Jesus Christ as the Passover

Many times in a sermon or a sermonette, we'll talk about a biblical type. We use this word really. It's a type of something. A type is a person or a place or an event or even a thing that historically exists. It's something that's real. It's not like an allegory with just a story. It historically exists, but it reveals something about a greater event or a greater person or a greater place. In fact, most types, not all types, we'll look at a few today, but most types have to do with the work of Jesus Christ.

So it's an actual historical event or person or event or thing that God uses to reveal a future event, person, place or thing. One of the most obvious is just read through the book of Hebrews. The book of Hebrews explains how the entire Levitical priesthood is a type of Jesus Christ. That everything they did pictures something that He actually does in reality. And so you have the type and then what is the anti-type? So the killing of the Passover is a type. Jesus Christ is the anti-type.

He is what that actual historical event pictures in reality. So we have to type and anti-type. And throughout the Bible you will see that Jesus Christ is used. And it's important to understand that when you look at a type that is actual real, I mean the person was real.

Sometimes we'll look at Abraham sacrificing Isaac and that's a type of God sacrificing, you know, being willing to sacrifice His Son. So we look at these types. Now not all types, just like all allegories break down. I don't care what allegory you have in the Scripture. You can learn something from them and then they break down. They're not supposed to be, you know, an exact explanation of everything.

Types break down after a certain point, but they're very important in understanding that God throughout history uses historical people and events, places, things to picture greater things. Now we have an anti-type mentioned in the Bible. Let's look at 1 Peter 3. 1 Peter 3. So remember when we look at a type, it actually happened. When we look at the Levitical priesthood, we look at a high priest and how the high priest entered the Holy of Holies once a year on the Day of Atonement. And around the Day of Atonement, you will always hear some message that talks about how Jesus Christ is our high priest who now sits where?

In the Holy of Holies, because the Holy of Holies was a type of the throne of God. And the high priest going before into the Holy of Holies with a type of Jesus Christ entering into the Holy of Holies where he sits now at the right hand of God. So these types are very important, and we really find them in the Old Testament. We really especially find them in the Levitical priesthood and the instructions given to ancient Israel in Genesis, Exodus, and the Nicos Numbers into Erotomy.

They are filled with types. 1 Peter 3 and verse 20, breaking into the middle of a thought here, but I want to show you where he's going. He says, who formerly were disobedient, he's talking about demons here, who once the divine long-suffering waited in the days of Noah while the ark was being prepared, in which a few that his eight souls being saved through water. Now, here's what he's describing. He's going to go back to the time of Noah. And these people were saved. The world was cleansed from evil through water, and these people were saved through water.

Now, okay, he's going to say this is a type of something. Now, it doesn't, it breaks down after a while, but you could see the point he's making when you get to verse 21. There was also an anti-type. Okay, what was that a type of? What was this revealing? What was this actual event revealing? There is also an anti-type, which now saves us, baptism, not the removal of the filth or the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience towards God through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

So he says, well, okay, let's look at what they went through, this historical event, and does it have an application to this today? Well, yeah, it does, because there is an anti-type of that, and it's that you and I are washed of our sins. Now, remember, it's symbolic. I mean, going under the water when you're baptized of itself doesn't mean anything, but it's a symbol, and we're submitting ourselves to this ritual that is commanded by God as a symbol of something that's literally happening, and what is actually happening? Well, the evil is being washed from us. Just like he washed the evil from the world then, it's being washed from us.

So you can see why Peter would use this argument that the flood and Noah and his family being saved is a type, sort of a type, you know. How does he put it? He puts it, this is also an anti-type, which now saves us. So, you know, here's an anti-type of this. Now, you can apply Noah's flood to a whole lot of types and anti-types.

You know, there's things that apply today we learned from that event. So it's very important when we understand, we have to be very careful about types, by the way. When you look at the Bible, the Bible will explain what its types are. If we begin to make up types and anti-types, we will come up with the wackiest ideas. So we have to let the Bible explain its types and anti-types. This is an actual historical event, person, place, thing that actually reveals a greater person, place, thing, or event. Now, what I want to do today is go through the Passover's types.

The Holy Days are filled with types. Now, it's interesting, when we talk about Holy Day types, there's an awful lot of instructions given in the Old Testament about Holy Days that you and I do not keep. There's a lot of laws in the Old Testament about Holy Days that you and I don't observe. Why? Well, it's very important when we ask that question, why? Why don't we do things exactly like outlined in the Old Testament? Well, we understand when we start talking about certain things. Okay, let's talk about the Levitical priesthood. Jesus Christ is now the high priest. We can go and show that multiple places in the New Testament.

The Levitical priesthood was no longer able to function after the temple was destroyed in 70 AD. Therefore, all the laws pertaining to the functioning of the Levitical priesthood are not directly being done today by Levitical priests. They're not. But those are types of exactly what Jesus Christ is doing. Type, anti-type. This is very important as we begin to understand, too, why there are certain laws in the Old Testament we don't do.

Actually, we do more Old Testament laws than we realize sometimes. But we don't do them in exactly the way they're commanded in the Old Testament. We do them as type and anti-type. I'm going to show you what I mean today to help us understand specifically the types of the Passover.

