Passover Types

We're coming up to the Holy Days, and when we look at ancient Israel, which we do at this time, because we look at Israel leaving Egypt and, of course, their journey across the desert and the establishment of the tabernacle, we look at all the things that they did and how important they are in God's plan. And then we look at what we do here today. As Christians, when we keep basically the Passover and even the Days of the Eleven Bread remarkably differently than they did, I mean, we don't have a tabernacle, although we are a temple, but we don't have a tabernacle. We're not going to slay any lambs. There are certain things we're not going to do. And why is it that we do these things, but we don't do it in the exact way that they did it? I realize, as I was preparing a sermon for this week, that I haven't covered—I've covered parts of this material every year—but I haven't sat down and gone through this since 2016. So this week and next week, we're going to go through some certain core concepts of what is different and why we do things different. Because when we look at what we see in the Old Testament, we're looking at literal people that did things and objects and places in which all this took place. So it's literal, historical events in which God was directly involved. But when we look at the Scripture, there's a word that we don't use very often, but is used in theology books all the time. And that is, when you look at things in the Bible, you will see that there's many literal persons, places, things, activities, events that are types of something else. What it means is that they represent something greater that's going to happen later. It's a type of something. Let's go to Hebrews chapter 9 and see how the book of Hebrews explains this. Hebrews chapter 9 and verse 7. It's talking about that tabernacle. And verse 6 is, Now when these things had been thus prepared, the priest always went into the first part of the tabernacle performing the services. And it's talking about the services the Levites did specifically in talking about the Day of Atonement in this passage. But into the second part, the high priest went alone once a year on the Day of Atonement, not without blood which he offered for himself and for the people's sins committed in ignorance. The Holy Spirit indicating this, that the way into the Holies of all was not yet made manifest while the first tabernacle was still standing. So something hadn't happened yet, and that's why they were doing it that way, okay? Because something hadn't happened yet. Then verse 9. 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. In other words, there was something flawed in what they were doing that represented something greater. What they were doing was ordained by God to represent something greater. It was symbolic. It was a symbol of something. This is where you get the concept. It's a type. The opposite of that, the greater thing, is called an anti-type. You have the type, which is the symbol, and you have the anti-type, which is the greater thing that this symbolizes. And when we look through the Old Testament, we see that all the time in the services, especially in the tabernacle, in the way that they worshiped God, was a type of something greater that was to come. It was, as the writer of Hebrews says, symbolic of something greater that was to come. Let's go to 1 Peter 3.

Here he's talking about Noah. And God's judgment through water. He cleansed the earth. 1 Peter 3. And let's start in verse 18.

He's talking about Jesus Christ here. Now this is talking about demons, but that's not the... I don't want to get in and have you explain that. We know what that means.

He says, there is also an antitype. So if there's a type, it's a symbol of something that's even greater, even though it's real. Noah was real. The ark was real. Then being saved through water, which destroyed the evil, was real. But that was a symbol of something greater. There is also an antitype, 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. This is where Paul would specifically say baptism is going into the grave with Christ and coming out of it. So I mean, the water itself doesn't save us. We know that. God saves us. But when we go through the water, that is actually an antitype. And we're going to go through how that's important. Baptism has a lot to do in connection with what we're going to do on Passover. We have a type and antitype that we're going to have to go through.

So today what I want to do is look at the Egyptian Passover, which is real as part of the the plan of God. And it was to save the people of Israel, the descendants of Abraham, and bring them out of captivity so that they would go to the Promised Land so that he could carry out his plan and bring about the Messiah. He had promised the Messiah would come. He had to be there. They had to be there. This is an enormous plan that starts in Genesis 3.15. It starts there and carries all through to the very last chapter of Revelation. And what we're going to look at are the types, in other words, the literal experience those people were having that are symbolic of an antitype, something that's actually greater.

That's actually greater because, well, I'll wait until I'm done before I make this statement. This is an important statement to clarify, and I'm going to wait until I'm finished before I make it. So Exodus 11 says that God tells Moses to go tell Pharaoh, I'm going to kill all the firstborn. So let's pick it up in Exodus 12.

Exodus 12.

