A Passover For Followers of Christ

Say “Passover” and there are two major associations the average person will likely have:

1. That Passover is an OT practice that was done away with by Jesus and is irrelevant for NT believers. 
2. That Passover is a holiday or celebration limited to the Jewish people and isn’t really meant for anyone outside that particular culture

Both of them are wrong

The truth is that Jesus Himself put in place a new Passover service for His followers. He changed the practices of the old Passover service and gave us a new purpose for observing the Passover. His re-orientation of the Passover focuses our attention on the game changing event of His own sacrificial death… a death, burial, and resurrection with spiritual implications in play even in our own modern day.

Followers of Jesus Christ alive in today do not base their observance of Passover on the Exodus or Deuteronomy models… We Follow Christ’s own example and instructions for what we do at Passover and what we teach about its spiritual implications. The Passover described in Exodus and Deuteronomy has been fundamentally altered by the historical reality of Jesus Christ’s sacrificial death.

He is our Passover lamb… He is our high priest of a new and better covenant.

When Jesus and His disciples gathered for that final Passover they were sharing a meal based on the one described in Exodus… adding the elements from Deuteronomy they kept it in Jerusalem, the place God chose to put His name. It was at this evening meal that Christ put new practices forth and outlined a whole new purpose and outlook on Passover.

The Exodus Model For Passover

The Passover was put in place at the beginning of Israel’s release from Egypt. It’s the model the Jewish people base their Passover observance on… although they have added plenty of their own non-biblical traditions on top of it. For them the Passover is an annual memorial of their own national and cultural history. To understand the roots of the Exodus model Passover we must go back to Abraham.

Genesis 12:1-4 God appeared to this man named Abram with the purpose of creating a nation. A nation separate from the many other nations of the world. This nation would be created by God to perform certain functions (to receive and preserve His commandments, laws, and statutes… to preserve them and pass them along to future generations, to be a suitable culture into which the Christ/Messiah could be born etc.).

Genesis 15:18-21 God promised them the land of Canaan (a nation needs land)

Genesis 15:13-14 but before that God foretold that they would be enslaved

The rest of the book of Genesis details the immediate family of  Abraham, his sons, grandsons, the 12 great grandsons and also how they ended up in Egypt which led to their enslavement there.

The 400 year prophecy is fulfilled through Moses. Moses is commissioned by God to be a middleman between God and Israel in their deliverance. Exodus chapters 1 – 11 walk through this commission of Moses and God’s intense judgment of Egypt… a judgment culminating in the 10^th plague of death to every firstborn child in the land.

Exodus Passover Model Put Into Place

·        Exodus 12:1-6 a lamb without blemish is set aside

·        Exodus 12:7 they are instructed to smear blood from the lamb on the lintels and doorposts

·        Exodus 12:8-9 people to roast and eat the lamb

·        Exodus 12:10-14 they are to pass this along to future generations as a memorial of when the death angel passed over them (their people)

·        Exodus 12:21 the lamb is referred to as the “Passover”

·        Exodus 12:22-28 Israel trusted God… they believed God… and because they believed they did what God asked them to do

Deuteronomy Model For Passover

At Mount Sinai God entered into an additional covenant with what was now the nation of Israel. This covenant was to be somewhat different from the covenant made with Abraham. For one thing it was a “national covenant”… it was based on the model of a King (God) and subjects (Israel) with laws to govern them (His commandments, laws, judgments, statutes etc.).

The terms of the covenant were: you (subjects) obey me (YHWH your King), live within the bounds of my laws and I will protect and bless you. If you (subjects) refuse to obey me (your King) then you will be punished… I will not protect you or bless you. Included in the covenant at Mt. Sinai was a modification in the instructions for observing the Passover.

Deut 16:1-7 This change was given when Israel was poised on the borders of Canaan… ready to take possession of the promised land and truly become a nation on the world stage. To reflect their status as a fully fledged nation (with a king, laws and now actual territory) the Passover was changed. It was now to be celebrated in a central location for the entire nation. That central location was to be decided upon by God (first Shiloh then later Jerusalem)

New Covenant Model For Passover

The final model for Passover is the new covenant Passover. This model is a further modification of the original Passover. These modifications were made to reflect changes in how God was dealing with humanity. Some elements were added to the Passover and some elements were removed… God’s plan and purpose had moved forward… the Christ had come… God would no longer restrict His work to Israel only…

These modifications were put in place not by people, or the church, but by Jesus Christ himself. As He and His disciples were eating that final Passover meal Jesus went through the modifications with them. He did it in person and the disciples recorded and passed on His new covenant changes for us today. Additional spiritual insights were also added later by the apostles in some of the letters to the churches… but the pattern for Passover observance followed the pattern Jesus put in place.

