THE PASSOVER LAMB

JACK COTTRELL – FEBRUARY 2020

      QUESTION:  First Corinthians 5:7 refers to Jesus as “Christ our Passover.”  What does this mean?

     ANSWER:  To answer this we have to go back quite a way into Old Testament history.  Indeed, we have to go back to one of the greatest events in world of history, namely, to the event of the Exodus of the people of Israel from their bondage to slavery in the land of Egypt.  Many scholars place this at about 1440 B.C.

      All the people of Israel had lived in Egypt for hundreds of years, ever since the days of Joseph, a great-grandson of Abraham and one of the twelve sons of Jacob, whom God had renamed as Israel (Genesis 32:28).  At first, their presence in Egypt was a great blessing, since by God’s intervention it saved Israel’s whole family from a great famine (Genesis 46 & 47).  “Now Israel lived in the land of Egypt, in Goshen, and they acquired property in it and were fruitful and became very numerous” (Genesis 47:27).  Indeed, “the sons of Israel were fruitful and increased greatly, and multiplied, and became exceedingly mighty, so that the land was filled with them” (Exodus 1:7). 

      The result, however, was that the native Egyptians came to fear the Israelites, to the point that Pharaoh forced the entire Israelite population into horrible, back-breaking slavery (Exodus 1:8-14).  The time finally came when God determined that it was time to deliver His people from this burdensome life, and to give them the land he had originally promised to Abraham (Genesis 12:7, et al.).  Thus God called Moses and sent him to tell the people, “I’m getting you out of this mess!” (or something like that, Exodus 3:17).

      Since Pharaoh was not willing to cooperate (in part because of divine intervention, e.g., Exodus 10:27), God through Moses and his brother Aaron unleashed a series of nine plagues upon Egypt (Exodus 7:14 – 10:29), displaying His sovereign power and holy judgment upon these pagans.  This set the stage for the tenth and final disastrous plague, which would convince Pharaoh to let the people go (Exodus 11:1).  Yahweh told Moses how it was going to happen on that dreadful day:  “About midnight I am going out into the midst of Egypt, and all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of the Pharaoh who sits on his throne, even to the firstborn of the slave girl who is behind the millstones; all the firstborn of the cattle as well. Moreover, there shall be a great cry in all the land of Egypt, such as there has not been before and such as shall never be again” (Exodus 11:4-6).

      (Note:  there is no reference here or anywhere else to a “death angel” who would perform this judgment.  God says that He Himself would do it.  He calls Himself “the destroyer” in Exodus 12:23; see also 1 Corinthians 10:10 and Hebrews 11:28.)

      Yahweh sent Moses and Aaron to tell Pharaoh what He was about to do, “yet the LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he did not let the sons of Israel go out of his land” (Exodus 11:10).

      Since God was planning to apply this destruction over the entire land of Egypt, including the area where the Israelites lived, He had a very ingenious and instructive plan for sparing all of the firstborn sons and animals that belonged to God’s people.  In summary, He explained to Moses and Aaron what the Israelites had to do to be sure that God would “pass over” their dwelling places on that terrifying night.  At twilight on that day—the fourteenth of the chosen month—every household would kill a perfect, year-old male lamb (sheep or goat), and smear its blood on the sides and top of the entrance doorway into the house.  Then they would all stay in that house all night, and would roast and devour all of the lamb (plus some other things) by morning.  “It is the LORD’s Passover” (Exodus 12:1-11).

      “It is Yahweh’s Passover!”

      Then Yahweh  (God, the LORD) explained further:  “For I will go through the land of Egypt on that night, and will strike down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments—I am the Lord. The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live; and when I see the blood I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt” (Exodus 12:12-13).

      “When I see the blood I will pass over you!”

      Here is how Moses explained it to the elders of Israel:  “Then Moses called for all the elders of Israel and said to them, ‘Go and take for yourselves lambs according to your families, and slay the Passover lamb. You shall take a bunch of hyssop and dip it in the blood which is in the basin, and apply some of the blood that is in the basin to the lintel and the two doorposts; and none of you shall go outside the door of his house until morning.  For the Lord will pass through to smite the Egyptians; and when He sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to come in to your houses to smite you” (Exodus 12:21-23).

      And that is the way it happened:  “Now it came about at midnight that the Lord struck all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of cattle” (Exodus 12:29).

