The Feast of Passover

This is a post in a series of posts titled Types and Shadows. You may want to start at the FIRST post of the series, or see the PREVIOUS post, before reading this one.

Yesterday I opened up this series-within-a-series by talking about the fact that God instituted 3 major festivals in the life of the nation of Israel. The first of these festivals was that of Passover. Today’s post attempts to look at what Passover was all about and how the feast itself relates to New Testament figures or events.

Deuteronomy 16 outlines exactly what this feast entails and also discusses why God wanted the Israelites to participate:

 Observe the month of Abib and celebrate the Passover of the LORD your God, because in the month of Abib he brought you out of Egypt by night. Sacrifice as the Passover to the LORD your God an animal from your flock or herd at the place the LORD will choose as a dwelling for his Name. Do not eat it with bread made with yeast, but for seven days eat unleavened bread, the bread of affliction, because you left Egypt in haste—so that all the days of your life you may remember the time of your departure from Egypt. Let no yeast be found in your possession in all your land for seven days. Do not let any of the meat you sacrifice on the evening of the first day remain until morning.You must not sacrifice the Passover in any town the LORD your God gives you except in the place he will choose as a dwelling for his Name. There you must sacrifice the Passover in the evening, when the sun goes down, on the anniversaryof your departure from Egypt. Roast it and eat it at the place the LORD your God will choose. Then in the morning return to your tents.For six days eat unleavened bread and on the seventh day hold an assembly to the LORD your God and do no work. (v. 1-8)

As you can see, the purpose of the Feast in the lives of the Israelites at that time was to celebrate their deliverance from slavery in Egypt. When they were still in Egypt, the Lord had Moses go before Pharaoh and demand to release the Jewish people. When Pharaoh refused, God judged the Egyptians by sending several terrible plagues, the last of which was to send the angel of death over the land to kill the firstborn of every living thing. The Jews were protected from this judgment by following specific instructions:

The LORD said to Moses and Aaron in Egypt, “This month is to be for you the first month, the first month of your year. Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each man is to take a lambfor his family, one for each household. If any household is too small for a whole lamb, they must share one with their nearest neighbor, having taken into account the number of people there are. You are to determine the amount of lamb needed in accordance with what each person will eat. The animals you choose must be year-old males without defect, and you may take them from the sheep or the goats. Take care of them until the fourteenth day of the month, when all the people of the community of Israel must slaughter them at twilight. Then they are to take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the doorframes of the houses where they eat the lambs. That same night they are to eat the meat roasted over the fire, along with bitter herbs, and bread made without yeast. Do not eat the meat raw or cooked in water, but roast it over the fire—head, legs and inner parts. Do not leave any of it till morning; if some is left till morning, you must burn it. This is how you are to eat it: with your cloak tucked into your belt, your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand. Eat it in haste; it is the LORD’s Passover. On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn—both men and animals—and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the LORD. The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are; and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt. (Exodus 12:1-13)

As you can see, the Passover festival aligned almost exactly with the actual Passover that occurred as the Jews left Egypt. The order of events in the feast went like this (in the first month of the year):

Day 10 – Choose an animal for sacrifice
Day 14 – Animal is killed; Passover meal is eaten
Day 15 – Feast of Unleavened Bread begins (High Sabbath – do no work)
Day 17 – Sheaf of Firstfruits waved before the Lord
Day 21 – The feast ends (another High Sabbath – do no work)

Beyond just the major sacrifice made on the day of Passover, the feast included the Feast of Unleavened Bread and the Sheaf of Firstfruits. The Feast of Unleavened Bread started on the 15th day, and lasted a full week. The Jews were commanded to bake bread without yeast (leaven), which served as a reminder of the quick departure they had to make out of Egypt (see Exodus 12:39). The first and last days of this week were special sabbaths, where no work was allowed. The Sheaf of Firstfruits was a separate celebration inside of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Passover marked the beginning of the barley harvest, and this celebration required the Jews to choose one sheaf of their harvest prior to reaping, and to lift it before God as a “wave-offering.”

