Christ Our Passover Lamb

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Christ Our Passover Lamb

There are seven major feasts that God established with Israel in the Old Testament. The first of these seven feasts was Passover. Passover always comes in the first month of the year on the Hebrew religious calendar. This month is known as Abib in the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy, and later came to be known as Nissan after the Babylonian captivity.  

Although there are a total of seven feasts (the divine number for perfection or completeness in the Bible), God divided the seven festivals into three major festival seasons. Every male was to present themselves before the Lord three times in a year in each festival group.  The Jewish male would travel to Jerusalem for Passover in the spring, Pentecost at the end of spring, and the Feast of Tabernacles in the fall.  The fall festival season consisted of Rosh Ha Shana (Trumpets), The Day of Atonement, and Tabernacles. 

The first group is Passover, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and First Fruits.  These three festivals would be celebrated in the spring.   In Exodus chapter twelve God instituted the Passover.  

This was just before He brought the tenth and final plague on Egypt where the death angel passed through Egypt killing the first born of both man and animal.

The children of Israel were commanded to eat a lamb roasted in the fire, unleavened bread, and bitter herbs. They were to take the blood of the lamb without blemish and place it on the doorposts and the lintels of the house. They were to eat it in haste.

On the fourteenth of Nisan, just before sunset, the Passover Lamb was to be slaughtered and was roasted whole (no bones were to be broken) and eaten with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. The unleavened bread was made simply from flour and water and cooked very quickly. 

This ceremony was rich in symbolism: the blood of the lamb symbolized the cleansing of our sins; bitter herbs, the bitterness of slavery in Egypt; and the unleavened bread, purity.

Jesus is the final Passover Lamb (1 Corinthians 5:7-8). He entered Jerusalem on the tenth of Nisan, the same day when the Passover Lamb was brought into home. The night before Good Friday He was examined by Pilate and was found to have no fault, thus fulfilling the requirements of the Passover Lamb being a "male without defect.”

On Good Friday, the day of the Passover celebration, Jesus was crucified (John 19:14).  At around 3:00 pm, Jesus said, "It is finished" and died. This was the time when the Passover Lamb was to be slaughtered. Further, when the lamb was roasted and eaten, none of its bones were to be broken. 

The Passover was a beautiful type of the Lord Jesus Christ.  It is an Old Testament picture of His sacrificial death at Calvary.  As we enter into the season that remembers His death, burial and resurrection, we need to be reminded that Jesus, our Passover lamb went to the cross so that our sins could be forgiven and we could be reconciled to God through salvation.