The Passover

Transcript

GRS 2-18
1/8/2005
The Passover
Exodus 12
Gil Rugh

We are in Exodus Chapter 12. Exodus and the 12th Chapter, all the portions of the word of God are important. God does not say anything that is not important. This is the word of God from the beginning to the end, but there are certain portions that become defining sections and Exodus Chapter 12 was one of those and it becomes of added significance not only because of what it record in God's working on behalf of His people Israel at that time in history, but it is setting a pattern in type for what we will have its ultimate realization in the work of Jesus Christ on the Cross. We talk about the institution of Passover.

The New Testament tells us that Jesus Christ is our Passover and He has been sacrificed. There is an ultimate fulfillment of what is pictured in Exodus Chapter 12 in the work of Jesus Christ. God is an awesome God. We have noted, He has a God of mercy, a God of kindness, a God of Love, a God of patience, but He is also a God of justice, a God of wrath, a God of judgment, and we see that balance portrayed as we move through much of the Old Testament.

The nation of Egypt has been experiencing the wrath of God and that wrath of God is indiscriminant in the sense it is poured out on the young and old because all are sinners and all are the objects of God's wrath in that nation. They as a nation are opposing His purposes and plans for His people Israel and God has made His will known. My people must be released. My people and all that they have must be released.

Pharaoh and his people have opposed that and there had been a series of plagues poured out that have devastated nation Israel. Pharaoh's own servants have testified to him. The nation of Egypt has been destroyed, but still Pharaoh is unrelenting and so we come to the final judgment, the final plague poured out on the nation Israel and that is the plague of the death of the firstborn. God makes clear this is the plague that will result in Israel being set free.

Chapter 11 closed with the Lord hardening Pharaoh's heart and that is a result of Pharaoh's continual abstinence in hardening his heart and now judgment comes. The judgment will be the death of the firstborn and this will encompass every family in Egypt because you stop and think every family has a firstborn and so there will not be untouched any family in the nation. We noted in Chapter 11, verse 5, this goes from the lowest servant to the house of pharaoh and God's judgment in indiscriminant in that sense. It will be poured out on every Egyptian family. There is provision is made for God's people Israel to avoid the judgment.

So Chapter 12 was about the institution of Passover and the ultimate deliverance of Israel comes about a result of that. First 36 verses are about the institution of Passover, then you have the impact of the death of the firstborn in the Exodus and then the reminder of the continual observance of Passover. First is the explanation of Passover in the first fourteen verses. "Now the Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, This month shall be the beginning of months for you; it is to be the first month of the year to you." The Exodus is going to be the beginning of the nation if you will, functioning now as a nation under God's authority.

They have been built as a nation while in Egypt. They will come out of Egypt under God's divinely appointed ruler. That’s why men like Alva J. McClain in the book on the “Greatness of the Kingdom,” marks the beginning of the mediatorial Kingdom in Israel with Moses. Mediatorial Kingdom is God's Kingdom on earth mediated through His divinely appointed ruler and Moses is the first divinely appointed ruler over the nation Israel as a nation. A significant beginning with the Exodus out of Egypt is marked by a new year. So this will become a perpetual ordinance. We have a new calendar that will always mark this new beginning and this will be called the month of Abib.

Chapter 13, verse 4 notes, "On this day in the month of Abib, you are about to go forth." After the Babylonian captivity, this will be known as the month Nisan, so two names for the month. Now from this point on as well, there will be two calendar years for Israel, a civil calendar and a religious calendar. This first month marks the beginning of the religious year for Israel and will be a continual observance and the first month of the religious year is the seventh of the civil year. So we still do that in businesses and organizations and so on and churches do that often. Where there physical year does not follow the calendar year.

So they mark the beginning of their business year if you will in a different than the calendar year. They don't follow the calendar year. Well here in Israel, they are going to have a different calendar year for religious observances and different one for their civil observances marks the significance of this month and this occasion, the beginning of Passover. "Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying, 'On the tenth of this month they are each one to take a lamb for themselves, according to their fathers' households, a lamb for each household." Speak to the congregation of Israel. This is first use of this term, which will be used of the nation Israel as it assembles before God to worship Him. These are God's people. This is God's assembly joined together to worship Him. They select the lamb and the lamb is selected on the tenth day, set aside and then it will be slain on the fourteenth day.

