This talk is about PassoThis talk is about Passover. Is not intended to be a Passover service. For those people who find themselves in small groups or who are forced to observe the Passover alone at home, there is a page at the ashininglight.info website called Observing the Passover at home. This will provide some guidelines for such a service. This talk will cover the history of the Passover, some of the various changes that have occurred down through history and some of the disputes taking place today within the Church of God.

                                    The story of the Passover begins with the story of Joseph. In about Genesis 37 and it continues through the rest of the book of Genesis, Joseph goes down to Egypt where after a period of many trials he is made the Prime Minister of the country. At that time during a period of intense famine in Judea, Jacob, whose name was changed to Israel, traveled to Egypt with all of his family. So Israel and Israel's children, his family, went down in Egypt, and they sojourned there for a period of about four hundred and thirty years and we pick up the story of the Exodus.

                                    In the book of Exodus and chapter 1, where we find in verse 6, “And Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that generation. And the children of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed exceeding mighty; and the land was filled with them. Now there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph”. As a brief aside here, that is one of the reasons why the Gospel has to be preached on a continual basis throughout all generations and no one group or person can complete the process of preaching the gospel to the whole world. The fact is that every time a certain generation has been taught and told and had the gospel preached to them, a new generation rises up, which knows not these things. So the preaching of the Gospel is not carried out by one person or one group but is a continual process down through the centuries.

                                    Now after about four hundred years, a new king arose in Egypt, who did not know Joseph, or Joseph's family, or Joseph's immediate descendants. He knew nothing of this. He only knew that there was a great mass of people who seem to be dominating his country. His country, his nation was being dominated by foreigners. He didn't like that and he began to oppress these people, and to use them, and take advantage of them, and heaped great burdens upon them, forcing them into labor teams, labor squads to fulfill his purposes in the building of his nation, and he oppressed them with great rigor.

                                    And Israel began to complain. The nation, the people, began to cry out to God for deliverance. And God heard their cries and he sent them a man called Moses. The birth of Moses is covered in Exodus 2. At this particular time, Pharaoh said, "Let us kill the male children so that the nation will not become greater than our own." The same thing is done in the world today, only they call it abortion. The vast majority of aborted children are ethnic minorities. This is a fact. Abortion is a means of controlling populations, in particular, controlling unwanted populations. In the same way that Pharaoh tried to control the unwanted population of Israel, yet Moses was spared by the midwives.

                                    And when his mother could no longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes verse three and covered it with slime and pitch, and put the child therein and laid it in the flags or reeds by the river's edge. And his sister stood afar off to see what would be done unto him. And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself at the river, and her maidens walking along by the river's edge saw the ark and sent and fetched it. And she saw the child and the babe wept up and she had compassion.

                                    Then said the sister of Moses, calling out to Pharaoh’s daughter, verse 7, “Shall I go and call to thee a nurse of the Hebrews, that she may nurse the child? And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, Go. And the maid went and called the child's mother. And Pharaoh's daughter said unto her, Take this child away, and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages. And the woman took the child, and nursed it”. So God oversaw and ordained that Moses should be cared for by his very own mother, and that she should receive wages for performing this service for Pharaoh’s daughter. And that this came about through Moses’ sister suggesting it to Pharaoh's daughter. It does not specifically say whether Moses had more than one sister, but it is conceivable that the girl in question was Miriam.

                                    “Now the child grew, and she brought him unto Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son, or like a son unto her. And she called his name Moses: and she said, Because I drew him out of the water”. The word Moses means to be drawn out and can also mean to be called out. As Pharaoh's daughter drew him out of the water, so God called him out from among the people to be his special servant, his prophet through whom he would deliver Israel from bondage. Now this Moses having been raised by his own mother within a home, within the family of Israel, was fully conversant with, had full understanding of, and knowledge of the conditions that the Israelites were forced to live under.

                                    He knew what it was like to be a slave, to be in bondage, to be under heavy oppression. He also knew what it was like to be a member of the court of Pharaoh, having been delivered to Pharaoh's daughter at a young age, as a young man. So he knew both sides. He knew what it was like to be oppressed and what it was like to be among the oppressors. And in verse 11 in Exodus 2, “And it came to pass at that time when Moses was grown, when he was an adult, that he went out unto his brethren, and looked upon their burdens: and he spied an Egyptian smiting an Hebrew, one of his brethren”.

                                    And in verse 12, Moses looked this way and that way, and when he saw that there was no one to observe, no witnesses, he killed the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand. He buried him in the sand.

