“In the fourteenth day of the first month at even is the Lord's passover." (Lev. 23:5) "Thou shalt sacrifice the passover at even, at the going down of the sun, at the season that thou camest forth out of Egypt." (Deut. 16:6)
"Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast." (1 Cor. 5:7)
We have already noticed the difference between the Sabbath and the other feasts of Jehovah. The Passover was the first of the yearly feasts to Jehovah. It was observed on the fourteenth day of the first month the month of Abib. (Deut. 16:1). The Passover brought to remembrance every year the redemption and deliverance from Egypt. Christ, our Passover, is sacrificed for us. (1 Cor. 5:7). The Passover lamb was a type of Christ. Each time it was sacrificed, it pointed onward to Him who was to come the Lamb of God, "in whom we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins." (Col. 1:14).
When the Passover was first given to Israel, they were slaves to Pharoah, the king of Egypt, a type of Satan, and they were serving idols in Egypt. We may see that the Israelites themselves, like the Egyptians, deserved to receive the righteous judgment of God against sins; there was no difference. God warned the people in Egypt the Egyptians as well as the Israelites He told them clearly, "About midnight will I go out into the midst of Egypt: and all the first-born in the land of Egypt shall die." (Ex. 11:4-5). But God also provided a way of escape from this judgment. Any person who believed and obeyed God's word about the way of escape, would surely be saved.
And what was the way of escape? On the tenth day of the first month they were to take a lamb, and keep it until the fourteenth day of the month at even, a lamb for an house. If the household was too little for the lamb, let him and his neighbor next unto his house take it. Please notice there was no question that the lamb might be too little for the house. The Lamb of God is enough for all even for the worst sinner. On the fourteenth day of the first month at even, they killed the lamb, they put the blood in a basin and with a bunch of hyssop they struck the lintel and two side posts of the door of their house with the blood in the basin, and none of the people might go out of that house until morning.
The blood was on the outside of the house. The people inside could not see it. The blood was for the eye of God alone. In the darkness of midnight His eye could tell whether there was blood on the door or not, and He said, "When I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you." (Ex. 12:13).
Please notice, the living lamb could not save them. Notice also the dead lamb with the blood in the basin did not save them. They must take that blood and put it on their own door, if salvation was to come to that house. The blood was applied with hyssop, and hyssop is a bitter herb, and tells us of the bitterness of soul in repentance, as I realize that my sins have caused the death of the Lamb of God to save me. Dear reader, please let me ask, have you applied the blood to your door, or is it still in the basin? God has provided the Lamb Christ; the Lamb of God has died, His blood is available for you. It is, so to speak, in the basin. Will you not take the hyssop and apply it for yourself, or otherwise it is of no avail for you?
Yes, God in mercy "passed over" those sinners who trusted in the blood of the lamb. The judgment of death fell on the spotless Lamb instead. The blood on the lintel and two side posts protected all inside that house from the destruction of death as the Lord passed through Egypt that night in judgment.
God's Own Word was, "When I see the blood I will pass over you." (Ex. 12:13). The blood of the lamb made them safe. The word of God made them know with certainty they were safe. The lamb died that they might live. The blood appropriated for themselves, put on their own door, by faith in the word of the Lord gave them certainty and joy. The blood of the lamb was the foundation of their new position with Jehovah, as His redeemed people. Redemption by blood was their title to all the blessings which they afterward received from God, because they were His people. The blood was the foundation of everything. The Passover, the first of the feasts, was the foundation of all the other feasts.
But there is another lesson for us in this feast. This month was not formerly the first month. God changed their calendar. The former months of the year were blotted out, and the month in which the Passover came was the first month of the year.
How true this is for the sinner! His past life is blotted out by that precious blood. He begins a new life when he takes shelter under the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Lamb. He is born again, and time begins afresh for him. It is truly the first month of the year an entirely new beginning, "old things are passed away." He has a new birthday. This shows us how redemption and the new birth are linked together. To trust the precious blood of Christ, is to be "born again.”
Dispensationally this may point to the period of the trial of man from Adam to the death of Christ. All was failure, and must pass away. At the cross there was a new beginning. As you know most countries of the world reckon their years from the time of Christ. Truly the cross is a new beginning, "the first month of the year.”
For the individual Christian, it clearly shows that when he believes in Christ, he is born again. He no longer is reckoned a child of Adam, a fallen sinner. He stands in Christ now a new creation. He begins to live a new life. His former self is crucified and buried.
