Passover Types

And places that are historically real. Now, we're about to come up on the Passover. And when we open up and we read Exodus 12, we see the first Passover is a real set of people and a real place, where there's real objects, real events. So those people, they were the most dramatic thing that happened in their lives. We still look at those events and we think, those are amazing events. Amazing people. God's involved in all this. But when we look at, and I'm going to tie this up, we're really tying this into the Holy Days because we talk about this in terms of prophecy, but this is just as important when we talk about the Holy Days. When we look at how the Holy Days are kept in the Old Testament, we see that those places and people and objects and events actually picture something greater. And I'm going to show you what I mean today because this is a real important subject in answering certain questions. I mean, in reality, you and I keep the Passover because we know we should keep the Passover. It's commanded by God. But you and I don't keep the Passover in any way, even closely resembling the way they did it in Exodus 12. You know, an Orthodox Jew walked into our Passover service. A person who reads Hebrew, who knows Hebrew, who studies Exodus 12, who observes the Passover themselves, they would find our observance so strange, they probably would not have anything in common with it. So why is it that we believe in keeping the Passover? And yet, reality, what we do is nothing like Exodus 12. Why isn't it like that? That's what I'm going to talk about today. When you look at the Holy Days, and like I said, when you look at prophecy, and when you look at the Tabernacle or the Temple, you will see that these many of the things that are real, and I'm stressing that they're real. These aren't just symbols. God really did open the Red Sea. He really did kill all the firstborn of Egypt. These are real things that happened to real people, but they also were symbols of other things. Turn to Hebrews 9. We'll show you an example of this. Here, the writer of Hebrews is talking about the Tabernacle, the Temple. Now, remember back in the Day of Atonement, I gave a sermon on how Atonement is tied into, or the explanation of Atonement, isn't just in Leviticus. If we want to understand the Day of Atonement, we go to Hebrews 8-9-10. But when you read Hebrews 8-9-10, they tell us something about what was happening in Leviticus. Well, here's what it tells us. We get again sort of the middle of the sentence here, or the middle of the verse in Hebrews 9, verse 8. Talking about the Temple. All was not yet made manifest while the first Tabernacle was still standing. It was symbolic for the present time in which both gifts and sacrifices are offered, which cannot make him who performed the service perfect in regard to the conscience. Concerned with only foods and drinks, various washings, and fleshly ordinances, imposed until the time of Reformation. Imposed until the time of Reformation. There was a time when the Holy Days were going to be reformed. Now, what does that mean? I want you to notice. It does not say that the Holy Days are done away with.

The argument that we should not be keeping the Holy Days today is not biblical. Christians should be observing the Holy Days today. But what was the time of Reformation? What does that even mean? I mean, obviously that's not the Protestant Reformation. I mean, what's he talking about there?

Because you and I don't carry out all the commands that were given to the Levitical priesthood. Now, what we covered on the Day of Atonement was that the high priest, in the Levitical priesthood, was what? A symbol of Jesus Christ. And everything he did showed the ministry of Jesus Christ. We went through the mercy seat, if you remember that, through the Ark of the Covenant. Those things all pictured something else. They were real, and they were part of what God was doing at that time with those people. But they would not have understood a greater understanding.

In the discussion of this, there's a word that's used for this. It's called type.

That the Bible is full of types. Now, what does that mean? A type is a person, place, object, or event that's real, but is symbolic of something that is greater. It's real, but it's symbolic of something that's greater. Prophecy is full of types. I mean, Revelation 2 and 3, the seven churches of Revelation 2 and 3, they were real churches. I mean, somewhere between 95 and 100 AD, someone in Laodicea or Smyrna opened a scroll in front of a group of people and said, I don't know if they opened it this way or this way, but anyways, they opened the scroll and they said, John wrote us a letter and he says to the church of Smyrna and they read it.

So it was real. It was real to those people. But we all know that when we read Revelation 2 and 3, there's a greater prophetic message to it, isn't there? I'd like to sometime, maybe at the end of the year or beginning of next year, I'd like to do a whole series of sermons on Revelation 2 and 3 and talk about the greater message to those churches. So we understand that those are real churches with real people and real scrolls that showed up. But all of that, and this is where the word type comes in, was a type of something greater. So we have a type. What is the opposite of the type? Okay, well let's go to 1 Peter 3. I want to read a little bit here to get the context. It's a very complicated passage and I don't want to zero in on the other aspects of this passage. I want to zero in on one idea. Okay, so I'm going to read a lot of complicated things here, but I'm going to zero in on just one idea. 1 Peter 3 verse 18.

