II. The imperative necessity of its removal. By repentance. That ye may be a new lump.
III. The means and motive--that we may enjoy Christ--our true passover--sacrificed for us. (J. Lyth, D. D.)
Leaven
represented the pollutions of the idolatry and vices of Egypt with which Israel had broken in coming forth from it. As Israel had providentially carried to the desert that night only unleavened bread, the permanent rite had been borrowed from the historical circumstance (Exo_12:39; Exo_13:6-9). The apostle spiritualised the ceremony. As Israelites at every passover feast were bound to leave behind them the pollutions of their Egyptian life, in order to become a new people of God, so the Church is bound to break with all the evil dispositions of the natural heart, or that which is elsewhere called “the old man.” The desired result of this breaking on the part of each one with his own known sin will be a renewing of the whole Church, “that ye may be a new lump.” Another allusion to Jewish customs. On the eve of the feast a fresh piece of dough was kneaded with pure water, and from it were prepared the cakes of unleavened bread which were eaten during the feast. “New” does not signify quality, but time--“recent.” The whole community, by this work of purification wrought on itself, should become like a piece of dough newly kneaded. Has not the awakening of a whole Church been seen more than once to begin with submission to an old censure which weighed on the conscience of one sinner? This confession draws forth others, and the holy breath passed over the whole community. (Prof. Godet.)
Old leaven to be purged
There is a test point about you somewhere. Perhaps it is pride; you cannot bear an affront; you will not confess a fault. Perhaps it is personal vanity, ready to sacrifice everything to display. Perhaps it is a sharp tongue. Perhaps it is some sensual appetite, bent on its unclean gratification. Then you are to gather up your moral forces just here, and, till that darling sin is brought under the practical law of Christ, you are shut out from Christ’s kingdom. (Bp. Huntington.)
All sin to be removed
If a physician were called to see a patient who had a cancer on his breast, the only thing to be done would be to cut it out from the roots. The physician, might give palliatives, so that the patient would have less pain, or he might make his patient believe it was no cancer, or forget that he had a cancer near his vitals; but if the physician were to do this instead of removing the evil, he would be a wicked man and the enemy of hispatient. The man’s case was such that the only favour which could be conferred upon him would be to cut out the cancer. Now all agree that sin is the greatevil of the soul of man. Nothing can make man more spiritually happy here, or fit him for happiness hereafter, but the removal of sin from his nature. Sin is the plague-spot on the soul, which destroys its peace, and threatens its destruction unless removed. It is therefore certain that if the love of God were manifested towards man, it would be in turning man from sin which produces misery, to holiness which produces happiness. (J. B. Walker.)
The leaven of malice to be purged
It is said of the serpent, that he casts up all his poison before he drinks. It were to be much desired that herein we had so much serpentine wisdom as to disgorge our malice before we pray, to cast up all the bitterness of our spirits before we come to the sacrament of reconciliation.
Purging out the old leaven
Afriend once described to me this process as he saw it in a carpenter’s shop in Nazareth. The carpenter would not allow him to witness the search in the house lest his presence should defile the home; but he allowed him to enter the shop and witness the search there. The man went about the work with a will; he was evidently thoroughly in earnest; he girded up his loins as if he had a day’s work before him, and then proceeded to search with the utmost zeal. Carefully and conscientiously he turned over every board, he moved all his tools, he swept out the whole place, he opened every drawer, looked into every cupboard; there was not a crevice or a cranny in the wall that was not inspected lest there might be a tiny crumb of leaven anywhere in the shop. As he drew towards the close of his search my friend suddenly heard him utter an exclamation of horror, and looking round he saw him standing as though he had seen something most alarming. If he had found a viper or a cockatrice he could not have been more horrified than he seemed to be. What was it? In the last corner that he had visited, under some shavings, he had come across a little canvas bag, and in this little bag there were a few crumbs of leavened bread; one of the workmen had left it on some former occasion. It was enough; it defiled the whole place. With the utmost possible gravity and solemnity, and with a most anxious expression of countenance as though it were a most critical and important business, the man took hold of two pieces of wood, and using them as a pair of tongs he raised up the bag, and holding it off at arm’s length, marched out of the shop and dropped the leavened crumbs, bag and all, into the centre of a fire that he had burning outside ready for such a contingency, and so he purged out the old leaven. (W. Hay Aitken, M. A.)
For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us: therefore let us keep the feast.--
Christ our passover
I. The inference.
1. That sin has the true qualities of leaven.
(1) Offensive sourness. Nothing is so distasteful to God; indeed nothing can displease Him but sin. How can it be otherwise when it is professedly opposite to Divine justice? Even the conscience, which is God’s taster, finds it abominably loathsome: how much more God! Did God find sin in His angels? He tumbles them down out of heaven. Did He find sin in our first parents? He hurls them out of paradise. Yea, did He find our sins laid on the Son of His love? He spares Him not (Isa_53:5). The more loathsome we find our sins the nearer we come to the purity of the Holy One of Israel (Psa_45:7). What shall we say, then, to those who find no savour in anything but their sins? Let us, then, bate sin (Psa_97:10) and take heed of being leavened with it.
(2) Diffusiveness. It began with one angel and infected legions. It began with one woman and infected all mankind. Let it take hold of one faculty and it will infect soul and body. Let it seize on one person in a family and it will corrupt the whole house. From thence it spreads to the neighbourhood, and taints whole cities and regions (2Ti_2:7). Since, then, our wickedness is of so spreading a nature--
(a) How careful we should be to resist its very beginnings! It is much easier to keep the floodgates shut than to drain the lower grounds when they are once overflown.
(b) How wary we should be of joining the society of the infectious, whether in opinion or manners (1Co_5:11; Tit_3:10).
(c) How much it concerns all public persons in Church or State to improve their authority to the utmost for the prevention of vice, and the expurgation of leavened persons (Psa_71:4, Hebrews).
2. This leaven must be purged out if we would have any interest in Christ our passover. In vain should any Jew talk of keeping a passover to God if he would eat the lamb with leavened bread. In vain should any Christian talk of applying Christ to his soul while his heart willingly retains any of the leaven of any known sin (Psa_26:6).
II. The proposition.
1. That Christ is a passover. The word is taken from the time of the solemnity (Act_12:4); for the sacrifices offered in the solemnity (Deu_16:4); for the act of God’s transition (Exo_12:11); for the lamb to be offered and eaten (2Ch_35:11, and here).