He is bought for God
He is born of God
He goes forth to live for God,
And no more to serve sin, the world and Satan.
The Church came into existence after the cross. Its foundation, also, is the blood of the Lamb, but we will consider it more fully later on.
Truly through the Cross, of which the Passover speaks, all things become new. Well may it be said, "It is the first month of the year to you.”
Apart from the death of Christ, and faith in Him who died, apart from the person and work of Christ, there can be no real Christianity on earth, and no title to heaven hereafter. Redemption by blood is the foundation of everything. The Cross is the starting point for the throne. The blood of the Lamb is the only title to the glory of God. And hence Jehovah commanded that the great redemption feast should be kept from year to year (Ex. 13:10), throughout their generations.
Immediately they had entered the New Year, they were to celebrate the Passover Feast. And this was to be continued even after they reached the land of Canaan, and were settled in their inheritance beyond Jordan. This memorial feast was still to be kept (Josh. 5 and Deut. 16), and when generations to come should ask its meaning they were to tell the story of their redemption. (Ex. 12:24-27).
But after they had applied the blood to the lintel and two side posts and gone inside the house, sheltered beneath the blood, what then did the family do? Then they took that dead lamb, whose blood had saved their lives. They roasted it, and with their loins girded, their shoes on their feet, their staff in their hand, they were gathered together around that roast lamb, to feed upon it. The blood made them safe, the flesh gave them food. But it was to be roast with fire, they might not eat of it raw, or sodden at all with water. The fierce judgment and wrath of God was born by the Lamb of God, with nothing to come between Himself and the fire of judgment. Who can ever tell the depths of all His suffering during those hours of darkness, bearing our sins in His Own body on the tree? How can we ever know the depths of anguish, which called forth that cry, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" This tells us something of the fire borne by that spotless Lamb of God. And it was to be eaten with "bitter herbs." That tells me of the realization in my own soul that "He did it for me!" It was my sins that nailed Him to that cross. How bitter to the soul of one who loves Him, is such a thought! But how precious, also!
But let us look for a moment at that lamb, and as we do so, may the Lord help us to see more beauty in the Lamb of God.
The Lamb was to be without blemish (Ex. 12:5). There has not been one of the children of Adam, who could claim to be "without blemish." Christ, the Son of God, and Son of Man, the Lamb of God He only is "without blemish.”
“A male of the first year," (Ex. 12:5), tells us of the strength and energy of our blessed Lamb. The chosen lamb was not to be old and worn out. And our Lord suffered death with all his life, (humanly speaking), before Him. He was about 33 years old. He could say in the Psalms, "He weakened My strength in the way; He shortened My days. I said, O My God, take Me not away in the midst of My days." (Psa. 102:23-24). He still had the dew of His youth. (Psa. 110:3).
“In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb.... 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." (Ex. 12:3, 6). How wonderfully the Lord fulfilled all this. On the tenth day of the first month we see him coming to Jerusalem. He stayed there, (though sleeping outside the city), until the fourteenth day, and on the even of that day He died.
Our Lord ate the last supper with His disciples in the early hours of the 14th day for the Jewish day was reckoned from sunset to sunset. It was night when Judas left the room. Later that night they went to Garden of Gethsemane, and while still night Judas led the band of men to take the Lord. He was crucified at the third hour (Mark 15:25), or nine o'clock our time. There was darkness from the sixth to the ninth hour: twelve o'clock to three o'clock our time, and about the ninth hour the Lamb of God died: still on the fourteenth day of the first month. The Passover Lamb was to be killed "between the two evening." (Ex. 12:6 Margin). They tell us this means between 3 and 6 o'clock in the afternoon. So the Lamb of God died at exactly the hour when they began to kill the Passover lambs.
There is one more remarkable connection between the type and its fulfillment. In the Septuagint, (the Greek translation of the Old Testament), in Ex. 12:13, the word used for "pass over" means "to protect, defend." But in Ex. 12:23 the word used for "pass over" means to "pass by," or "pass over." Our Lord uses this very word in Matt. 26:39, when He prays in Gethsemane, "Let this cup pass over (or pass by) Me." As God passed by the houses on the night of death in Egypt, so the Lord Jesus prayed, might this cup pass by Him. But how precious the end of that prayer: "Nevertheless not as I will, but as Thou wilt!”