We're going to zero in on the Passover. So let's go back to the first Passover in Exodus 12. Exodus 12. Now, there's a lot of things we can learn from this. So we're just talking about types. And what I want to do is look at what did these people, what were they literally commanded to do? So if you lived, we're looking at the historical event. If you lived at this time, what would you have done? Now, the Passover is, what, about two months away. So I want to do this now so we can start thinking about this as we get close to the Passover.

First one says, Now the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron as a land of Egypt, saying, This much shall be your beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year to you. Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying, On the tenth of this month every man shall take for himself a lamb according to the house of his father, a lamb for the household. So on the tenth day of the first month, they were to take a lamb, and they were to set this lamb aside for a very specific sacrifice. It says, If the household is too small for the lamb, and him and his neighbor next to his house take it according to the number of the persons, according to each man's need, you shall make your account for the lamb.

And your lamb shall be without blemish, the male of the first year. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats. Now you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at twilight. And you shall take some of the blood and put it on the doorpost, and on the lids of the houses where they eat it.

Then they shall eat the flesh of that night, roasted in fire with unleavened bread and with bitter herbs, and they shall eat it. He goes and instructs how they should eat it, and that they should stay in the house all night, and that they can't eat any of this, you know, they can't leave it until the morning. In fact, they actually have to burn it up.

Verse 11, Thus you shall eat it with a belt on your waist, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand, so that you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord's Passover, for I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night, and will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast, and against the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment.

I am the Lord. Now we know what happened. We know the story. So how did they keep this Passover? Well, on the tenth day, they set aside a lamb. On the fourth day, they killed the lamb, and they put blood on their doorposts, and they ate it in their houses as families, and they ate the lamb, and they ate a meal with it, and they had to be dressed a certain way for the participation of this Passover.

Staff in hand, dressed prepared for a journey. Now those are the cabins. That's how they were supposed to keep it. That's what they were supposed to do. Now later in this passage, he talks about how this is a Passover sacrifice, and that they were not to leave their houses. They were commanded not to leave their houses.

Now let's look at verse 43. The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, This is the ordinance of the Passover. No foreigner shall eat it, but every man servant who is brought for money, when you have circumcised him, then he may eat it. A soldier and a hired servant shall not eat it. In one house it shall be eaten, you shall not carry it away on the flesh outside of the house, nor shall you break one of its bones.

And all the congregation of Israel shall keep it, and when a stranger dwells with you and wants to keep the Passover to the Lord, let his nails be circumcised, and then let them come and keep it. It was against God's law for an uncircusised male to partake of the Passover. It's the law. Now if the male couldn't take it, the family couldn't take it, because that family was considered outside of Israel, because the males were the head of the household.

Now I don't know what they did if they had a woman who wanted to keep it and the male didn't. I don't know how they dealt with it. The Bible doesn't tell us. But the important thing is, understand, when they say the males had to be circumcised, all the family became part of it. Now this is the way it's commanded. They had to do it this way. Now what's interesting is we know that they didn't always do that way. In fact, it's interesting that God takes them out of Egypt.

They rebel, and all the people over 20 die. Remember, they wandered around in the wilderness for 40 years. So that means when they come into the Promised Land, the oldest person in Israel is 60 years old, except for Jacob and Caleb. They're 60 years younger. And Joshua says, but none of them had been circumcised. So for them to take the Passover before they entered into the Promised Land, they had to be circumcised. You can read about that in Joshua.

So it's very interesting. They are commanded to be circumcised because you have to keep the Passover. So either they had not kept the Passover all those years, or they had been keeping it improperly, because we know what the instructions were. Numbers 28, I just want to mention briefly here, because this is going to have importance in the New Testament. Numbers 28, verse 16. On the fourteenth day of the first month is the Passover of the Lord. And on the fifteenth day of this month is the feast of unleavened bread shall be eaten for seven days.

So we have the feast on the fifteenth, and we have the Passover on the fourteenth. So we have instructions. Now you notice we do not do any of those instructions. Why? Those are the instructions. Remember when I gave the two sermons on the covenants, and for the last six months, they keep going back to those sermons over and over again, because a lot of what we've been covering, doctorally over the last six months, ties back into those two covenants, or the understanding of the eight covenants in the Bible, the eight major covenants.

I want to ask you something. I want you to think about this. What covenant were the Israelites under in Exodus 12? Think about it. What covenant were they under? The Abrahamic covenant. They were still under. See, the Abrahamic covenant was made with his descendants.

The Sinai covenant hasn't been made yet. Now, they go to Sinai and a new covenant is formed. And as that covenant is developed, because it's not all given at one time, and it is developed, they receive the Levitical priesthood. Right? Was the Passover still commanded? Yes. Was the Passover to be kept the same? No. Remember when I talked about the covenant? It's so important to understand that God's plan, God's morality, and God's law is consistent. But when we look at each covenant, it is a different administration of what God is doing. And each covenant doesn't negate everything before it.

But it does change the way certain things are done. Let me give an example. Let's go to Deuteronomy 16. Deuteronomy 16. So, the Israelites go into the Promised Land. How are they to keep the Passover now? Are they to keep it? Are they to put blood on their doorposts? Are they to take a lamb and kill it and put blood on the doorpost? Are they to eat it inside their houses, dressed a certain way, with their staff in their hands? Is that how they're supposed to keep it? Exodus 16, verse 1, Observe the month of Abib and keep the Passover to the Lord your God, for in the month of Abib the Lord your God brought you out of Egypt by night.