The subject here is, for Christ also suffered. This is verse 18 of 1 Peter. For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive by the Spirit. 2 By whom he also went and preached to the spirits in prison, who formerly were disobedient, when once the divine long-suffering waited in the days of Noah. Now I went to... the days of Noah is when I went to zero in on here. In the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is eight souls, were saved through water. Okay, so that... what's that last part of that sentence say? He says, let's think about here at the days of Noah, where the world was cleansed from its evil, but eight people were saved by going on to the ark. So water is involved, being saved is involved, and then notice the rest, what he says in the next sentence. Verse 21, there is also an anti-type, which now saves us. So there's a type of something, which is something that's real, but what it is, it's a symbol of something that's greater. So what could be greater, okay? If the flood of Noah's time, and people... and building an ark, and eight people being saved on that ark, is just the type. What is the anti-type? What is greater than that? I mean, that's the most amazing event, one of the most amazing events in human history. What's greater than that? He says, this is also an anti-type, which now saves us, baptism. Not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience towards God through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The type of Noah and his family going into that ark, while the earth is cleansed through water, there's a much greater thing that happens in salvation history. It's called baptism. Baptism is greater than the flood in God's plan of salvation. Your baptism is greater. It's the anti-type. The anti-type is always greater than the type, because the type is always a symbol of something else. He didn't say baptism. If he would have said baptism is the type of the flood, and eight people being saved in an ark, then the flood would be the greater event. You understand? So the type is the lesser event. Even though it's real, it's important as part of what God does, it's always the lesser event compared to what it's a symbol of. Now the holy days are types and anti-types. There are events that tell us about something greater. There are people who tell us about something greater. There are objects that tell us about something greater. There are events that tell us about something greater. Because we have to be able to legitimately answer, you people believe that as a Christian you should keep the Passover, then why don't you do what Exodus 12 commands you to do? Why don't you kill a lamb? Why don't you smear blood on your doorpost?

They were told to do that. Why don't you do that? So we're going to look at five types in the Passover. There's a lot more than this. I just cut a whole bunch out because I realized that I only had an hour to speak. I started to build this sermon and I ended up with so much in it. I just sit down and slash the bird. So we'll just deal with five types. Five types that we can read about the Exodus Passover. And then let's look at what that means to us in the anti-type. Let's start by reading parts of Exodus 12. Let's go back and set the stage for the very first Passover. Exodus 12.

Of course, we know ancient Israel was in slavery. In Egypt, they couldn't get out. Pharaoh had total control over them. God sends Moses to tell them that he's going to get them out. Plague after plague happens and Pharaoh will not buckle down to God. So now we have the culmination of this of the struggle between Pharaoh and God. Verse 1.

Now the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, This month 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, For the tenth of this month every man shall take for himself a lamb according to the house of his father, a lamb for a household. And if the household is too small for the lamb, let him and his neighbor next to his house take it accordingly to the number of the persons. According to each man's need you shall make your count for the lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a bale in the first year. You shall take it from the sheep or from the goats. Now you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month. So, instructions. On the tenth day of this first month, they were to go get a lamb, select that lamb, and they were to take care of it for four days. They had to be a perfect lamb. And on the fourteenth day, they had to kill it. This is all part of the Passover. And it says, in the middle part here in verse 6, "...then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at twilight. They shall take some of the blood and put it on the two-door posts, in order to littel the house, where they shall eat it." So they had to kill it. They had to take blood down and put it all over the door posts. And they had to eat the lamb.

"...Then they shall eat the flesh on that night, roasted in fire, with unleavened bread, and with bitter herbs they shall eat it. Do not eat it raw, nor boil it all with water, but roast it in fire. Its heads and its legs and its entrails. You shall let none of it remain until morning, and what remains of it until morning you shall burn with fire. And thus you shall eat it with a belt on your waist, sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. So you shall eat it in haste, it is the Lord's Passover." Now, I want you to think about this for a minute, because how much of this do you do? Four days before the Passover, do you go take a lamb and pick it out? Do you cut its throat and spread the blood all over the door posts? I know of people who actually eat their Passover with sandals on their feet and a staff in their hand and dressed like they're going to go on a journey, because that's what it says, and they do that. Do you all wear sandals on that night? Why don't we? This is the command. This is what they were supposed to do. Verse 12, 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 all the gods of Egypt. I will execute judgment. I am the Lord. Now the blood shall be assigned for you in the household where you are. When I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not strike, shall not be on you or to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt. So this day shall be to you a memorial. Now they weren't just to do this once. They were to keep a Passover service. Now, as time went on, they did this differently. As they got into the into the Promised Land, as they had a tabernacle and a temple, other things would change. The ceremony, instead of being just the people's houses, would be centered around the temple. But the whole point is, this Passover service was a memorial. They had to keep doing the Passover.

So this shall be to you a memorial. You shall keep it as a feast to the Lord throughout your generations. You shall keep it as a feast by an everlasting ordinance. So they were commanded then to keep this Passover for ancient Israel forever and ever. We say, okay, and then people say, okay, that's the ancient Israel. That's not to the church. So why should the church do this? This has to do with understanding types and anti-types. Let's skip down to verse 21, because now here Moses gives instructions to the leaders of Israel on what God told him to do. Then Moses called for all the elders of Israel and said to them, pick out and take lambs for yourselves according to your families and kill the Passover lamb. Now this is interesting. In here we have references. The Passover is a sacrifice. The Passover is a lamb. The Passover is a meal. And the Passover is God passing over them. Okay? All these concepts are wrapped up together, and they all could be called the Passover. By the way, it is the Lord that passes over them. It is the Lord who strikes the—well, it's also called the destroyer. And we did a Beyond Today—oh, years ago now—program where we were talking about how the death angel passed over them. And all of a sudden there's this cut, because you can hear people talking. They're just voices out of nowhere. And the director says, where does it say the death angel? It's also an Hestit said it.