Again, of the Passover Lamb it was written "neither shall ye break a bone thereof." Ex. 12:46. The Jewish mode of death was by stoning, which would break the bones. But God had so arranged that the Lamb of God should be crucified. And though the legs of the two thieves, crucified with the Lord Jesus, were broken, the Spirit of God by John tells us clearly that the soldiers "brake not His legs, but one of the soldiers with a spear pierced His side, and forthwith came there out blood and water. And he that saw it bare record, and his record is true; and he knoweth that he saith true, that ye might believe. For these things were done, that the Scripture should be fulfilled a bone of Him shall not be broken." (John 19:32-36).
If at the Passover feast, amidst the peace and plenty of the land of Canaan, the children of Israel delighted to look back to that dark night of judgment in Egypt, when amidst the cries of death and woe all about them, they were saved how much more do we delight to look back and gaze upon the Lamb of God who was so worthy of the highest place in Heaven, but took the lowest place on earth, even death, the death of the cross. How precious to our hearts are all these details in the picture which the Spirit of God has drawn for us so perfectly.
But please consider further, the Feast of the Passover was "the Feast of Jehovah." It was a picture of His Own joy in the great event of which it was the shadow, and His redeemed people were gathered around Him to share His joy in His presence. What a wonderful thought is this! Jehovah keeps a feast in anticipation of the death of Christ! This passes all our thoughts! We cannot understand it. No saint and no angel can ever know all the value of the death of the Lamb of God, or what that death meant to the heart of God. That Lamb dying on the Cross was the only begotten Son of God. What depths of meaning are in the words. "Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest," (Gen. 22:2); and again, "God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son," (John 3:16); and again, "He that spared not His Own Son, but delivered Him up for us all," (Rom. 8:32); and again, "Having yet therefore one Son, His well beloved, He sent Him also," (Mark 12:6); and again, "In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." (1 John 4:9-10).
That Lamb of God, God's "dear Son" (Col. 1:13), "became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." That perfect obedience unto death; that complete surrender; that unswerving devotion, was a "sweet savor" unto God. The cross was a feast to Jehovah. It gave Him back more than sin had robbed Him of.
The Passover looked forward to the cross. The Lord's Supper looks back to the cross, and we may learn precious lessons about that supper from the Passover.
Where was it to be eaten? "Thou shalt sacrifice the passover unto the Lord Thy God.... in the place which the Lord shall choose." (Deut. 16:6-7).
Three times in this account of the feast does the Lord repeat those words "in the place which the Lord thy God shall choose." Surely this tells of the great importance in the eyes of God of this matter. Alas, today, we find many people eating the Lord's Supper in the place which man has chosen. We find companies of men called by the names of men, or countries, or forms of government. These are places that men have made, and men have chosen, and assuredly they are not each one the place which the Lord has chosen to place His name there, or we would not see such confusion, and so many places, each claiming to be the place where we may eat the Lord's Supper.
If we turn from all this confusion, do we find any light to guide us in the Word of God, as to the place which He has chosen in these days to place His Name there? Assuredly we do. We read, "Where two or three are gathered together unto My Name, there am I in the midst of them." (Matt. 18:20 New Translation). "Two or three" would not suggest large numbers, or any personal strength or authority. But "unto My Name," tells us of the power and authority of Him Whose Name it is.
A British subject in some far and distant foreign land may go to the British Embassy for help and protection, because of the name which that embassy represents: even the Sovereign of Britain. The power and authority of the embassy may be nothing at all: but because of the name it represents there is both power and authority. But that power and authority must be used according to the will and desires of the Sovereign. It would be unthinkable that the ambassador should act according to his own wishes, without regard to the will of his Sovereign who had placed him there, and whose name he represents. So if we are gathered to His Name, it is clear that all must be according to the will of God, and instructions given us in His Word. If we compare with the Word, those different companies of people who eat the Lord's Supper, then we may tell whether they are acting according to their own will, or according to the Word of God.
We shall notice clearly that no special building or no special place is mentioned. It is no longer a particular spot down here but the place where Christ is in the midst. It is a PERSON, not a place, unto whom we are gathered now. We never read in the Epistles of "sacred buildings," more holy than others. We read of the "the church in thy house" (Philem. 1:2): evidently the disciples met in Philemon's house to eat the Lord's Supper. (Compare also Rom. 16:5; 1 Cor. 16:19; Col. 4:15). We read nothing of a minister or clergyman. How could one man assume control if the Lord is truly in the midst? It would be unthinkable.