Literal part of Scripture, important part of Scripture, it helps us understand. That's why we should study this, because these things happened. They happened on the 14th of the first month of the Hebrew calendar.

And they're very important in God's plan of salvation. But they're also types. They're symbols of something greater. What those people were experiencing was symbolic of something greater, just like when they went into that tabernacle, just like when Solomon built the temple, they would go into the temple.

Verse 1. Now the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, This month shall be your beginning of months, as shall be the first month of the year to you, and speak to all the congregations 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 a household. And if the household is too small, the lamb for the lamb, let 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 count for the lamb. So this involved the selecting of a very real lamb that was going to be killed and going to be eaten that night, or as they prepared for the slaying of the Egyptian first born. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year, and you shall take it from the sheep or from the gates. Now you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month, and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at twilight. So they would kill it as the sun was going down. And you'll take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses where they eat it. It talks about how they shall eat it that night. It had to be roasted with fire, and anything that was left over had to be destroyed in the morning. Verse 11 says that they were supposed to eat it prepared for a journey. They actually had to have sandals on their feet. The men had to have their staffs in their hands as they ate this meal that was based around the slaying of a lamb, a perfect little lamb that now everyone would eat. 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.

We had a sermon in Bible study, remember a few weeks ago, on the names of God and the titles of God. It went through YHVH. And what that means, that L-O-R-D there, is YHVH. It says, that's who I am. Now the blood shall be assigned for you, so the blood now becomes very, very important. They cannot be saved from the wrath of God, even if they're an Israelite, unless they have blood on the post. In other words, being an Israelite didn't save you.

The blood of the lamb was the only thing that could save you from this, and you had to put that on your doorpost, as a sign. Now the blood didn't save them, in the fact that it was from a lamb, but it was a sign. It was to say something to God. It said something to the Egyptians, too.

And that's important, and what we're going to talk about here, as we go through all these types, and what they mean for us, as we keep the Passover. And I will see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be on you, or destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt. So this day shall be to you a memorial, and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord throughout your generations. You shall keep it as a feast by an everlasting ordinance. Then it goes on and talks about how it would be followed by the seven days of another bread. So this is what they did. Now, we don't exactly do that, do we?

He called it the day of passing over, the day when you will be passed over, that death will not come to you because the blood is on your house.

He also calls the meal the Passover, and he calls the sacrifice the Passover. Look at verse 21 of this same chapter. 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. Now, lamb there, you'll see it, I italicized in your English Bibles because it's not in the original Greek. He just says, and kill the Passover. Now, it had to be a lamb, right? They knew what it was.

So the sacrifice itself is the Passover. The night's the Passover, the meal was the Passover, the lamb was the Passover. And this is central to the concept of what they were doing. If you go into a Jewish home when they keep the Seder, on the night that we keep the night to be much observed, they will talk about these events. They are celebrating and in commemoration of these events, when God saved them and their people from Egypt by the slaying of a lamb. And it's difficult because they believe they should slay a lamb, but they don't have a temple. They don't have a temple to slay a lamb.

This also looks forward to the day of the future temple for them, the future temple, when they can slay a lamb again. But they're commemorating an event. They're commemorating an event. And this is a type of what we're doing, but it's not the same, is it? You're not going to go pick a lamb out of the flock someplace. You're not going to kill it. I remember a man one time who told me that he always stayed home to keep the Passover. And I said, why? He says, because I have to have my tennis shoes on and my staff in my hand. I said, well, if you're going to actually take that literal, you've got to put sandals on your feet and a staff in your hand. But you don't have to. And explain to him how those are types. But if we're going to do it, exactly like the command, that's what you'd have to do.

The New Testament church didn't keep it that way, as we're going to see. And that's because they saw that there were five types and five anti-types here. They're very important. They're all obvious. I mean, this isn't any new teaching. But we need to remember this so that the Passover doesn't become—and the Days of Love and Bread, which we'll be covering next week—don't just become, oh yeah, we talk about some old things that happened in the Old Testament, we talk a little bit about Jesus, and you know, we don't remember and understand and deeply, mentally and emotionally understand what we are doing. Because if we make it into a ritual, we're in danger of becoming nothing different than just the Pharisees.

