GOD'S PROGRAM FOR HIS PEOPLE PREDICTED IN ISRAEL'S FEASTS

II.  The Feast Of Passover And Unleavened Bread: Salvation And Holy Living

(Leviticus 23:4-8)

 

I.               Introduction

A.    The Leviticus 23:1-44 feasts for Israel typologically predict God's program for His people in history (Bible Know. Com., O. T., p. 208), what is valuable for us to study today in view of unsettling current events.

B.    The second feast is Passover and Unleavened Bread treated as a single feast (Leviticus 23:4-8), what typifies our salvation in Christ followed by a holy life that is tied to that salvation, cf. 1 Corinthians 5:7b-8.

C.    We thus view Scripture to understand the truths of this feast in God's program for His people (as follows):

II.            The Feast Of Passover And Unleavened Bread: Salvation And Holy Living, Leviticus 23:4-8.

A.    Passover typifies the salvation provided by Christ's substitutionary atonement on the cross (as follows):

1.      The Apostle Paul claimed that "Christ our passover is sacrificed for us," 1 Corinthians 5:7b.

2.      Viewing the details of this event provides a rich source of types regarding Christ's work on the cross:

                         a.        The Passover lamb was to be without blemish, without evidence of man's Fall into sin and its resulting curse (Exodus 12:5a), typifying the sinlessness of Christ, our qualified substitute on the cross, 2 Cor. 5:21.

                         b.        The lamb was to be a male, one year old, typifying Christ in His humanity, Exodus 12:5b; John 1:1, 14.

                         c.        The Passover lamb was to be slain literally "between the evenings," that is, about 3-5 p.m., on the fourteenth day of the month Abib [later called Nisan]; Ryrie Study Bible, KJV, 1978, ftns. to Exodus 12:2 and 12:6.  Jesus was crucified at the time of the daily morning sacrifice at 9:00 a.m. and He died at the time of the daily evening sacrifice and also at the time of the slaying of the Passover lambs in Judea -- at 3 p.m. on Nisan 14. (Harold W. Hoehner, Chronological Aspects of the Life of Christ, 1979, p. 89)  

                         d.        No bone of the Passover lamb was to be broken, Exodus 12:43-46b, typifying the fact that not a single bone of Christ was broken in His suffering and death on the cross, John 19:33-36.

                         e.        The blood of the Passover lamb was applied to the two side posts and the upper door post of the house of a household in Israel to keep the Lord Himself from killing the firstborn in that house, Exodus 12:7, 12-13.  Likewise, the blood of Christ so propitiated the wrath of God against the sinner that when one believes in Christ, typified by the application of the blood to the door posts of the house, God's wrath passes over him and he is saved from eternal damnation by the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ! (Romans 3:23-28)

B.    Unleavened Bread typifies the holy life a believer is equipped and required of God to live (as follows):

1.      The feast of Unleavened Bread is intimately connected to the Passover observance: the feast of Unleavened Bread that lasted for seven days, began the evening of the Passover itself, Exodus 12:6, 18.

2.      Both the start of Unleavened Bread and the last day of this feast were "holy convocations," Sabbaths that we noted in our last lesson in this series signified God's grace when man is to rest from his futile self-help meritorious works to try to please the Lord, Lev. 23:7-8.  This has significant applications for us today: 

                         a.        Christ's death, typified in the Passover, provides salvation based solely on God's grace, for man is saved not by works of righteousness that he performs, but by God's mercy, Titus 3:5.  Any effort to mix faith with man's meritorious works errs in violation of the first Sabbath of Unleavened Bread! (Ephesians 2:8-9)

                         b.        Similarly, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, so closely connected to Passover, indicates that the holy life we are to live as typified by this feast in 1 Corinthians 5:8 is based on God's gracious salvation in Christ and the provisions that His salvation supplies to enable the believer to live a holy life, cf. Galatians 2:20.

                         c.        In addition, the feast of Unleavened Bread is seven days long, the number seven typologically throughout Scripture signifying completeness or perfection, picturing how a believer in Christ by the provisions of the cross of Christ is equipped of God to live a perfectly holy life, Leviticus 23:8; 1 John 2:1.

                         d.        Also, the feast of Unleavened Bread is framed by two Sabbath Days, one that starts it and the other that completes it, Lev. 23:7-8.  Typologically, this fact teaches that the holy life we believers in Christ are to live is achieved completely by God's grace, a life of faith and not self-help works of the sin nature, cf. Galatians 5:16.  Only God can live a holy life, so we must rely on God to live it through us, Galatians 2:20.

 

Lesson: The Feast of Passover and Unleavened Bread typologically testify to the salvation Christ wrought in His work on the cross that is made available by God's grace coupled with a resulting holy life that is intimately based upon and connected to the gracious provisions of that salvation and that is produced entirely by the grace of God.

 

Application: Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us, so may we keep the feast of Unleavened Bread in holy living.