Which Passover Should You Observe?

[Steve Myers] Christ Himself gave a very direct command to all of His followers. In fact, He told us that we are to imitate Him, we're to follow Him. And over and over and over again He told those people who were with Him to follow Him—in other words, to do the things that He would do. And it's no different when it comes to this time of the year when we realize there's a Passover that Jesus Christ Himself kept. Now questions come up because there's a couple of Passovers that are mentioned in scripture. And so which Passover should we be keeping as New Testament Christians?

[Darris McNeely] The original Passover we find in Exodus chapter 12 where the Israelites left Egypt and they killed a lamb that had been kept up until the 14th day. They kept the blood of that lamb and put it upon the doorpost. And that night the Lord passed through Egypt and killed the firstborn of the Egyptians. But it spared the firstborn of the Israelites. That entire sequence and that whole story in Exodus 12 and 13 is the original Passover (Exodus 12:1-50 & Exodus 13:1-16). But that was for a different time. And that's not our practice, custom or example today. In fact, there is a New Testament Passover—the one that Jesus Himself kept—in which He changed the symbols, which the Apostle Paul gave instruction for the Church to keep and marks then as our example and our model for observing the Passover today. In 1 Corinthians 11:23 Paul writes, "I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread." The same night in which Jesus was betrayed was the Passover that He kept just before He died and it is the example, the timing, the entire Passover service that we seek as Christians today to emulate according to that example.

[Steve Myers] In fact, that's the Passover where He said, "With fervent desire I desire this Passover to eat with you," (Luke 22:14-15) is what He told His disciples when He instituted that Passover. And that's the one that Paul is talking about—that one that celebrates His death, honors Him and we recognize the sacrifice of Christ. That's the Passover we are to keep and we do that on the very night that He was betrayed.

[Darris McNeely] It is not a Passover that has—it does have a connection with that of Exodus chapter 12, but it's different symbols. It's a different meaning because Christ instituted different symbols and His entire death then, which took place a few hours after that night when he took that last Passover meal with His disciples—that is the example to which we always go back and is the benchmark for observing the New Testament Passover for a sincere Christian.

[Steve Myers] That's BT Daily. We'll see you next time.