(1) The lamb is the passover. Which may appear far-fetched. Here was a double passing over--that of the angel over Israel, that of Israel out of Egypt: both were acts, one of God, the other of men. The explanation is that the thing signed is usually put for the sign itself (Gen_17:13; 1Co_10:4). Now what a mercy was it for God to pass over Israel when He slew the Egyptian firstborn. For this they were indebted to the blood of the paschal lamb sprinkled on their doorposts. Had they eaten the lamb and not sprinkled the blood they had not escaped. The reality of this figure is that by Christ’s blood sprinkled on our souls we are freed from the vengeance of the Almighty. As then Israel were never to eat of the paschal lamb, but they were recalled to the memory of their deliverance, so neither may we ever behold this sacramental representation of Christ’s death but we should bethink ourselves of the infinite mercy of God in saving us.
(2) That Christ is that Paschal Lamb in regard to--
(a) Choice as to, first, nature. A lamb is noted for innocence and gentleness. Christ is the Lamb of God. What perfect innocence and admirable meekness He displayed (Isa_53:7). Secondly, quality. Any lamb would not serve: it must be a lamb without blemish. Could Christ have been capable of the least sin, so far from ransoming the world, He could not have saved Himself.
(b) Preparation in respect to, first, killing. The lamb to make a true passover must be slain: so there was a necessity that Jesus should die for us (Luk_24:25-26). Secondly, sprinkling his blood. Thirdly, roasting. So did the true Paschal Lamb undergo the flames of His Father’s wrath for our sins.
(c) Eating. Note, first, it was to be eaten with bitter herbs to teach us that we may not hope to partake of Christ without sensible disrelishes of nature, without true contrition. Secondly, the whole lamb must be eaten. Many a lamb did the Jews eat in the course of the year besides; these were halved and quartered as occasion served. Whosoever would partake of Christ must take the whole Christ. There are those who will be sharing and quartering Christ; one will allow His humanity, but not His Deity; another His prophetic character, but not His priesthood, &c. In vain do these partake of Christ while they thus set upon Him by piecemeal. (Bp. Hall.)
Christ our passover
I. The antecedent.
1. What is meant by Pascha? (Exo_12:26.) Passing over is, of itself, a thing indifferent; it is good or bad according to what passes or is passed over. If any good pass over us we are the losers; if any danger the gainers. Again, if we pass from better to worse it is a detriment; if from worse to better a benefit. This is a benefit. Evil--the destroying angel--passed over Israel. They passed out of Egypt well, but the Egyptians ill.
2. What is this to us? We live in a world of which Egypt is but a corner and was a type; our Pharaoh is the devil; God’s wrath is the destroying angel; death is our Red Sea through which all must pass, some well, some ill. Our abode is as dangerous as theirs; we need a Pascha to escape God’s wrath and to pass well over death. Their passover, again, was nothing to ours. Theirs was but the deliverance of one poor nation from a passing bodily danger; ours frees all mankind from the destruction of body and soul, and that for ever. And what comparison is there between Canaan and heaven whither Christ shall make us pass?
3. Who is it? A sacrificial lamb--the figure of Christ, the Lamb of God, who became our passover when He was offered to bear the sins of the world. What is sin but a transgression or passing over the duty set before us in the Law of God? But for it no destroyer would have power over us: Christ was a passover from first to last. His birth was a passing over from the bosom of His Father to the womb of His mother: His resurrection a passing over from death to life; His ascension a passing over from the world to the Father. But in His death God took over our sins from us and laid them upon Him.
II. The consequent. “Let us keep the feast.” A fast rather, one would think; but by His resurrection we know that Christ is well passed over, and so we may keep our feast with joy. And a double feast it is. By His death He made the destroyer pass over us; by His resurrection He makes death passable by us. In the sacramental feast we--
1. Remember Him our Sacrifice.
2. Apply the sacrifice to our salvation. (Bp. Andrewes.)
Christ our passover
I. We are in danger of destruction. The angel of wrath has commission to destroy all the workers of iniquity. This destruction is certain, fearful, and will come in the darkness at an hour we look not for it.
II. There is no other means of escape. We cannot bar our doors or windows against this minister of wrath. We cannot propitiate or resist him, or bear up under his avenging stroke.
III. Escape is provided by the blood of Christ.
1. This is the only means.
2. The efficacious means. The angel entered no door sprinkled with the blood.
3. It must be applied. It is not enough that it has been shed.
4. The application of this blood gives not only security, but a sense of safety.
Doubtless all degrees of confidence were felt by the Israelites. Some slept without anxiety; others trembled at every sound; others pressed their firstborn to their bosoms and longed for the morning. So with sinners sprinkled with the blood. All are secure, but the measure of their confidence is very different. The want of confidence arises from the want of faith.
IV. The passover secures entrance into Canaan. Christ not only delivers from death, but gives an abundant entrance into heaven.
V. The passover was to be commemorated as long as the old economy lasted. The death of Christ is to be commemorated till He come.
VI. The passover was celebrated with everything indicative of separation from Egypt. The old leaven was purged out. So the death of Christ binds us to holiness. What would have been thought of a Hebrew who, after such a deliverance, had clung to his fetters?(C. Hodge, D. D.)
Christ our passover
I. Christ is typified here under the paschal lamb. Read Exo_12:1-51. Note--
1. The victim--the lamb. No other creature could so well have typified Him who was “holy, harmless,” &c., and a sacrifice for sin.
(1) It was a lamb without blemish. And was not Jesus Christ even such? Born of the pure Virgin, begotten of the Holy Ghost, His soul was pure, and His life was the same. In Him was no sin. Ye who have known the Lord, say, can ye find any fault with your Saviour?
(2) “A male of the first year.” Then it was in its prime. And soour Lord had just come to the ripeness of manhood when He was offered. He did not give Himself to die for us when He was a youth, for He would not then have given all He was to be, nor in old age, when He was in decay. And, moreover, at His death, “He cried with a loud voice,” &c., a sign that His soul was strong within Him. And does not the thought rise up--if Jesus gave His all to me, should I not give my little all to Him?
