Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb according to their fathers' houses, a lamb for a household. And if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his nearest neighbor shall take according to the number of persons; according to what each can eat you shall make your count for the lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats, and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight. "Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it. Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted, its head with its legs and its inner parts. And you shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. In this manner you shall eat it: with your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. And you shall eat it in haste. It is the LORD's Passover. For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the LORD. The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt. "This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the LORD; throughout your generations, as a statute forever, you shall keep it as a feast. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven out of your houses, for if anyone eats what is leavened, from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel. On the first day you shall hold a holy assembly, and on the seventh day a holy assembly. No work shall be done on those days. But what everyone needs to eat, that alone may be prepared by you. And you shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for on this very day I brought your hosts out of the land of Egypt. Therefore you shall observe this day, throughout your generations, as a statute forever. In the first month, from the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread until the twenty-first day of the month at evening. For seven days no leaven is to be found in your houses. If anyone eats what is leavened, that person will be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he is a sojourner or a native of the land. You shall eat nothing leavened; in all your dwelling places you shall eat unleavened bread."
Exodus 12:3-20
The Passover story, as was suggested in the previous Note, gives an almost perfect picture of what the death of Christ means in relation to the redemption of the world, and it is clear that this is how the New Testament itself regards it. John the Baptist's words, 'Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world' seem to have their roots here; Paul makes a specific reference to it in the words, 'Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us' (1 Corinthians 5:7); and Peter obviously has it in mind when he says, 'ye were redeemed ... with the precious blood of Christ, as a lamb without blemish and without spot' (1 Peter 1:18, 19). And it is in line with this 'typical' significance that our Lord should have been crucified at the time of the Passover. Nor is it merely in words such as those in 13, 'When see the blood I will pass over you' that the illustration lies, for the whole story in its several details is rich in spiritual allusion. And one of the principal lessons it underlines is the fact of substitution which lies at the heart of the Christian doctrine of redemption. Christ's death was substitutionary in the sense that, like the lamb in the story here, He stood in the place of those for whom He died. The words of the old gospel hymn,
'Bearing shame and scoffing rude,
In my place condemned He stood,
Sealed my pardon with His blood'
are still the most profound expression and interpretation of what He did on the Cross for us men and for our salvation. But, rightly understood, His substitution of Himself for us is twofold in its significance, and the story of the Passover serves to emphasise a second aspect also that is sometimes missed in our understanding of New Testament teaching. We shall deal with it in the next Note.