OUR PASSOVER LAMB (1st Corinthians 5:6-8)

INTRODUCTION:

            This evening, we remember the death of the Lord Jesus Christ.  His death paid for a debt of sin that we could not pay, and He did it while we were dead in our trespasses and sins not even knowing that we needed someone to save us from God’s wrath against sin.  Jesus Christ became our Passover Lamb that saved us from God’s judgment on sin.  For a few minutes this evening, as we remember the death of Jesus Christ, I want to look at how His death is pictured for us in the Passover.  Our jumping off point will be 1st Corinthians 5 where Paul rebukes the church in Corinth for allowing a man in the church to live in an immoral relationship.  Paul in his rebuke relates this to the Passover meal.  Let’s pray and then open the Scriptures.

--PRAY--

SCRIPTURE:

            Turn in your Bibles this evening to 1st Corinthians 5:6-8, and if you are able, please stand in honor of the reading of God’s Word and follow along as I read.

     1st Corinthians 5:6-8,

            “Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough? Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed. Therefore let us celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” (1 Corinthians 5:6–8, NASB95)[1]

UNLEAVENED BREAD (1st Corinthians 5:6-7a)

            Paul begins verse 6 by talking about bread dough.  It is not clear if the boasting that he refers to is the boasting of the man in the immoral relationship, or the boasting of those in the church who have tolerated this immoral man and allowed him to continue to attend and participate in the church.  Either way Paul says that this boasting is not good, then he relates it to leaven or yeast that just takes a small amount in a lump of dough, and it quickly permeates the whole lump of dough and causes it to rise and if left unchecked it will take over.  Yeast is often used in Scripture to represent sin and if it is not dealt with, it slowly like yeast takes over.  The Passover meal began the seven-day festival of unleavened bread in which only unleavened bread was to be eaten.  Even today, before Passover begins the houses of orthodox Jews are cleaned from top to bottom to make sure that no yeast is anywhere to be found in their houses. 

Paul, using yeast to represent sin tells the Corinthian church to clean out the old yeast, the sin within the church and become a new lump of dough without yeast.  Just as they are in fact unleavened dough because of their salvation.

THE PASSOVER LAMB (1 Corinthians 5:7b)

Then Paul makes this statement, “For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed.” (1 Corinthians 5:7b, NASB95)[2]  It is this statement that I really want to look at this evening, how is Jesus Christ our Passover.  Everything about the Passover pointed to Christ, the true Passover Lamb.  The Passover was instituted in Egypt just before the final plague on Egypt.

Exodus 11 explains the tenth and final plague.  Exodus 11:4-7 says, “Moses said, ‘Thus says the Lord, “About midnight I am going out into the midst of Egypt, and all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of the Pharaoh who sits on his throne, even to the firstborn of the slave girl who is behind the millstones; all the firstborn of the cattle as well.  Moreover, there shall be a great cry in all the land of Egypt, such as there has not been before and such as shall never be again.  But against any of the sons of Israel a dog will not even bark, whether against man or beast, that you may understand how the Lord makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel.”’ ” (Exodus 11:4–7, NASB95)[3]   In verse 5, the LORD did not say, “all the firstborn of the land of Egypt shall die,” but “all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die.”  The Lord’s judgment included the Israelites equally with the Egyptians.  But then in the seventh verse we are told that a dog will not even bark against any of the sons of Israel, for the Lord makes a distinction between the Egyptians and the Israelites.  The sentence of universal condemnation proceeded from the righteousness of God; the difference that He put between Egypt and Israel was the outflow of His grace.  But how can justice and mercy be reconciled?  How can justice be fulfilled and complete without excluding mercy?  How can mercy be shown except at the expense of justice?  The solution to this is found in Exodus 12.  All the firstborn in the land of Egypt did die, and yet all the firstborn of Israel were delivered from the Angel of death.  And it is in this solution that we see the death of our Savior.