2. The place where this lamb was to be killed. The first passover was held in Egypt, the second in the wilderness; but there were no more until Israel came to Canaan. And then (Deu_16:5) God no longer allowed them to slay the lamb in their own houses, but appointed a place for its celebration, viz., Jerusalem. In Jerusalem our Lamb was sacrificed for us; it was at the precise spot where God had ordained that it should be. If that mob at Nazareth had been able to compass His death, type and prophecy could not have been fulfilled.
3. The manner of its death. It was to be slaughtered, and its blood caught in a basin. Next it was to be roasted, but it was not to have a bone of its body broken. Now nothing but crucifixion can answer all these three things. Crucifixion has in it the shedding of blood--the hands and feet were pierced. It has in it the idea of roasting, which signifies a long torment. Moreover, not a bone was broken, which could not have been the case with any other punishment.
II. How we derive benefit from Him.
1. By having His blood sprinkled on us for our redemption. Note that the blood of the paschal lamb was not sprinkled on the threshold, but on the top of the door, on the side-post, for woe unto him who trampleth under foot the blood of the Son of God! tits blood must be on our right hand to be our constant guard, and on our left to be our continual support. It is not alone the blood of Christ poured out on Calvary that saves a sinner; it is that blood sprinkled on the heart. It is not enough to say “He loved the world, and gave His Son”; you must say, “He loved me, and gave Himself for me.” There is an hour coming when God will say, “Angel of death, thou knowest thy prey. Unsheath thy sword.” If we have the blood on us, when we see the angel coming, we shall smile at him. “Bold shall I stand in that great day,” &c.
2. Christ is notonly a Saviour for sinners, but He is food for them after they are saved. We must live on Christ as well as by Christ. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Christ our passover
I. A lesson of safety.
1. Emerson says, “Commit a crime and the earth is made of glass. It seems as if a coat of snow fell on the ground such as reveals in the woods the track of every partridge and fox and squirrel and mole. You cannot recall the spoken word. You cannot wipe out the foot-track. You cannot draw up the ladder so as to leave no inlet or clue.” That is no news. “Be sure your sin will find you out” is written in the Bible of the moral nature and in the Scriptures.
2. But man wants to know something more than Emerson’s philosophy can teach him. This is man’s passionate question--Is there nothing which can come between himself and the doom of sin? The passover was God’s answer in type; Christ is God’s answer in reality. There was one hindrance on that fatal night that the death-angel could not pass--the blood of the lamb on the door-posts. The barrier which wards off the penalties for sin is the blood of Christ.
3. Only there must be personal appropriation of the atonement. It was not simply the lamb slain in general sacrifice that brought safety. And this involved faith in what God had said, and obedience correspondent to the faith. The application is evident.
II. A lesson of strength
1. Look at those Israelites. Their staffs are in their hands; their loins are girded, &c. Before them an exhausting march, behind them a sleepless night. But God has provided that they be strengthened. The slain lamb must be eaten. The Christian life is a pilgrimage. It is under burdens; it must meet conflict. But Christ is our passover for strength; we must subsist on Him. Thus in Christ shall there be strength for us. (Hom. Monthly.)
Christ our passover
We shall--
I. Trace the allusion. Note--
1. The victim.
(1) It was a lamb--the most gentle of creatures of the type.
(2) “A male of the first year”--that is, in its highest state of physical perfection. And Jesus was led to the altar in the flower of His age.
(3) “Without blemish” (Heb_9:13-14).
(4) The paschal lamb was previously selected and set apart four days before it was slain. The service required forethought and preparation, which suggests that the Lamb of God “verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world,” and actually entered Jerusalem four days before He suffered.
(3) The point of dissimilarity is that the lamb was unconscious of its approaching fate. But Jests saw the end from the beginning. Yet He pressed forward with unbending resolution until He could say, “It is finished.”
2. The appropriation of the blood.
(1) The means of protection to Israel was the blood. Without this they had been equally exposed with the Egyptians. And what is it that affords security to the sinner against the more fearful judgments of the Almighty but the blood of the heavenly Lamb which was shed upon the Cross?
(2) But the blood of the paschal victim afforded no protection till it was sprinkled with a bunch of hyssop. And here we are reminded of the necessity of a believing application of the gospel remedy.
(3) The blood sprinkled answered the end of its application because of the Divine ordination. If the sacrifice of the Cross were merely the device of man, it would possess no virtue, but because it is of Divine origin and appointment it will ever prove “the wisdom of God and the power of God.”
(4) The blood of the victim was not to be cast upon the threshold, to be trodden under feet as a thing of nought. And beware how you treat the gospel remedy (Heb_10:28-29).
3. The ceremony of eating it.
(1) The flesh of the lamb was designed for food. And what says Christ? (Joh_6:53-57.)
(2) The whole lamb was to be eaten. And Christ must be received in all the extent of His official character and relations.
(3) It was to be eaten with bitter herbs and unleavened bread. The benefits of Christ’s redemption can only be enjoyed in connection with the exercise of that “godly sorrow which worketh repentance.” And “the old leaven of malice and wickedness” must be purged out, that we may “keep the” gospel “feast with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.”
(4) It ,was also to be eaten in haste and in a departing posture. Christians, this is not your rest. Ye are strangers and pilgrims on the earth. Stand, therefore, having your loins girded about with truth, &c.
II. Examine the fact. Christ our passover is sacrificed for us--is slain not merely for our good--that we might have the benefit of His example and the confidence arising from His testimony--but in our room and place.
1. This principle characterised the paschal sacrifice. The lamb was virtually and in effect, if not strictly, a substitutionary victim. There was life for life. Herein is typified the death of Christ, by which a way has been opened for our escape from the doom to which we are exposed and our enjoyment of everlasting life. Hence the death of Christ is uniformly represented as the meritorious cause of our redemption. All the blessings of the gospel are ascribed to this as the means of their procurement--the reason of their bestowment--and the consecrated medium through which they flow. Pardon (Eph_1:7). Justification (Rom_5:9). Purity (Heb_9:13-14). Access to God (Heb_9:19). Victory over Satan (Rev_12:10-11). Peace and joy (Rom_5:1-2; Rom_5:11). Final introduction into the presence of God in heaven (Rev_7:14-15).
2. The fact, then, is one of no common character or trifling consequence. For if Christ was not “sacrificed for us,” I am left without a refuge, with no ground of confidence or of hope when anticipating the transactions of the last great day. But I cannot thus surrender my hope. (Essex Congregational Remembrancer.)
