#7. The Passover.---Exodus xii. 1-20 and 29-33.


Divine inspiration has sealed the blessed promise that to every saved sinner Christ is the Passover Sacrifice, and the argument in I Cor. v. 8 is that those who are saved are to seek to be free from the leaven of sin and worldliness. Egypt is a picture of the world, and the Lord’s people, though locally in it, are spiritually redeemed out of it, see Gal. i. 4. In Exod. xii. 2 we have an important but often forgotten truth, which is that redemption brings the redeemed into a new sphere—it is the beginning of months. Regeneration and resurrection life are vitally linked with redemption.

In verses 3-5 divine progress in personal appreciation is indicated; a lamb; the lamb; your lamb. The lamb is to be without blemish. Such is the constant claim of the Lord, and sinners are thereby cut from all hope in self.

The whole assembly . . . . . shall kill it (verse 6). Israel here are viewed as one company, the many houses being but miniatures of the nation. So also the many lambs are here looked at as the One Antitype.

It.—In actuality, but one Passover Lamb has God ever appointed and accepted, a Lamb without blemish or spot and of His Own providing, none other than the Lord Jesus Christ.

The original rendering of the last three words of verse 6, “between the two evenings”, is suggestive. It not only means between the time called by the Hebrew reckoning between the first and second evenings, but also may mean between the evening of one day and before the evening of the next. This ambiguity is designed, for by its means Christ could partake of the Passover with His disciples one day, the next be offered as the true Passover Lamb, and yet be offered on the actual 14th Nisan, as here.

The blood outside meant safety within, and, sheltered by the blood, their food was provided by the self-same lamb whose blood protected from wrath.

Unleavened bread (a type of the absence of sin, and of the righteousness of Christ), was to be eaten with the Passover. Individually and collectively the people of God are to put away sin; they are to regard, or see, it not, else they dishonour the blood of atonement. In the first Lord’s Supper, and every scriptural Lord’s Supper since, there has been shown forth the unleavened life and death of Christ, by the partaking of the unleavened wine, and unleavened bread, and by the seeking to detect or judge sin as soon as it appeared.

Thus (verse 11).—That is as pilgrims who were about to quit Egypt and press on to the promised land.

The blood . . . . . to you . . . . . I see (verse 13).—What should we be? Where should we be, eternally, apart from the precious blood of Christ? The word “passover” signifies to halt, hover over (see I Kings xvii. 21; Isa. xxxi. 5; Deut. xxxii. 11). Where the Lord sees the blood He spreads His protecting wing. No house would have been safe had a “good resolution”, a “good character”, or even a piece of unleavened bread, been substituted for the blood.

Not a house (verse 30).—Take this to its furthest extreme, including the houses of Israel, and it would still be true, for although atonement saved the firstborn of Israel, yet atonement was by death, and, in Egypt, the difference that night was a lamb or a man.

The next thing is the leaving of Egypt. Unleavened bread and the Exodus from Egypt alike teach the needed lesson that salvation must lead to separation:

“Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump? Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, according as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our Passover hath been sacrificed on behalf of us; therefore, let us keep the feast, not with the old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but in unleaven of sincerity and truth. I wrote unto you . . . . . not to mingle with fornicators . . . . . for ye owe it to come out of the world. But now I have written to you not to mingle, if any one being named a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolator, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner, with such an one, neither to eat” (I Cor. v. 6-11).

Christian! the blood of the Passover Lamb teaches all this: if it does not fit with your experience there is need for repentance.

Unsaved reader! God keeps His Word. Pharaoh long rejected God, but His judgments are certain of fulfillment, and the penalty of sin must fall—either on you or on the Passover Lamb.

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(From The Berean Expositor, Vol. 31, pp. 119).

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