This gives a chance to observe the lamb for these days from the tenth to the fourteenth to make sure there are no imperfections, there is no sickness or anything that will develop in the selected lamb. It has to be a lamb unblemished, unspotted, and no illness. So there is this period of observance to be sure the lamb will meet the standard to be an acceptable sacrifice. If you have too small a household to eat a whole lamb, you joined together, verse 4, "If the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his neighbor nearest to his house are to take one according to the number of persons in them; according to what each man should eat, you are to divide the lamb," because the lamb is to be devoured in its entirety at this meal. So there is provision made for the details here. To be a family, but a small family can join together with a neighbor family.

Verse 5, "Your lamb shall be an unblemished male a year old; you may take it from the sheep or from the goats. You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month, then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel is to kill it at twilight. And twilight is literally between the two evenings and some of you have marginal notes in your Bible, literally between the two evenings. It can be referred either form 3 o'clock to 5 o'clock in the afternoon or from six to seven in the evening. We just note in New Testament times, we know from Josephus the Jewish historian who wrote during New Testament times that the Jews observe the 3 o'clock to 5 o'clock time and the Passover lamb was slain during the time of our New Testament at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. Josephus has become significant because he is a non-believing Jew about writing a history of the time and he reveals much of what is going on in Israel and also in Roman activity during that time. The time become significant because in the New Testament, we are told that Christ who is the Passover lamb of God will die at 3 o'clock in the afternoon at the time the Passover lambs were being slain.

Why don't you turn back to Matthew, look at these passages now, then I want to tie some of this together in a little bit about the whole matter of the death of Christ, but look at Matthew Chapter 27, verse 45, "Now from the sixth hour, darkness fell upon the land until the ninth hour." Now, Jewish time range from six to six. So from the sixth hour, which would be 12 noon, from 6 a.m. to 12 noon is six hours to sixth hour to the ninth hour 3 o'clock in the afternoon. About the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice saying "Eli, Eli lama Sabachthani" that is "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me" and some misunderstand and think that He is calling for Elijah. Then you will know verse 50, "He cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up His Spirit." Veil of the temple split and so on. So at the ninth hour, Jesus died and that’s the hour the Passover lambs were to be sacrificed in anticipation for eating the Passover meal. The Passover will begin at 6 o'clock that evening that when the Jews would mark the beginning of new day, we mark it at 12 midnight. The Jewish day would begin at 6 in the evening and run till 6, the next evening as you are aware.

First Corinthians Chapter 5, verse 7, you don't need to turn that now, but it says simply Christ our Passover has been sacrificed and clearly identifying Jesus Christ as God's ultimate Passover lamb. So all the Passover is that would be carried out in Israel for the next 1445 years approximately, will be reminders of a coming of God's ultimate Passover lamb. Verse 7, moreover back in Exodus 12. "Moreover, they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses in which they eat." So what happens is they sacrifice a Passover lamb, then they will retire to their homes and if its two families they will retire to one of the homes and before they close themselves in, they will put blood from that lamb that they have executed, sacrificed on the sides of the door and across the top of the door and the door is the entry way to the house. It protects the home. The destroying angle that is going to come through at night will not enter that home because it is protected by the blood, a death has occurred, a sacrifice has occurred to protect the people in that home from the judgment of God, his wrath poured out on rebellious sinners.

Clear picture that the "Wages of sin is death." Now you note, Egypt has gotten by in opposing God, in rebelling against God. There have been judgments, but nothing so devastating, but now you had death come in to every family in Egypt reminding them that wages of their sin is death and picturing that ultimate judgment of God that will bring about the destruction of the wicked. So the sacrifice portrays the death has occurred and this death, here the death of an animal will be accepted by God as a sacrifice taking the place of the first born of those in that house, so the sacrifice taking the place of those people. We won't look at the passages in the New Testament right now. The Christ is the sacrifice, but you can look through those you are reminded that’s the wages of sin is death and that’s why Jesus Christ died, He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree. He is our substitute taking our place.