We can remove all the leavening from our houses. And if we never have God remove the leavening, the spiritual leavening from inside of us, then it means nothing. Just like being an Israelite at the time didn't save you. You had to put the blood on the doorpost. You had to do something that recognized the cost of your life in a very limited way. So the type is that they had to do a sacrifice, the Passover. And they had to place that blood on their doorpost. And then, by the way, it doesn't say the death angels, it says the Lord would pass over them. The Lord would pass over them. He said, I will see that, and I will know the statement you're making. So if you were an Israelite and you liked being in Egypt and you decided not to put blood on the doorpost, you died that night if you were first born. You died because you had to do this. The anti-type we know from when we look at the New Testament, what Jesus said on that Passover that we emulate, we keep it a certain way because He did it. There's always arguments over when exactly should we keep the Passover. At the beginning of the 14th, the end of the 14th, at three o'clock in the afternoon on the 14th, and you'll see all these arguments. You know, it's very, very simple if you understand this. The Passover is a sacrifice, and the Passover is a person.

Jesus is the Passover. He tells us when to do it. Nothing else matters. Nothing else matters.

We don't live in the anti-types. We live in the types. We live in the anti-type.

We study the types for their reality and for what they're teaching us.

But we live in the reality of the greater thing, which motivates us to observe the Holy Days. It motivates us to keep the Passover. It motivates us because we realize the greater meaning of these days. The greater meaning of these days.

1 Corinthians 5. Just picking out a few scriptures here, because we'll be covering this, you know, through next week. We'll be covering some of this at the Passover itself. We'll be covering it during the first and last days of 11 bread. 1 Corinthians. But I really want this year to go back through the core reasons of understanding the New Testament application.

Why we do what we do. 1 Corinthians 5. Paul writes here in verse 6. He says, now these things, brethren... Let me go back up to verse 6. He says, your glory is not good. This is chapter 5. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Now we read this all the time, every year, during the days of 11 bread. Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed, Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us. And then he gives the church a command to keep the feast.

In verse 8. It's a command to keep the feast. But notice Jesus Christ our Passover.

What he's saying is, the Passover lamb slain in Exodus are just types. They're symbols of something greater. That that blood on that doorpost never gave anyone eternal salvation. It just saved them for being killed by God when he slayed, when he slew all the firstborn of Egypt. That's all it was.

It was a temporary salvation. And it was a type of something greater. It is the blood of the Passover that can give us eternal life. Type any type. And that must be our focus. You know, every year at this time of year, usually the grandkids, we watch the Ten Commandments, right? The old one with Charlton Heston. Nobody can say Moses. It's Moses. Moses. I mean, it's like he had to say his name twice. It's just weird. I know I say this every other year, probably, but Edward G. Robinson is Dathan. Yeah, see you guys, see? I mean, he's just playing the type that he played in every movie for 50 movies. He's a gangster, but it's still fun to watch, right?

It's still fun to watch. And no, Ramesses wasn't the pharaoh of the Exodus. He was a pharaoh of Egypt, but not of the Exodus. Anyways, back to here. So he is the Passover. Now let's go to Luke. We're going through a lot of scriptures today because I want the story to be told here as we review this in terms of why we do what we do. Luke 22.

Because if we do it without this understanding, then we're just performing a ritual.

I've known people that have kept the Passover for years, removed leavening for years, went to the Holy Days for years, and it never changed who they fundamentally were. It never led to a change.

It was just a ritual. And we can't do that. We have to understand what the reality is. Luke 22.

And let's start in verse 7. Then came the day of unleavened bread, when the Passover must be killed. And he said Peter and John, saying, Go and prepare the Passover for us, that we may eat.

Now you read through this, and it becomes very clear. They were preparing the Passover.

No questions. Now you'll see in, you know, you put all the accounts together, and you see that the Jews, most of them, were going to keep the Passover the next night. Not all of them. Jews keep the Passover at different times on the 14th, but most of them were going to keep it at the end of the 14th and going into the beginning of the 15th. What he was doing is no question, there's no questions here. Jesus clearly and equivocally calls it the Passover. So the Passover calls what they're doing the Passover.

