, and this day shall be unto you for a memorial; and ye shall keep it a feast to the LORD throughout your generations; ye shall keep it a feast by an ordinance for ever.
Ex.12:1-14
In this lengthy description we pick out the following details for our consideration.
Firstly, A lamb was taken for each house, it had to be of the correct size for the household. It was kept from the tenth day till the fourteenth day, when it was inspected. It was to be without blemish; there had to be no defect, otherwise it could not be used for the Passover.
On the fourteenth day it was killed; its blood was then applied to the door posts and lintel, and the household had to be inside eating the lamb.
At midnight, the angel of death would go through the land and kill the firstborn of all families, except those who were in the houses where the blood was applied to the door posts and lintel, and eating the lamb. The angel would ‘pass-over’ them.
We read later in Exodus that on Passover night, when the angel of death came that there was great anguish in the households that had not prepared the Passover lamb -their firstborn was dead. This included Pharaoh’s first born, ie. the heir apparent! Ex.12:29-30.
Such was the torment that Pharaoh drove them out of Egypt, and the Israelites were freed from their bondage in Egypt. The story doesn’t end there, for they had yet to cross the Red Sea, but that is not our concern in this series.
3. Christ our Passover
We are going to focus on the teaching of the Passover, and consider how Christ is our Passover sacrificed for us.
In all of our thinking we need to remember that the Exodus is a picture of our salvation in Christ. The whole event is full of spiritual truth in typological form.
Without giving a full exposition of the Exodus, and its meaning for us, we point out that: Egypt is a picture of this present evil world. Pharaoh is a picture of the devil. The bondage of the Israelites a picture of the bondage of sin. Finally, the first born of Pharaoh a picture of the ‘old man’, as the KJV puts it. That is, the spiritual nature we have in Adam as a result of the Fall.
By natural birth we are born into this world and are under the slavery of sin and the Devil. No matter how hard we try in our natural strength we cannot free ourselves, no more than the Israelites could free themselves from Egypt. God has to intervene and carry out the rescue plan Himself. This is what He did for the Israelites, and that is what He has done for us in Christ.
What we are looking at is how Christ, being our Passover, freed us from the world and the Devil’s clutches.
From our consideration so far, we see that there are three aspects to Christ being our Passover:
- The Lamb taken
- The Lamb slain
- The Lamb eaten
In the next article we shall consider the first of these: the Lamb taken.