Therefore you shall sacrifice the Passover to the Lord your God. Now notice, it's interesting, the Passover is just a day, and it's not just an event. It is now a sacrifice. Specifically mentioned as a sacrifice, each use of these words, the word Passover, I'm sorry, each usage of this word Passover, is a type. That's why it's used different ways. But you don't know that until we get to the New Testament.

So the different use of this word is very important. It's an event. It is when the Lord passed over the children of Israel. It is an event. It is a meal. It is, as we see here, a sacrifice. And the word is used to describe all these things. Therefore you shall sacrifice the Passover to the Lord your God from the flock and the herd and the place where the Lord chooses to put His name. You shall eat no leavened bread with it.

Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread with it. That is the bread of affliction. For you came out of the land of Egypt in haste, that you may remember the day which you came out of the land of Egypt all the days of your life. I want you to remember that verse because we'll come back to it. At no leaven shall be seen among you in all your territory for seven days. Nor shall any of the meat which the sacrifice the first day in twilight remain overnight until morning.

Well, that's similar, right? It doesn't remain until morning. You have to either eat it or destroy it. You have to burn it up. You may not sacrifice the Passover within any of your gates which the Lord your God gives you. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. They were commanded to sacrifice within their gates.

He's changing the way the Passover is going to be administrated. This is major change. It's not to be sacrificed within your own homes. But at the place where the Lord your God chooses to make His name abide, there you shall sacrifice the Passover at twilight at the going down of the sun at the time you came out of Egypt. And you shall roast and eat it in the place where the Lord your God chooses, and in the morning you shall turn and go to your tents. Not only were they, you know, before they were commanded to stay in their houses all night.

Now they're told you can't go back home until the sacrifice is over. It's the exact opposite of what they were told in Exodus 12. Now the Passover hadn't done away with it. But what covenant are they under now? This is after Sinai. They're under the Sinai covenant. And it's going to be administered differently than what it was under the Abrahamic covenant. And so they had to go someplace. This is why, you know, at the time of Jesus, everybody came into Jerusalem to keep the Passover. I've read or historians have tried to describe what that scene must have been like.

They estimate that at the time of Jesus, up to a million Jews, if you take different historical accounts from the time, up to a million Jews were in Jerusalem at that time.

And there were hundreds of thousands of sheep and goats. All of them pinned up because, you know, they would start pinning them up on the 10th day and saving them. And people would be coming in. So people were buying goats and sheep. You know, and people had them pinned up all over the place. And you would go in and rent a room or rent a place. You and your family. Now, they weren't following Deuteronomy exactly because there were too many of them. All the sheep and goats were not being sacrificed at the temple. It was at the place where they said, you know, they went to Jerusalem to do it, but you couldn't kill them all at the temple. So some of them were being killed individually throughout the city because it just got too big. They couldn't kill them all.

So what's interesting is the time of Jesus, you don't see Jesus and the disciples keeping the Passover as described in Exodus 12. But you do see them keeping the Passover as described in Deuteronomy 16. They go to Jerusalem. They get a room. They get a lamp. They have a meal.

So we have the Passover administered two different ways. One was still under the Abrahamic covenant and then specific instructions given to how to do it under the Sinai covenant.

Many times in the church we've tried to go back and reconstruct, you know, we have to keep the Passover exactly like Exodus 12, or we have to keep the Passover exactly like Exodus 12. We have to keep the Passover... well, the problem is, to keep the Passover like Exodus 12, you actually disobey the instructions given in Deuteronomy 16. But it's even more important than that, because when we're going to get to the new covenant, we have a totally different administration of the Passover, and it's all based on understanding the types. It's all based on understanding the types. That everything that's talked about, everything that's done in Exodus 12, is a type of an event that's much greater. Of a person that's much greater. Of a sacrifice that's much greater. Of a priest to it that's much greater. So there's no use going back and trying to reconstruct and do exactly what happened in Exodus 12, because we're not under that covenant. Now, there's elements of the Abrahamic covenant that still exist today, right? And we're not under the Sinai covenant of Deuteronomy 16, but there's elements of the Sinai covenant that still exist. This is where the Protestant world goes wrong when they say, well, you're under a new covenant, everything of the old covenant is done away with. No, it's not. But it is administered differently.

You and I don't keep the Passover like they did at the time of Solomon. And there's reasons for that.

There's reasons for that. We're not throwing out the law. We still keep the Passover.

But we have to understand why we do it differently. So let's go to the time of Jesus, Luke 22. Now, this is very important. And we begin to understand what Jesus does at this time.

Verse 1 says, Now the Feast of Unleavened Bread drew near, which is called the Passover. And sometimes Unleavened Bread and Passover can be interchangeable when it's talking about the season. We do that all the time. We just don't think about it. Hey, the Passover is coming up. I said, you know, the Passover is coming up in two months. Or we can say, hey, the days of Unleavened Bread are coming up in two months. We don't need, well, the days of Unleavened are coming up, but not the Passover. Or the Passover is coming up, but not the days of Unleavened Bread. We'll use these terms in very specific ways and sometimes very broad ways. Well, that's the way language is. And that's the way it was used then. So they seek now to kill Jesus. Satan actually possesses Judas Iscariot in verse 3 and verse 7, then came the day of Unleavened Bread when the Passover must be killed. Now, what day was the Passover killed on? The 14th. So this is the 14th. So they're preparing for the 14th. So this would be the 13th. And he sent Peter and John saying, go and prepare the Passover for us that we may eat. And I'm going to show you why I say that. You say, well, you just made a huge jump, but it has to be, because I'll show you in a minute.