                                    And when he went out the second day, he saw, two Hebrews striving together: and he said to him, “Who did the wrong? What’s wrong? Wherefore smitest thou thy fellow?” And in response he was told, “Who made you a prince and a judge over us? Intend you to kill me, as you killed the Egyptians?” And Moses knew that the thing was known. And he was afraid and said, “Surely this thing is known”. And now verse 15, Pharaoh heard about it and he sought to slay Moses. This was a crime in the court of Pharaoh in the country of Egypt. Murder was a crime and it was a criminal offense to kill an Egyptian. Therefore Pharaoh sought to execute justice and kill Moses according to the law of the land. But Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh and he dwelt in the land of Midian and he sat down by a well.

                                    And now the priest of Midian had seven daughters and they came and drew water, and filled the troughs to water their father's flock. And shepherds came and drove them away. Moses stood up and helped them, and watered their flocks. Helping them supposes that he objected to the actions of these shepherds and withstood them and opposed them. So Moses was a passionate man; man who saw injustice and lept up to do something about it, a man who cared about the weak, the innocent, and the downtrodden. Moses was this kind of a person. And when the daughters went to their father Reuel, they told him what had happened and he extended an invitation to Moses to enjoy his hospitality and the hospitality of his house.

                                    And Moses dwelt with the man and married his daughter Zipporah in verse 21. And she bore him a son and he called his name Gershom. And it came to pass in the process of time that that particular Pharaoh or king of Egypt died. But the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage and they cried, and their cry came up unto God by reason of their bondage. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And God looked upon the children of Israel, and God had respect unto them.

                                    Now we find that after spending about forty years in Midian, Moses met God. In chapter 3 of Exodus is the story of how God appeared unto Moses in the burning bush and sent Moses to Egypt. God went on to say that Aaron would be given to him as a helper and as a spokesman. At this time, Moses went to Egypt where he met Aaron along the way and the two of them went to the elders of Israel within the area that Israel inhabited. And they impressed the elders of Israel by doing certain miracles which God had instructed them to do. At this time, Moses and Aaron went to speak to Pharaoh saying. “Let my people go into the wilderness to sacrifice unto our God”. Pharaoh rejected this request.

                                    And over the next few chapters up to chapter 12, we find that a series of demands and rejections and plagues came upon Pharaoh, and the situation became very nasty and desperate for both Israel and Egypt, as plagues were placed on Egypt and Egypt retaliated against Israel. Now in Chapter 12 of Exodus we begin to come to the Passover. “And the Eternal spake unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year for you”. We are here talking or God is talking to Israel about the beginning of the year. And God is clearly stating that the year begins just before Passover, that the year begins in the Spring.

                                    The custom of Jewish people today to begin the year in the fall came from Babylon and their captivity in Babylon. Almighty God says you shall begin the year before the Passover. The Passover occurs in the first month of the year. In Exodus chapter 12:3, God commands Moses, “Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they should take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of his fathers, a lamb for a household: And if his household be too small for the lamb, let him and his neighbor next unto his house take it according to the number of the souls” or the persons.

                                    “Every man according to his eating shall make your count for the lamb. And your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year: ye shall take it out from the sheep, or from among the goats: And ye shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month: and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening”. Now here we have the commandment, you shall keep the lamb until the fourteenth day, and since the fourteenth day begins at the sunset ending the thirteenth day. And for more about the calendar, please take a look at our Biblical Calendar page at the TheShiningLight website. So at sunset ending the thirteenth, which is what the word “until” means, you shall keep it until the fourteenth day, the beginning of the fourteenth day, which is the end of the thirteenth, and the whole assembly of the congregation shall kill it in the evening, which is the beginning of the fourteenth.

                                    “And you shall take of the blood and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door post of the houses wherein you shall eat it. And you shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire, with unleavened bread; and with bitter herbs they shall eat it. Eat not of it raw, nor sodden or boiled at all with water, but roast with fire; and his head with his legs, and with all the appurtenances thereof. And ye shall let nothing of it remain until the morning; and that which remains of it until the morning ye shall burn with fire. And thus shall ye eat it; with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and ye shall eat it in haste: for it is the Lord's Passover”.

                                    In verse 12, “For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the Eternal. And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are: and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt. And this day shall be unto you for a memorial; and ye shall keep it a feast to the Eternal throughout your generations; ye shall keep it a feast by an ordinance forever”.

                                    So we see here that the lamb was to be taken on the tenth day of the month and kept until the fourteenth day at which time it was to be killed and the blood placed on the door post of the houses. Now I'm going to skip over the next few verses dealing with the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and go down to verse 21. So Moses did what God told him and he called for all the elders of Israel, and said unto them, “Draw out and take you a lamb according to your families, and kill the Passover. And you shall take a bunch of hyssop,” which is a leafy branch, “ and dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and strike the lintel and the two side posts with the blood that is in the basin; and none of you shall go out at the door of his house until the morning. For the Lord will pass through to smite the Egyptians; and when he sees the blood upon the lintel, and on the two side posts, the Eternal will pass over the door, and will not allow the destroyer to come in unto your houses to smite you”.

