EVEN CHRIST OUR PASSOVER
Exo. 12:1 “And the LORD spake unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying,
2 This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you.
3 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:
4 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.
5 Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year: ye shall take it out from the sheep, or from the goats:
6 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.
7 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.
8 And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire, and unleavened bread; and with bitter herbs they shall eat it.
9 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.
10 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.
11 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.
12 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.
13 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.”
The Old Testament Passover was a figure of the Lord Jesus Christ. We know that, because Paul refers to the Lord as Christ our Passover.
1 Cor. 5:7, “…for even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.”
The Law Service provides us with an entire system of types, and shadows, and figures, of Bible truth. Those figures served as a kind of prophecy for the children of Israel during the time of the Old Testament, and they still serve as illus-trations of Bible truth in our day.
Those figures are found, in the feasts, and sacrifices, and ceremonies of the Law Service, and in many of the exper-iences of the saints of that day. They literally acted out divine truth, and it is amazing how clear, and how graphic, those figures can be. But, while those figures are found throughout the ceremonies of the Law Service, and the lives of the saints, we should never get the idea that every story recorded in that part of the Bible is a figure or a symbol of something.
Most of the stories recorded in the Bible are not symbolic of anything at all. They simply tell us what they did, what they said, and what the consequence was. The passage may, very well, serve to make a point, but it is not necessarily a symbol of anything. Many a minister has worn himself out trying to explain the symbolic connection of some passage, when there is no symbol to be found.
One of the experiences that seems to go with having preached for a long time is that sometimes people get the idea you are well supplied with answers. I feel flattered when somebody comes to me with a question, but I have always been much better supplied with questions than I have with answers.
Some young preacher is forever coming to me for an explan-ation of some passage. The text seems to be plain enough, and I tell him, “This is what they did, and this is what they said, and these are the consequences.”
“But, what does it symbolize?’
“I can’t tell that it symbolizes anything. This is what they did, and this is what they said, and these are the consequences.”
“But is there not some deeper meaning than that?”
“Not that I can tell. This is what they did, and this is what they said, and these are the consequences.
In some sense, most people understand the Bible better than they think they do. One of the reasons so many people are convinced they cannot understand the Bible is that they have been taught to look for something that is not there. If it is not there, you are not going to find it, and you should not beat up on yourself, because you cannot see it. I believe most people would be better off, if they would just accept the simple lessons of the Bible for what they say, and not be forever looking for some great mystery.
Granted that there are mysteries in the Bible we are never going to figure out. We could not understand some of those mysteries, even if they were explained to us. They are beyond our capacity to entirely understand. We will never entirely understand the doctrine of the Trinity. The Bible teaches it, and we believe it, but it is beyond our capacity to entirely explain it. We will never entirely under-stand the Incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ.
If the very heaven of heavens cannot contain him, how could he become a little baby his mother could hold in her arms? How could he become incarnate in human flesh and walk around among us? The Bible calls it a mystery (I Tim. 3:16), and if it is a mystery, you and I cannot entirely explain it. If we could, it would not be a mystery.
We cannot explain how God is going to raise the dead on that final day. Paul calls the resurrection a mystery (I Cor. 15:51), and, if it is a mystery, you and I cannot entirely explain it.
Suppose a sailor dies and is buried in the sea. His remains are eaten by fish, and those fish are later caught and eaten by other people, and the flesh of those fish becomes the nutrition that makes up the flesh of these other people. Then they finally die, and are buried. How will God ever sort it all out? You can be sure that the God, who created the universe and everything in it, will not have any trouble on that day, but you and I cannot explain it.
Why does God save one person and pass another by? The only answer God gives—and, I believe, the only answer we will ever have—is, “Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in thy sight” Matt. 11: 26 . It pleased God, and if it pleased God, that is as far as I am going to pursue the question. I do not dare challenge him.
I doubt that we will entirely understand some of these mysteries, even in the world to come. We sing a song that says, “We will understand it better by and by.” We will, indeed, understand it better, but, that does not mean we will know everything there is to be known. In order to know all about it, we would need a mind as great as the mind of God— and we will never have that.
God will always be the Creator, and we will always be the creature. When we arrive in that world, we will just as surely stand in awe of God, and his attributes, and his work, as we do in this life.