But it's not an Exodus. So we had to redo that part. Isn't it funny how things get in your mind? I don't know. He said it. If Cecil B. DeMille said it, it must be true, right?

Anyways, let's get back to what we're talking about here. Verse 22. And none of you shall take a bunch of hyssop, dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and strike the lintel in the two doorposts with the blood that is in the basin. And none of you shall go out of the door of his house until morning. For the Lord will pass through to strike the Egyptians, and when he sees the blood on the lintel and on the doorpost, the Lord will pass over the door and allow the destroyer to come into your house to strike you. And you shall observe this thing, and it's an ordinance for you and your sons forever. And it shall come to pass, that when you come to the land, which the Lord your God will give you. Just as he promised, that you shall keep this service. And it shall be that when your children say to you, what do you mean by this service, that you shall say, it is the Passover sacrifice of the Lord who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt when he struck the Egyptians and delivered our households. We will talk about these events before the Passover. We always do. It's part of what you know, discussion during the days of Love and Bread. But during the Passover ceremony, will you hear us do what it says to do there? We are doing this tonight in remembrance of when God passed over the Israelites and killed the Egyptians. We won't, will we? Why don't we? That's what they were told to do.

We have to understand, we have a viewpoint of the Holy Days that Orthodox Jews would find bizarre. And the reason why is, we see the Old Testament as types, and we see what we do as the antitypes. And where do we get that from? The New Testament.

The New Testament clearly shows these. Let me show you, the five that I picked out, it is five, I want to show you how it's clear in the New Testament there's a type and antitype. That what we see here are real events that we commemorate, we look at them and we study them because of what God did and what God was doing in those people's lives, and it's powerful and meaningful, but there's a greater reality. There's a greater reality that the Holy Days tell us about that is actually more important than that. Just like baptism is more important than the flood. That takes a little bit to wrap your mind around, doesn't it? If the flood was a type and baptism is the antitype, the antitype is always greater than the type, wow, baptism is real important to God. Okay, the first thing we're going to talk about is the sacrificial lamb. Now we just read the type in Exodus 12. The Passover lamb was selected, killed, and served to the whole family as a meal. With bread, unloving bread, and bitter herbs, they set down and ate an entire meal. Anything that was left by morning, they had to burn up. So the Passover is just a lamb. It is the eating of the lamb. It's the eating of this animal. And of course, the blood was not to be eaten. Interestingly, the entrails were even roasted in that thing. I've never eaten an animal with the entrails still cooked in it, so I don't know what that would do. It's going to change the flavor, I would guess. But anyways, they took the blood and it was splattered outside, smeared outside on the doors. What is the antitype? There's nothing I'm going to tell you today, by the way, that's new. So if you're looking for something new, it's not going to happen. But I want to put this together to show you there's things we do, we've done so long, we forget what we're actually doing.

And what happens if we're not careful, the Holy Days become an argument over minutiae instead of understanding the greatness of what they actually mean. So what is the antitype of the lamb? You all know that, so let's go to 1 Corinthians 5 and just rehearse it. But you have to understand, the moment we read this, it changes everything in terms of understanding the Passover. It changes the understanding of the Passover. This is why if an Orthodox Jew was sitting here and we read this, the Orthodox Jew would say, that's a falsehood. That is a falsehood. That is not truth.

1 Corinthians 5. And let's go to verse 6. Paul is talking to a Gentile church. The church of court is mainly Gentile, it's not mainly Jewish. We know by the problems of the church, circumcision is a very minor issue, other Jewish issues are very minor. He's dealing with meat offered to idols, going to temple prostitutes. He's dealing with stuff that's basically pagan Gentile problems. These are Greeks. Of course, it's right in the middle of Greece.

He says, your glorying is not good. Do you know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Now we're getting into the typology of the days of the leavened bread. But that's a whole other sermon. In fact, after having a discussion this morning with people in Murfreesboro after the sermon, maybe before the days of the leavened bread, I may give a sermon just on the typology of the days of the leavened bread. 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. Exodus 12. The Passover is a lamb. It is an animal. It is a type.

What did John the Baptist say when he saw Jesus walking down to be baptized? Behold, the lamb of God. It is a type. Any type is Jesus Christ. One thing that those who kept that Passover in Exodus 12 could have never comprehended. I just wonder if even Moses knew this. The Passover is a person. The Passover is the Son of God, the Messiah. He is the Passover. Christ our Passover. Understand, that changes everything in understanding the typology of Exodus 12.