The Christian passover
I. The sacrifice of Christ is--
1. Deprecatory, or designed to ward off threatened judgment. Of this nature was the paschal sacrifice, by which the Israelites were protected from the destroying angel.
2. Expiatory, in which the innocent died for the guilty, and thus offered satisfaction for the sins of the world. On this ground God can justify the ungodly without relaxing the strictness of His law, infringing the truth of His word, or degrading the dignity of His throne.
3. Precatory. Such sacrifices were offered to secure the restoration of forfeited benefits, Hence the sacrifice of Christ is a “redemption” which not only delivers from merited punishment, but recovers every forfeited good.
4. Vicarious. Christ endured death not merely for our instruction, or that He might seal the truth of His doctrine with blood, and set us an example of the spirit with which we should suffer. No! If He suffered, it was for our sins, the just for the unjust.
5. Eucharistic. In sacrifices of this class the victim was eaten with thanksgivings. Of this kind was the passover; and Christ is the true paschal lamb, who has not only sacrificed His life, but now offers Himself in every promise and ordinance, to be received by penitent faith, as the living bread. This is particularly represented in His last supper.
II. The sacrifice of Christ a passover. Observe the correspondence between the type and antitype more particularly in--
1. The sprinkling of the blood. As the Israelites sprinkled the blood outside the door, it ought to appear that we are inwardly pure by our being outwardly holy.
2. The eating of the lamb, by which the bodies of the people were nourished and supported. The teachings of Christ’s Spirit satisfy the desire for spiritual knowledge; the joys and consolations of His love satiate the hungry desires after happiness; and the fulness of His spotless mind breathed into our souls meets the vast capacity of our nature; we are strengthened with all the might of God, and grow up into Him in all things.
3. The consequent deliverance.
III. The manner in which we must celebrate the Christian passover. Let there be--
1. Purity. “Purge out the old leaven.” Every one who would receive Christ as his Saviour, and receive worthily His supper, should put away the “old leaven.” The leaven of the Sadducees was error, that of the Pharisees was hypocrisy; these must be purged out; so must the old leaven of every besetment and sin.
2. Compunction, typified by the bitter herbs with which the paschal lamb was to be eaten, and which fitly describe the sorrow of a broken spirit. Without eating these bitter herbs we shall never feel the appetite of strong desire which hungers after Christ, nor taste the sweetness of His salvation.
3. Sincerity. We must embrace Christ, not merely that we may escape from future condemnation, but with sincere desire to enjoy Him savingly, to know Him experimentally, to love Him supremely, to submit to Him cheerfully, and devote ourselves to Him entirely.
4. Unreservedness, i.e.,Christ must be taken wholly. Every family, under the law, was required to sacrifice a lamb, and that family must use or burn it; not even a bone was to be broken. So every soul needs a full Christ for himself--all His power to save; all His merit to cleanse; all His wisdom to guide; all His grace to invigorate; and all His sacred presence to fill the soul and constitute its heaven.
5. Promptitude. The Israelites partook of the passover in haste, their shoes on their feet, and their staves in their hands. Now, as everything depends on the present moment, receive Christ in haste. Just now, “What thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.”
6. Joy. The Jews kept their passover as a season of great joy, because instituted in memory of their greatest deliverance. So should the Christian commemorate the death of his Lord as the greatest deliverance earth ever saw or heaven ever witnessed. (W. Atherton.)
Christ our passover
Ipropose to present some of the shapes in which this destroying angel appears, and, by Christ our Redeemer, is dismissed. But, first, I must meet one or two objections. Some may think this passing over, by the destroying angel, of a part of the world--that part, namely, visited by the light and salvation of the gospel--seems partial and unequal. To this I can only answer, God proceeds in His revelation as He does in all His providence. We feel God’s goodness; and for His equity our inmost conviction and highest intuition stands voucher. We might ask why God has made one of His creatures an angel, and another a worm; why He has caused one to dwell under the tropic line, and another at the frozen pole; why He has ordained one to be born of a poor, and another of a prosperous parentage; why, for thousands of years, He delayed discoveries so important to darkened and suffering humanity, such as the press, the compass, the bright sky-marks of a trackless voyage, or the ether-breath under which the piercing knife is painless. Enough that, at length, we have these passovers of the Divine mercy. Enough, above all, that we have in Christ the chief passover of the keenest agonies of the human heart. But this doctrine of the passover, marvelled at by the sceptical, is resented by the proud, fancying they are unwilling to receive such gratuity. They would emancipate themselves from the miseries that assail human life; they would slay the monsters of danger for themselves; nor superfluously accept a heaven they have not earned. Ah! poor pride, empty claim of independence, infatuated denial of that grace of God which is the source of all we have or enjoy! Truly, we should have begun sooner to sign off and separate, if we meant to complain of the free grace and unmerited favour of God. It is too late. We are baptized in goodness and immersed in love from our infancy. For all things, temporal or spiritual, we are beggars, dependent on God. But it is important to observe that this passover is no Contradiction or exemption of true morality. It is no passover for our exertions of virtuous fidelity. It only modifies the character of our virtue to exalt and refine it. For that show of wisdom in will-worship, which the apostle rebukes, it substitutes the at once gentler and holier virtue of that devotion to God, to right and duty, which Christ the passover inspires. Indeed there is nothing immoral or dangerous to character in the doctrine of the text. The passover, at Christ’s bidding, of the destroying angel, is for no license, but for our sanctity. For the contemplation of that sacrifice, producing this passover, stirs affections in the breast from which flow sweeter virtues and more winning charms of spontaneous worth than all the self-confidence of sages and all the austerities of the stoic. Christ our passover, by His Spirit, stimulates us to leave the bondage of our oppressive sins. Thus, seeing the idea of Christ the passover, not as a mere figure of rhetoric, but, beyond all objections, resting on a foundation of eternal truth, we may consider its practical applications: for we, as much as captive Jew or old Gentile, need the Divine passover. The destroying angel comes in many ways to close in a struggle with our safety and peace.