You have unleavened bread in verse 8, they will eat the flesh that same night roasted with fire; they shall eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. Unleavened bread pictures the fact that Israel had to do this in haste. When here now they are told what they are to do given the timing of it here and the unleavened bread will symbolize they have to be to leave. There was no time to allow the bread to raise and so that’s the ultimate picture in the unleavened bread. Look at verse 11, "You shall eat it in this manner: with your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it in haste--it is the Lord's Passover. Look at verse 39, "They baked the dough which they had brought out of Egypt into cakes of unleavened bread. For it had not become leavened, since they were driven out of Egypt and could not delay, nor had they prepared any provisions for themselves."

This will be a constant reminder beginning here that as every Passover, every subsequent Passover, we had to leave Egypt immediately, I mean they are going to have dinner and not long after the word is going come from Pharaoh. Get out now. So they are going to pack up and go. So they are reminded, why are we eating unleavened bread. Well because this is a reminder. When God delivered Israel from Egypt, they had no time to allow the bread to leaven and so on.

Look over in Deuteronomy Chapter 16, verse 3, these symbols are interpreted for us in the scripture itself, so we don't have any difficulty understanding it. Verse 3, talking about the feast of Passover and the Passover lamb, verse 2, "You shall sacrifice the Passover to the Lord you God”; verse 3, "You shall not eat leavened bread with it. Seven days you shall eat it with it unleavened bread." When we talk about that seven day feast of unleavened bread following Passover in a moment. The bread of affliction for you came out of the land of Egypt in haste. Can you see that point, unleavened bread is the constant reminder. There was no time for the bread to leaven.

So that you may remember all the days of your life, the day when you came out of the land of Egypt, for seven days there will no leaven with you in all your territory that I want you to forget what God did in delivering you is the point. Back in Exodus Chapter 12, verse 8, "They also eat it with bitter herbs," at the end of verse 8, and these herbs which are bitter to the taste symbolize the bitterness of life they had in slavery which is about to come to an end. That these bitter herbs are that reminder of the bitterness of life in Egypt. They will quickly forget this. We are like that.

You know we won't be very long out of Egypt and they will be saying, Oh we remember the flesh pots of Egypt and somehow there seems to happen even to us today, we tend to want to think back and think how wonderful it was and that’s aggravated with age. I can say that now being a senior citizen that you know somehow it were great for telling our kids what it was like and that happens in our Christian life. Sometimes, we forget how God has worked in our life and great things He has done. We look back and say "It seemed better there." So all these things serve a purpose, but Israel eats this Passover meal. They have reminded, they had to go in haste, and they are reminded that time in Egypt was a bitter time. Don't glamorize it; don't make it look like it was great, it was a bitter time.

The lamb was to be roasted, verse 9, not eaten raw or not thoroughly cooked as was done by many of the Pagan peoples. Verse 10, "It is to be eaten completely, that’s why they were to join families if one family was too small to eat a whole lamb, then you bring two families together because the entire meal was to be consumed and if anything wasn't consumed it was to be destroyed by morning. They are ready for their travel. You eat it verse 11 in this manner "With your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, your staff in your hand, you shall eat it in a haste. It is the Lord's Passover. The reminder we are getting ready to leave. So you get all dressed to travel, then you eat and you are ready to go at a moment's notice is the picture. For I will go through the land of Egypt on that night. I will strike down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast.

Remember we noted this all the plagues are directed against the God's of Egypt and against all the God's of Egypt, I will execute judgment, I am the Lord. There won't be no gods of Egypt lest standing; all these plagues have demonstrated my power against the gods of Egypt. The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live and when I see the blood, I will Passover you. So we get the name Passover. When the destroying angle comes, He will Passover the homes that are protected by the blood, that homes that have the sign of sacrifice has occurred, taking the place of the firstborn in this home and so the firstborn's life. No plague will befall you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt. You come down to following verses, "This day will be a memorial to you. You shall celebrate it as a feast to the Lord and it is an ongoing permanent ordinance that is to be observed." Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. Now you hear, you observe is not only the first day, but the first day is called Passover, but that’s the beginning of weeklong festival.