It means now we see the Passover killing the lamb on the tenth of Abib, I mean taking the lamb on the tenth of Abib and killing it on the fourth of Abib, is simply a type of a greater person that when we come together to keep the Passover, that's why we don't say we are here to commemorate ancient Israel coming out of Egypt. We say we are here to commemorate our Passover, Jesus Christ.

It changes everything. It doesn't mean we don't look back on those things as important, part of the plan of God. We study it. It's very important, but it's not the greater reality. It is a lesser importance to the greater importance. It's the whole thing with type and anti-type. Just think of baptism. It's greater than the flood in the mind of God. The flood was not as great as every time you were baptized in terms of what he's achieving.

Christ as the Passover makes this a simple type of the greater reality. By the way, when you go through this, I don't understand how anybody who understands types and anti-types could not keep the Holy Days. I understand it. You understand types and anti-types. You have to keep the Holy Days. All the Holy Days picture something greater than God is doing. Look at Luke 22.

So you're with me so far.

Is anybody—and I know we usually don't talk in church, but this one time it's okay—is anybody having a difficulty between the concept of type and anti-type? I mean, you've heard this before, but okay, we're good. You can talk to me afterwards. Nobody wants to talk in church, but I understand. I just want to make sure we're all headed here to understand what we're doing. Because the reason this is important, is that in the church, among the churches of God, there's all kinds of arguments over the Holy Days. And much of it is immaterial if we zero in on what's really important, on what the real anti-types are. And that's what God wants us to know. Luke 22. Then came the day of Unleavened Bread, when the Passover must be killed. And he said Peter and John say, Go and prepare the Passover for us that we may eat. Now we know this was the Fourteenth of Aben, because when you put Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John together—now this is the beginning of the Fourteenth of Aben, the evening—because when you put them all together, he had to be in the grave before the Fifteenth started, because it was the Holy Day. So we know when this is happening. We know this event is coming up to sundown, they're getting everything ready at the beginning of the Fourteenth. Then came to the day of Unleavened Bread, when the Passover must be killed. And he said Peter and John say, Go and prepare the Passover for us that we may eat. Luke is making a real effort here to make sure everybody knows this is the Passover.

Verse 10, And he said to them, Behold, when you have entered the city, the man will meet you carrying a pitcher of water, follow him into the house which he enters, then 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? Then he will show you a large furnished upper room, and they shall make ready. So they found it just as he said, and they went and prepared the Passover. Now I'm going to show you what I mean about...

I'm very careful about judging other people and how they keep the Holy Days. Because if these are types and object lessons, we can't judge everybody for being at the same place at the same time. But in the Church of God, there has been a continual argument on whether we should keep... and this goes back to the days when I was in a radio in the Church of God, okay? So this has been going on for a long time. Should the Passover be observed at the beginning of the 14th or at the end of the 14th? The Jews today keep it for the most part towards the end of the 14th. Okay?

Now I'm a simple man, so understand what I'm going to tell you is my opinion. There's going to be a couple times that I'm going to tell you my opinion. My opinion is I have to solve the types and anti-types first. Who is my Passover? It is Jesus Christ. When did Jesus Christ keep the Passover?

I have no other questions. Now I can put together a chronology for you from Exodus 12 that says the Passover is at the beginning of the 14th, and I can build just as good an argument, because I've learned to do it, that shows that it should be the end of the 15th, and we can sit and tear each other apart over it. Right? Churches do that. I don't have any problem. I participate in what we do for one simple reason. My Passover is Jesus Christ, and I'm a simple man. So, you know, it's simple answers for me. You understand? I know who the type is. If He is the Lamb, He tells me how He wants it done. It really is that simple. If He is the Lamb, the type isn't the issue. The anti-type is the issue. He will tell me how to do it. So that's how I solve it. So that's my little personal thing. And I say, you solve it that way. I say, that's how I solve it. He goes on, verse 14. So when the hour had come, He sat down and the twelve apostles with Him, and He said to them, With 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. Now, He eats a meal with them. This is very important, because certain things haven't been changed yet. He was still fulfilling the types. He was about to become the anti-type.

He's about to die as the Lamb, as the Passover. So it's interesting, in verse 11, He takes a cup and gives thanks and says, Take this, 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. During this meal, He's passing out wine. Now, this isn't the only copy passed out. In Matthew, in the other accounts, there's only two of them that are important enough to list. Luke lists this one. They're probably having what's very close to a modern Seder meal that the Jews have. They eat lamb and they drink wine. They actually have four cups of wine that they drink. They sip from it. Now, it's very interesting, by the way, in Exodus 12, do you remember reading anything about wine? Wine doesn't seem to have been part of the Exodus 12 Passover. Wine isn't even mentioned. So the Jewish meal that they have as their Passover meal is totally tradition. I'm not saying it's evil, but it is tradition. But he's having this meal. Now, verse 19, he took bread, gave thanks and broke it. Now, this is where, especially Matthew picks it up here and says, okay, this is what he does. It's important. He gave it to them saying, this is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me. Now, we got something different. You know, that other cup of wine they had was a personal thing, but this is different. He says, now you do this in remembrance of me. Now, you do this now. What did they have to remember yet? He was still there. He's telling them, you have to do this when I'm gone. I'm doing something new here. You do this in remembrance of me, which according to Matthew, he ties directly in with the broken body of Jesus Christ. Likewise, he also, he took the cup after supper, saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is shed for you. The new covenant? They knew what the new covenant was. The Messiah was going to come and bring a new covenant. And he says, now you're not going to put blood on a doorpost. You're going to drink it. This is why, by the way, the Catholic Church teaches that when you eat that bread and drink that wine, it literally turns into the molecules of Jesus' body in your body. So, they believe it's when you take that wafer and that simple wine as a Catholic, they teach you as you chew that up, it changes chemically from a wafer to the very molecules of Jesus Christ. You're literally cannibalizing his body and you're literally drinking his blood. It can't be supported scripturally. Scripturally, these are symbols, just like the lamb was a symbol. So, we have a new symbol for the lamb. It's still about a lamb, by the way. But the lamb is this little lamb that they're going to eat. It's a person.