Verse 14. And when the hour had come, he sat down and the twelve apostles with him, and he said to them, With fervent desire, I've desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I say to you, I will no longer eat of it until it's 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 he broke it, and he gave it to them, saying, This is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me. Likewise, he also took the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood which is shed for you. Next Friday, I'm going to send out a chart, give you a chance to study that goes through all of the events of this night. So you can study and put all four gospels together and see how all the events fit together. Because after this, after he says this, he talks about, well, I won't put it into, I'll send out the chart. I'm not going to get off on something else here. What we have is him declaring himself as the Passover and instituting a new covenant. The original Passover was given under a different covenant, actually was given under the Abrahamic covenant that God had not made the Sinai covenant yet, which is called the Old Covenant, wasn't even made yet, although it became central to the Sinai covenant.

But they were still under the Abrahamic covenant when God made that command for them to keep the Passover. I always find it interesting how people say, well, that's part of the Old Covenant. Like they'll say, the Sabbath is part of the Old Covenant.

No, the Sabbath was created at creation, and the Israelites knew the Sabbath long before it was given on Mount Sinai because he punished them for not keeping the Sabbath in Exodus. Then, no, no, no, it was there before that. You know, the Passover was actually before the Old Covenant was given.

They were still under the Abrahamic covenant when this was given. And so it predates the Old Covenant, is the point. So to make it simply, all the Old Covenant was done away with, that was done away with, is not recognizing the timeline of what happened in the Old Testament. So Jesus then is the anti-type. That beating, that torture, that death was prophesied in Isaiah 52 and 53. It was prophesied in detail in Psalm 22.

In fact, Jesus quotes it, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? He's quoting Psalm 22.

And you read through Psalm 22, and it is a detailed explanation of what he was experiencing in a prayer. He's praying to God. He keeps praying to God and praying to God through the whole thing.

Feeling alone. And the scripture that Mr. Keith read, but the Father is with me, at the end of Psalm 22, he starts it with, why have you forsaken me? At the end of Psalm 22, he says, I'm going to tell all my brethren you never turned away from me. He felt it and then realized, no, he never actually threw me away. He was always there. I just couldn't feel it. Just like you and I can't feel. It's amazing to go through Psalm 22 and then go through the New Testament and tie it together and see how it describes. He's just telling God, look what they're doing. They're gambling for my clothes. I can see my ribs. God, you know, and he calls him Eli, or El, which was the Canaanite Aramaic word, just general word for God.

God, God, why? And I'm all alone. And then at the end he says, actually, I'm not.

Actually, I'm not. You're here. And that's, you know, he said that before the torture, but during the torture, it was hard to remember that. That, no, you haven't thrown me away.

I do feel forsaken because all the sins of humanity is coming on me, but you haven't thrown me away. It's just remarkable.

He is the Passover lamb. His experience is core to it. But you know what's not, there is no type of this in the Old Testament of one thing. They never tortured a lamb.

God was not going to have people torture lambs.

I mean, if you've ever seen someone who knows what they're doing, that lamb dies fast.

It doesn't even know what happens, you know. It cuts their throat within a very short period of time. They just bleed out. They just go to sleep. There is no suffering at all, which I find amazing that God wouldn't have us carry out that type. He wouldn't have the ancient Israelites torture a lamb. He'd not. But that is the reality of what was going to happen.

He wasn't going to die this peaceful, quick death.

But there's no type, anti-type of that. So, we have the type of Jesus Christ. We then have the second type, the type of the meal itself, where they were to eat a lamb. Now, Jesus, as the Passover lamb said, what? This is the new covenant. Take and eat this. It's my body. You're eating the lamb, and this is wine is the blood. You're drinking the blood of the lamb. There's also no drinking of the blood in the Passover story. You put it on your doorpost. The internalization of Christ is a very, very, very important part of the Passover. You're just not accepting his sacrifice. You are willingly saying, I will have you be internalized inside of me. You will come live. You will abide in me, as he said. The Father and I will abide in you. That means literally live in you. You will live in me. You will abide in me. The blood isn't put under the doorpost.

