But now we come to another thing: God laying the foundation of it all; and mark first, He does not effect it hastily. There are many who think it would have been exceedingly good if God had at the beginning given His Son to die for sinners. Instead of this He waited for 4000 years. Why so? In the word we get the key to the difficulty. “When the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son,” etc. It was not on the first day of the first month that the Passover was instituted, that great standing type of Christ slain for sinners, but on the fourteenth day. Was not God in this delay signifying the fullness of time?
First, He leaves man to his own way; and then, lest man should complain that he had gone astray because abandoned to himself, God took him in hand and tried him under law. So Israel, as the center of mankind, was placed under His government. What was the result? After all possible pains the bad tree bore more bad fruit. Israel at the close was worse than at the beginning. The end of man was the cross of Christ. They hated the Son and flit, Father. Therefore do we hear of Christ's death at the consummation of the ages. It is not a chronological expression; but God had tried man in various ways, which ended in nothing but wickedness and ruin. What does God do then? He displaces man's religion and his failure by the infinite work of redemption; and this is what we have in the Passover.
Verse 5, “In the fourteenth day of the first month, at even, is Jehovah's passover.” What was the great principle of this feast? God had come down to deliver His people from the house of bondage. It was not because of any good in them, for the children of Israel at that time were worshipping false gods, and were utterly indifferent to the glory of the True. But next, if God delivers them, He must deliver them righteously. Pay particular attention to this. It is not simply a question of mercy in forgiving those who are wicked, but He will have them before Him on a foundation of right. He is a just God and a Savior. Hence on that night He sent through the land a destroying angel to avenge sin. It was judgment of evil, and the first thing done. He came down by that angel to deal with whatever was offensive to His character. And there was but one thing which stayed the hand of the destroying angel. What was it? The blood of the slain lamb. Wherever it was not on the doorposts and upper lintel, death reigned. Not that God was yet judging all mankind. It was a sample, which testified what sin deserved, and what alone could screen from God's judgment. God declared, in that blood on the sprinkled doorposts of the children of Israel, that the death of a suited substitute only could stay judgment.
It was in the last degree solemn—the lamb judged for sin. But what wondrous grace! Judgment falling on the lamb; not on the guilty, but on their substitute! It was the judgment of God because of our sins which Christ had to endure, the spotless Lamb of God. What was it made the Lord Jesus sweat, as it were, great drops of blood? Was it the mere act of dying? This would lower the Lord below yourself, if you are a believer. Why, a Christian rejoices in the thought of departing to be with Christ, Who alone suffered and died for our sins.
What was the meaning of that cry, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” It was the judgment of sin which then fell on Christ. It was not what the Jews did, nor Pontius Pilate, nor Herod, nor what man in general laid on Him. I know the popular hymn says, “I lay my sins on Jesus.” But the truth is far better than that: God laid them there. If it had been you or I that must bring our sins for expiation, we might have forgotten many; but Jehovah laid our burden on Him. And hence the Lord suffered on the cross as never did before either any other or Himself. For if He had been bearing sins all His life, as some say, either He must have been forsaken of God all His life, or God must have acted as if sin was tolerable till then. Is either thought true? Neither; indeed, without even an appearance of truth. Christ suffered once for sins.
This judgment of God falling on the Lamb alone explains what sin is and deserves; and the sprinkling of the blood on the doors answers to the believer's application of Christ's blood by faith to his own case. In this and this alone was seen that which has made it a righteous thing to put away sin. God’s judgment fell on His Son, because He is His Lamb, Who was able to bear it. The blood of the Lamb is the witness of the judgment, but in richest fullest grace because it was on His Son it fell. This was God's view of it; and you must remember that in these types we are considering not what Moses or others understood, but what God said and faith receives in and through our Lord Jesus.
Do you ask my authority for all this? Turn to 1 Cor. 5:7, “For even Christ, our passover, was sacrificed for us.” Is not this ample authority? And God says this to those who had been Gentiles and now were His church; for He was looking far beyond the Jew on to another day, and this is the day in which we find ourselves. Christ's death is the groundwork of all our blessing, the blood of the slain Lamb, the Lamb of God that beareth away the sin of the world. We may see too, that it was not a question of continuous or repeated offering; as is argued in Heb. 9:26, “For now once in the end of the world hath He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.” Further, “He bore,” as Peter says, “our sins in His own body on the tree.” The consequence of His work is perfect peace to the believer. If it were continually going on, one could not, one ought never to, have settled peace. The perfect efficacy goes with the singleness of Christ's offering, through righteousness as the apostle teaches in Rom. 5.
3.-The Feast of Unleavened Bread.