And so, now the entire concept of killing a lamb and putting the blood on the doorpost is gone. Now you take the blood and you take it in you. You internalize it.

So, he's now beginning to take the type and say, since the anti-type is here, how we do this will change. You do it with the pastor. But he said, how we do it will change. Why? Because that was a symbol of something greater and something greater is here. And so, we have the sacrificial lamb. The second point that I want to talk about here, as far as the types, is the meal itself. We read in Exodus 12 that the Exodus Passover, they had to sit down and eat a meal.

In fact, they had to have sandals on their feet and their staff in their hand to be dressed for a journey. And that's not how we dress when we come. I've seen people say, well, we ought to wear, you know, like blue jeans and a shirt and a hat and a coat to be ready for a journey when we come to the Passover. And I understand why they're saying that. It's an attempt to go back to Exodus and obey God. But Exodus was a type. A greater thing is happening when we do this. And so they would eat a meal. Why do we not eat a meal? Well, 1 Corinthians 11. Once again, this isn't new to anybody, or for most of us. But we're putting in the context of why you and I do what we do.

Because I know people who sit down and have a meal on that night. And then at the end of the meal, they'll take bread and wine. They're doing now what Jesus did. Well, Jesus didn't say, eat this lamb in remembrance of me. Because remember what they would have had was a meal of lamb. He said, eat this bread and drink this wine in remembrance of me. So that changes things. The picture is I'm the lamb. You know, that's what Jesus said. He's the lamb. Now, 1 Corinthians 11 verse 17. Paul says, Thou would giving these instructions, I do not praise you, that you come together, not for the better, but for the worse. Now, they were coming together for a lot of different reasons. For Sabbath services. But here we will see specifically for the Passover. We also know that they were keeping the feast upon the bread, because he commands them to keep the festival. But first of all, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you, and in part I believe it. There must also be factions among you that those who are approved may be recognized among you. Therefore, when you come together in one place, it is not to eat the Lord's Supper, the supper he had with the disciples that night. Now, the Church of Corinth were doing that. They would get together for the Passover, and we know it's the Passover, because when he says it later in the passage, they had a big meal. But because this was a spiritually real, this Church was in real spiritual trouble on multiple levels, the Passover even degenerated. When they came together and ate this big meal, it says for an eating, each one takes his own supper ahead of others. Some people would come and eat, some would wait. There was no organization to anything. And one is hungry, and another is drunk. Can you imagine a Passover service where the poor people were sitting there, eating a sandwich, and the rich people were sitting there eating steaks, and nobody's sharing, and somebody over here is tapped into the Passover wine and just passed out. This is what their Passover service was like. Every time you think, every time you say, well, you know what, I think our congregation is sort of dysfunctional. Read 1 Corinthians, and you'll love coming here.

I'm serious, it solves everything. Oh man, I'm so glad I'm a national.

I could be in a church like Corinth. What? He says in 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 on this? I do not praise you. For, Paul says, I receive from the Lord that which I also deliver to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the same night at which he was betrayed, he goes back to that. He says, let's go back to what the instructions were by the Passover. The Passover.

That the Lord Jesus, on the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, take eat. This is my body which is broken for you, and do this in remembrance of me. In the same manner he took the cup after supper, saying, this cup is the new covenant in 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. When we come together that night, it is to commemorate that Passover death, that Passover sacrifice, and who that Passover is. That's why it's so solemn. Now, during the days of 11 bread, a lot of the typology changes. I mean, the whole wave-sheaf and how Christ fulfills that, that's a type of Jesus Christ, and He's resurrected. He's resurrected. And what's happening during the days of 11 bread, you know, sins may remove, Christ is being put in, it's an amazing set of types that teach us what we do. But we're just dealing with the Passover here. Now, once again, there is no instruction in the Old Testament Passover about wine. So we have a new concept here. The third point, third type, is the deliverance from slavery.

