1 COR. v. 7. “Even
Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.”
THE allusion in the text may have been suggested to the
apostle either by the time of year, or by seeing some of his
countrymen leaving Ephesus, where he then was, to go
up to Jerusalem to “eat the Passover” there. The most
superficial reader of the Bible must be struck by the
resemblance of the Passover in Egypt to the sufferings of
Christ. It was the Old Testament shadow of the cross,
an active prophecy of the future, as well as an historical
memorial of the past.
Note some of the points of analogy between the Jewish
Passover and the sacrifice of Christ.
I. Both profess to deliver from death.
In each case the way of escape from it was of God’s
appointment.
The same peril of death hung over Israel as Egypt, and
left to themselves they must have perished.
The Passover was not discovered or planned by them as
likely to secure safety.
The peril of death as “the wages of sin” hangs over
every sinner, and we have not invented the Gospel of Jesus
Christ as our scheme of saving our souls.
Both ways are God-revealed, and neither can be altered
or improved upon.
The slaying of an innocent lamb, as the way of escape
in the Passover, points to the “holy, harmless, undefiled
One ‘slain for us.’ ”
II. After the paschal lamb had been slain, it was to be
eaten by those saved from death. And our Lord declares,
in words most solemn and profound, “Except ye eat the
flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, ye have no
life in you.”
Christ for us, and Christ in us, saving us from wrath, and
also making us partakers of the eternal life that dwelt in
Him.
III. The Passover appealed to faith, as the Cross of
Christ does.
The Jew did not understand how the rite was to avert
death from his home; but by refusing to avail himself of
the passover lamb, he would have shown that he wanted
the heart of all true religion, trust upon God rather than
in himself.
A living trust, which surrenders the whole man to Christ
to be saved and controlled, is the faith required of the
sinner.