We take it internally. And in doing so, we are saying, I am being saved by the blood of the Passover lamb, not just being shed for me externally. They killed a lamb and externally put it on the doorpost. I believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and his blood, I'm taking a symbol of that to be internalized. See, that's totally different. That is totally... Now, they did eat the lamb, but there was no concept that you're internalizing the lamb, okay, as a symbol. We're taking a blood, or that symbol of a blood, to symbolize something.

1 Corinthians 11. We read this on the very Passover itself. 2 Corinthians 12.

And verse 20, Therefore, when you come together in one place, it's not to eat the Lord's Supper, for in eating each one takes his own supper ahead of others. One is hungry, one is drunk. You know, once again, the church of Corinth was such a mess, it's hard to even imagine going into Corinth and being there. For I received from the Lord, verse 23, that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread. So he said, don't come together during this ceremony to eat a meal.

That's why we don't do the Jewish Seder. We don't because we're told not to eat a meal that night together. And when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, take eat, this is my body, which is broken for you, do this in remembrance of me. And the same manner, he also took the cup after supper, saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood, do this 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. So we are proclaiming him as the Passover lamb that night. We're proclaiming him as the Passover lamb. The Passover meal is not eaten in the way that was in the Old Testament. Something else, too. If you look at the instructions given to ancient Israel, they were to eat a lamb on this night. It said nothing about drinking wine. There's something new to this. He used a symbol for blood.

Drink this. This is my blood. Well, they had blood, but what did they do with it? They put it on their doorpost. So you drink it. You take the blood. Was it forbidden to actually drink blood?

Israelites were forbidden to drink blood. So the symbol here is very important.

Remember, the anti-type is always greater. Always greater. The anti-type, this is a symbol of this.

So we look at the symbols, which was real to those people. They were actually saved, but it was temporary and physical. And we're looking for this greater.

The third type is the deliverance from slavery. We always talk about that. They were slaves. They'd been slaves for hundreds of years. They had generations grow up as slaves. They didn't know anything but slavery. They thought as slaves. They acted as slaves. And that's why the whole journey across the desert to the promised land was nothing but trouble. They could never get out of their slavery thinking. They just couldn't. They didn't know how to deal with freedom, for one thing. They didn't know how to deal with a different set of difficulties.

And therefore, it was just a constant set of problems.

Romans 6. Romans chapter 6. Sometimes, you know, the Holy Days are to be kept once a year for a reason.

Because we are supposed to review these things so that they're part of who we are. One thing I will say in the Jewish community, the Passover is part of who they are. They're celebrating what they see, and which is true, was God's great power and deliverance of Israel. And it's true.

But they missed the whole point that that is simply a type of something greater God is doing.

It's not part of their celebration at all in Orthodox Jewry.

And we're looking at this, and we see this greater... We're not putting this down. We're saying this is greater. Romans chapter 6 verse 10. For the death... Speaking of Christ, breaking in the middle of Paul's thought here. For the death that he died, he died to sin once for all. Talking about Jesus. But that the life that he lives, he lives to God. Likewise, you also reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God and Jesus Christ our Lord. Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lust.

So he says, don't be ruled over by sin. Verse 14. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you're not under the law, but under grace. In other words, you're free from the penalty of the law. So why go live under sin? Why go sin again? What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law, but under grace? Certainly not. Verse 16. Do you not know that to whom you present yourself, slaves who obey, you are that one's slaves whom you obey? Whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness? But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered.

And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.

You know, eventually everything in life is you have one form of slavery or another. You either submit to God, or you submit to Satan. There's really no middle ground.

We're always in that battle, aren't we? We're always in that battle.

Sort of falling one way, going the other way, falling back the other way. We're always in that battle because that's what it is. You're either slave to one or slave to the other. And God has broken our bonds, and that, that night when we take that bread and that wine, and we know we're not worthy except God says, you're worthy to come before me. He does something. He calls us forward. We come forward and we take that. We are to be reminded that He has taken us out of Egypt. And that blood means we can receive eternal salvation.