1. As we meditate in solitude or muse by the wayside he often springs upon us. Sometimes, a gigantic spectre of doubt, he fearfully overhangs our thoughts and duskily obscures our path. He darkly queries with us whether all these spiritual things which we, in our words of fine discourse, make such account of, are not mere imagination and surmise. The shining mansions above fade away into mist and vacuity; and temples and closets, songs and supplications, turn to a vain pretence or a hypocritical mockery. But Christ the passover comes through His Spirit to make the heavenly glory shine again on the world, and gleam through our thoughts by His truth.
2. Again, in the gloomy and menacing shape of remorse, comes the destroying angel. He arrays before us all our wrong-doings and omissions of duty. He throws in our face all the shortcomings of the past, He stings our memory into the recollection of unworthiness we had forgotten. He lifts his ghostly, resistless hand, to cast us down into hopeless dejection over the remaining sin that clings to our nature, and into utter despair of the mercy of God. But Christ appears with His look of kindness; He speaks the pardoning love of God, and the destroying angel’s condemnation is silenced.
3. In the shape of a mourner, too, as well as a doubter and accuser, comes the destroying angel. He sits by the fireside, at the table, and the grave, when dear objects have gone, and raises a miserable cry that all comfort and joy and reciprocity of affection are gone and lost with them. But Christ comes, and the destroying angel passes over. The Cross of Christ rises in sight. The sepulchre of Christ discloses its broken door. Now grief may do its worst. We are superior to it. It can lay waste the earth, and commit havoc in the abodes of men; but all its desolations are more than repaired. Christ is our passover, for He presents God as our Father. Now no father wishes his children to die; least of all the real Father, the Father of spirits, who hath power to give His children life. Therefore death, the huge but hollow semblance, must pass over. Christ hath taught us that we can love God, and how to love Him. But love is a bond of endurance according to all the ability of both its subject and object; with God it is a bond of immortality. Therefore death, with his mere masque and presumption of tyranny, must pass over. Matter ceases to be all. Knowledge, love, will, becomes all. The vast creation becomes but the theatre, wherein the intelligences which the Great Parent for ever inspires act out their thoughts and affections. (C. A. Bartol.)
The Christian passover
“Christ our passover is sacrificed for us.” The human mind is never more elevated with joy than in the case of those who have just escaped some great danger. Almost all our strong feelings and perceptions are due to strong contrasts; light is never so bright as when it arises out of darkness; health never so sweet as when it follows upon sickness; and safety never so precious as when realised in the presence of danger. Conceive the children of Israel on the night when the first passover was kept, standing with their staves in their hands and their shoes upon their feet, eating their last meal in the house of bondage. Who was there that did not feel, as on no previous occasion, the blessed security of being in covenant with God? Would not the consciousness of the awful danger that was abroad deepen and solemnise that sense of security? We say, “Let us keep the feast.” We understand this to be something more than an exhortation. It was a command to the Israelites of the most positive kind. God intended to distinguish them by an act of special mercy from the Egyptians; but this distinction was all made to hinge upon their compliance with the directions about the paschal lamb. If it be possible to conceive an Israelite so infatuated as to neglect those directions, we need not tell you what the consequences would have been. “How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?” Oh! beware, I earnestly beseech you, beware of trifling in a case like this! Recollect, “it is not a vain thing for you; because it is your life”; it is the life of your souls. Shall we put this matter to the proof? We have described the feelings of the Jewish family while keeping the passover: there were mingled feelings--fear of the danger which they knew to be so near, gratitude to God who had spread the shield of His protection over them, and reverence for that mysterious blood which God had appointed as the distinguishing mark between those whom He would protect and those whom He would destroy. Now on this great day of the feast does your state of mind resemble theirs? Have you a sense of the nearness of appalling danger? No one can estimate the greatness of the deliverance wrought who has not felt, personally and deeply, the greatness and the nearness of the danger incurred. What was it that made the feast of the passover, at its first celebration, so intensely interesting to the Israelites? what, but the knowledge that the angel of death was at their very doors? They never kept the passover so heartily afterwards; they never afterwards had such a sense of deliverance from actual and imminent danger. (J. E. Hankinson, M. A.)
Our passover
I. Our passover sacrifice. The death of the paschal lamb saved at least one life in the household, and was the security of them all. Because it died, the firstborn did not die. The blood sheltered and preserved; and the angel passed over the household whose posts were tinctured with the ruby pledge of safety. And so, distinctly and clearly in the apostle’s mind here, the one conception of Christ’s death which answers to this metaphor is that which sees in Christ’s death a death of expiation; though not so distinctly as in other instances, a death of substitution. Because He dies, the destruction and punishment does not fall on the man who is housed behind the shelter of His blood.
II. Our passover feast. The slaying of the lamb provided in the old ritual the material for the feast; and, says Paul, in effect, so it is with us. The Christ who has died as a sacrament is the nourishment and food of our souls. We live on the sacrifice; “let us keep the feast.” What Paul is thinking about here is the whole Christian life which he compares to that passover feast. And his exhortation, “Let us keep the feast,” is, in fact, first of all, this--Do you Christian men and women see to it that your whole life be a participation in the sacrifice of the slain Lamb. “Except ye eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of Man, ye have no life in you.” And how are we to feed upon a slain Christ? By faith, by meditation, by continual carrying in grateful hearts, in vivid memories, and in obedient wills, the great sacrifice on which our hopes build. Let your minds feed upon His truth, and your love feed upon His love; let your wills feed upon His commandment; let your consciences feed upon His great cleansing sacrifice; let your whole hopes fasten on His faithful promise; and bring your spirits in all their parts into contact with His Spirit, and the life will pass from Him to you. As our Christian life should be all a feast of continual participation in Christ, so it should be all a memorial of Him. The passover was the perpetual calling to mind year by year of that great deliverance. What tenacity of national memory is shown in that continual observance of it till this very day! So should we ever carry in our remembrance the dying of the Lord Jesus, and whether we eat or drink, or whatever we do, do all in memory of Him, moulding all our lives by the pattern and for the sake of His dying love.