Religious observance called the feast of unleavened bread because remember no leaven is allowed in the homes for these seven days. So the feast of unleavened bread is sometimes used and that refers to Passover as well as the feast of unleavened bread. They are not two separate occasions, but Passover marks the beginning if you will of the feast of unleavened bread, which will run for seven days. On the first day, you shall have a holy assembly and then on the seventh day you have a holy assembly. No work shall be done on them, expect must by eaten by every person that alone is to be prepared. I want you to note, this will become significant we have a special Sabbath day for the beginning of the feast of unleavened bread, Passover day and the end of the feast of unleavened bread. They become of what we call feast of Sabbath.

They are others in Israel's history for example, the day of atonement will also be observed as a Sabbath day, if not the seventh day of the week, which was the normal Sabbath day, but whatever day, the first day of the feast of unleavened bread fell that was a Sabbath day, so you could have a week that had two Sabbath days in it and then the following week would have two Sabbath days because if Passover fell on Tuesday then you would have Tuesday to be observed as a Sabbath day and you would have Saturday to be observed as a Sabbath day, then the following week, seven days later you would have observed another Sabbath day as part of that feast, then you would observe the regularly weekly Sabbath and that become significant in the context of Christ's sacrifice.

We will see more about that in a moment. But you note, the first day which would be the day when Passover is observed that is a holy assembly and the seventh day. The instructions go on, you observe the feast of unleavened bread and tells why for on this very day I brought your host out of the land of Egypt, you shall observe this day throughout your generations, the first month and the fourteenth day and you will begin the new month and the fourteenth day of that new month you eat unleavened bread until the 21st day at evening for that seven day period from the 14th to the 21st of the first month in the religious year that’s just been established is feast of unleavened bread.

Any violation of this feast means you are cut off from the assembly of Israel. No unleavened bread eaten. As he goes on to explain to down the verse 21, Moses called the elders of Israel and said to them go take for yourselves lambs according to your families. Slay the Passover lamb. "You shall take a bunch of hyssop and dip it in the blood which is in the basin, and apply some of the blood that is in the basin to the lintel and the two doorposts; and none of you shall go outside the door of his house until morning." Okay instruction, the hyssop is plant from the mid family, it has a long stalk, then the leaves are covered with hair and that hairy leaf kind of thing, which is good for soaking up liquid and holding it.

So the hyssop was used you know they didn’t have what we have like sponges and other artificial means or even natural things, this is one of the natural products they have. They could use to dip in a liquid like the blood so hyssop was used for sprinkling and applying the blood because the hairy surface of the leaf of this plant would hold the liquid when you dipped it in that way you can take it out and sprinkle it and so that’s the picture of the hyssop here. You use that, you dip it in the blood, when they sacrifice the animal, sacrificed such and the blood is drained into a basin that collects it and then they dip the hyssop into that blood that has been collected and apply it to their doorposts.

Each of the families in that house has sacrificed a lamb and so that lamb protects that household those in that, it could be two families remember, but the point is that household everyone in that house are protected by the sacrifice that has been made for those in that dwelling. Note, the end of verse 22, "None of you shall go outside the door of his house till morning.” So at 3 in the afternoon, the lamb is sacrificed, then after six in the evening, they eat it because that would mark the beginning of Passover day.

Now once they close themselves in, apply the blood to the doorposts and the lintel, close themselves in, no one leaves the house till morning because if they do, they will not be under the protection that the blood applies for that household and that becomes significant when we come to the events of the New Testament and whether Christ ate the Passover because following their meal the Jesus and his disciples leave and go out and there rested in the garden with all kind of Jewish leaders, really questionable whether Jesus could have eaten the Passover at what we call the last supper because He wouldn't be out roaming around nor would all the Jewish leaders, they are out roaming around I mean every good Jew on Passover would be closed into his house and will not be leaving till morning, that’s the way this feast has to be observed, none of you goes outside the door of his house till morning. That’s the part of the observance of Passover. So we will say more about that, but keep that in mind, that's another requirement of Passover.

