The Feast of the Lord’s Passover commemorates the deliverance of the enslaved Israelites from Egypt by the Almighty hand of God. It also honors the birth of the nation of Israel. Until this time, they were a family or a people. Now they are a nation; the nation of Israel.
We believers of the Lord Jesus Christ have this same deliverance from sin and the consequences of it (sickness, disease, etc.)
The nation of Israel was told through Moses by the Lord God to keep the Passover each year.
Exodus 12:24 And you shall observe this thing as an ordinance to you and to your sons forever.
Numbers 9: 1 And the Lord spoke to Moses in the Wilderness of Sinai, in the first month of the second year after they had come out of the land of Egypt, saying: 2 Let the children of Israel also keep the Passover at its appointed time. 3 On the fourteenth day of this month at evening, you will keep it at its appointed time. According to all the rites and according to all its ceremonies, you will keep it. 4 Moses spoke to the children of Israel, that they should keep the Passover. 5 They kept the Passover on the fourteenth day of the first month at evening in the Wilderness of Sinai. According to all that the Lord commanded Moses, so the children of Israel did.
1 Corinthians 5:7 Therefore purge out the old yeast, that you may be a new batch, since you are unleavened. For even Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed for us. 8 Therefore let us keep the Feast, not with old yeast, nor with the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
How Does Jesus Fulfills the Passover Feast?
Let us examine the Old Testament and the New Testament Scriptures and see how Jesus fulfills this Feast.
Exodus 12:1 Now the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron in the land Egypt, saying: 2 This month shall be the beginning of months to you. It shall be the first month of the year to you.
This is the beginning of the religious and sacred year of the Israelites. And it starts with a Feast of Passover or Pesach, which is called the Feast of Deliverance and Redemption or the Feast of Salvation.
Exodus 12: 3 Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying: On the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for a household. 4And if the household be too little for the lamb, let him and his neighbor next to his house take it according to the number of the persons; according to what each man shall eat, divide the lamb.
On Nisan 10, a man takes a lamb for his household and examines and judges this lamb for four days to determine if he is blemished or sickness in any way. Jesus was examined and judged for four days from Nisan 10 -14.
Luke 23:13 Pilate had called together the chief priests and the rulers and the people, 14 and said to them, You have brought this Man to me as one who incites the people. And truly, I, having examined Him before you, have found no fault in this Man concerning those things of which you accuse Him. 15 No, neither has Herod, for he sent him back to us. Look, nothing worthy of death has been done by Him. 16 I will therefore chastise Him and release Him. 17 For he was obligated to release one man to them at the Feast.
Also in Exodus 12:3, there was a lamb for a household; this was considered to be about 10 people. This involved the whole household/family; no one was to be excluded.
Acts 16:30 And he brought them out and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? 31 So they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household. 32 Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house.
Exodus 12:5 Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year.
1 Peter 1:18 For you know that you were not redeemed from your vain way of life inherited from your fathers with perishable things, like silver and gold, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.
John 1:29 The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. … 36 Looking upon Jesus as He walked, he said, Look, the Lamb of God!
Exodus 12:7 They shall take some of the blood and put it on the two side posts and on the upper doorpost of the houses in which they shall eat it.
The blood from the lamb was placed on the lintel and doorposts was the Lord God’s provision for deliverance or salvation from physical death of the firstborn for Israel. The Blood of Jesus as the Lamb of God is the Lord’s provision for the believer’s deliverance or salvation from a spiritual death. Believers will still experience a phyiscal death unless they are still alive at the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ at the end of the age.
Hebrews 9:11 But Christ, when He came as a High Priest of the good things to come, by a greater and more perfect Tabernacle not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation, 12 neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood, He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. 13 For if the blood of bulls and goats, and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies so that the flesh is purified, 14 how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the Living God? 15 For this reason He is the Mediator of the New Covenant, since a death has occurred for the redemption of the sins that were committed under the first Covenant, so that those who are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.
The lintel and the doorposts form a little house. The little house is the eighth letter in the Hebrew alphabet; chet or het/heth. The number 8 is the number for the new birth, new creation or new beginnings.
At the time of the Flood, the Lord God determined that a remnant of man was to be alive to repopulate the earth. There were eight people chosen to shut up in the Ark and ride out the Flood. They were Noah, his wife, their three sons, and their wives.
Genesis 7:13 On the very same day Noah and the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and Noah’s wife and the three wives of his sons with them, entered the Ark. … 23 So He blotted out every living thing which was on the face of the ground, both man and animals and the creeping things and the birds of the heavens. They were blotted out from the earth, and only Noah and those who were with him in the Ark remained alive.
Psalm 119 is an alphabetic arrangement of verses for a song. The portion of the song that correspond with chet is 57-64.
Psalm 119:57 You are my portion, O Lord; I have said that I would keep Your words. 58 I seek Your favor with my whole heart; be merciful to me according to Your word. 59 I consider my ways, and I turn my feet to Your testimonies. 60 I made haste, and did not delay to keep Your commandments. 61 The bands of the wicked have trapped me, but I have not forgotten Your law. 62 At midnight I will rise to give thanks to You, because of Your righteous judgments. 63 I am a companion of all who fear You, and of those who keep Your precepts. 64 The earth, O Lord, is full of Your mercy; teach me Your statutes.
The word chayim starts with the letter chet; and it means life. This life is contained in the blood.
Genesis 9: 4 Only you shall no eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood.