We would not deny that there are some subjects that by their very nature—and our own finite nature—we cannot understand, but the fact remains that God intended for the Bible to be read and understood. Any humble, prayerful, and obedient child of God can read the Bible and understand those things which will satisfy his present need.
But, back to the subject of figures: how can you tell if something is a figure? Well, it helps, if the Bible tells us—in so many words—that it is a figure.
Baptism is a figure; the Bible says so. 1Pet. 3:21, “The like figure whereunto baptism doth also now save us (not the putting way of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” It is a figure of the death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord, and it is a figure of the child of God, dying to sin, and rising to walk in newness of life.
The sacrifices of the Law Service were a figure. Again, the Bible says so.
Heb. 9:9, “Which was a figure for the time then present, in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices, that could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience.”
The deliverance of Isaac on the mountain was a figure.
Heb. 11:18,19, “Of whom it was said, That in Isaac shall thy seed be called: accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence he received him in a figure.”
And, it helps if the type looks so much like the antitype that you cannot always tell which is under consideration. King David was one of the clearest Old Testament types of the Lord Jesus Christ. He was such a clear and convincing type of the Lord that, in some passages such as Psalms 89, you cannot always tell whether you are reading about David, the son of Jesse, or the Greater David, the Son of God.
It also helps if you have someone, obviously sent from God, to point to the antitype and call him by his typical name.
John 1:29, “The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.”
Every lamb, for that matter, every animal, sacrificed under the Law Service, was a type of the Lord Jesus Christ, and here we have John the Baptist calling our attention to that fact. There is a scarlet thread that reaches all the way from the Garden of Eden to Calvary. When Adam sinned, God made coats of skins for him and his wife. In order for them to have coats of skins, an animal had to die.
Heb. 9:22, “And almost all things are by the Law purged with blood, and without shedding of blood is no remission.”
The Bible does not tell us what kind of animal it was. It is purely an opinion of mine, but I think it was a lamb. Every time the priest, or in the case of the Passover, the head of the house, took the sacrificial blade, and drove it home into the body of the sacrificial animal, the rich, warm, red blood of that sacrifice, flowed out of the wound, over the blade, and perhaps over the hand of the priest, and that shed blood extended that scarlet thread—the scarlet thread that reaches all the way to Calvary. It appears to me that God has made the Bible as clear as it needs to be.
Sometimes I have trouble finding my way around in some of these big city hospitals. The way they have changed, and remodeled, and added on, I can get lost. But, some of the hospitals have come up with a simple way of helping out. “Do you see that red circle over there on the floor, and do you see the long red line leading from it? Well, you follow that red line all the way to the end, and you will be right where you need to be.” I can follow that kind of directions.
But in the Bible God does even better than that. God has John the Baptist stationed right at the end of that long scarlet ribbon, to announce that we have arrived at the end of our journey. There at the end of that long scarlet ribbon was the Lord Jesus Christ, ready to be baptized by John and to start his own public ministry.
John 1:29, “The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him and saith, Behold The Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.”
There was John pointing to the Lord, and announcing that this is the one you have been waiting for. This is the one who was symbolized and prefigured by all those other sacrificial lambs. He was pointing people to the Lamb of God, pointing them to the Savior. That is what I am trying to do, I am trying to point you to the Lamb of God. Far too much of religion points people away from the Lord, and back to themselves— away from the Lord and his righteousness, and back to them-elves, and their own accomplishments. It is the place of the gospel preacher to point people to the Lord, and away from themselves.
Vs. 5, “Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year, ye shall take it out from the sheep or from the goats.”
The Passover lamb had to be without blemish. If the Lord Jesus Christ had not been a perfect sacrifice—a sinless sacrifice—he could not have paid our sin debt. He would have died for his own sins. Except for the Lord Jesus Christ, every person, who ever died, died because he was a sinner.
The Lord Jesus Christ is the only perfectly righteous, perfectly sinless, person who ever lived.
1Pet. 2:22, “Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth.”
1 Pet. 1:18, 19, “Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation, received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.”
It had to be a male of the first year. It could not be a newborn lamb, that might survive, and might not. And it could not be an old ram, broken down with age, that was going to die before long, anyway. It had to be in the full vigor of its strength.