They said to him, where do you want us to prepare? And he said to them, behold, when you have entered a city, a man will meet you carrying a pitcher of water. Follow him into the house where he enters.

And you shall say to the master of the house, the teacher says to you, where is the guest room that I may eat the Passover with my disciples? He said, well, isn't that an odd thing? No. People are flooding into Jerusalem by the hundreds of thousands. And all of them are trying to find a guest room. Okay. How much is your guest room so we can prepare and eat the Passover?

He says then he will show you a large, furnished upper room and there make ready.

So they went and found it just as he had said to them, and they prepared the Passover. When the hour had come, he sat down with the twelve apostles with him. And he said to them, what fervent desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.

For I say to you, I will no longer eat of it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.

Then he took the cup and gave thanks and said, take this and divide it among yourselves. For I say to you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes. And he took bread and gave thanks and broke it. And he said to them, this is my body, which is given to you or for you, do this in remembrance of me.

Like always, he took the cup after supper, saying, this cup is the new covenant of my blood, which is shed for you. Behold, the hand of my betrayer is with me at the table.

Now, there's a couple things that really come out and grab you here. One is, Luke is making an awful lot of effort to show that this is the Passover.

He mentions it over and over and over again. This is the Passover. He really wants this to be known. Now, remember, Luke is a Gentile. Luke wasn't there. Luke is writing primarily to the Gentile world to explain to them who Jesus Christ was. And he's really making a point is, this is the Passover.

And Jesus says, this is a new covenant. Now, they knew about the new covenant. It's prophesied throughout the entire Old Testament. He said, we're starting something new here. Now, they had eaten supper. They ate a meal, which is part of the Old Testament Passover. But then after the meal, he says, we're starting something new here. We're beginning something new. Now, notice he didn't say, so you won't have to keep the Passover anymore. They knew the new covenant would be the new administration of things. That's why they believe the Messiah had to be on earth, reigning for the new covenant to start. You know, the new covenant, he had to be here for that to start. He says, no, it's not going to be exactly the way you think, because I'm starting it right now and I'm starting it with you. And we get something brand new we're doing here. And I can guarantee you they had no idea what he meant. And well, they might have had some, but they didn't know what he was talking about. They just knew he said, this is the new covenant. You mean, this is what Jeremiah told us about? This is what it says in Deuteronomy? This is what Ezekiel talked about? Yeah, yeah. This is it. So we're starting it right now.

And so he introduced, he started to introduce the new covenant.

Let's go to Luke 23.

Luke 23 verse 50.

Jesus dies. Now, remember what happens. Jesus gets with his disciples on an evening. Now, they had to go prepare it because it has to be, the Passover has to be killed on the 14th. So that means it has to be after sundown that you have this meal. He has the meal. It gets lighter into the night. He institutes something new.

Okay. Later, he goes out to Gethsemane and he ends up being arrested. He is tortured all night long.

He is nailed to that spike the next day. He dies in the afternoon.

Verse 50. Now, behold, there was a man named Joseph, a council member, a good and just man, who would not consent into their decision. Indeed, he was from Arithomaea, a city of the Jews, who himself was also waiting for the kingdom of God. This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then he took it down, wrapped it in linen, and laid it in a tomb that was hewed out of the rock. And there was no other who had ever been laid there before.

That day was the preparation and the Sabbath drew near.

And the women who had come with him from Galilee followed after him, and they observed the observed the tomb and how his body was laid. And they returned and prepared spices and fragrant oils, and they rested on the Sabbath according to the commandment. The Passover had to die on the fourteenth. So, Jesus had to die on the fourteenth. But on that day was a preparation day for the Sabbath. Now, this is where so many Bible commentaries will say, well, see, this is a Friday.

Of course, if he dies on a Friday afternoon and he's resurrected on a Sunday morning, his argument that he would be in the grave for three days and three nights is not true.

I will be in the grave for three days and three nights, but he wasn't.

So, I guess Jesus either couldn't count or he lied.

So, what's the explanation? Now, this is really important. This is really important for us to understand. It says, back up. Remember what happened after the fourteenth was the fifteenth, which was the first day of Unleavened Bread. John even really makes a point in this in John 19. John 19, verse 31. This is talking about right after Jesus' death. He died in verse 30, verse 31. Therefore, because it was the preparation day, that the body should not remain on the cross on the Sabbath, for that Sabbath was the high day. The Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken, that they may be taken away. But, of course, they came to Jesus and they crucified him.

It was a high day. It was a special Sabbath. It's a very peculiar word that's used here in Greek. It's not a regular Sabbath. And there's a lot of argument on what was special about this Sabbath.

Well, if you understand the Holy Day seasons, if Jesus was the Passover, he had to die on the fourteenth. This makes the next day a Sabbath. Now, either it's a weekly Sabbath or it's the high day. It's very important that it not be a weekly Sabbath. And you say, well, why? Because then you don't get a three days and three night resurrection under any account. You can't make it work.