The Passover, including the Feast of Unleavened Bread and the Sheaf of Firstfruits, served as a beautiful picture of deliverance for the Jewish people, but interestingly, it serves as an even more beautiful picture of deliverance for us today. The Bible is clear that the Passover served as a rich prophetic picture of the sacrifice of Jesus upon the Cross (“Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed” 1 Corinthians 5:7). Incredibly, Jesus was crucified on the literal day of Passover! As my lesson put it, “At the precise time that families all over Israel were slaying their Passover lamb, Jesus died on the Cross!”  If you look closely at the order of events in the last week of Jesus’ life, prior to His crucifixion, you’ll see several similarities (keep in mind that the Jewish day went from evening to evening):

Day 10 (Sunday) – Jesus enters Jerusalem on the back of a donkey (Palm Sunday)
Day 14 (Wednesday evening) – The Last Supper; Day 14 (Thursday) – Jesus is crucified
Day 15 (Friday) – High Sabbath
Day 17 (Sunday) – Jesus rises from the grave!

It’s not hard to see the similarities here. Jesus, our Passover lamb, entered Jerusalem on the same day that the Jews chose their Passover lambs. Jesus models the Passover meal with his disciples on the day of Passover, and is then killed on that same day. Again, recall that this is possible because the Jewish day starts the night before at sunset. Remember in the story of Jesus’ death, they were in a hurry to get him taken off the cross because the next day was the sabbath. This has caused a lot of people to think that He was killed on a Friday (since Saturday is the normal Jewish sabbath day) – and is probably what caused Good Friday to come about – but Jesus was actually killed on Thursday, the 14th day of the month. The sabbath they were worried about was not the normal sabbath, but the special sabbath that started on day 15, as prescribed by God as a part of the Passover feast.

Another interesting parallel between Jesus and this festival is the Sheaf of Firstfruits and Jesus’ resurrection. Jesus rose from the grave on the 17th day, the same day the Jews waved the Sheaf of Firstfruits before God. Paul wrote about this parallel in 1 Corinthians 15:

But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. But each in his own turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him.

As my lesson put it, “What an incredible picture of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ! And most incredible of all is how God timed everything. At the precise moment the high priest was standing in the court of the Temple, waving the sheaf of firstfruits before the Lord, this type was being fulfilled in Christ! The Lord Jesus was being raised from the dead!”

To conclude, the typology of the Passover feast as a whole and Jesus’ death and resurrection is rich, to say the least. In fact, there is much more that we could look at (for instance, the relationship of the absence of yeast in the unleavened bread to sin), but for the sake of keeping this below 2000 words, I’ll stop here.  In the end, though, what a great catalyst for our faith to see how God was working toward the fulfillment of all things in Christ when He put into place this festival in the life of the Jewish people many, many years beforehand. I’d like to leave you with a quote from my lesson that sums everything up quite nicely:

The Passover tradition was established as a point of remembrance for the people of Israel – that they would remember the great deliverance that took place in the original Passover of Exodus. When Jesus instituted the Communion, he said: “…do this in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19). A new Passover celebration had been established – a new remembrance meal for a new deliverance. Christ was declaring that the Passover had found its complete fulfillment in him!

Spiritual Adultery

I often joke and make feeble attempts at being funny in my blog posts (yesterday’s post is a good example…). And although it makes it more fun for me to write when I am keeping the mood light, not every topic lends itself to such an attitude. Today’s post could very well be taken lightly, especially when you consider the fact that it is based partly on a passage of Scripture which people (actually, just me…) are calling “the most x-rated passage of Scripture in the entire Bible.”  But when you begin to read the language that God uses, over and over, in His Word to describe how He feels about this, you lose all feelings of humor and lightness, and instead trade it for feelings of sadness, disgust, and butterflies in your stomach.