In his divine nature, the Lord Jesus Christ is the eternal one. He always has been, and he always will be. But according to his human nature, when the Lord died on the cross, he was thirty three years old. He was in the full strength of his manhood.
Notice that in verse three it is a lamb. Then it is the lamb, and finally it is your lamb. It has been said that the sweetness of the gospel is in its personal pronouns, my Lord, my Savior, my Redeemer. I like to preach about the Lord, the Savior, the Redeemer, but he is most precious to my soul, when it is my Lord, my Savior, my Redeemer.
I like to preach about election, and predestination, and redemption, and regeneration, and resurrection, but more than that I like to preach about the one who did the electing, and the predestinating….I like to preach from John 3:16. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
That is not an Arminian text; there is not an Arminian text in the Bible. But more than that, I love to preach on Galatians 2:20, “I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless, I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”
I love to preach about God’s love for the world, the vast world of his elect family; but, more than that, I love to preach about how he loved me, and chose me, and redeemed me. I discover that the longer I live, and the more I preach, the more personal my preaching becomes, the more I am amazed at the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.
True religion is more than a system of doctrines and religious principles.
True religion is rooted in a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul says, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me,” Gal. 2:20.
That is what makes religion vital and real. It is that close and personal, day to day relationship with my Lord. It is being able to feel that he lives in my heart, and that I am able to enjoy fellowship with him.
I believe it is possible to preach the truth, to be right on target, so far as the letter of the doctrine is concerned, and still be, for the most part, somewhat academic in our preaching. I read an article a few days ago that I really thought was doctrinally sound, but for all the fire there was in it, for all the passion you could discover, he could just as well have been writing about Napoleon Bonaparte. When somebody talks about my Lord, I want him to give me the idea that the Lord means all the world to him.
“And the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening.” God speaks as if there was only one lamb. And, indeed, they were considered as a unit.
Every Passover lamb pointed to that one Lamb of God. All of the Old Testament types and shadows, and feasts, and sacrifices, and all the Old Testament prophecies pointed to the one man, Christ Jesus.
Vs. 6, “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.”
I have read articles where preachers just wore themselves out trying to explain why they kept up the Passover lamb for four days, but they did not keep it up four days. They kept it up for three days and a part of a day. I know it says they put the lamb up on the tenth day, and they kept it up until the fourteenth day at evening, and it does sound like first grade arithmetic to say that they kept the lamb up for four days, but that is not right.
Bear in mind that the evening preceded the morning of the Jewish day. You don’t have to read Josephus or Edersheim to find that out. Just go to the first chapter of Genesis. That is one of the first lessons in the book.
Gen. 1:5, “And the evening and the morning were the first day.”
Their day did not begin at midnight the way we count time; their day began at sundown of the previous day. They put the lamb up on the tenth day. They kept it up the remainder of that day, and the eleventh day, the twelfth day, and the thirteenth day. That makes three days and a part of a day.
The lamb was not kept up during any part of the fourteenth day. The evening of the fourteenth day began at sundown of the thirteenth day. That was when the Passover Lamb was killed. The Passover Lamb was a figure of the Lord Jesus Christ, and those three days, and a part of a day, correspond with his public ministry. His ministry lasted three years, and a part of a year.
That also corresponds with Daniel’s prophecy. Daniel says the Messiah was to be cut off in the midst of that seventieth week (Dan. 9:24,27). He did not say that he was to be cut off in the precise middle of the week. That would have put us at exactly three years and six months into his public ministry. The lamb was kept up for somewhat more than three days, and the ministry of the Lord lasted for somewhat more than three years. That is as precise was we are able to be, and as precise as we need to be.
The Jewish priests began their public ministry at 30 years of age. But when the Lord Jesus Christ, our Great High Priest, began his public ministry, we are only told that he “began to be, as was supposed—about 30 years of age.”
It appears to me that God has installed a double blind to prevent anyone from discovering the precise age of the Lord at the time of his crucifixion. If we could determine his precise age(according to his human nature) we could, then, better determine the precise day of his birth. But, far too much has already been made of the day of his birth, and the idea of any celebration of that day.
The Bible instructs us to celebrate, not the day of his birth, but the fact of his death and resurrection. If God had wanted us to know precisely when the Lord was born, he would have told us—or at least given us more to go on.