Christianity just isn't about blessings and cursings. Because as a Christian in this world, you could do the right thing and receive a curse sometimes from society, can't you? Ajan Israel was about blessings and physical blessings and curses. Now God gives us physical blessings. We've all received them. We know that. But that's not what it's all about. It is all about the Passover. It's all about eternal salvation. It's all about coming out of Egypt. It's all about having the shackles of sin taken all off of us. This is what it's about. And the physical ups and downs between now and the time when that salvation is realized in God's viewpoint actually isn't that important.

Because I'm going to make you a nation to give you physical blessings is a type of something much greater. The kingdom of God is much greater than what God ever promised to ancient Israel. Much greater. Because the kingdom of God is to be eternally God's child as a spirit being. Not have rain and dew season. It's a whole lot greater than rain and dew season.

The new covenant.

So, we see that He's bringing us out of slavery.

The fourth of the five types we're going to go through is, well, let's go to Exodus 12. I'll show you what He says here. Exodus 12.

We'll just look at two scriptures quickly on this one.

These are all these themes that we have to think about. Exodus 12, 12.

He said, For I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night, and will strike all the first born of the land of Egypt, both man and beast.

Now, we just read that, but I want you to notice this phrase.

And against all the gods of Egypt, I will execute judgment.

He says, I will destroy their religion in this. They won't have anything left when I'm done with it.

I mean, He blotted out the sun. Ra was the greatest god, the sun god. The Nile River was divine. What He did was He made it blood. Everything He did destroyed their entire religion. And then He killed their firstborn, brought them down, and eventually destroyed their entire army in the Red Sea.

There was Satan and the demonic powers, which are always behind paganism, couldn't measure up. They had no power. They had nothing to respond with as He systematically destroyed the gods of Egypt.

Well, Satan is the god of this world.

And when we understand the Passover, all the holy days, because we end up with Christ returning, setting up the millennium, and removing Satan, all the holy days, these themes run through it.

The Passover is the beginning of the removal of Satan.

He was doomed. He was always doomed.

But it now became sort of like official. By the way, you're now officially doomed.

Just in case you didn't know it.

With Christ's death and resurrection. Look at Hebrews 2.

The gods of Egypt and Satan as the god of this world is on borrowed time.

And the Passover is why.

That blood is on, it's not on our doorpost. It's inside of us. And we now can receive eternal salvation. And unless we allow Him, Satan can't touch us. No, we can allow Him, which is sad. But He can't touch us. Because God has said, no, I'm saving this one. Unless they refuse and go back. I mean, that we can always do that.

But God says, no, I picked this one.

That blood is on that person.

That's what He did with Job, right?

Now, you can do certain things to Him, but you can't do certain other things. There's a limit to what I allow you to do. No, there's a limit to what Satan can do to you.

That's all that God lets him do. That's it.

There's a limit.

Because He's already been given notice, you're done.

You're done! There's a little time, and then you're done. It's that simple. And that's why He hates anybody that turns to God. He hates them. He'll do anything to destroy us.

And we're reminded the gods of Egypt were promised to be destroyed.

Hebrews 2, verse 14.

Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, us, He Himself, Christ, likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death. That is the devil. And released those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.

So it's interesting about verse 17. Therefore in all things, once again, Christ had to be made like His brethren, that He might be merciful and faithful high priest and things pertaining to God and make appreciation for the sins of the people. He became like us so we could be His brothers and sisters.

That's the family He's creating.

He became literally like us. It was mentioned in the sermonette.

He felt it. He went through it.

My favorite thing is, I've had enough of you guys. I'm going out in a boat for a while.

Man, oh, why? This is so much easier when you're God.

So, He became like us and He's already defeated the gods of Egypt.

We just happen to live in the time between the first victory and the final victory, but the final victory is already assured. It's like He doesn't have a chance.

Christ is coming back. He's going to be bound. He's going to be loosed for a little bit. Then He's removed forever from the presence of God. Forever!

That's going to happen.

It started with the Passover as far as the final declaration. It started in Eden. He just didn't know it.

But that's that final declaration.

He became like His brethren to save them from the devil, to defeat the gods of Egypt.

Then the last one has to do with Exodus 12 again, the last type here.

It's basic but important.

Exodus 12, 43.