You know, you go back and you read the instructions, especially in the Torah, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, about the Passover. And they are told that they are leaving, that they are to keep the Passover in remembrance as a memorial of when they came out of slavery. In fact, the eating of unleavened bread isn't about sin at all to them. See, we'll talk about Nathan's leavened bread coming up. We'll talk about leavening and sin. You know why they ate unleavened bread back then? Go read it. Because they came out of Egypt in haste.

They had to leave Egypt. They had to leave slavery. And they had to go real fast. And that's why they ate unleavened bread.

Now, that had meaning to them. That was righteousness for them. That was good for them. That's what God wanted them to know. But that's the problem with types. And anti-type means, okay, now let's take this to the next understanding.

The type is, they came out of physical slavery. Now, you all know the anti-type. What is it? What are we coming out of? Spiritual slavery. We're coming out of sin.

So we read something in there that they would not have read in there as they experienced those events. They would not have said, oh, praise God, we're coming out of sin. They said, praise God, we're coming out of Egypt.

You see, you and I live in a spiritual Egypt. All of a sudden, this has a whole new, we open up all kinds of typology. You and I live in spiritual Egypt. You and I live in bondage. You and I live in slavery. To what? The sin. And when we keep the Passover, we are celebrating the fact that God is taking us out of this slavery. The days of 11 bread, really, the typology of the days of 11 bread really expand that out.

And maybe I won't have to give a sermon of the typology of the days of 11 bread. The types of what they did and what really means to us. It's so much greater than anything they would have understood. Just like when Noah and his family were saved by the flood, they came out of the flood and started to propagate the world.

And God's Spirit still wasn't passed out to people then, was it? Great Mass. Only a few people had it. In other words, there was no baptisms taking place 100 years after the flood, which is the anti-type, the greater event. They would not have understood that what they were doing symbolized the Messiah or symbolized coming out of sin. They would have known that.

They were just happy to get out of Egypt. Romans 6. We talk about the anti-type here. Paul, in Romans 6, makes this brilliant argument about the slavery of sin. But what's interesting is he ties it into the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. So every time you see where a New Testament writer is tying in something to the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, what are they tying it into? That Jesus is the Passover. He's the Passover of Liam. In fact, he's all the sacrifices.

All the sacrifices were a typology of him or a type of him. Romans 6.10. For the death that he died, Christ, he died to sin once for all, but the life that he lives, he lives to God. Likewise, you also reckon yourselves to be dead and deed to sin, but alive in God, in Christ Jesus our Lord. Therefore, do not let sin reign or control your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lust. And do not present your members or your body or mind as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead and your members as instruments of unrighteousness to God.

For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace. Now, people stop there and they'll try to do away with the law. And I don't want to get into the law today, but why don't you start into the next sentence? You can't do away with the law. You have to understand what he's talking about here is who controls you. Who is your master? Verse 15, what then? Shall we sin because we're not under law but under grace?

Remember a chapter later, Paul defines sin as the breaking of the law. So shall we break the law? He says no. Do you not know that to whom you present yourself slaves to obey, you are that once slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death or obedience leading to righteousness? But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obey from the heart that form of doctrine which you were delivered, and having been set free from sin, you have become slaves of righteousness.

The entire Old Test or New Testament is filled with concepts that God is freeing us from this bondage that we're trapped in, that we can't get out of, just like they couldn't get out of. So deliverance from slavery. The fourth type I want to talk about is something we don't think about much, but I want to go back to Exodus 12.

I read this earlier, but I want to just pick out one phrase. This is really a big subject. As I went through this, I thought, well, I could give a whole sermon, but this one alone. But I want to bring this out of something to think about. Exodus 12.12. We read this, but we read Exodus 12 to set up what we're talking about today. God told Moses, 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, listen, all the gods of Egypt.

I will execute judgment. I am the Lord. God said, I am going to judge all those idols. But he was judging something else too. Pharaoh was a god. And who was the real god over Egypt? Satan. I guess this was another battle that Satan thought he could win. And I reached the point that God said, I am going to execute judgment against all the gods of Egypt. And that would have meant Pharaoh himself and Satan. And he did. Right? He destroyed Egypt right? He destroyed Egypt as a nation. Now they came back as a nation.

Egypt never converted. Egypt as a nation never became, you know, great followers of God. After the Israelites left, they went back to worshiping all their old gods and goddesses.

So this is just the type. And here we get into this greater subject of, who is the Pharaoh of this world? If this is Egypt, you and I live in, spiritual Egypt, who's the Pharaoh? It's Satan. There is a Satan that holds humanity in bondage.

The entire human race is in slavery. This is why this typology of what Jesus Christ is doing, or the antitype, is so much greater. God freed the ancient Israelites from slavery in a physical nation. Jesus Christ came as the Passover to free all humanity from the ultimate Pharaoh, to judge all the gods. Everything that everybody worships in this world, to judge and destroy all the gods. And Jesus Christ came to do that. Now He's coming back the second time to carry it out. You know, the Passover actually has a prophetic meaning, because there's so many things that Christ started at the Passover that He's going to finish when He comes back the second time. Even the Passover has a prophetic meaning. So He came to defeat Pharaoh, antitype. Antitype. Let's go to Hebrews chapter 2. I read this a couple months ago. I'll probably read it again sometime here in the... as we approach the Passover, go through the Passover season. This passage has so much to do with this time of year. Hebrews chapter 2 verse 14.