Vs. 7, “And they shall take of the blood, and strike it on the two side posts, and on the upper door posts of the houses, wherein they shall eat it.”
That house with the blood applied symbolized the Lord Jesus Christ. Every symbol pointed to him; he is our all in all. They were safe, provided they were in that house. We are safe, because we are in him.
2 Cor. 5:17, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature.”
Rom. 8:1, “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.”
Vs. 8, “And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire, and with unleavened bread, and with bitter herbs shall they eat it.”
They were to eat the flesh of the Passover Lamb. The Lord Jesus Christ is our meat and drink. His sacrificial death is the ground of our life.
John 6:53, “Except ye eat my flesh, and drink my blood, ye have no life in you.”
The lamb was to be roast with fire. When he suffered and died on the cross, he stood as our substitute. On our behalf, he came through the raging fire of the wrath of God against sin. They were to eat the flesh with unleavened bread, and with bitter herbs. Leaven is a symbol of human pride and conceit. So long as we are proud of ourselves, and satisfied with our own accomplishments, we will never be able to eat the flesh of this Passover Lamb.
We will never be able to see the Lord as high and lifted up, until we see ourselves as entirely lost and undone, we will never be able to see him as our one and only Savior. Leaven puffs up the bread. We are to abstain from everything that feeds and puffs up the old carnal nature.
Pride is the mother of every sin. It was pride that tripped up Adam in the Garden of Eden, and pride has been man’s downfall ever since. More than that, leaven is a symbol of evil. Paul tells us to “Abstain from the very appearance of evil,” 1Thess. 5:22.
A little boy was getting ready for school. He called downstairs, “Momma, is this shirt too dirty, do I need to get another one?” Now, his mother could not see that shirt; she could not know if was dirty or not, but she told him, “Yes, it is too dirty, get a clean one.” When the little boy came downstairs, he said, “Momma, how did you know that shirt was dirty; you could not see it?” It makes you wonder why he asked, if he knew she could not see it, but that is not the point. She said, “Son, if you have to ask, it is.” That is a very good rule for all of us. “If you have to ask, it is.”
We are all faced with questions in our lives. “Is this course of action all right, or not?” If you have to ask whether a par-ticular course of action is morally wrong, it is. Paul gave the rule, “And he that doubteth is damned if he eat, because he eateth not of faith, for whatsoever is not of faith is sin,” Rom. 14:23 .
“Wherefore, let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall,” 1 Cor. 12 .
It has been my observation that those who seem to do the most repenting are those who seem to have the least need to repent. And those who seem to do the least repenting are those who seem to have the greatest need for it. It is one of the peculiarities of our carnal nature, that we can convince ourselves that most anything is alright, if we will just argue with ourselves long enough. We will convince ourselves that, at any other time, and under any other circum-stances, this would probably be the wrong thing to do, but just this once, and under these circumstances, it will probably be alright.
And it is also one of our characteristics, that our conscience will often let us down at the very time we need it the most. Sometimes, at that very time, our conscience will be quiet until we have carried through on that wrong decision, and then our conscience wakes up with a vengeance. It is then, when it is too late, that our conscience finally wakes up and begins to challenge us. Rather than depend on our faulty and undependable conscience, how much better it is to listen more closely to the Lord, and “abstain from all appearance of evil.”
Vs. 9, “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.”
The Passover Lamb could not be eaten raw, nor in any way sodden with water. It could not be boiled; it had to come into direct contact with the fire. When the Lord suffered on the cross, there could be nothing to diminish his suffering. He must suffer the full penalty of the wrath of God against sin. There could be nothing to diminish his mental anguish; in his agony he was forsaken by the Father. That was when he cried out, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Matt. 27:46. And there could be nothing to diminish his physical suffering.
The vinegar mingled with gall (Matt. 27:34) would have had a slightly narcotic effect, but he would have no part of it. He would pay the full price for our redemption. They were to use “his head with his legs, and the purtenance thereof.” There was a use for every part of the Passover lamb. Our religion is to involve everything we say, and everything we do. It is to dominate our entire life.
I have heard it said that our religion is not a religion of the head; ours is a religion of the heart. Well, if ours is a religion of the head, as opposed to a religion of the heart, there is nothing to it. There is very much of religion that is purely lip service. It is words only.