Passover Separate & Distinct From Days of Unleavened Bread

Luke 22:1 Because these two days of special observance are back to back they tend to get mushed together… with most people considering the Passover and day of Unleavened Bread to be a single unit. Much the same way baptism and the laying on of hands gets mushed together... but in both cases the two are separate and distinct functions with separate and distinct meaning and implications.

Leviticus 23:4-8 the passover is on the 14^th while the First Day of Unleavened Bread is on the 15^th. The two are separate events.

At the Exodus Passover the people were spared from death because they smeared the blood of the slain lamb over their doorways. After that… during the Days of Unleavened Bread they were saved from their bondage and slavery in Egypt… lead into a new way of living before God…  and set apart by God for His special purpose.

That relationship of Passover to Unleavened Bread is with us today. The two are related but still separate and distinct in meaning… they parallel the relationship between justification and salvation. When you accept Christ as your personal savior you are justified and redeemed from the death penalty for sin that is hanging over you… then you are released from bondage to sin so that you live that way no longer and you are set apart by God.

Note: today we do the same thing with the Feast of Tabernacles. We speak of the eight day, the final Holy day in the year as though it were part of the Feast of Tabernacles… when in fact it’s a separate holy day with a separate and very distinct meaning.

Back To The New Covenant Model

Luke 22:7 the Passover would begin that evening, so Jesus gave them these instructions sometime during the day on the 13^th of Abib. Then at sundown the Passover began… the 14^th of Abib… the evening when the Passover lamb was to be slain… just like we read in Exodus.

Luke 22:8-16 Jesus clearly indicates that what they are participating in is a Passover .

Luke 22:17-20 Jesus puts in place a new Passover service. The roasted lamb and bitter herbs were replaced with the bread and wine. Sacrificing the life of a lamb as a substitute for our own life was no longer necessary.

Why? The sacrifice of Jesus’ perfect unblemished life would from that point forward be the only sacrifice necessary. It would take place only once… but applicable to all people… for all time.

The Role of The Lamb in Each Model of Passover

1.      Exodus Passover: the slaying of the lamb was so the angel of death would pass over them

2.      Deuteronomy Passover: the slaying of the lamb was a memorial for the people to remember the Exodus Passover.

3.      Jesus sacrificed as our Passover: The first two Passover models were only symbolic. The death of a mere lamb could not really pay the price for a human being. Animal lives were clearly not on the same level as human lives. The lamb was only a place holder for the real death that would happen at a future time in human history. Jesus death was that future death… a real death not a symbol or a sign of something yet to come.

4.      New Covenant Passover:

a.       1 Corinthians 5:7 Jesus is our Passover lamb. Now that the real thing has happened in human history we don’t need a symbol that looks forward to it any more. A symbolic sacrificial lamb is not necessary. Therefore a change was made in the observance of the Passover.

b.      Jesus own words put into place new symbols of bread and wine… His body… His blood.

c.      From that point forward the Passover is performed as a memorial of Jesus death... looking back at an historical event that has occurred.

Putting Jesus’ Changes Into Practice

1 Corinthians 11:20-22, 33-34 we no longer have a meal during the ceremony (there is no lamb)

1 Corinthians 11:23-25 Paul teaches them to follow the pattern Christ established of taking the bread & wine. He teaches them to keep it on the same night Jesus was betrayed. Not some different day… not anytime you jolly well please… but on the same night… the evening of 14^th of Abib. Also, notice that Paul was teaching this new Passover model of observance to people who were not Jews. The NC Passover model for the followers of Christ is not a Jewish ceremony.

In keeping with that desire to follow Jesus own pattern we also include a ceremonial footwashing… (John 13:1-17) this was also a new element introduced by Christ. There is no footwashing in the Exodus or Deut models… there is no wine in the old models either… these are new elements for a new model of Passover observance. They have been put in place by God made flesh… namely Jesus Christ.

Conclusion: The Passover is not an Old Testament ceremony… As you can see it is thoroughly NT in how it is to be observed and its spiritual significance for the followers of Christ. Neither is it a national or cultural celebration of the Jewish people... the meaning of the day has been changed by God himself in the person of Jesus Christ. Passover is now a remembrance of the personal redemption of each and every person who becomes a disciple and who follow Christ.

The lamb of the Exodus and Deuteronomy Passover only looked forward in anticipation to the actual sacrifice of the true lamb of God… Jesus Christ. That lamb has come… that lamb was and is Jesus Christ…  He gave us a new way of  observing the Passover…  its 100% biblical and its ours as a memorial to remember always the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.