Passover .

--This feast was instituted by God to commemorate the deliverance of the Israelites from
Egyptian bondage and the sparing of their firstborn when the destroying angel sacrificed the first-born of
the Egyptians. The Israelites were then raised from the condition of bondmen under a foreign tyrant to
that of a free people owing allegiance to no one but Jehovah.
"The deliverance which it commemorated was a type of the great salvation it foretold." (1) The paschal
lamb must of course be regarded as the leading feature in the ceremonial of the festival. The lamb slain
means that Christ is the "Lamb of God." slain for the sins of the world. Christ "our Passover is sacrificed
for us." The lamb was to be roasted and not boiled , has been supposed to commemorate the haste of
the departure of the Israelites. The lamb was to be a symbol of unity--the unity of the family, the unity of
the nation, the unity of God with his people whom he had taken into covenant with himself. Next is the
unleavened bread. Fermentation is decomposition, a dissolution of unity. The pure dry biscuit would be
an apt emblem of unchanged duration, and, in its freedom from foreign mixture, of purity also. (4) The
consecration of the first-fruits, the firstborn of the soil, is an easy type of the consecration of the first born
of the Israelites, and of our own best selves, to God. Further than this (1) the Passover is a type of
deliverance from the slavery of sin. (2) It is the passing over of the doom we deserve for your sins,
because the blood of Christ has been applied to us by faith. (3) The sprinkling of the blood upon the doorposts was a symbol of open confession of our allegiance and love. (4) The Passover was useless unless
eaten; so we live upon the Lord Jesus Christ. (5) It was eaten with bitter herbs, as we must eat our
passover with the bitter herbs of repentance and confession, which yet, like the bitter herbs of the
Passover, are a fitting and natural accompaniment. (6) As the Israelites ate the Passover all prepared for
the journey, so do we with a readiness and desire to enter the active service of Christ, and to go on the
journey toward heaven. --ED.)
pharaoh

General Points
In Lev. 23 we learn that on the morning after the Passover Sabbath a sheaf of firstripe barley must be
waived (i.e. passed to and fro) before the Lord; this represents the resurrection of Christ and the fact
He is a firstfruits of us; but so encouragingly, a few weeks later at Pentecost the corresponding wave
offering before the Lord was two loaves baked with leaven. Leaven always represents sin or corruption.
They represent Jews and Gentiles who because of Christ's resurrection and triumph can come into the
presence of God despite their leaven, our natural wretched man of the flesh, not having been
completely purged out of them. Personally I feel that the N.T. indicates that it is God's desire that we
should break bread weekly; if so, then the seven days of unleavened bread afterwards then represent
our restrained lives in the coming week until we come to break bread again.
We each come to keep our Passover with different feelings and needs. But because the Passover
incorporates every kind of sacrifice, all our needs ought to be able to be met by our memorial meeting.
The eating of unleavened cakes was like the meal offering, the total burning of the remains of the
meal was like the burnt offering, the eating of the lamb as a holy meal was like a peace offering, and
the smearing of the blood, which in Hezekiah's time seems to have been replaced by the priest
sprinkling the people with the blood, corresponds to the smearing and sprinkling of the blood of a sin
offering. So whether we feel a great need for forgiveness (cp. the sin offering), personal rededication
(burnt offering), fellowship with God and our brethren (peace offering) or expressing our thanks to
God (meal offering), our breaking of bread, Christ our Passover, is designed to have all that we need.
Whether our experience of the breaking of bread is indeed this fulfilling is a question we need to
meditate upon. If our taking of the emblems is like eating the Passover, then the intensity of the

actual meal should be seen amongst us as we partake of the emblems. All distractions should be
removed as far as possible.