Can you please explain to me what is the Passover?
The Passover is one of the feasts of Jehovah, this particular one reminding the children of Israel of the mighty work that God did to cause Pharaoh to let the children of Israel depart from their harsh bondage in Egypt. God directed Moses to proclaim to Pharaoh that He would destroy the first born in all the land, the last plague we read about. Pharaoh had ignored all the other plagues due to his hardened heart and had refused to let Israel go free; however, this last plague would strike hard the very homes of Pharaoh and the Egyptians, and in the aftermath of this plague, Pharaoh finally would let the people go (Exodus 11). Now, The Israelites were to be spared this judgment, so they were told by God to take a spotless lamb, and to kill it, and to place its blood on the upper and side posts of their doors (Exodus 12:7). Then as we read in Exodus 12:12-13, “For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite 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. And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are: and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt”. If you go on reading in Exodus 12, you can see how the people were to remember the Passover, and how that this feast was to be carried on faithfully each year when in the land of Canaan, their promised land. The Israelites would thus be reminded throughout their generations how that God protected them from the angel of death who passed over their homes when God saw the blood of the lamb on their doors, as they ate their lamb with bitter herbs and wearing their travel clothing, while the Pharaoh and his people experienced this terrible calamity. And, soon after this plague, Pharaoh did indeed let the people go.
Christians today do not celebrate the Passover, nor any of the Old Testament feasts or ceremonial laws, because the Lord Jesus, through His shed blood for us on Calvary has instituted a “new covenant (or testament). We read that on the night in which our Lord Jesus was betrayed, He kept the Passover with His disciples. Then, when this was done, He instituted “the Lord’s Supper, which among the Christians that I am in fellowship with is called “the Remembrance Meeting”. As to the new testament in His blood, we see in Matthew 26:26-28: “Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is My body. And He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; For this is My blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins” (see also 1 Corinthians 11:25). Thus, Christians have a new covenant (New Testament), brought about by our Lord Jesus Christ being the sacrifice for our sins (1 John 4:10). So, Christians are not under Jewish laws; and yet, in the Passover account, we do see how our Lord Jesus is called our Passover lamb, in that He died once for all our sins for all time on Calvary’s cross, and we are saved from death by His precious blood. John the Baptist identified the Lord Jesus as “the Lamb of God” in John 1:29. Moreover, we read in 2 Corinthians 5:21, “For He hath made Him to be sin (a sin offering) for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him”. The Old Testament sacrifices for sin all point to Christ Jesus in His sacrificial death for us on the cross (see Hebrews 10:1-10 and verse 12). Thus, each time we partake of the Lord’s Supper, we are remembering our Lord Jesus in His death for us on the cross. Today, Christians see the Lord Jesus Himself as our Passover (1 Corinthians 5:7).
William MacDonald in his Bible Commentary explains 1 Corinthians 5:7 as follows: “The slaying of the Passover lamb was a type or picture of the death of our Lord Jesus Christ on the cross. This verse is one of many in the NT that establishes the principle of typical teaching. By this we mean that persons and events of the OT were types or shadows of things that were to come. Many of them pointed forward directly to the coming of the Lord Jesus to put away our sins by the sacrifice of Himself…”. And so, the type of Christ as our Passover is recalled when we “remember” the Lord Jesus in His death for us on the cross, knowing that we are saved by faith through His redemptive work at Calvary; it is His shed blood which protects us from wrath, like the blood on the door posts in Exodus 12. Thus, while Christians today do not keep the feast of the Passover, we do regularly remember our Lord Jesus, the sinless Lamb of God. When we remember the Lord in our assemblies, we praise and worship the Lord Jesus, remembering His death for us on the cross whereby He defeated Satan, sin, and death in order that we might be saved from the penalty of our sins. Christ alone could shed His own blood on Calvary’s cross so that poor, ruined sinners like you and me might be saved.
And now, my dear friend, do you know that you are saved by the blood of the Lamb? Salvation is the purpose for which the Lord Jesus came into this world (1 Timothy 1:15). We read in John 3:16-17: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through Him might be saved.” (SF) (524.2)