So, this can't be a Friday for him to fulfill what he said. So, we back that up. And, of course, I know Mr. Thompson gave a great sermon on the three days and three nights. And he taught that to the doctor's class, okay, three days and three nights. But we have to understand why that's important. Because then we back this up, and we know that this is the fifteenth. This makes the fifteenth the Holy Day. Because they had to get him down because the Sabbath was about to begin, and it's not the weekly Sabbath. So, it's the fifteenth. He had to die on the fourteenth.

Now, I bring this out because I'm about to say something that shocks people.

Because everybody tries to go back into the Old Testament and construct a chronology of when the Old Testament Passover took place. Did it take place at the beginning of the fourteenth or the end of the fourteenth? And I've been in the church, you know, between the radio church of God, the worldwide church of God, the United Church of God, I've heard it taught both ways. And when people come to me, they're shocked at my answer. My answer is, I really don't care.

Well, what do you mean you don't care? Because that's not what I do, what I do.

The way we observe the Passover on the fourteenth has to be on the fourteenth. It is not contingent on Exodus 12 or Deuteronomy 16. It is contingent on how Jesus Christ is administering the Passover under the New Covenant. You have to understand that, and it all has to do with types.

So when you say, well, you know, I've heard people say, well, you have to keep the Passover at the beginning of the fourteenth, which is what we do. I've had other people come up and say, no, we have to keep it at the end of the fourteenth. Other people said, no, you have to keep it at three o'clock in the afternoon because that's when Jesus died. So there are people who keep the Passover exactly at three o'clock in the afternoon. There are people who keep it at the end of the fourteenth. There's people who keep it at the beginning of the fourteenth. And they all use Old Testament arguments to come to those conclusions. Why do we do what we do? And people are shocked to find out that what we do in our fellowship is not based on Exodus 12, except that it has to be on the fourteenth. Okay? That has to be. But when we keep the Passovers based entirely upon when Jesus Christ sat down with His disciples, we know when that happened.

That happened on the ninth and the fourteenth, at the beginning of the fourteenth. And He said, guys, we're doing something new. The new covenant is going to have a new way of doing the Passover.

He didn't do away with the Passover, but He said we're going to do it a new way.

When He gave them that bread and that wine, okay, find wine mentioned in Exodus 12 or Deuteronomy 16.

Find the Passover in Exodus 12 and Deuteronomy 16 talking about a person. And yet He said, you're eating this because it's me. What He was saying is, I am the Passover. All those things, those historical events which are real, and we celebrate those things. You know, when a Passover comes up, we always talk about the Old Testament Passover. But that is not what we are commemorating.

We are commemorating the real Passover. Now let's go through the different Passovers we talked about, and I'll start to show you what the types mean. In some cases they mean the same thing, and sometimes things are changed. The Passover lamb. Now think about this. The Passover, if the Exodus Passover, they kill the lamb on the 14th of Aibib so that why? So that the Lord would pass over them. Not the death angel, it doesn't say death angel, which I thought it did for years, but it actually doesn't. It says the Lord will pass over them. So the Lord will pass over them.

Right? That's why they did it. If they didn't put the blood on the doorpost, they died.

In Deuteronomy it says that they were to keep the Passover to remember that they were taken out of slavery. To remember it commemorated when the Lord passed over them and they were slaves and they were taken out of slavery. When you and I keep the Passover, are we simply celebrating those events?

Well, yes, we're recognizing them, but that's actually not what we're commemorating.

What are we commemorating? 1 Corinthians 5.7. See, I'm not saying we should divorce those events, but those events were all types. We're actually commemorating the anti-type, the greater event, the greater person. 1 Corinthians 5.7. 1 Corinthians 5.7. Simple verse. Paul says, therefore purge out the old leaven. And here he's giving instructions to a Gentile church on how to keep the Passover in days of 11 bread. He says, therefore purge out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, since you truly are a leaven for indeed Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us. We know that. Most of you can know that one by heart, but understand the importance here.

When we eat bread and wine, we are not commemorating Israel coming out of Egypt, or the fact that they killed lambs that night. That tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of lambs died that night. That's not what we're commemorating. We're commemorating the anti-type, the actual person. We're commemorating the real Passover.

They're the types. What we try to do is make what we do the type. Well, we're doing a type of what they did. No, we're not. They were the type of what we do. This is the greater Passover.

This is by far the greater Passover. What they were doing is a type of us, and well, of at least what we do, and a type of what Jesus Christ does.

Okay, the second point. The Exodus and Deuteronomy Passovers both involved eating of a meal.

They both involved eating of a meal. 1 Corinthians 11. Here Paul continues his instructions.

1 Corinthians 11. Let's read verse 17.

Now in giving these instructions, he says, I do not praise you, that you come together not for the better but for the worse. For first of all, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you, and in part I believe it.

But there must be also factions among you that those who are approved may be recognized among you. There's going to be conflict in the church from time to time. There's always going to be somebody trying to bring in a false doctrine or false teaching or causing division so that God can work through and refine us. He says, Therefore, when you come together in one place, it is not to eat the Lord's supper. For in eating, each one takes his own supper ahead of others, and one is hungry, and another is drunk. They're getting together, as we're going to see. This is on the Passover night, because he specifically tells them what they're doing. They're getting together on Passover, which would have been the beginning of the 14th, and people are having a big meal, and some people, maybe the poor people, don't have any food. Other people are literally getting drunk.

This is a mess. This is a Passover service that you and I would walk out of. Okay.

What? He says, verse 22, Do you not have houses to eat and drink in?