The title of today’s lesson from The Power of the Gospel is Saved from the World, and it begins by looking at a well-known passage in Acts 2. Here, Peter has been preaching to the Jews, revealing to them that Jesus is the Christ, and telling them to repent.  But that isn’t all he does – it then says:

With many other words he warned them; and he pleaded with them, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” (v. 40)

Even though we don’t know exactly what Peter said, we know that his general message was “save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” What is this corruption Peter is speaking of?  We talked about the term corruption in an earlier post, and we said that it refers to a decaying process, something that occurs over time, that very slowly leads to destruction. Theologists have a term for the corruption that is in the world – depravity. Peter calls people who are corrupted by the world “slaves of depravity” (2 Peter 2:19), adding that “people are slaves to whatever has mastered them.”

God’s View of this Corruption

The second quarter of the Gospel, which we’ve been studying for a few days now, reveals that we are not just saved from sin, but that we are also saved from the corruption of this world. In order for this to become a reality in our lives, we must first have a revelation from God, showing us what this corruption truly is, and then repent (we’ll talk about what this looks like in the section below, titled The Gospel’s Answer).  The first of these – the revelation – is something discussed at length in many different passages of Scripture. I will point out that many of these passages are hard to swallow (especially the Ezekiel one…).

It’s important to understand that when we talk about the corruption of the world, and the depravity of man, that there are 2 distinct people groups we must take into consideration. One is the unsaved or unregenerate person – one who has yet to be revealed the Gospel of Christ.  These people are corrupted by the world, but it is to be expected. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 5:9-10: “I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people—not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world.”  We are told that associating with unbelievers who are still corrupted by the world is inevitable. The other group of people are Christians – or at least, those claiming to be Christians, or that have been revealed the truth of the Gospel. People in this group, Paul says, are to be completely shunned: “But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not even eat with such people.” (v. 11).

This second group of people are the ones that we must be wary of, and even more importantly, they are the ones we must be sure not to become! The lesson today had a word for the actions of believers who continue to be corrupted by the world: spiritual adulterers. The term is taken from the concept portrayed in Ezekiel 23 – I have linked to the passage instead of copying it here, both because of it’s length and it’s explicit content. But this passage is essential in understanding God’s view of Christians who are still corrupted by the world. He sees them as adulterers – ones who, though they set themselves up as committed to Him, continue to instead wallow in the corruption of the world. Though they may not call it this, they worship the world and it’s ways, and they worship themselves and their own desires. They continue to give in to the Old Self, though the Bible says that it has been crucified.  They pick it back up and lug it around on their back, willingly!

Another eye-opening view of these kinds of actions by Christians is in the final words from the passage in 2 Peter 2 – he calls a Christian who gets entangled in worldly corruption again “a dog [returning] to its vomit” (v. 22) A dog returning to its vomit! Have you ever seen a dog eat it’s own vomit? I have…it’s gross. Have you ever seen a dog eat it’s own feces?  I have…it’s disgusting. That is how God sees us when we accept Christ’s forgiveness of sin, yet continue to live in the corruption of the world.

The Gospel’s Answer

God is extremely disgusted when we are corrupted by the ways of the world, but the good news is that He’s provided a way out of this – salvation from the corruption of the world. This is the second quarter of the Gospel.

As with any God-directed change in our lives, it must begin with a revelation from Him, and it must be enacted through repentance. These are outlined in the following passages:

• Revelation – Galatians 6:14: ” May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” – once we understand that, because of the Cross of Christ, we have been crucified to the world, and it has been crucified to me, we are ready to act…
• Repentance – Romans 12:2: “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” – This renewing of the mind is done through the infiltration of God’s Word into your very being. It’s an active pursuing of the truth in God’s Word, making it a part of who you are.

The entire answer to being saved from the corruption of the world is summed up in 1 Timothy 6:11: “But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness.” We must not just turn away from the corruption, but also turn towards God – pursue Him and His righteousness. It is through this pursual that we are putting on the new self, and this is God’s intention for us, to be regenerated and made new. This is being committed to our first love, and not turning away in spiritual adultery.