God's Object Lessons...Part 1

This is an interesting tidbit. First the people had to single out from their flocks the handsomest, healthiest looking yearling. Then the family had to watch it carefully for four days before the Passover to make sure it was healthy and perfect in every way. During this period of close observation, they fed and cared for the lamb. Can you imagine the little children and how attached they would become to the lamb? Then it would become time for the head of the house to plunge the knife in to draw its life's blood. The lesson was painfully sad...God's holiness demands that He judge sin, and the price is costly indeed. But He is also merciful and provides a way of escape (redemption).

The innocent Passover lamb foreshadowed the One who would come centuries later to be God's final means of atonement and redemption. The parallels are striking.

THE PASSOVER LAMB WAS MARKED OUT FOR DEATH
In Isaiah 53:7 is the prophecy that the Messiah will be led as a lamb to the slaughter; 1 Peter 1:19-20 says Jesus was foreordained to die before the foundation of the world.

THEY WATCHED THE PASSOVER LAMB TO SEE THAT IT WAS PERFECT
According to Deuteronomy 15:21, only that which is perfect can make atonement. Jesus the Messiah presented Himself to Israel in public ministry for three years and showed Himself perfect in heart and deed toward the Father. Even Pilate found no fault in Him. Hebrews 4:15 says that He was tempted (tested) in all points, yet was without sin; 1 Peter 1:19 describes Him as a Lamb without blemish or spot.

THEY ROASTED THE PASSOVER LAMB WITH FIRE
Fire in Scripture speaks of God's judgment. Isaiah foretold that the Messiah would bear the sins of many, be wounded for sins not His own, be stricken with God's judgment, and be numbered with transgressors. As Jesus the Messiah suffered the fire of God's wrath and judgment, He cried out from the cross, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46). Second Corinthians 5:21 says, "He [God] has made Him [Christ] to be sin for us...that we might be made the righteousness of God in him."

NOT A BONE OF THE PASSOVER LAMB WAS BROKEN
The Roman soldiers did not break the legs of Jesus as they did the legs of the other two men. Redemption through the death of the Passover lamb was personal as well as national. Even so, salvation must be a personal event. In Exodus 12:3, the commandment is to take a lamb, a nebulous, unknown entity, nothing special; in Exodus 12:4, God says "the" lamb. Now his is known, unique, set apart. Finally, in Exodus 12:5, God specifies, "your" lamb; each redeemed soul must appropriate the lamb for himself. Doesn't that bring to mind the verse in Galatians 2:20..."The life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God [the Messiah], who loved me, and gave himself for me."

THE BITTER HERBS
The bitter herbs are a reminder that the firstborn children of the people of Israel lived because the Passover lambs died. God created man to gain life through death, to receive physical sustenance from the death of something that once was alive, be it plant or animal. Even so, the believer in the Messiah Jesus receives new life through His death as the Lamb of God.

THE UNLEAVENED BREAD
Leaven in the Bible is almost always a symbol of sin. The putting away of all leaven is a picture of the sanctification of the child of God. In teaching His people this truth, God did not leave them to grapple with abstractions. Leaven was something that every housewife, every cook, used in everyday life. The feel, the smell, the effects of leaven had obvious meaning.

The word for leaven is chometz, meaning "bitter" or "sour". It is the nature of sin to make people bitter or sour. Leaven causes the dough to become puffed up so that the end product is more in volume, but not more in weight. The sin of pride causes people to be puffed up, to think of themselves as far more than they really are.

The ancient Hebrews used the sourdough method of leavening their bread. Before the woman formed the dough into loaves, she pulled off a chunk of the raw dough and set it aside in a cool, moist place. When it was time to bake another batch of bread, she brought out the reserved lump of dough. This she mixed into the new batch etc, again, setting aside a small lump. Each "new generation" of bread was organically linked by the common yeast spores to the previous loaves of bread. The human race bears this same kind of link to the sin nature of our first father, Adam. Jesus spole of leaven as false doctrine and hypocrisy (Matthew 16:11-12; Mark 8:15; Luje 12:1, 13:21).

The apostle Paul, in 1 Corinthians 5:6-8, spoke of leaven as pride, malice, and wickedness. He said, "Purge out therefore the old leaven, that you may be a new lump [a new person] as you are unleavened [cleansed]. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us."

On the other hand, Paul described the unleavened bread as sincerity and truth. The Hebrew word matzo (unleavened) means "sweet, without sourness."It typified the sweetness and wholesomeness of life without sin. It foreshadowed the sinless, perfect life of the Messiah, who would come to fulfill all righteousness and to lay down His life as God's ultimate Passover Lamb. They did not put away leaven in order to be redeemed; rather, they put away leaven because they were redeemed.

THE BLOOD ON THE DOOR
See Exodus 12:22. Several times Scripture mentions a special mark that will secure immunity from destruction for those who fear the Lord. One such text is Ezekiel 9:4-6; two others are found in Revelation 7:2-3 and 9:4.

God commanded the sons of Israel to mark the doors of their dwellings with the blood of the Passover lamb. The "basin" mentioned in Exodus 12:22 was not a container in the sense in which we use the word basin today. The word is the Egyptian sap, meaning the threshold or ditch which was dug just in front of the doorways of the houses to avoid flooding. The people placed a container in the ditch to prevent seepage. The Israelites killed their Passover lambs right by the doors, where they were about to sprinkle the blood, and the blood from the slaughter automatically ran into the depression (the basin) at the threshold. When they painted the blood on with the hyssop "brush," they first touched the lintel (the top horizontal part of the doorframe), then each side post (the vertical sides). In doing this, they went through the motions of making the sign of a bloody cross, the prophecy of another Passover sacrifice to come centuries later. Thus, the door was "sealed" on all four sides with the blood of the lamb, because the blood was already on the bottom. Isn't that just like a picture of the suffering Messiah? Blood above where the thorns pierced His brow, blood at the sides, from His nail pierced hands, blood below, from His nail pierced feet.

Then add Jesus' words and the symbolism just about jumps off the page. "I am the door; by Me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture" (John 10:9). The Israelites went in through the blood-sealed door on that first Passover night and found safety. Protected and redeemed by the sacrificial blood, they went out the next morning and began their journey toward the good pasture, the promised land. We who are redeemed by the true Passover Lamb find safety in Him from God's judgment, and, because of Him, we look forward to a future, eternal haven in the very presence of the Almighty, in the city whose "builder and maker is God" (Hebrews 11:10).