Leviticus 17: 11 For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the Altar to make atonement for your lives; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul. … 14 For the life of every creature is its blood; in its blood is its life. Therefore I said to the children of Israel: You shall not eat the blood of any creature, for the life of every creature it its blood. Whoever eats it shall be cut off.
Any sin or transgress requires judgment. The blood which has life in it satisfies this judgment. But blood of animals couldn’t settle the sin issue forever. Only the Blood of the Son of God Jesus Christ can satisfied the judgment that is determined for any sin.
Hebrew 9:22 And according to the law almost everything must be cleansed with blood; without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. 23 It was therefore necessary that the replicas of heavenly things be cleansed with these sacrifices, but that the heavenly things themselves be cleansed with better sacrifices than these. … 26 For then He would have had to suffer repeatedly since the world was created, but now He has appeared once at the end of the ages to put away sin by sacrificing Himself.
Exodus 12:8 They shall eat the flesh on that night, roasted with fire, and they shall eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.
The flesh of the Lamb of God is the body of Jesus. The Passover lamb was to be roasted with fire as burnt offering. The burnt offering means that all of the sacrifice was consumed. Jesus gave all of Himself for the whole world. The unleavened bread that was to be eaten symbolizes the sinless life of Jesus. The bitter herbs symbolizes the bondage and burdens of the Israelites in Egypt,
Sin is symbolized as leaven or yeast bread while being sinless is symbolized as unleavened bread. Bitter herbs brings tears to the eyes and it is considered as unpleasantness of slavery to sin.
1 Cor. 5:8 Therefore let us keep the Feast, not with old yeast, nor with the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
Exodus 12: 9 Do not eat it raw, nor boiled at all with water, but roasted with fire, its head with its legs and its entrails.
John 19:32 Therefore the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and of the other who was crucified with Him. 33 But when they came to Jesus and saw that He was dead already, they did not break His legs. … 36 For these things happened so that the Scripture should be fulfilled, “Not one of His bones shall be broken.”
Exodus 12:9: In this way shall you eat it: with your waist girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. So you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord’s Passover.
Ephesians 6:14 Stand therefore, having your waist girded with truth, having on the breastplate of righteousness, 15 having your feet fitted with the readiness of the gospel of peace, 16 and above all, taking the shield of faith, with which you will be able to extinguish all the fiery arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.
You eat with your waist girded with a belt of Truth, sandals on feet which is the Gospel of peace, and staff ready in the hand which is the Word of God.
Exodus 12:12 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 The blood shall be to you for a sign on the houses where you 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 Lord will pass over or spare the Israelites. He will do the same with us who take Jesus’ Blood and put onto the doors of our hearts.
Romans 5:9 How much more then, being now justified by His blood, shall we be saved from wrath through Him.
Colossians 1:13 He has delivered us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of His dear Son, 14 in Whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.
Hebrews 9:22 And according to the law almost everything must be cleansed with blood; without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.
1 John 1:7 But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.
Exodus 12:15Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall put away leaven out of your houses, for whoever eats leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel.
In the Bible, leaven is the symbol or type for sin. We are to put sin away from us and our homes from the first day until the seventh day. As believers we should put away all sin from us continuously.
Exodus 12:17 You shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread. For on this very day I brought your armies out of the land of Egypt. Therefore you shall observe this day throughout your generations as an ordinance forever. 18 In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread until the twenty-first day of the month at evening. 19Seven days shall there be no leaven found in your houses, for whoever eats that which is leavened, that person shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he be a stranger or born in the land.
The Israelites celebrated the Feast of Unleavened Bread as an everlasting ordinance because God brought them out on the same day. They eat unleavened bread from Nisan 14 until 21 at evening. There should be no leaven or sin within the seven days of this Feast. If a person eats leaven then they shall be cut off. This is the same with Christians. If we have sin in our lives and do not put it away from us then we are cut off from God for all eternity.
Exodus 12:22You shall take a bunch of hyssop, and dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and apply the lintel and the two side posts with the blood that is in the basin, and none of you shall go out from the door of his house until the morning.
The hyssop is a plant grown throughout Middle East. It is the symbol of faith and purity. We are to dip our faith and purity in the Blood of Jesus and apply it to our hearts. Then we should not go outside of Him until the day of His Second Coming. The Holy Spirit will cut out everything that is NOT of God. This is the circumsion of the heart.
Exodus 12:23 For the Lord will pass through to kill the Egyptians. And when He sees the blood upon the lintel and on the two side posts, the Lord will pass over the door and will not permit the destroyer to come to your houses to kill you.
The Lord passed through the country of Egypt and striked down the Egyptians, He saw the blood on the Israelites homes. He passed over their doors and not allow the destroyer to come into their homes. When the Lord sees the blood on the door of our hearts, He will passover and will not let the destroyer come into us and bring us harm. But He will allow trials and tribulations to happen.
Exodus 12:26 And when your children shall say to you, ‘What does this service mean to you?’ 27that you shall say, ‘It is the sacrifice of the Lord’s Passover, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, when He smote the Egyptians, and delivered our households.’ ” And the people bowed down and worshipped.
During the Passover Seder in Step 6, the children shall ask the question “What does this all mean. ” The answer is the next verse, “It is the sacrifice of the Lord’s Passover.”
The Lord’s Passover commemorates the deliverance of enslaved Israelites from Egypt by the Almighty hand of God. It is also a deliverance from sin and sickness, especially for Christians. The Passover also commemorates the birth of the nation of Israel. Until this time, they were a family or a people. Now they are a nation.