Hebrews 2.14. Inasmuch that as the children, that's us, have for taking a flesh and blood, He Himself, speaking of Jesus Christ, likewise shared in the same. Why? Well, yes, so that He can be an example. His blood is shed for us. You know, it's symbolically put on the doorpost. How do we do that symbolically today? We take a little bit of wine. We eat a piece of His body symbolically. See, we're still doing the Passover. But this is the real Passover, not a temporary Passover that happened thousands of years ago.

But notice what He says. He Himself likewise shared in the same that through death, He might destroy Him who had power of death. That is the devil. When He died, Satan lost. It was over.

Now, at His resurrection, it gets a whole lot worse for Satan. But you have to understand, at His death, humanity now had blood that covered them.

All of us, according to God's law, every one of us deserved to die. Every one of us deserved to have our blood shed to cover our sins. You and I can't escape death. We're already condemned to death. By God, in terms of not legally He hasn't done it, but in terms of our actions and what the law says. When Jesus Christ died, all humanity now had a chance, even those who lived before.

His death destroyed Satan. Isn't that amazing? His death did it. Of course, it was going to be resurrected. That was going to happen no matter what. That was prophesied. It was part of the plan. But through His death, Satan has no chance now. Because why? Because we could be saved. He can't win!

He goes on. Notice what he says the rest of this sentence. And release, verse 15, and release those who, through fear of death, were all their life subject to what? Bondage. All of our lives subject to slavery.

And now we have freedom.

The days of 11 bread have a lot to do about freedom, too.

The last type I want to talk about is in Exodus 12. But we didn't read this. So let's go back to Exodus 12. We'll read a little further in the chapter. Go beyond where we read. Exodus 12 and verse 43.

Because what's very interesting here is, there are stipulations of who can take the Passover. And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, this is the ordinance of the Passover. No foreigner shall eat it, but every man's servant who is bought for money, whether you have circumcised him, then he may eat it. So no stranger in the land, only Israelites can eat this. If you've bought somebody, he's a slave, and you own him, then you have to circumcise him. And if he believes in God, then he can eat it. Now notice, verse 45. A sojourner and a hired servant shall not eat it. In one house it shall be eaten, you shall not carry any of the flesh outside of the house. Nor shall you break one of its bones. All the congregation of Israel shall keep it.

Verse 48. And what a stranger dwells with you and wants to keep the Passover. Oh, wait a minute. What is the Passover? What is the Passover? What's to keep the Passover? Oh, wait a minute. What if a foreigner comes in and wants to keep the Passover?

And you will find in the history of Israel, there were always a large number of non-Israelites living among them. So then the question came up, well, wait a minute. My neighbor is an Arab, or my neighbor is a Ethiopian, or my neighbor is a Hittite, or whatever, and they live here, and they want to keep the Passover. Or they're a friend, or they're passing through, and I say, look, I believe in your God. I worship your God. I've given up all other gods. So I'm sorry, you can't keep it. That's not what it says. And when a stranger dwells with you and wants to keep the Passover to the Lord, let all his males be circumcised, and then let him come near and keep it. And he shall be as a native of the land. For no uncircumcised person shall eat it. One law shall be for the native born and for the stranger who dwells among you. He said, so it's the same law, in this case, you know, whether they were born Israelite or not an Israelite, same law. Now, why would that be?

Why would he say, okay, if you believe in me and you're an Israelite, you must be circumcised, or you can't keep it. And if you believe in me and you're not Israelite, you must be circumcised, and then you're an Israelite, you can keep it. Because you keep the Passover. You had to have entered into a covenant with God. You just couldn't come in and keep it. You keep the Passover. You had to be part of a covenant with God.

Now, it's interesting, ancient Israel here, I didn't bring this out this morning, but ancient Israel is not under the Sinai covenant yet. They haven't made it to Sinai yet. They're not under what is yet the Old Covenant. But they're under a covenant with God. Do you know what covenant is? Covenant with Abraham. They're the descents of Abraham. And Abraham was told, you must, I made a covenant with you. The sign of that covenant, the sign so that everybody will know that you're in a covenant with me as all your males will be circumcised. So then he comes along and says, then he comes along and tells Moses, you know what? To keep the Passover, this family I made a covenant with, and this family has to be circumcised in order to take the Passover. Because the Passover is part of my covenant with you.

What did Jesus say? This is the new covenant. See, the Passover has to do with the covenant. Now, Israel comes along and he says, look, all the people who want to keep this, who are not native-born Israelites, they just have to enter the covenant. And then they'd be circumcised. Like I told Abraham, and now they can keep the Passover. They're part of the covenant. The covenant never was only for Israel. The old covenant was for whoever became children of Abraham.

