August 19

Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.—1 Corinthians 5:7.

THE passover was one of the most celebrated ordinances of the Jewish dispensation. It was instituted on that memorable occasion when the destroying angel went through the length and breadth of the Egyptian land, but passed over the threshold of every house where the door-posts were sprinkled with the blood of the paschal lamb. The whole event was typical: it showed forth the misery and peril of our guilty world, and also exhibited the boundless mercy of God in providing a sacrifice for us, whereby we might not perish, but have everlasting life. What the lamb was typically, Christ is really: for he is our passover sacrificed for us. Let us briefly glance at the leading points of resemblance between the passover and the sacrifice of Christ. The passover was a divine institution; it was appointed of God: the whole was specifically devised and arranged by Jehovah. How very forcibly this applies to our redemption by Christ Jesus. The whole œconomy of salvation was the result of divine contrivance and appointment: the work was too vast and difficult to be effected by any thing else than the wisdom and power of God. Yes, the stream of redeeming grace flowed from the throne of God and the Lamb. The passover was likewise connected with the deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt. Our passover is connected with the deliverance of the world from sin and the curse of the law. In Egypt the judgments of heaven were poured out, and in Egypt the Israelites were degraded and cruelly oppressed. God delivered them from both; the destroying angel came not near their dwellings, and the Lord led them forth from the land of toil and oppression, to a country of freedom, and a land flowing with milk and honey. By the sacrifice of Christ we are redeemed from the condemnation of eternal death, we are ransomed from the yoke of the devil, and are called to be joint-heirs with Christ of his kingdom and glory. What a redemption is this! — a redemption from sin to holiness, from wrath to reconciliation, from death to life, from hell to heaven, from the miseries of time and the woes of perdition to the joys of eternity. And this perfect, full, free, and eternal redemption, we obtain through Christ our “Passover sacrificed for us.”