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, when you have circumcised him, then he may eat it. Okay? So here the point is, a non-Israelite can't eat it except under certain circumstances.

Now, circumcision is so important because it was the sign of the covenant. When God made a covenant with Abraham, He said, Okay, the sign that you are mine, and that we have an agreement here, is you have to be circumcised, and all your males. And He did. He would come along, then, and call Israel out of Egypt, and say, I'm making a covenant with you, and therefore, that's the sign.

That's the sign that you are mine. And so all the males had to be circumcised. So He says, you know, if you have a servant that you bought with money, and he's not an Israelite, he's now an Israelite, so you have to circumcise him. So he can partake of the Passover. A sojourner and a hired servant shall not eat it. So He said, just somebody that's traveling through the land, or staying at a local inn, or someone you hired to help in your fields for a while, some workers, okay, they're not Israelites. They can't eat it. You know, He didn't say you have to make them be circumcised. He just said, you can't, you know, they can't participate in this because this is part of our covenant. He goes on and He says, verse 48, And when a stranger dwells with you, and wants to keep the Passover to the Lord, let always males be circumcised, and let him come near and keep it. He shall be as a native of the land, for no uncircummonized person shall eat it. One law shall be for the native born, and for the stranger who dwells among you. Now that's very important. He says, any Gentile that comes along and wants to follow me, he now becomes part of Israel. Let's be circumcised. He and his family circumcised. They now become a partaker of the covenant. They are now native born or stranger. It doesn't matter. They're Israel. And so people would come in, and we see that all the time in the Old Testament. Or people would come along and say, I wish to follow the God of Israel. It wasn't until later, by the time of Jesus, that there was such a resistance against Gentiles worshipping God. If you go to when Solomon dedicated the temple, he says, I built this temple so that people, whoever they may be, wherever they may be, when they come the worship of God of Israel, they can come here to worship. That's part of the dedication of the temple. In other words, they saw themselves as people who were supposed to be such an example that other people would want to come and say, I want to actually follow your God. And in doing so, they would become part of the people of Israel. But some people would come here to worship. And so they would come here to worship. But circumcision was the sign of the covenant.

To participate in the Passover, you have to have made a covenant with God. And this is why we don't have children or non-baptized people participate in the Passover. It's not because we don't see them as people coming to God. They haven't finalized the covenant yet. And that's a journey. That's a journey to end up finalizing this covenant with God.

And an eight-year-old, although holy, our children are holy, they haven't decided themselves. That's what's so different about the new covenant, too. Is that the sign of the covenant is for men and women. It's not just a family thing.

Women and children were part of the covenant simply because dad was circumcised. This is much, much more personal than that, the new covenant. The new covenant is much more personal. God may call children, but they have to reach of an age when they decide to be part of the covenant. I've had people come to church for 30 years and then say, I'm ready to take it to become part of the covenant.

I've had people come two weeks and say, I'm ready. Because it's a personal journey that brings us to this point that we understand and say I want to participate in a covenant with God. I want forgiveness. I want salvation. But this is personal between me and God to be brought into the body of Christ.

Galatians 2.

Galatians 2. And this is why this is why there was such a controversy. People say, how could these crazy Jews in the church argue that everybody should be circumcised? Because if you weren't circumcised you weren't part of a covenant with God. That's why. That's what they had taught. That's all through the Old Testament. That's what they always taught. You have to be circumcised. It didn't matter if you were an Israelite or not. If you want to participate in the Passover you must be part of the covenant. And you must have the outward sign that you participate in the covenant. But that's why. Those people were actually... From an Old Testament viewpoint they were right. But they misunderstood all kinds of passages. Like Moses saying, there come a time when he'll circumcise you in the heart, not in the flesh. Isaiah, Jeremiah, over and over and over again. There's going to come a time where he's not going to circumcise you in the flesh anymore, but in the heart. They miss that. But if you take all the commands about circumcision, put them together, and you miss those half a dozen passages, then you would say not to be circumcised as to refuse to have a covenant with God. Therefore, you cannot take the Passover. Colossians 2, verse 9. Paul says, For in him, Jesus Christ, the Passover, dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, all the fullness of what God is, was in him. Remarkable statement. And you are completed him, who is the head of all principality and power. In him, you were also circumcised, with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of sins in the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.

