There are four notices of the passover in the Pentateuch. They are as follows, namely:—
1. In its institution, as given in Exod. 12
2. As kept in the wilderness. (Numb. 9)
3. How it was to be kept in the land. (Deut. 16)
4. What it is to Jehovah. (Lev. 23)
1. In its institution, it formed the basis of the deliverance of the children of Israel out of Egypt, and of their being brought into the land in relationship with Jehovah. The offering itself sets forth a full Christ, and all that God proposes is possible upon the basis of it, as seen in Lev. 23. It is not distinctively a burnt offering, nor a peace-offering, nor a sin-offering, but includes all, being instituted before any such distinctions were brought out.
In Exod. 12 it is presented in all its parts: the blood; the roast flesh; the unleavened bread; the bitter herbs: but the blood is prominent, because it was the night of judgment, and the blood alone could keep judgment out. The blood was shed and sprinkled upon the lintel and side posts of the houses wherein they ate the roast flesh, &c. There is no type of heaven (the tabernacle being not yet set up), nor anything to show that it was necessary to sprinkle the blood in heaven, it was all done on earth (and for earth in a certain sense); but all that God proposed, both for earth and heaven, was possible when the act that was typified by the passover was accomplished by the blessed Lord Jesus Christ on earth.
Within the blood-sprinkled lintels, they fed in security upon the flesh of the lamb roast with fire, and unleavened bread and bitter herbs. The death of the lamb under the judgment of God, the unleavened perfectness of that lamb, together with an honest putting away of leaven out of their houses (ver. 15), and the bitter sense in the soul that their condition necessitated such a sacrifice in order to clear them from judgment—these were all included in the feast on that night, when in. all the houses of the Egyptians the firstborn lay slain by the sword of the angel of Jehovah.
2. As kept in the wilderness. (Num. 9) The notice is brief; it was kept according to all its rites and according to all its ceremonies, but the blood is not spoken of, while (ver. 11) they shall keep it, and eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. The lamb slain under the judgment of God, His unleavened perfectness, and the bitter thought that their condition had demanded such a death, is here presented; that is, the feast is prominent, not the deliverance.
3. Deut. 16 gives the way it was to be observed when in the land. They were to sacrifice the passover unto Jehovah their God, but no mention is made of what was to be done with the blood; the prominent thought here, as in Num. 9, not being deliverance from judgment, but the feast based upon the sacrifice, to be kept by an already delivered people, who were in the land, and in relationship with Jehovah their God there. They were to roast and eat the flesh in the place which Jehovah should choose (ver. 7), and to eat no leavened bread, but unleavened bread, even the bread of affliction. It is to this the apostle evidently refers in 1 Cor. 5:7, 87Purge 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: 8Therefore 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. (1 Corinthians 5:7‑8): “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.”
Not only is the blood not mentioned here, but there are no bitter herbs mentioned. The feast is prominent, and it is Christ in death and life that forms the food of the feast. His holy perfectness is called “bread of affliction,” for holiness is affliction to nature, which has no part in the feast, and must be excluded This is the thought in the Lord’s supper, and perhaps the reason why the bread is put first before the cup; only once is this reversed, and the natural order presented, and this is in 1 Cor. 10, where it would seem to be a strong protest against those who went into the world, the idol’s temple; the apostle presenting prominently the blood that had saved them from the judgment of the world, and separated them from its idolatry. They could not be partakers of the cup of the Lord and of the cup of devils.
It is here put as the basis of the three great feasts of the year, and stretched on in its effects to the establishment of Pentecost and tabernacles, which set forth the coming of the Holy Spirit and the millennial display of the glory of Christ. There is no second type of Christ’s death given, but its full results are shown as based upon the passover only.
4. What it is to Jehovah is set forth in its fullness in Lev. 23 All the thoughts and counsels of God are based upon it both for heaven and earth. The Sabbath, the first feast, sets forth God’s thought; it is that of “ rest,” and rest after labor, and this not alone, but surrounded by the creatures of His hand, enjoying the blessedness the sense of His all pervading presence gives; this is indicated by the term applied to it, “a holy convocation” —a calling together of His creatures around Himself in holy blessedness. This is the only recurring feast of the year which shows that if sin had broken into God’s rest, it was still held out before man as a thing to be obtained. “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work,” shows God and Christ still at work to bring about a rest, of which the Sabbath was but a type. This is eventually brought about by Christ’s death as the antitype of the passover. But in this aspect of it, it is wholly Jehovah’s. “In the fourteenth day of the first month at even is Jehovah’s passover.” (Ver. 5.) Here is nothing about the blood, nothing about bitter herbs, nothing about the roasted flesh, and even the unleavened bread is a feast separated, though resulting from it. (Ver. 6.) It is wholly Jehovah’s. It is in type what Christ’s death is to God, as the ground of the accomplishment of all the thoughts of His heart for heaven and for earth, which this chapter distinctly sets forth in type. It meets all His claims, it satisfies all His heart, it is a feast of Jehovah; and while included in the list of feasts, which are called holy convocations generally, it is not specifically called “a holy convocation,” as all the rest are, save the wave sheaf. It sets forth that aspect of Christ’s death which is Jehovah’s alone, in which none of His people share, as the wave sheaf sets forth the aspect of His resurrection which is God’s alone. Who knew the value of His death when He died? Yet God delighted in it, it was a feast to Him, and that without any disembodied presentation of the blood in heaven, for which there is no foundation even in this type.
Another type is necessarily brought in, the sheaf of first fruits to set forth the resurrection of Christ, and this (as already observed) as it furnishes Jehovah alone with a feast; and the results of this are set forth to us-ward in the Pentecostal period, where the great harvest of resurrection is reaped, and in the gleanings, showing that the first resurrection is not finished until the remnant of the Jews who are slain in the crisis shall share in it. Thus is heaven filled with the happiest creatures of God’s hand.
Then God’s dealings for earth begin (the feast of trumpets overlapping gleanings as to time); and the day of atonement, in this aspect of it, sets forth Christ’s death as it applies to Israel and the earth; and here the value of the type of the priest entering into the holiest with blood may have its full force for them, when Christ entered heaven at His ascension. And although hidden from them through all this period, yet because He lives Israel is not consumed, though without any national polity; yet ready when He shall come out again in blessing to be formed again into a nation, though it be but the spared remnant of it that forms the nucleus of that nation. Blessing will flow out through them to the Gentiles, and thus earth will eventually be filled with happy, holy beings, who in the eternal state, rejoice in and with God—Father, Son and Spirit.
Surely we should not speak lightly of the passover, nor of the work set forth by it, nor cast a shade upon its perfection, as completed here on earth when Christ declared, “ It is finished.”
G. J. S.