      Now, here is the relevant question:  what actually saved the Israelite families from losing their firstborn offspring on that dreadful night?  Why did God “pass over” their houses and not those of the Egyptians?  We know it was not because the Israelites hid their firstborn, because no one can hide from God (Psalm 139:7-10; Hebrews 4:13).  We know it was not because they worked out all the celebratory details perfectly—which were quite exact (Exodus 12:8-11).  We know it was not because they had no sins and deserved to be spared, because all have sinned (Romans 3:23).  We know it was not because a spared household had an important celebrity who deserved to be spared; even Moses’s family had to kill a lamb.  The point is this:  no one was (or is) saved from God’s destructive wrath by how good he or she is!

      No, there was just one thing that determined whether or not a household was spared from the disaster of that tenth plague:  “When I see the blood I will pass over you!”  They were spared because they believed God’s gracious promise, and met the conditions for its fulfillment.  God promised that the blood of an innocent substitute—a perfect, innocent lamb—would be accepted in the place of the relevant family members!

      God was actually teaching the Israelites a crucial lesson, namely, that this is how all of us sinners are saved from the eternal punishment we deserve for all of our sins!  In this Passover sacrifice, as well as in many of the other sacrifices required by the Law of Moses, the point was that (symbolically or metaphorically) the sins of the Israelites were being placed on the animal, and the animal was then sacrificed in their place.

      What does this mean for us today?  Especially, how does it relate to 1 Corinthians 5:7?  Of course, this is something the Israelites did not know, nor did anyone know it until the incarnation of Jesus Christ, “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29).  “Behold, the Lamb of God!”—to echo John the Baptist (John 1:35).  The point is that the entire Exodus and Passover drama as recorded in the first chapters of Exodus was pointing ahead to this Lamb of God, Christ our Passover!

      The New Testament is very clear, that every unbeliever or non-Christian is a slave to sin (Romans 6:15-23), which results in death (vv. 16, 23), including the eternal second death in the lake of fire (Revelation 20:14-15; 21:8).  This means that sinners are not only slaves to sin itself, but also because of the “fear of death” are “subject to slavery all their lives” (Hebrews 2:15).  Sinners therefore need an “Exodus experience,” a great dramatic act that will deliver them from slavery to sin and death.

      This is the very reason Jesus Christ partook of flesh-and-blood human nature, i.e., so “that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives” (Hebrews 2:14-15).  In other words, in God’s redemptive plan we sinners have a Passover Lamb who suffers our deserved death in our place, and we do not even have to provide that Lamb!  God Himself has provided Him, has placed the sins of the world upon Him, and has poured out His wrath upon that Lamb so that we may go free!  “For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed” (1 Corinthians 5:7).

      Though the Lamb of God was unblemished by sin, God the Father “made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf” (2 Corinthians 5:21).  I.e., in His role as “a propitiation in His blood” (Romans 3:25), Jesus took all of our sins and our punishment upon Himself; and He suffered and died in our place.  Then, literally but in a spiritual sense, in our moment of Christian baptism that redemptive blood of Jesus Christ was sprinkled upon our hearts, just as the blood of the Israelites’ Passover lambs were sprinkled or smeared on their doorways.  This is why, when the Holy God looks upon us as Christians, though we are actually to a degree still stained with sin, He passes over us and does not destroy us.

      This is why we live in peace before God, without fear of death and hell—because Christ our Passover has shed His blood in our place and applied it to us!  And God’s promise applies to us in a way the Israelites could never have imagined: “When I see the blood I will pass over you!” (Exodus 12:13).  Christ and His blood are the true power behind that promise.  We learn this in Hebrews 10:22, which specifically refers to the application of Christ’s blood to us in baptism, and tells us to draw close to God without any fear on that account:  “Let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.”

      We know that when God looks at us, He does not see our sins (in the sense of holding them against us), but He sees the blood of the Passover Lamb upon our hearts; and even in His role as the Destroyer, He passes over us! 

      [I composed this originally as a communion meditation.  At the end I encouraged those who were partaking to think about how God was “passing over” them at that very moment, pouring out His love upon them instead of His wrath; and to remember that this was possible only because of the sacrificed body and blood of our great Passover Lamb, Jesus Christ.]