So we may see that it is not necessary to have a Gospel Hall, or a Meeting Room, or a "preacher," or "minister," or "evangelist," or "clergyman," in order to eat the Lord's Supper. Two or three, only, if gathered unto the Lord's Name, may eat it in a private house. Christ in the midst is what matters, not holy buildings, or persons ordained by men.
But the Passover also tells us clearly who are to eat of this feast. In Ex. 12:43-45, we read, "There shall no stranger eat thereof; but every man's servant that is bought for money, when thou hast circumcised him, then shall he eat thereof A foreigner and an hired servant shall not eat thereof." In Eph. 2:19, we read, "Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God." Truly it is clear that only those who are children of God "made nigh by the blood of Christ," (Eph. 2:13) may eat of this supper. How sad to see unconverted people eating, in order that they may obtain blessing! This is the opposite to the Word of God.
The rite of circumcision was cutting off a part of the flesh of every male. God's law for Israel was that every male must be circumcised; that is, every male must have this part of his flesh cut off. The spiritual meaning of this for Christians is that we must "cut off" the flesh. In the New Testament God speaks of "the flesh," as that evil nature in us which is ever prone to do evil things. The Christian must not allow this: but must cut it off, or, keep it in the place of death: but actually, the flesh is always with us till the Lord takes us Home; but we need not let it act.
The rite of circumcision was open to those who wished to become part of the people of God, and then they also might eat of the Passover. Now by faith in Christ, we become children of God, members of the household of God, and with the flesh cut off, in the place of death, we may eat of that supper.
We may also see how this feast was to be eaten. In Ex. 12:11, we read, "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." They were to eat it, just ready to leave the land of their sorrow and bondage. And although we have been delivered from that land by the mercy of God, yet we eat of that supper, ready to leave this world of sorrow and death. The Word of God says, "As often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death, till He come." (1 Cor. 11:26). We eat and drink of that supper looking for the Lord to come.
We may also note that the exact time of keeping the Passover was specified, and if we look in the New Testament, we may see, when we are to eat the Lord's Supper.
It is true that the Scriptures give great liberty in this matter. The Word says, "As often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till He come." (1 Cor. 11:26). This would seem to give us liberty to eat "this bread, and drink this cup," at any time and it appears in the earliest days they broke bread daily. (Acts 2:46).
But the Scriptures clearly point out the practice of the early church in the days of the Apostles, and we may well take heed to this. In Acts 20:7 we read, "Upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread." In 1 Cor. 16:2 speaking of the collection for the saints, we read, "Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him." In Heb. 13:15-16 this "sacrifice" of giving is connected with the death of Jesus.
So then we learn that the early church came together on the first day of the week. It was then they made their collection, their sacrifice of doing good and communicating, and it was then they came together to break bread. There is no suggestion in the Scriptures of breaking bread only once a month, or once in three months, or once a year as men have arranged. The first day of the week is evidently the time when the Lord would have us break bread in remembrance of Himself. What a suited day this is for the purpose! The resurrection day! We show forth the Lord's death on the day He rose.
And we do well to remember that it was at the "going down of the sun," the Passover was eaten. The remembrance of the Lord is called "The Lord's supper." We do not eat our supper in the morning. When the disciples came together to break bread in Troas, it would seem to have been in the evening, for Paul preached unto them until midnight. (Acts 20:7)
It is a remarkable fact that a special Greek word is used for the first day of the week, "the Lord's day" (Rev. 1:10) and "the Lord's Supper (1 Cor. 11:20) "kuriakos." It is not used in any other place in the Bible. It means "belonging to the Lord." The First Day belongs to Him. How very suitable it is that we eat the Lord's Supper on the Lord's Day.
Let us just sum up what we have learned from this feast regarding the Lord's Supper.
Where do we eat it?
We eat it "where two or three are gathered together” unto the Name of the Lord Jesus.
Who may eat it?
Those who are truly born again alone may eat it.
How do we eat it?
As not of the world, but ready to leave it, and depart for another place.
When do we eat it?
On the first day of the week.
As we meditate on this great foundation Feast of Jehovah, and turn to the One Who has so completely fulfilled every detail of it, we may cry with all our hearts:
“Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power ... . riches ... . wisdom ... . strength ... honour ... . glory ... . blessing ... .”
(Rev. 5:12).