Or do you despise the church of God and shame those who have nothing?

What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you of this? I do not praise you.

For I receive from the Lord that which I also deliver to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the same night, and which he was betrayed, took bread, and we had given thanks, he broke it and said, Take eat. This is my body, which is broken for you. Do this in remembrance of what?

Do this in remembrance of what God took Israel out of Egypt? No. Now, we do remember that. I'm not trying to play that down, because I'll probably give a whole sermon on that, you know, as we get closer during the days of our bread. But he says, when we do it that night, that's not really what we're doing. Jesus did do this in remembrance of me as the Passover. In the same manner, he also took the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant. We're doing something new here, guys. I'm not doing away with the Passover. Boy, is it going to be the meaning of it. All those types, everything that's happened for thousands of years is actually picturing this. Those historical events are just preludes to this. This cup is the new covenant of my blood. This do as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death till he comes. We do this. When do we do it? He says on the night that he did this.

So they're coming together and having a meal. And Paul is telling them, okay, we don't keep the meal. Besides the way you people are keeping the meal, he says, absolutely wrong. He says, We come together to eat the bread and drink the wine on the Passover. So that's a major change, isn't it? We don't come together to eat a meal with that, but to take the bread and eat the wine. Verse 27, Therefore, whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord's body, not understanding what this is all about, not understanding who the Passover is. He says, So you come together to eat this bread and to drink this cup. So that's what we do on the Passover night. We don't have a lamb, do we?

We don't come together and have a lamb. We don't come together and eat and drink.

Now, some people will say, well, why don't we do the Jewish Seder?

The Jewish Seder was developed when they came out of Babylon because they couldn't do some of the things that they were commanded to do, and it became part of Jewish custom. It is possible at the time of Jesus that the Seder was done by probably all Jews, or most Jews. But I want you to, I want to emphasize something here because this is another thing that we can fall into.

The Jewish Seder is not in the Bible.

It is a Jewish custom. Now, I'm not saying it's wrong. I'm saying it is not in the Bible.

It is a custom. It is a tradition. But it is not biblical. And we do not keep the New Testament Passover by Jewish tradition. The New Covenant Passover is observed in the way that Jesus Christ as the Passover said to do it. That's why we do what we do. So that's why we don't do a Seder.

It is a Jewish custom. Sometimes we fall into this idea, and I understand it because we understand what we do. You know, we're many times accused of trying to Judaizing Christianity. We keep the Sabbath. We keep the Holy Days. We do all kinds of things. We don't eat pork. Okay. We do all kinds of things. Well, you just try to Judaizing. No, we're not.

But we are trying to apply the laws of God under the administration of Jesus Christ.

And that's what we're trying to do. But at the same time, just because it's Jewish doesn't make it right. And I'm not against Jewish culture, even Jewish customs to a certain degree, but I want you to remember something. It was Jewish culture that denied Jesus as the Passover lamb.

It was Jewish culture that denied that. So we have to be a little careful where we go and our fascination with Judaism, because Judaism today is not a religion of salvation, because there's only one way you can be saved, and that's through Jesus Christ.

Now, a few weeks ago, I talked about the history of the Jews in God's plan, in Israel in God's plan, and showed how God still... those people are chosen for very specific reasons, like all Israelites are. But that's not what we're talking about today. We're talking about the New Covenant.

You and I live under a different administration. We keep the Sabbath differently than they do.

We keep the Holy Days differently than they do. And there's a reason why. And what we're going through today is why. Now, point three, there's the blood of the lamb. Right? What did they do in the Exodus? What was the blood of the lamb applied in the Exodus Passover? It was put over the doorpost. Now, in the Deuteronomy Passover, these animals were sacrificed, but they didn't put it on the doorpost because they weren't in their houses. They had to go to Jerusalem for the sacrifices to take place. I don't know. Maybe some people did go out and put it on their doorpost there, but it wasn't commanded anymore. It wasn't required.

Do you and I put that blood on our doorposts? No. But how important is the blood of the true Passover? Revelation 1. Revelation 1. Revelation 1, verse 4.

John, to the seven churches which are in Asia, grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who were before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and ruler over the kings of the earth, to him who loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood. You and I are washed in blood. You and I are scrubbed down in blood. That's a gruesome sight. You know, I've helped butcher animals before, and it's pretty messy, and it's gruesome. Jesus Christ was tortured for hours and hours and hours, and then killed so that we could be washed in blood. That's a powerful symbol, isn't it? That's powerful. So now, we don't put blood on our doorpost. You and I need to be mindful that we are washed in the Passover blood.

Fourth point, foot washing. The Exodus and Deuteronomy Passovers have zero instructions of foot washing. It doesn't exist. It's not part of the ceremony. In John 13, Jesus, at the Passover, said, I now command you to do this. Happy will be you who do this. This is what I want you to do. That's a brand new thing! Brand new! New administration of the Passover.

That's when we wash feet on that night. A fifth point is the Passover was a memorial of God's deliverance from slavery. In the Exodus Passover, they're actually taken out of slavery right after the Passover.

They're taken out of slavery. The Deuteronomy Passover, we read that in Deuteronomy 16, it says you're to do this in remembrance of when God took you out of slavery, out of Egypt.

And so, they were bought out of Egypt. You and I never lived in physical Egypt. How many of you have ever actually been to Egypt? One, two, three, maybe four.