Once you have eaten the meal, you have to stay in-house until morning. For the Lord will pass through to smite the Egyptians and when He sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the Lord will Passover the door and will not allow the destroyer to come into your houses to smite you. We are not told who the destroyer is, some believe it was the angel of the Lord, the pre-incarnate Christ or may well have been just a destroying angel sent by God. There is no clear identification. Hebrews Chapter 11, verse 28, refers to the destroyer sent; we are referring back to this. So what will happen here comes this angel and every house that has the blood on the doorposts he passes by, and any house that does not have blood on the doorposts , there is death of the firstborn, that family will occur. The only provision, the only protection is the blood.

Verse 24, "You shall observe this event as an ordinance for you and your children forever." So what is established here will be carried out and obviously after this first Passover, it will be a symbolic event. Because the destroying angel won't be passing over every year, but it is to be observed in this way every year as an ongoing reminder of the deliverance and redemption from Egypt, that will be true when you enter the land, verse 25, when you enter the land, which Lord has then you explain to your children. This is what this means. We sit down and have Passover and here we are in the land free from our enemies, the servitude, well now you have a chance to explain why you are doing this to your children. You tell them, verse 27, it is a Passover sacrifice to the Lord who passed over the house of the sons of Israel in Egypt. He smote the Egyptians, but spared our homes and the people bowed low and worship.

So sons of Israel went and did just as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron, so they did. It came about at midnight; the Lord struck all the firstborn in the land of Egypt from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on the throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon and all the firstborn of the cattle that there is no exception for status in life. It is not a matter that the firstborn of the captive in the dungeon he has had a miserable life and hard enough life, he is still is not protected by the blood and the Pharaoh, he is not too important. All the power and all the riches and so on won't protect him, only the blood is the protecting agent.

Pharaoh arose in the night, I mean very quickly spreads, I mean you imagine every household has someone dead. Pharaoh arose in the night, all his servants; every one of Pharaoh's servants has someone dead. I mean every family is affected. There was a great cry in Egypt for there was no home, where there was not someone dead. You can imagine. We see something of the wailing that goes on in Mideast in our day in the context of deaths and funerals and all that, you can imagine what it would like in Egypt. With every single home having lost someone, everyone is either you know is a firstborn or has a firstborn, there is some connection there. You know what happens, here it is the middle of the night, this is urgent. Pharaoh calls for Moses and Aaron.

What does he say, verse 31, "Rise up, get out from among my people, both you and the sons of Israel; and go, worship the Lord, as you have said, take your flocks and take your herds just like you said, go, and bless me. The Egyptians urged the people, to send them out of the land in haste, for they said, "We will all be dead." I mean obviously there is overwhelming fear, we have lost our firstborn, if we don't do something, where will this stop, I mean the God of the Israelites will kill us all. You know, there is no compromises offered here by Pharaoh now "That’s do exactly as your God has said, "Take yourselves the men, the women, the children, the herds, everything just like you said." Isn't it amazing how people fight God, it could have saved themselves a lot of tragedy and lot of heartache, they just done this at the beginning, wouldn’t they. Let’s just do it, God said. Just not the way of sinful people is it.

Something about of things they are going to fight God and Pharaoh has not done as fighting, but for right now he has been brought to his knees and so here we go, the deliverance from Egypt. The Egyptians go; I mean they are ready to have them go, "So the people took their dough before it was leavened, with their kneading bowls bound up in the clothes on their shoulders." So they wrap up the bowls they used, they have got their unleavened flour there, they wrap it all up and what they got on their shoulders and here goes the Exodus.

Now the sons of Israel had made preparation in one sense according to what God had instructed them. They had gone to their neighbors and said, Why don't you give me some of your Jewels? Why don't you give me some of your gold? Why don't you give me some of your possessions? And the Egyptians just thought that was a wonderful idea. We would love to give you. You can see the Lord works on the heart of people to do according to His will and so the end of verse 36, thus they plundered the Egyptians and we have to be careful about spiritualizing the word of God.

The word of God indicates that this is a type and so on, then we are justified. The people that they are talking about, that we have the right to plunder the Egyptians and the Egyptians stand for the ungodly people and so we have the right to take from the ungodly and it has come to the point we can learn from the ungodly and we take with the ungodly of learned and mixed it with the Bible and so we plunder the Egyptians and that mixture of what we take from the ungodly mixed in with the word of God now we have, I mean that is not Exegesis so we call Isogesis, it is not getting something out of scripture, that’s reading something in the scripture.