True religion affects the heart. If Christ lives in the heart of a person, and if that person is trying to walk in a manner that pleases his Lord, he can experience the very presence of God in his heart.
Acts 17:27, “That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him and find him, though he be not far from every one of us.”
We feel after the Lord with our hearts, not with our hands. Our religion is, indeed, a religion of the heart. But, while our religion is clearly a religion of the heart, it is also just as clearly a religion of the head. The two are not mutually exclusive.
The doctrine of the Bible involves the most logical, the most reasonable, the most intelligent principles, man has ever known. The principles of the Bible not only stir the heart; those same principles are sufficient to challenge and satisfy both the simplest of minds, and the most brilliant minds that have ever lived. It is one of the beauties of the Bible that the little child and the adult can read the same texts, and both can be edified and instructed by what they read.
“His head with his legs, and with the purtenance thereof.”
Our profession involves all we say, and all we do, and all that goes with it. If the way we walk does not reflect the way we talk, then all we say is a waste of time.
Long ago, someone challenged a half-hearted Christian, “Don’t tell me what you are, because what you do speaks so loud I cannot hear what you say.” If our life does not reflect our profession, our religion is a waste of time. There is no room in the life of the obedient child of God for any little cubby hole reserved for his favorite sin.
Vs. 10, “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.”
The rising sun was to see no trace of the slain lamb. That has to do with the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord himself announced, “It is finished,” John 19:30 . the work is complete. Again he said, “I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do,” John 17:4 . Anytime God repeats himself, he does it for our benefit. He repeats himself, because it is important that we not miss the point. Religious types have been arguing with the Lord ever since that time. They are sure the Lord’s work will be complete, when they add the finishing touch. But, we have God’s word for it, that his work is finished.
Vs. 11, “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.”
The Bible provides a better commentary on these expressions than any preacher can produce.
“Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness, and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace,” Eph. 6:14,15 .
“Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”
The loins girded have to do with the restraint, the self-control, that is necessary in our service toward God. If we would serve God acceptably, it is necessary that we restrain the wanderings, the imaginings, of our mind, and center our thoughts and our affections on Christ, and on him alone.
I love the way the Bible explains the Bible. I love the way these verses fit in with each other, and connect up with each other. They fit together and connect up with each other like the couplings on two train cars. No matter how sincere and how diligent you may be in your efforts, you will never be successful, unless your loins are girt about with truth.
He went on to tell them to have “your shoes on your feet.” Shoes have to do with walking. Israel wore the same shoes for forty years in the wilderness. There is a particular walk God requires of his children, and he will be satisfied with no other. It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps,” Jer. 10:23 .
The walk God requires of his children today is the walk he has always required. If any act was morally unacceptable to God one hundred years ago, that kind of conduct is still unacceptable. If any kind of practice was unscriptural in the church one hundred years ago, that practice is unacceptable today. Moreover, they were to have their shoes on their feet in the sense that they were to be ready to travel. The call to leave Egypt was to come during the night, and they must be ready to answer the call. “Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season,” 2 Tim. 4:2.
“And your staff in your hand.” David prayed, “Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.” The Scriptures seem to be plain enough that the rod, the strait edge, or plumb line, is the Bible. It seems logical, then, to conclude that the staff must be the Spirit of God. That is what we lean on, and trust to support us, every moment of our lives.
“That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie….” Heb. 6:18.
Those two immutable (unchangeable) things in which it was, and is, impossible for God to lie are the same rod and staff. They are still the two unchangeable, two always dependable supports for the faithful child of God.
“And ye shall eat it in haste, it is the Lord’s Passover.” Brethren, if we are going to do anything in the Lord’s service, we had best get busy, we are not going to be here long.
Sometimes some of our denominational friends want to know, “Why do you Old Baptists not believe in missions? Do you not believe you ought to go into all the world and preach the gospel?” And then we explain that we do believe in going, we just don’t believe God gave us the authority to send somebody else.
A large number of our ministers spend their time in little else except going. Some of them have been accused of keeping the road hot in their constantly going all over the country, preaching the gospel. Then somebody wants to know, “What is your hurry?”
Well, I confess that I am in a hurry. I don’t expect to be here long, and if I intend to do any preaching, I will have to hurry.
Vs. 11, “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.”
THE END