The rest of us never came out of Egypt. We were never there.

Mr. Ackerman came out of Egypt. So, we were never there.

But weren't we there? It's a type of sin. And we could go through and show you in the Scripture, you know, the Passover lamb, type of Jesus Christ. Pharaoh, type of Satan. We talk about that every year.

You know, going through the Red Sea, type of baptism.

These are all types. They're literal historical things that people, events, but boy, do they have a bigger context. And we live in the bigger context.

And so, that's why we do what we do. And I go back to that's why we keep the Passover at the beginning of the 14th. And all the other chronologies of Exodus 12 don't matter.

Because we're under a new administration anyways.

And we do it, as Paul said, on the night that he did it.

Delivered from slavery, Romans, chapter 7.

And that type is used throughout the Scripture. Romans, chapter 7, verse 12. The Apostle Paul here, in one of his most famous passages in Romans 6, 7, and 8 says, let's go to Romans 6, verse 12. Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lust.

And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members, in other words, in different parts of your body, as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law, but under grace. What then shall we sin because we're not under law, but under grace? Certainly not. Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one slave whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death or of obedience leading to righteousness? He says, you're a slave! We've come out of that slavery. The rest of this chapter, in all of chapter 7, in all of chapter 8, is about our coming out of spiritual slavery.

It's a type. Their physical slavery is a type of our spiritual slavery that you and I are coming out of. A sixth point was that we noticed that people had to be circumcised to take the Passover. The Exodus Passover and the Deuteronomy Passover, by law you had to be circumcised.

By law you had to be circumcised. Now let's go to Galatians 5, because here's where people get really messed up, and they say, all see, we don't have to keep the Passover anymore.

Even in discussion of the Passover, it's passages like this that they'll go to. So let's go to Galatians chapter 5, and I'm going to show you where Paul solves this problem in his own writings. Okay, he solved this own problem in his own writings. Galatians 5 verse 1. Here Paul says to the Galatian church, now we realize, it started at the beginning of the book of Galatians, some Pharisees who had converted to being Christians were trying to convince people that they had to do everything that's in the Old Covenant. Everything that's in there.

Now, if you and I did everything that's in there, we would have to be doing lots of things. We'd have to be checking all the men to see if you were circumcised. You ladies, if it's your time of the month, you could not come to church.

You couldn't come through the door, so I guess we'd have to be having questionnaires or something.

There's a whole lot of things we would have to be doing if we were following exactly. Now, as we know, those laws actually have application today, but not in the exact same way.

Many of them are health reasons. I mean, there's reasons and ways we should do certain things. But Galatians 5 verse 1, Stand fast therefore. So this is the problem. These Pharisees came in and said, look, all the Gentiles have to do everything. And Paul says, you can't make them do everything. They're under a different administration. I mean, what are we going to do? Make them put blood on the door post? I mean, in other words, do all Gentiles now have to go to—well, they weren't living under the Exodus 12 administration. Do they have to go to Jerusalem for the Passover? Is that what you're saying? Do they still have to kill a lamb? See, he was talking in huge concepts here. But now he brings it down to a specific issue. Stand fast therefore the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with the yoke of bondage.

Indeed, I, Paul, say to you that if you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing. That's a remarkable statement. It looks like Paul is saying the law of circumcision is done away with. In fact, to be circumcised is a sin, because if you're circumcised, Christ means nothing to you.

Oh, that's a jump, isn't it?

Well, he'll fix this in another place. But remember who he's dealing with. He's dealing with people who are requiring circumcision as a point of salvation. If you're not circumcised, you cannot receive salvation. You sure couldn't come to the Passover. Why? The law said you can't come to the Passover. So he says, And I testify again to every man who becomes circumcised, that he is a debtor to keep the whole law. And you have become estranged from Christ, you attempt to be justified by law, you have fallen from grace. For we through the Spirit eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. For in Christ Jesus, either circumcision or uncircumcision avails anything, but faith working through love. Now people will take that passage and say, see, you don't have to do anything that's in the law. Wait a minute. Does that mean you can go steal? See, they actually don't mean it when they say it. Could you go lie? Can you go murder? Well, no. Well, wait a minute. Now what's Paul saying?

Paul was constantly telling people, especially when dealing with the Gentiles coming into the church, okay, you're under the new covenant. So that doesn't mean you have to be totally under everything that's in this covenant. Now he didn't tell Jews they couldn't do it, by the way.

He just said, you don't have to do it to be a Christian. You don't have to wear phylactries.

There's a reason for that that was given, and that reason no longer applies.

What was the reason they wore phylactries? Because they couldn't remember the law.

He says, now to the new covenant I will write the law. By the way, it's not a different law.

In Jeremiah, it has to be the same law. I will write the law in your hearts and in your minds.

So if the law was written in your heart and mind, you don't need to wear phylactries. If it's not written in your heart and mind, and you keep stealing and lying and cheating and committing adultery, you better wear phylactries, because you can't remember the law.

But if it's written in your heart and mind, you don't have to. Because the new covenant said that's what would happen.

So he's not doing away with everything in the law. But he is saying to these Gentiles, okay, okay, if you think you have to be circumcised, you're going to have to do the whole nine yards.