They literally plundered the Egyptians here. Remember God had conquered and crushed the gods of the Egyptians, the nation Egypt had been brought to its knees as we noted in our previous study. As the conquering victors, they have the right to the spoils of the Egyptians, and then of course they had served for 400 years as slaves, so there is some restitution being made. Now the sons of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth about six hundred thousand men on foot aside from children. These are the men over 20 years of age. They are six hundred thousand of them.

Look at Exodus Chapter 38, verse 26, the end of the verse just for our time "For each one who passed over to those who were numbered from twenty years old and upwards six hundred and three thousand five hundred and fifty men." So in Chapter 12, verse 37, we had a round number six hundred thousand men. Now in Exodus, Chapter 38 and verse 28, we were given the exact number and we are told, we are talking about men and the dividing line for the men who are counted here is twenty years of age. They were exactly six hundred and three thousand five hundred and fifty. Numbers Chapter 1, verse 46; Numbers Chapter 2, verse 32, give us this figure too and the age.

Now the men over 20 were one quarter of the population. We would have and Exodus of about two million and some have estimated this could be as many as four million because if each man had a wife and four children, then we are getting up close to four million people. The point is the nation Israel, there was a family of 70 people who went down into Egypt, Jacob's family, down to join Joseph and now four hundred years later God has molded them into a mighty nation of millions of people somewhere between two and four million people come out of the land of Egypt and what a tremendous undertaking.

We will see some of these in our future studies as we talk about there making these journey, but you have to move millions of people all ages included. So you have those with small babies and you have the elderly and you have this mass movement of people and you are going to have to feed them all, you are going to keep them organized and tremendous undertaking. I wonder later we are going to find Moses complaining to God I never asked for this job. I mean keeping track of these people and then complaints. We are talking about the church in the New Testament.

Churches you know has its own problems just think of if this local church was comprised of millions of people, I would resign. Moses would have liked, but he couldn’t. All right, so you get an idea of the numbers here and there are non-Jews that join perhaps some Semitic people who have been down in Egypt and had been in captivity and they take this opportunity to join the Exodus. I mean Egyptians are just glad to have anybody go. Of course, the Israelites are the focus, but this is an occasion for others to go along. Some Egyptians for whatever reason have been impressed with these Jews and the God of these Jews and they joined the Exodus.

So the picture goes on in Chapter 12 verse 38, sons of Israel joins 600,000, verse 38, a mixed multitude also went up with them, and then you are going to add to this herds and livestock, a very large number of livestock and they baked the dough they brought out of Egypt into cakes of unleavened bread it hadn’t been leavened, they couldn’t delay, they had been prepared for vision so you imagine you are going to move millions of people and they haven’t had chance to make the preparations they will need to. I mean, how far you are going to get before you are going to have a problem with the food and they won’t get very far and that’s the problem.

The times that the sons of Israel lived in Egypt was 430 years, at the end of 430 years to the very day all the host of the Lord went out from the land. 430 years to the day. Now there is some discussion on when you mark that beginning point and we look into all the details. Some take it as 400 years actually in Egypt, but 430 years on the basis of Galatians 3:17 goes back to the last time the covenant was confirmed. Then you have the descent into Egypt and that would make it about 400 years in bondage and 430 years goes to the confirmation of the covenant.

430 years is what is said here was the time Israel was in Egypt and in bondage and I think it’s probably best to work with that number. It’s clearly said here in the text and build around that. You can see some of the verses that are use to substantiate that, Genesis 15:13 and 16, Acts Chapter 7:6, Acts 13 verses 17 to 20, but we have now over 400 years. So who believe in the late of day of the Exodus that happens 1,200 and some BC but it’s hard to build a nation of millions of people in a short-term Exodus like that would require. So there is a lot of problems with that, not the least of which the Bible tells us it was 430 years, we go with that.