But there is another feature to be noticed. The Passover was followed immediately by the feast of Unleavened Bread. Not a single day was allowed to intervene.
Now, as an ordinary rule, there was a space between these different feasts; but here is an exception to the rule: And let me ask you, who could, save by God's power, have appreciated the force of this beforehand? Now that it is revealed, we may follow. Like Moses from the cleft of the rock, one can see Him as He passes before us; but who can go before Him? The Passover was followed immediately by the feast of unleavened bread. There was not the lapse of a day between them—one being on the fourteenth, the other on the fifteenth, day of the same month. Indeed, as the feast of unleavened bread in the New Testament is treated as beginning with the killing of the paschal lamb, the immediate response of the Christian to Christ's blood is to walk in holiness. God will not have him to take a single day to himself. At once he is called by the give of God to own himself responsible to put away all leaven. We know from 1 Cor. 5 that leaven is symbolic of corruption. Ver. 7: For even Christ, our Passover, is sacrificed for us; therefore let us keep the feast.” What feast? The Passover? No; but the feast of unleavened bread.
This feast again, we see, is not like the Passover; for one day was to be kept in the latter case, seven days in the former. I may assume that all here who have read their Bibles know the force of “seven. days.” It was a complete cycle of time, and also doubtless in connection with God's people on the earth. “Day” might be used of heavenly or earthly things, not “seven days.”
We may get important instruction in God's ways from all this. There are in scripture several applications of leaven. The Lord speaks of the leaven of the Pharisees, of the Sadducees, and of Herod. The Holy Ghost uses the expression “a little leaven” twice in the Epistles of Paul; but from this we do not well to allow the thought that they are parallel passages. Each has its own force, though there is of course a common character. But I feel very strongly, as to all such passages apt to be loosely huddled together and called parallel, that we should seek to discriminate. True wisdom is not manifested, as the sages say, in trying to see resemblances in things which differ, but in discerning the real difference among those which resemble one another. What you need to cultivate is a sound judgment, and you will never get it by hunting up so-called parallel passages. The habit is, on the contrary, destructive to intelligence in the word of God. Hence I believe it would be far better if such references were left out of our Bible, and the readers had to learn it thoroughly for themselves. I do not mean you should not have a concordance or kindred help; but the Bible should be printed alone, and is incomparably richer without than with these additions, which habitually mislead by confounding the distinctions which lie under phrases more or less verbally similar. The headings of the chapters and at the top of the columns are often worse than useless, conveying at best the mere views of men, and encumbering the pages which should give only what is divine.
It is written then that “a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.” Hence to many, as the same words appear in two different passages, the too rapid inference is that they point to just the same thing. So far is this from being true that the application is wholly different. What then is the bearing of each? Let me call your attention to the general principle, that, if you wish to understand any verse of scripture, you must always interpret it by its context. In 1 Cor. 5 leaven represents what is unclean and corrupting, and manifestly immoral. They were not to allow “the wicked person” in their midst, for evil spreads, and ever so little leaven, if allowed, sours and defiles the whole lump. In Galatia evil was taking what we may call a religious or legal form (Gal. 5:9). The Christians were observing days, months, times, and years. They were crying up circumcision as a desirable supplement to faith. This was the Pharisaic leaven, as the other was the Sadducean. The leaven of the Sadducees was the evil of free thought and licentious action. The leaven of the Pharisees was that of rigorous legalism and human tradition.
Keeping the feast of “unleavened bread” typifies the maintenance of personal holiness. So scripture insists: Rom. 6, 12, 13; 1 Cor. 5, 6; Gal. 5, 6; Eph. 4, 5; 1 Thess. 4:1-8; Heb. 12:14, etc. If we do lift up our hands to the Lord, let it be piously, without wrath or doubting; let the walk and ways be under the sense of responsibility, as separate to the Lord; let love be without dissimulation and with incorruptness.
But is the person all? Not so. Leaven was to be banished from the house as well as from the individual. You will often find people careful and jealous as to personal walk, and to the last degree lax as to ecclesiastical impurity. The Lord calls us to beware of the allowance of leaven anywhere. Corporate purity is worthless without due regard to personal holiness. Others bring their horror of clericalism or of the sects into shame and contempt by their carelessness about their spirit and ordinary walk. We are bound to eschew all evil, whether collective or individual. In short, what God has at heart is this—that we should please Him in every relation, in what is collective as well as in individual walk. The feast of “Unleavened Bread” takes in the entire pilgrimage, our whole course public as well as private. Thus we may see that if the feast was to begin on the first day after the Passover, the greatest care is taken to show that it was to be continued throughout our entire life here below. To keep this feast is ever our calling while, on earth.