0876. 1. The Passover

1. The Passover

"For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us" (1Co_5:7).

The Passover occurred on the night in which the children of Israel obtained their deliverance from Pharaoh. The 12th chapter of Exodus presents seven succinct statements concerning this Passover.

(1) "Thou shalt take a lamb." Of course, the lamb referred to the Lord Jesus Christ. In after years when John saw Christ coming, he said, "Behold the Lamb." The Book of Revelation continually speaks of Christ as the Lamb. He, and He alone, is our Saviour. When He was born, they called His name "Jesus," because He should save His people from their sins.

(2) "Your lamb shall be without blemish." Jesus Christ knew no sin and in Him was no sin. He was the only man after the fall of Adam, who ever lived a wholly spotless life. He was a Lamb without spot from before the foundation of the world, therefore He alone was worthy to be our Saviour.

(3) "Ye shall keep it up until the fourteenth day." Jesus Christ died on the fourteenth day of the month Nisan. Therefore the type is still before us, even to minute details. Christ is our Lamb.

(4) "Ye shall kill it in the evening." Our Lord, Jesus Christ, died upon the Cross at the same hour that the Passover lamb was slain. Christ is our Lamb, slain.

(5) "Ye shall strike the blood upon the door post and upon the two side posts." Here is a perfect picture of the Cross. The blood was beneath in the basin at the threshold of the door; the blood was above sprinkled upon the upper door post; the blood was on either side, sprinkled on the two side posts. And so the cross was formed, the type of the tree upon which our Lord was crucified. Christ was a Lamb slain on the Cross.

(6) "When I see the blood, I will pass over you." It was not the living lamb, but the slain lamb: it was not the slain lamb alone and the blood in the basin, but it was the blood sprinkled upon the door posts that assured safety. Salvation is ours not in the beautiful life of Christ, nor even alone by the shed Blood of Christ, but by the Blood applied by faith to the heart.

(7) "I will pass over you." Here was deliverance from death. This gives us our first type–the Passover–setting forth our salvation from sin and its penalty at the Cross.

Autor: R.E. NEIGHBOUR