Then you have further Passover instructions in verses 43 to 51. It’s a night to be absorbed for the Lord for having brought them out of the land of Egypt and instructions on who can observe it, who must observe it, who is not allowed to observe it. Verse 46, "It is to be eaten in a single house; you are not to bring forth any of the flesh outside of the house, nor are you to break any bone of it.” There is an important provision been mentioned in Numbers Chapter 9 verse 12 and in Psalm 34 verse 20. And then in John Chapter 19 verse 36, we were told they didn’t break the legs of Christ and that’s fulfillment of what the Scripture required for the Passover lamb that no bone should be broken.

So the picture of Christ and in this details that will be fulfilled is clear. Let me just say something in our closing minutes here, about Jesus Christ in the New Testament and the last supper and when he was crucified. We traditionally observed Good Friday as the day of the crucifixion because we know that the next day was a Sabbath day and been traditionally taken that that would mean it was Saturday. But there are problems with that, not the least of which He was in the grave three days and three nights and some work with that and say well parts of three days and parts of three nights, but I think there is good reason to take that Passover would have been observed on Thursday of the crucifixion week.

Turn back to Mark Chapter 15, we will just note some of these passages with you. Mark Chapter 15 verse 42, when evening had already come, because it was the preparation day, that is, the day before the Sabbath, so you think well Jesus has died now been buried, they want to bury Him because the Sabbath day is coming and it’s often been taken that that means that was Friday because Saturday is a Sabbath. Well, Saturday was the normal week with Sabbath but remember whatever day Passover fell on was also a Sabbath day. So if Passover fell on Thursday of that week Thursday would have been the Sabbath day also, observed as a Sabbath, no work to be done. We won’t go through all the different Sabbath days.

Here in Mark, look in Chapter 16 verse 1, when the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, bought spices, so that they might come and anoint Him. Now there is a problem with buying these spices and anointing the body for burial was a major tasks. It says they bought spices after the Sabbath then they prepare the Sabbath, they prepare the spices, then they came to the tomb on the first day of the week. So I think it would fit that if Passover was on Thursday that would be the feast Sabbath, then after the Sabbath they bought the spices that would have been Friday. Then they would have rested on the Sabbath and come only on Sunday morning to anoint the body.

I think there are real problems. Turn over to Gospel of John Chapter 13 because I mentioned just in our passing in our looking at John 13, if Jesus actually ate was the last supper Passover and it seems to me that it probably was not. In John Chapter 13 verse 1, now before the Feast of the Passover, Jesus knowing that His hour had come that He would depart out of the world, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end during supper. Now this is before the feast of the Passover and he is going to have the last supper with His disciples, John 13.

And they will have the meal together and they will talk and then He will leave and go to the Garden of Gethsemane where He is betrayed. Look down in verse 29, remember they have the meal together. Verse 28, they are reclining at the table, Jesus has just told Judas what you do, do quickly. Verse 29, for some were supposing, because Judas had the money box, Jesus was saying to him, "Buy the things we have need of for the feast." Judas gets up and leaves.

The disciples think that Jesus meant he should go out and buy some things in preparation for the feast. You don’t go out on the night you are observing Passover to buy things, there would be nothing open in Jerusalem. You understand the city shut down. Every Jew has to be closed in his house. You don’t go out to buy anything, so if Jesus is observing the Passover meal with his disciples at the last supper we have some real problems. Disciples think Judas is going out to buy things for the feast; you just had the feast, the Passover. The most important event that marks the beginning of a seven-day a week of observance. You are not allowed to leave the house. Until morning no Jew will be out. There will be no business of any kind operating in Jerusalem, so if they are observing Passover we will have a problem.

I think really Jesus is having a meal with his disciples that would have taken place before the day of Passover. The Jews will be observing Passover the next day. So what happens is Jesus has the meal with His disciples and then He is betrayed. He is crucified at 09:00 in the morning, there is three hours of light till 12:00 then there is three hours of darkness from 12:00 to 03:00, at 3 o’clock He dies, at the very time in Jerusalem Passover lambs are been sacrificed. In preparation for the Passover meal that will be observed after 6 o’clock which will mark the beginning of Passover. 6 o’clock on Wednesday evening as we know, we will mark the beginning of Thursday for the Jews, so Jesus is really dying on Wednesday. Passover is Thursday.