III. Our Christian purifying. “Purge out the old leaven.” Think of the scrupulous Jewish householder the night before the passover, with his lighted candle, searching through every corner of his house, where there was any chance of a bit of leavened matter being concealed. That is the sort of thing we have to do. Better cultivate a conscience that is over-scrupulous than one that is over-indulgent. And, mind, it is you that have to do it. God will do it if you ask Him; God will help you to do it if you will let Him; but God cannot do it without you, and you cannot do it without God. Therefore, two things, a large part of our cleansing must be our submitting ourselves to His cleansing and cultivating the faith which unites us to the cleansing power. Second, a part of our cleansing must be in reliance upon His Divine help, ourselves taking the brush into our hands, and ourselves scrubbing vigorously till we get rid of the pollution. And, beyond that, remember further, that this self-purifying is an absolutely indispensable condition of your keeping the feast. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” is but the same teaching as that of my text: “Purge out the old leaven, that ye may keep the feast.” (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
Christ our passover
Observe--
1. God’s greatest mercies to His Church are attended with the greatest plagues upon their enemies. The passover was the salvation of Israel and ruin of Egypt.
2. God provides for the security of His people, before He lays His wrathful hand upon their adversaries.
I. Christ is our passover. Christ is only designated in the New Testament as a Lamb, as being significant of the innocence of His person, the meekness of His nature, His sufficiency for His people.
1. The design of the passover was to set forth Christ. All the sacrifices which were appointed by God as parts of worship, were designed to keep up the acknowledgment of the fail of man, and to support his faith in the promised Redeemer. Christ is the real accomplishment of all; He is our mystical, spiritual, heavenly, perfect Passover. And, indeed, if we consider all the circumstances in the institution, they seem not worthy of the wisdom of God if they be not referred to some other mystery: and what can that be but the Redeemer of the world represented thereby? Why should so much care be in the choice and separation of a lamb? How can we think God should appoint so many ceremonies in it, lay such a charge for the strict observation of them, if He designed it not as a prop to their faith, a ground to expect a higher and spiritual deliverance by the blood of the Messiah, as well as a trial of their obedience, a memorial of their temporal deliverance, and a sign for the direction of the angel in the execution of his commission?
2. The believers in that time regarded it as a type of the Messiah (Heb_11:28).
3. The paschal lamb was the fittest to represent Christ. It was a sacrifice and a feast--a sacrifice in the killing it and sprinkling the blood, a feast in their feeding upon it. It represents Christ as a victim satisfying God, as a feast refreshing us; He was offered to God for the expiation of our sins, He is offered to us for application to our souls. The truth of this proposition will appear--
(1) In the resemblance between the paschal lamb and the Redeemer.
(a) A lamb is a meek creature. It hurts none; it hangs not back when it is led to the slaughter--no greater emblem of patience to be found among irrational creatures. How strange was our Saviour’s humility in entering into such a life! How much more stupendous in submitting to such a death, as shameful as His life was miserable! From this paschal lamb typifying the Redeemer the Jews might have learned, not to expect a Messiah wading through the world in blood and slaughter, and flourishing with temporal victories and prosperity, but one meek, humble, and lowly, suiting the temper of the lamb which represented Him in the passover.
(b) It was to be a lamb without blemish (Exo_12:5). It was to be entire in all its parts, sound, without bruise, scab, or maim; and the reason why it was separated four days before the killing of it was that they might have time to understand whether it had any spot or defect in it. So is the Lamb of God; He was holy in the production of His nature as well as in the actions of His life. From the first moment of His conception He was filled with all supernatural grace according to the capacity of His humanity; His union with the Divine nature secured Him against the sinful infirmities of our nature, and made all supernatural perfections due to Him, whereby He might be fitted for all holy operations. As He was “that holy thing” in His birth (Luk_1:35), so He was righteous to the last moment of His life. The law of God was within His heart, signified by the tables of the law laid up in the ark.
(c) The lamb was to be chosen, and set apart three days, and killed the fourth in the evening (Exo_12:6). Our Saviour was separate from men, manifested Himself in the work of His prophetical office three years and upwards, before He was offered up as a sacrifice in the fourth year, after He had been solemnly inaugurated in the exercise of His office. It was ordered by God to he killed in the evening, to signify the sacrifice of the Messiah in the evening of the world. He was crucified at the end of the second age of the world, the age of the law, and the beginning of the third age, that of the gospel, which is called in Scripture the “last times “ (Heb_1:2).
(d) The lamb was roasted with fire whole (Exo_12:4; Exo_12:8-9), not sodden. To put them in mind of the hardship they endured in the brick-kilns of Egypt, and as a type of the scorching sufferings of the Redeemer. Probably alluding to this roasting of the paschal lamb. He bore the wrath of that God who is a consuming fire, without any water, any mitigation or comfort in His torments. It may note also the gradual rising of the suffering of Christ. As His exaltation wasnot all at one time, but by degrees, so were His sufferings, by outward wounds, cutting reproaches, and inward agonies.
(e) Not a bone of the paschal lamb was to be broken (Exo_12:46). This was fulfilled in our Saviour (Joh_19:36). Death had not a full power over Him, He was not broken to pieces by the greatness of His sufferings.
(2) There is a resemblance in the effects or consequents of the passover.
(a) The diverting the destroying angel by the sprinkling of the blood upon the posts, to be a mark to the angel to spare the firstborn of such houses, was the main end in the institution (Exo_12:12-13). It is only under the warrant of this blood that we can be safe. The Redeemer’s blood shed for us, and sprinkled on us, preserves our souls to eternal life. As the destroying sword did not touch the Israelites, so condemning wrath shall not strike those that are under the protection of it: death shall have no power over them.
(b) Upon this succeeded that liberty God had designed for them (Exo_12:31). As it secured them from death, so it was the earnest of their deliverance, and broke the chains of their slavery. The death of Christ is the foundation of the full deliverance of His people, and the earnest of the fruition of the purchased and promised inheritance. This was the conquest of Pharaoh, upon which soon after followed his destruction. The Israelites’ slavery ended when their sacrifices were finished; the efficacy of this Divine passover delivers men from a spiritual captivity.
(c) After this passover they do not enjoy their liberty, but begin their march to Canaan, the promised and delightful land. So by the merit of the sacrifice of Christ the true Israelite turns his face from earth to heaven, from a world that lies in wickedness to an inheritance of the saints in light, and travels towards Canaan. Is Christ called our passover? Then--
1. The study of the Old Testament is advantageous. The Old Testament delivers the types, the New interprets them: the Old presents them like money in a bag, the New spreads them and discovers the value of the coin; the Israelites in the Old felt the weight of the ceremonies, believers in the New enjoy the riches of them.