            In Exodus 12 we have recorded the 10th plague that the Lord inflicted on Egypt, the death of the firstborn.  We know that death is the wages of sin, so we must understand that it is sin that is being dealt with here by God.  This being the case, both the Egyptians and the Israelites alike were condemned under God’s righteous judgment because both were sinners.  As Paul wrote in Romans 3:23, “…for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” (Romans 3:23, NASB95)[4]  It is true that God had purposed to redeem Israel out of Egypt, but He would do so only on a righteous basis.  His holiness can never ignore sin, no matter where it is found.  So how can Israel not be judged along with Egypt?  God’s grace made sure that every demand of justice was satisfied; every claim of holiness was fully met.  And how was it?  By means of a substitute.  The sentence of death was executed, but it fell upon an innocent victim.  That which was without blemish died in place of those who were marred by sin.  The only difference between the Egyptians and the Israelites was the blood of the Passover lamb.  The whole value of the blood of the Passover Lamb lay in the truth that it is a type or a picture of the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, as our text in 1st Corinthians states, “For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed.”  (1 Corinthians 5:7b, NASB95)[5]  If you were to read through Exodus 12 you would find that never once is the plural “lambs” used.  It is always singular because in the mind of God there is only One Lamb, the Passover Lamb that went to Calvary. 

            The lamb that was chosen by each household had to be without blemish, just as Peter tells us in 1st Peter 1:18-19, “…knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ.” (1 Peter 1:18–19, NASB95)[6]   The Israelites were instructed that at twilight on the fourteenth day each family was to kill the unblemished lamb that they had chosen, the blood of the lamb had to be shed so that they could then apply it to the two doorposts and the lintel of the door going into the house.  When the Angel of death passed through the land of Egypt and saw the blood on the doorposts and lintels, he would Passover those houses.  Why?  Because death had already done its work there.  The innocent had died in the place of the guilty.  Because of this justice was satisfied.  Those within the blood sprinkled houses were secure.  It was the blood alone that mattered.  Those within the house may have been descendants of Abraham, they might have been circumcised on the eighth day, and in their outward life they might be walking blamelessly as far as the Law was concerned.  But it was neither their genealogy, nor their ceremonial observances, nor their works, which secured deliverance from God’s judgment.  It was their personal application of the blood and that alone that secured their deliverance.  In other words, they had to by faith believe that what Moses instructed them to do was the word of the Lord. And God who does not lie would keep His Word.  God wants us to come to Him in faith, and it was faith that rendered the Passover sacrifice effective.  Listen to the words of Hebrews 11:28, “By faith he [Moses] kept the Passover and the sprinkling of the blood, so that he who destroyed the firstborn would not touch them.” (Hebrews 11:28, NASB95)[7] The death and shed blood of our Lord Jesus Christ must also be received by faith.  When we agree with God that we are sinful, and we put our faith in our substitute Jesus Christ, our Passover sacrificed for us, and God accepts His blood shed for us and His judgment passes over us, and we are justified before Him because Christ’s death has satisfied the righteous demand of God for sin.

CONCLUSION:

            As I close this evening, thinking about the death of the Lord Jesus Christ and His blood that was shed on our behalf, let me ask you what you are trusting in.  Deliverance from the judgment for sin is found only in the finished work of Christ.  Nothing else can satisfy the demand of God for sin.  Not religious experiences, not church ordinances, not self-sacrifice, not church membership, not works of mercy, not a good character.  Nothing in and of ourselves can satisfy God’s righteous demand for sin.  The first thing each of us must do as condemned sinners is to make sure that we are relying upon what Christ has done for us, are we each in faith trusting that His shed blood was applied to us so that God in His judgment against sin will see the blood of His Son and pass over us.  If the blood has been applied, then we are secure and no longer condemned to die, because our innocent, spotless Substitute has already died for us.  But do not believe my words for your assurance, believe what Jesus Christ, the Son of God said in John 5:24, “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.” (John 5:24, NASB95)[8]

[1]New American Standard Bible: 1995 update. (1995). La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.

[2]New American Standard Bible: 1995 update. (1995). La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.

[3]New American Standard Bible: 1995 update. (1995). La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.

[4]New American Standard Bible: 1995 update. (1995). La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.

[5]New American Standard Bible: 1995 update. (1995). La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.

[6]New American Standard Bible: 1995 update. (1995). La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.

[7]New American Standard Bible: 1995 update. (1995). La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.

[8]New American Standard Bible: 1995 update. (1995). La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.