So Jesus Christ our Passover is been sacrificed that’s the significance of the time. I will mark these times that at 3 o’clock in the afternoon Jesus dismisses His spirit and then we know at 3 o’clock in the afternoon the Passover lambs are been sacrificed. So I think for a variety of reasons Jesus probably didn’t observe the Passover meal. It was not Passover. It was a meal with His disciples that would have preceded the Passover because He is going to be sacrificed as the Passover lamb. On Thursday you have the feast day, you are in Johns Gospel.

Look in Chapter 18 verse 28, they got all this going on during the night, the trails. Christ goes through a series of trails before Annas, before Caiaphas, before the Sanhedrin, before Pilate, before Herod, before Pilate again, all of these going on all through the night, if this was Passover the Jews were having a busy night, on the night they weren’t allowed to be out.

Look at verse 28 of John 18, then they led Jesus from Caiaphas into the Praetorium, and it was early; and they themselves did not enter into the Praetorium so that they would not be defiled, but might eat the Passover. You see they go into this gentile area they will be defiled, there will not be time for them to under the ceremonial cleansing and be eligible for Passover after 6 o’clock marking the beginning of a new day. So they don’t go in to the judgment hall where Pilate is, because they are in the gentile territory, they are defiled. Passover is less than 24 hours away. They won’t be able to eat Passover, so they don’t go in.

Look in Chapter 19 verse 31 of John – look at verse 30, Jesus gave up His spirit, He said, "It is finished," He bowed His head and gave up His spirit, verse 30. Then the Jews, because it was the day of preparation, so that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a high day). Taking the indication here this is a feast Sabbath. This is a great day, this is Passover Sabbath, that’s the significance I think when it says that Sabbath was a great one or a high day. So they want the legs to be broken so that it will accelerate death because they don’t want to defile it. They said we are in anticipation of this high religious holiday. So Jesus couldn’t have eaten Passover with His disciples. They want the legs to be broken when they come to Christ, His legs aren’t broken because He was already death, verse 33.

And so you have fulfilled that picture which is required of the Passover lamb, He is being sacrificed. He will be buried and the Jews will be prepared to celebrate their Passover. It is amazing, now the Passover lamb, all the Passovers for almost 1,500 years being anticipating this event and they miss it. They are going to go about their celebration, not realize the fulfillment of all of these has just occurred. I don’t want to make more of that then there is because the significant factor is Christ died according to the plan of God whether He died on Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday. But it would seemed to me that it fits best with Scripture that he was in the grave three full days and three full nights shortly after 6 o’clock on what we would have as Saturday night Jesus Christ was raised. By the time they come to the tomb early Sunday morning, the tomb was empty. Resurrection has occurred, so He was in the grave three full days and three full nights.

Graham Scroggie’s book, “A Guide to the Gospels” walks through Wednesday crucifixion. If you want to have a printed source and you can walk through some of the details or many we could say, but I just wanted to do that as a summary with you since we were in the Passover and to see that ultimate fulfillment in the preciseness of it. The details down to not breaking of the legs and the ultimate fulfillment picturing what, that we are protected by the sacrifice of the Passover lamb. And anyone who is not protected by the blood of Christ, who does not have Christ as their lamb by faith in Him will experience that devastating destructive judgment of God which include eternal separation in hell.

So we not only have the record of the history through Israel’s to remind us of the importance of the fact that without the shedding of blood there is no remission, but we have the fulfillment of that in Christ to understand the absolutely overwhelming importance and can appreciate. He that has the Son has life; he who has not the Son of God shall not see life but the wrath of God abide on him. There is no middle ground. You are either protected by the blood or you will be the object of the destructive judgment.

Let’s pray together. Thank you Lord for the simple but beautiful trues of your word and here even in the deliverance of your people Israel from the awesome slavery, that time of over 400 years in Egypt now coming to an end and your marvelous hand of deliverance and in your deliverance you bring destructive judgment on the unbelievers. Thank you for the blood that protected your people. Thank you for the ultimate fulfillment of that Passover lamb. In Jesus Christ the Lamb of God it takes away the sin of the world. Thank you Lord that we can rejoice in knowing because we have placed our faith in Him. He is our sacrifice, and His blood takes care of our sin and assures our salvation. We praise you in His name, amen.