2. Upon what a slender thread doth the doctrine of transubstantiation hang! Christ is here called the passover--was the paschal lamb therefore substantially the body of Christ?
3. The ancient Jews were under a covenant of grace. Christ was the end, the spirit, the life of their sacrifices. The passover, rock, sacrifices, manna, were the swaddling-bands wherein He was wrapped. They had the sun under a cloud, we the Sun at noon-day in His glory.
4. In the security Christ procures. The destroying angel was not to enter into any sprinkled house, no passage was afforded to him. The wrath of God, or the malice of the devil can have no power over them that are sprinkled with the blood of Christ. In the efficacy. The blood of the lamb was but a sign of that deliverance of the Israelites, but could not purge their defiled consciences; but the blood of our Lamb hath merited our salvation, can cleanse our consciences from dead and condemning works to serve the living God. This comfort is the greater by how much the tyrant we are delivered from is more dreadful that Pharaoh, whose design is not only like his to afflict our bodies but tumble our souls and bodies into the same hell with himself. It is from the wrath of God our passover hath delivered us; and what is the anger of Pharaoh to the fury of an offended Deity? It is true deliverance is yet but begun; it is not yet perfect; miseries and spiritual contests arc to be expected.
Pharaoh will pursue, but shall not overtake; death shall not swallow up those who are sprinkled with this holy blood.
1. Thankfully remember this passover.
2. Inquire whether He be our passover. He is a passover, but is He a lamb eaten by us, owned by us? He is ours by the gift of God, but is He ours by the acceptation of our souls? This Lamb is ours in the liberty, life, glory, and rest He hath purchased, when we are like Him, when we learn of Him.
3. Have faith in the blood of Christ. The killing the lamb signified the death of Christ, the sprinkling the blood signified the application of it by faith. It was not the blood contained in the veins of the lamb or shed upon the ground, that was the mark of deliverance, but sprinkled upon the posts: nor is it the blood of Christ circulating in His body or shed upon the Cross, which solely delivers us, but as applied by faith to the heart. That was sprinkled upon every house that desired safety, and this upon every soul that desires happiness. Had an Israelite’s family neglected this it had felt the edge of the angel’s sword; the lamb had not availed him, not by a defect of the sacrifice, but by their own negligence or contempt of the condition. Or had they used any other mark, they had not diverted the stroke: no work, no blood but the blood and sufferings of the Redeemer, can take away the sin of the world.
4. Let us leave the service of sin. The Israelites after this passover did no more work at the brick-kilns of Egypt. They ceased to be Pharaoh’s slaves, and began to be the Lord’s freemen.
II. Christ is a sacrifice. I shall lay down some propositions for the illustrating of this doctrine.
1. Sacrifices were instituted as types of Christ.
(1) They were instituted by God.
(2) No other reason can be rendered of the institution of them, but as typical of the great sacrifice of the Redeemer.
(3) Christ did really answer to these types.
2. The sacrifices thus instituted were of themselves insufficient, and could not expiate sin; they must, therefore, receive their accomplishment in some other. But being shadows by their institution, they could make nothing perfect (Heb_10:1; Heb_10:11).
(1) It was not consistent with the honour of God to be contented with the blood of a beast for an expiation of sin. How could there be in it a discovery of the severity of His justice, the purity of His holiness, or the grandeurs of His grace?
(2) They have no proportion to the sin of man. The sin of a rational creature is too foul to be expiated by the blood of an irrational creature.
(3) The reiteration of them shows their insufficiency. They were rather a commemoration of sin, and confessions of it, than expiations of any--rather accusers than atoners.
(4) God had often spoke slightingly of them. He resembles them to the cutting off a dog’s neck, when done with an unholy heart (Isa_66:3). He professeth He had no delight in them (Psa_40:6). And what is said of this may be said of all our duties and performances, the staves upon which men naturally lean for acceptation of their persons.
3. Such a sacrifice, therefore, is necessary for a sinful creature. No creature can be such a sacrifice. As the apostle argues, “If righteousness be by the law, then was Christ dead in vain” (Gal_2:21).
(1) What is a sacrifice for sin must be pure and sinless. God will not accept a defiled offering.
(2) An infinite sacrifice is necessary for a sin in some respects infinite, for every sin entrencheth upon the honour of an infinite God.
(3) Necessary in regard of the justice of God, which is an immutable and infinite perfection of the Divine essence.
4. Christ only was fit to be this sacrifice.
5. It was necessary in regard of His office of priesthood, that He should be a sacrifice.
6. Jesus Christ, then, was a sacrifice in His human nature.
7. That whereby this sacrifice was sanctified, was the Divine nature. Every sacrifice was sanctified by the altar (Mat_23:19).
8. Upon the sacrifice of Christ all His other sacerdotal acts depend, and from thence they receive their validity for us.
(1) This was the ground of His ascension and entrance into heaven as a priest. The high priest was not to enter within the veil without blood.
(2) This is the foundation of His intercession. There are two functions of Christ’s priesthood--oblation and intercession.
(3) This is the foundation of all the grace any have. The conveyance of all the gracious love of God is through this channel. In redemption by His blood the riches of the grace of God abounded, and that with the marks of the highest wisdom (Eph_1:7-8).
III. Christ was sacrificed for us--
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when joined with suffering for another, always signifies in another’s stead and place; it is so used Rom_5:7. This will be cleared if we consider--
1. That Christ could not be a sacrifice for Himself. The Messiah was to be cut off, but not for Himself (Dan_9:26). He needed no sacrifice for Himself.
2. Sacrifices implied this. They had a relation to the offerer, and were substituted in his place.
3. The whole economy of Christ is expressed in the whole Scripture to have a relation to us. All things preparatory to His sufferings were for us.
4. Our sins were imputed to Him as to a sacrifice. Christ the just is put in the place of the unjust to suffer for them (1Pe_3:18). Christ is said to bear sin as a sacrifice bears sin (Isa_53:10; Isa_53:12). His soul was made an offering for it.
(1) It cannot be understood of the infection of sin. The filth of our nature was not transmitted to Him.
(2) But that our sin was the meritorious cause of His punishment. All those phrases that Christ died for our sins (1Co_15:3), and was delivered to death for our offences (Rom_4:23), clearly import sin to be the meritorious cause of the punishment Christ endured: sin cannot be said to be the cause of punishment but by way of merit. If Christ bad not been just He had not been capable of suffering for us.