So people would enter into the covenant. So today, for you and I to keep the Passover, if it's part of our covenant with God, you and I have had to make a covenant with God, or we can't take it. You know, people every year, can I come observe it? You're young people where someone is not bad. Sure, you can observe it, but you can't take the bread and the wine. You can't wash it off with its feet. Well, why? Because you haven't entered the covenant yet. This isn't because you're bad or evil or we hate you. It's the stipulations of the Passover. Well, how do I know? But I accept God. You notice it didn't say they accept the Lord. They had to accept the Lord and be circumcised. In Deuteronomy, right at the very beginning, before Israel, when he got into the Promised Land, he told him, you know what? This isn't going to work. And now come a time where I will circumcise your heart and not your flesh.

He promised him from the very beginning, circumcision is just a type. There's a greater circumcision coming, an anti-type. Circumcision was always a type. It was revealed as a type.

I'm always going to do something better. Look at the prophets would say that. Ezekiel said it. Joel said it. Jeremiah said it. There's a come of time. That's circumcising. I don't think Joel said that. He just said to me that he got a Purani spirit. But Ezekiel and Jeremiah both said, there's a come of time when I'm going to change this circumcision, because that's just a type of something greater. Colossians 2. Colossians 2.

Paul knew this.

Paul had probably the most profound understanding of types and anti-types of anybody of the New Testament writers.

Paul 2. Paul 2. Colossians 2. If you'll now turn to 2 Paul, if any of you have Paul in your Bible, probably have a Gnostic Bible, the Gnostics had all kinds... Well, I'm not going to go there. Stay with the subject here. Colossians 2.9.

Let's start in verse 8.

He says, Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, along with the tradition of men, according to the traditions of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ. So we see that we get the context here. For in him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and you are complete in him who is the head of all principality and power. Verse 11. In him you were also circumcised. Now, wait a minute. Does that mean we have to practice physical circumcision? Because circumcision is commanded as part of the New Covenant. But let's finish. You were circumcised with the circumcision made without hands. Not physical circumcision, but the prophecies say there would be a change in circumcision. The prophecies say that that was just a type, that something greater was happening. With the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ... How did Christ circumcise us? ...buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through the faith and the working of God, who raised him from the dead.

When you are baptized, and you die symbolically, and you come up, and hands are laid on you, and you literally receive God's Holy Spirit, God circumcises your heart. It's a reality. Now, which is the greatest? The type, physical circumcision that says, yes, this physical nation is my people, or the spiritual, anti-type, spiritual circumcision, which says you are my people forever. Which is the greater? You see what I mean? The anti-type is always greater than the type. It doesn't make the type unimportant.

It means this one's always greater. This is why, unless you have become a participant in the New Covenant, you are not to take the Passover, because God says you can't.

God says you can't.

I mean, can you imagine being a person, you know, maybe you're an Israelite, you refuse to be circumcised, or you're a person living among the Israelites, and you refuse to be circumcised? You say, what? You're God so cruel you won't let me take the Passover?

But I believe like you do. That's not the issue. They did not have a personal, they did not personally accept the Covenant. In the New Covenant, each of us must personally accept the Covenant. It is a personal thing between you and God. And then you take care of the—you can participate in the community Passover. So, as I tell people, if you're not baptized, you come watch it. But don't participate.

It's not because you're not loved. It's because God says you have not yet made a commitment to the Covenant.

So, circumcision was a command with the Passover. Spiritual circumcision is a command today in terms of the Passover. These were just five types. Here's a whole lot more. Five simple types of why we keep the Passover differently, but we keep it.

We keep it. We obey it because we live in the shadow of the—what did he call it? The Reform, the Reformation. Remember we read that earlier? These things were to be there to the Reformation. They were to be there until the greater type, the anti-type, came. When the anti-type comes, now we do it differently because we see it differently. We understand what the reality of it is. It's important to remember, as we approach the Passover in the Holy Spirit, I'll probably watch the Ten Commandments with Charlton Heston. That's the only version worth watching.

It's a little hokey, but that overacting just makes it even better.

Did you just love, let my people go? I mean, it just—anyways.

And we'll think about this and what the greatness that God did.

But when that Passover night comes, that's what we're thinking about. As you take that bread, and you take that wine, and you wash each other's feet. That's not what you'll be thinking about. Because we are not the types. What we're doing isn't the type. Sometimes we think, well, we have to be the type of what they did. Duh. All those people walked through the Red Sea as a type of what you do.

All those Egyptians died. All those Israelites took the blood of a lamb. Have you ever had hot blood in a bucket? It's a messy thing, and it doesn't smell so good. And they swapped it all over. Why? As a type for what you and I actually live. Think about that.

They're the type. We're living and experiencing the symbols of the anti-type.

As this Passover comes, I want you to think about that. Think about the Passover Exodus, and how wondrous it is, and how amazing, and what it reveals about God. But as you do, think about what the New Testament teaches. But we are to keep the Passover. It is commanded. But you and I are a very privileged group of people. There's the grace of God.

It's because we get to understand the anti-type. We get to live in the greater reality that Jesus Christ is the Passover.