And nobody can do that. In fact, one of his arguments to Peter on board is, come on, guys, even we couldn't keep all of it. It's not possible. There's laws that you have to have a civil government to do. And we're under the Romans, and there were laws. They were disobeying all the time because they couldn't just go stone anybody, by the way. The Romans would come arrest them. Well, the law says, you've got to stone this person. You and I can't go stone them. We'll get arrested. Come on. You and I can't even do everything that's there, because we're under a rule. He's saying, now we have to realize the new covenant keeps the laws, but it doesn't administrate them differently. He said, well, how does he solve this one? Okay. Colossians 2. Colossians 2. Colossians 2 verse 11. Paul says, Colossians 2. I mean Ephesians 2 verse 11. In him you were also circumcised. Circumcision is still a command, by the way. But notice what he says. With the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, buried with him in baptism, in which you were also risen with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. You were circumcised through baptism. In the Old Testament, the prophecies say, I will someday not circumcise you in the flesh, but I will circumcise you in the heart.

It's prophesied over and over and over again. And Paul kept saying, okay, guys, I'm not doing my circumcision. I'm trying to tell you. Now, circumcision in the New Covenant is in the heart.

Just like it was predicted. He could go to a half a dozen places in the Old Testament that actually predict that, including Claremontic Deuteronomy, actually predicts that event. Okay, this is what's happening. And this is why, by the way, we are so particular about asking you if you were baptized and so particular about trying to counsel people before they take the Passover.

Were you baptized because you truly repented? Were you baptized because you truly understood you were making a covenant with God? Were you baptized and you understood that you were being forgiven for breaking the law of God? Were you immersed? Were you... was hands laid on you? And did you receive the Holy Spirit? He said, well, why are you so picky about all that? Because you must be circumcised to take the Passover. It's a commandment, but not physical circumstances.

You must be spiritually circumcised to take the Passover, or you are cursed.

This isn't an issue of control. It's an issue of you will be cursed by God.

That's why we're so particular about it.

Because you still have to be circumcised. Totally different administration, right?

This is why you realize the implications of this. It means spiritually, when you come to Passover, you women are absolutely equal spiritually with the males.

In the Old Testament, the males were circumcised for the entire family.

Under the New Covenant, every individual comes together spiritually equal as brothers and sisters before God at the Passover, because everybody is spiritually circumcised.

That's why we make such an issue out of that. Every year there's a sermon and an ender sermon. Now remember, you shouldn't take the Passover unless you're baptized. If you want to come, you want to observe, but you should not partake of it. Why?

Because that's the requirement. It's the requirement. The law still exists.

See, if you understand the type and anti-type, you realize that physical circumcision was a type.

The circumcision he's talking about here is the anti-type. It's the greater event. When you were baptized and you received God's Spirit, and you're forgiven by God, and you're made a child of God, that's a whole lot greater than physical circumcision, because physical circumcision could not give you salvation, which is part of Paul's argument all the time. It could give you salvation. It simply was a sign that you were under a covenant with God. But this is different.

So the Exodus and Deuteronomy involved circumcision. So does the New Covenant Passover, but a much deeper meaning. And then the last point, the Exodus and Deuteronomy Passovers involved the quick killing of a lamb. They were experts at killing that lamb without pain.

They slit its throat. It bled out. It didn't even know what happened.

It happened very quickly. They simply go to sleep. They were very humane in how they killed those animals. And then you read in Isaiah 52 and 53 how the Messiah would be tortured to death.

That's a whole new concept. That is not in the Exodus or Deuteronomy Passovers at all.

It's not even there. God wasn't going to have people torturing little animals.

He just wasn't going to do it. It's not in His nature to do so.

But the torture of Jesus Christ was part of the Passover. The anti-type has no type.

There is no type of the torture of Jesus Christ. There's no type there, which I think reveals a lot about the nature of God. Think about it. That reveals an awful lot about the nature of God. He wasn't going to have human beings torture animals to make the point. So there's no type. There's no type for that event. It's another reason why it's so important for us to keep the Passover on the beginning of the 14th because we realize something.

The Passover sacrifice isn't slitting a lamb's throat and watching for five minutes while it bleens out. It is hour after hour after hour of being made fun of, being beaten, being spit on, being tortured, Jesus Christ. It is hour after hour. The Passover sacrifice lasted all that night and much of the next day. That's why we do it that night. If he had us do it later, the impact would be different. So we do it exactly what he did because we know what was on his mind. That's why we need so much of John, what he said that night, because that's what was on his mind as he was about to face being the Passover. So I just find that so amazing that there's no type for that. It doesn't exist. He didn't have human beings to do that.

Remember, the New Covenant ceremonies aren't types of the Deuteronomy or the Exodus of Deuteronomy Passovers. The Exodus of Deuteronomy Passovers are types of the New Covenant Passovers.

They're the types. They're the lesser events. They're the lesser historical events. You and I live in the shadow of the great events. You and I live in the shadow and we commemorate the anti-types. This is why we do the Passover. When we do it, how we do it, why we do it, what we do, the foot washing, the bread, the wine. Sing a hymn because they sang a hymn.

There's no hymn singing in Exodus 12 mentioned. We sing a hymn because it is in Matthew. We sing a hymn. So, as you approach the Passover here over the next couple of months, think about these grand types that are throughout Exodus and Deuteronomy. And then think about how they picture.

Now, what we're going to do isn't just somehow celebrate those events, but we are going to commemorate the great anti-types, the reality of Jesus Christ as the Passover.