(3) Our sins were charged upon Him in regard of their guilt. Our sins are so imputed to Him as that they are not imputed to us (2Co_5:19), and not imputed to us, because He was made a curse for us (Gal_3:13).
(a) The apostle distinguishes His second coming from His first by this (Heb_9:28), “He shall appear the second time without sin unto salvation.”
(b) He cannot be well supposed to suffer for our sins, if our sins in regard of their guilt be not supposed to be charged upon Him. How could He die, if He were not a reputed sinner?
5. The sufferings of this sacrifice are imputed unto us. He took our sins upon Himself, as if He had sinned, and gave us the benefit of His sufferings, as if we had actually suffered.
The redounding of these sufferings to us, ariseth--
1. From the dignity of the person undertaking to be a sacrifice for us, and the union of our nature with his.
2. From union with this infinite Person by faith. All believers have a communion with Him in His death (2Co_5:14).
If Christ be a sacrifice--
1. We may see the miserable blindness of the Jews in expecting the Messiah as a temporal conqueror.
2. If Christ be a sacrifice, it shows the necessity of a satisfaction to the justice of God, and a higher satisfaction than men could perform.
3. Christ as sacrificed, is the true and immediate object of faith.
4. It is no true opinion that Christ died only for an example.
5. Comfort to every true believer. He was sacrificed for us. God counted Him a sinner for our sakes, that He might count us righteous for His sake.
(1) As Christ hath been sacrificed for them, so He has been accepted for them.
(2) This sacrifice unites all the attributes of God together for a believer’s interest.
(3) This sacrifice is of eternal virtue.
(4) The effects of this sacrifice, therefore, are perfect, glorious, and eternal.
6. We must then lay hold on this sacrifice.
7. We must be enemies to sin, since Christ was a sacrifice for it. Unless sin die in us, we cannot have an evidence that this sacrifice was slain for us. (Thomas Hacket.)
The Christian passover
Itis remarkable that this is Paul’s only allusion to the Jewish Passover. Paul has been commanding the Corinthian Christians to cast out from their midst a grossly profligate person. He then desires to enjoin upon them to get rid of corruption in themselves as well as in others, and corruption suggests the thought of leaven, secretly, silently, victoriously spreading through the mass. And leaven suggests--in his way of going off at a tangent--the thought of the scrupulous search of the Jewish householder for it in his house in preparation for the paschal feast; and that suggests the paschal feast itself. And so without explanation, and quite incidentally, he drops, as it were by the way, this great thought.
I. First, then, paul thought of Christ’s work as a sacrifice. It was a sacrifice, though of a very singular kind. The passover lamb was slain by the head of each household. It was offered upon no altar; it was prepared by no priest, but for all that it was a sacrifice, and that of an expiatory character. You may call it a gross, low, infantile conception. Be it so! It is the conception of the rite at all events. Paul lays his hand upon that sacrifice, and he says it meant Jesus Christ. So he implies two things, both of which are gravely contested by many to-day: the one that, whatsoever the date of these Jewish sacrifices, they had not only a symbolical but a prophetic aspect; and the other that the centre-point of their prophetic message in reference to Jesus Christ was His death, wherein and whereby men were free from the penal consequences of death in its sternest sense. Is there any theory about Christ and His death which warrants the application of these words “our passover” to Him, except one which frankly and fully recognises the sacrificial and atoning aspect of His death? Paul may have been right or he may have been wrong. That is what he believed, at any rate. But I have yet another step to take. Paul’s Master took precisely the same point of view. I claim Christ as the first who taught us that He was our passover. And I point to the rite that He established as the great standing token that His conception of His work was the same as the apostle’s. Now I do not want to pin you down to any doctrine of an atonement, but I do want to lay upon your hearts this, which I for one believe with all my heart, that no conception of Christ, His nature, His work, His life and death, is full toned and in accordance with His own teaching which does not proclaim Christ is our passover. And I ask you, Is that the Christ that you know and the Christ that you trust?
II. If Christ is our passover our lives will be a feast. If He indeed has, as our passover, secured for us safety and liberty, then, of course, all life will take a new aspect. And if we recognise the fact that the Lamb slain is theLamb in the midst of the throne, administering Providence and guiding the world and the Church, and ever present with each of us, if we trust Him, to bless and keep us, then a flush of gladness will be diffused over all life. Just as when the year turns, and the sunshine begins to gather power, even a grim landscape undergoes a subtle change, and is a prophet of the coming summer, so we, if Christ is our passover, will be possessed, in the fact and in the recognition of the fact, of a charm which, if it does not annihilate, at least modifies all burdens and troubles, and which will bring into any life that is true to it a deep, quiet, calm joy far more real, noble, blessed, and the ally of great thoughts and deeds, than the surface ripple of laughter and of mirth which men baptize by that great name. But, brethren, remember that the words are a commandment, and that implies that the realisation of this gladness, which is the natural fruit of the conception of Christ’s death of which I have been speaking, depends very largely upon ourselves. I do not think Christian people as a whole realise as much as they ought to do the sin of sorrow and the duty of rejoicing. But that is not all which is conveyed in this thought of the feast which life becomes when Christ’s death is recognised as our expiation. There is further involved the duty of participating in the flesh of the sacrifice. You have to feed upon the Christ who is sacrificed for you, or the sacrifice is of no avail. What Christ is it that nourishes a man? The Christ that taught great and wonderful things? Yes, in some degree. The Christ that walked before men, the sweet Example of all duty, and the sum of whatsoever things were lovely and of good report? Yes, in some degree, but I believe that the Christ who feeds the whole man, and who, being partaken of, gives immortal life to the man who feeds on Him, is the Christ who died and gave His flesh and His blood for the life of the world. Physiologists will tell you that it is possible to feed a man on foods which have so little power of supplying all the constituents necessary for the human body that he may eat them and be starved. And there is a version of the Christ which, if men live upon, they will live a very feeble life, and, as I believe, will come near starving.
III. Lastly, if we feed upon Christ our passover we shall be pure. There is no way of getting thoroughly rid of the old leaven except the one way of taking Christ for the food of our souls. If He is our bread as well as our sacrifice, then w