He goes and talks about then you're dead to the uncircumcision of your heart. The new covenant doesn't require physical circumcision. It does require spiritual circumcision. And there has to be a sign of that. You know, that's what's interesting in Galatians where Paul says Abraham wasn't justified by circumcision. He was justified by his faith. And then he became circumcised. And people say, well, see, that shows you don't have to do anything. You just have to have some faith. Well, no, I meant read what Paul says.

Yes, he came into a relationship with God because he said, yes, Lord, I believe. And what do you want me to do? And he says, well, I'm going to make a covenant with you. Go be circumcised. And he went and was circumcised. The point he's making is, okay, it's not like he was circumcised and God said, oh, wow, because of that, you and I can have a covenant. No, he and God had interaction. He believed God. God said, good, we can now have a covenant.

Go be circumcised. It's the same way here. You're not baptized. Say, okay, I've got to be baptized here, and then I'll find God. Because God has to initiate any relationship. God initiates the relationship. When God initiates it, we start to have faith. We start to believe. We start to follow. And then he says, now I want to make a covenant with you. So you've got to be circumcised in the heart. So you're going to have to have two baptisms, a water baptism and the laying on of hands for the Holy Spirit.

There's two baptisms there. You have to receive both of them. Water baptism of itself doesn't put the blood on the doorposts. It forgives you, but it doesn't give you the power of God's Spirit in you. It takes both baptisms. Circumcision is a type that is a must for keeping the Old Testament Passover. And in the New Testament, the anti-type is the outward expression of your relationship and your covenant with God must happen to participate in the Passover. Type and anti-type. We just went through five. There's actually more. And there's a lot in the Days of the 11 Bread, a lot of types and anti-types, that you and I are living in the greater event.

You and I are living in the greater event. Remember, this is what I was going to say at the beginning, but I really want to stress it now. You and I aren't the types. We don't do the types of the Exodus. That wasn't the greater event. Those people lived it. They went through all that. They walked through the Red Sea. They circumcised their children. They listened to the whales of the Egyptians as their children died. And we're not... we commemorate that, but that's not exactly what we're celebrating.

They weren't, you know, the anti-types. And that was greater than what we're doing. It's the opposite. That was the type. And what we do is actually greater. It's hard to imagine that. I mean, you think, oh, wouldn't it be great to watch the Red Sea open? Wouldn't it be great to watch all these... these terrible things bring down Egypt and break the back of this terrible tyrant and pharaoh? Wouldn't that be amazing to live through that?

But you're living through the greater thing. You're living through God coming along, making a covenant with you, opening your heart and mind, giving you the blood of the sacrifice of His Son so that you can have eternal salvation, breaking the bonds of the slavery of sin that just plagues our minds, and breaking the back of the real pharaoh, which is Satan. That's what we're doing. So which is greater? Which is greater? Now, the one hand had to come first.

That's the way God does things. But which is greater? What God is doing in us is greater if we will just understand it and just submit to it. The circumcision of the flesh could not give you eternal life. The circumcision of the heart is required for eternal life. So which is greater? Which is the greater thing?

Do not take lightly what we do. Do not make it a simple ritual where we're so concerned with the physical part we're missing what we're actually doing or what God is actually doing, because this is about what God is actually doing.

Pray about this over the next two weeks. That God holds your heart and minds to the reality of what you are doing. The reality of what you're doing and what He's doing in us and in giving these things to us to do. The importance of it, because the Passover is supposed to affect your life throughout the rest of the year. It's supposed to have that much impact. Because we realize who we are and why we are and what God is doing and His mercy and our nothingness.

Our nothingness. But He does it at who Jesus Christ really is and the price that was paid and what it was to go through that. For us. So He can have brothers and sisters. So that the blood becomes internalized. As we approach the Passover, think about these five types. Stretch your mind a little bit. Study the scripture and look at these things. And then, hopefully, as we go through this, and then next week as we go through the types, just the number of types, of the Days of Unleavened Bread.

This spring Holy Day season can be a renewal of who we are with God and with our Savior Jesus Christ.