                                    “And ye shall observe this thing for an ordinance to thee and to thy sons forever. And it shall come to pass, when ye be come to the land which the Eternal shall give you, according as his promise, then you shall keep this service. And it shall come to pass, when your children shall say unto you, what do you mean by this service? You shall say, it is the sacrifice of the Eternal's Passover, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, when he smote the Egyptians, and delivered our houses. And the people bowed the head and worshipped. And the children of Israel went away, and did as the Eternal had commanded Moses and Aaron to do, so did they. And it came to pass, that at midnight the Eternal smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on his throne unto the firstborn of the captive that was in the dungeon; and all the firstborn of cattle”.

                                    It is very clear that the Eternal; and the Destroyer, or the Destroyer went to the land of Egypt at midnight. And since the day begins at sunset and ends at the next sunset, midnight is in the early part of the day. That is, the day begins at sunset and a few hours later is midnight, that is when the Destroyer went through the land, midnight. I am emphasizing this because there is a controversy about when to observe Passover; some people arguing that Passover should be observed at the end of the fourteenth or even on the fifteenth. The fact is, the lamb was to be taken on the tenth day and kept until the fourteenth, and killed.

                                    And it was absolutely essential that it be killed before midnight, in order to have the blood on the door post before midnight, the destroyer going through the land at midnight on the fourteenth. If they had   killed the lamb at the end of the fourteenth, the destroyer would have destroyed all the Israelite first born along with Egyptians because there was no blood on their door post before midnight on the fourteenth. This is clear, it is obvious from the Scripture but some are confused. Why are they confused? Because they are not looking at the word of God, they are considering the modern day observance of various Jewish groups who observe Passover at the end of the fourteenth, the beginning of the fifteenth.

                                    How did this tradition begin? I've seen many arguments and whole books written about the subject, going into great detail about the meaning of such words as evening or between the evenings, or the various Jewish traditions. How did they get from the original sacrifice of the lamb on the evening beginning the fourteenth to now observing it on the fifteenth? To understand this, we need to turn the Deuteronomy 16:1, “Observe the month of Abib, and keep the Passover unto the Lord thy God: for in the month of Abib the Lord thy God brought thee forth out of Egypt by night. You shall therefore sacrifice the Passover unto the Lord thy God, of the flock and the herd, in the place which the Eternal shall choose to place his name there”.

                                    There you have it in Deuteronomy 16, God inspired Moses to command the people not to kill the Passover on their own farms, or their own property, or their own homes, or their own villages, but to kill it at the place which the Eternal shall choose. And the place He chose to place His name and to be present; was the tabernacle in the wilderness, and later at a temple. So it was a commandment after that time in the wilderness that the people should kill the Passover only at the place God shall choose, only at the tabernacle, or later at the temple.

                                     Now there were a number of commandments made regarding the first Passover which were applicable only to the very first Passover; and were not necessarily applicable later on.

                                    For example, the blood had to be put on the door posts. People don't generally kill lambs and put blood on their posts anymore. That blood was necessary so that; on that particular night, when the Destroyer was going through, He would recognize the houses of Israel. The Destroyer is not going through the land tonight, or next year, or last year, or the year before. He went through on that particular occasion. It was only necessary for the blood be on the door post on that one night because the Destroyer was going through the land that night. In future Passovers, the Destroyer is not going through the land physically, and there is no need to physically put blood on the door posts.

                                    For the same reason that people were told, “Do not go out of your houses for the evening. Stay in your houses till the morning”. This was to protect them from the Destroyer. Because outside of their houses, He would not recognize them because they were not under the blood of their door posts if they were outside of their homes. Only by being in their homes, with the blood on the door post, would they be safe. If they went out during the night, they were not safe. And if they did not have blood on their door post they were not safe. These commandments were to protect those people on that one occasion.

                                    We know this because Jesus Christ himself with the disciples went out into the garden after the Passover. And not only did they go out, but the Jews themselves who arrested Christ also were out that evening. So we know that those particular commands about putting blood on the door post and about not going out were only for that particular occasion. Now we have the evidence we need to come to a solution of our problem. Why do the Jews now observe Passover at the end of the fourteenth or on  the fifteenth? The reason is simple. There was no longer a requirement to kill the lamb and put the blood on the door post at the very beginning of the fourteenth. There was instead; a command to kill the Passover at the temple.

                                    It came about as time went on, and the nation grew, that so many lambs were killed. That it was simply impossible to kill hundreds of thousands or perhaps a million or more lambs at the temple, in that one small area, between sunset and midnight. It just was not possible to accomplish that. Therefore, since there was no compelling reason to kill the lamb before midnight, and since they had all these lambs to kill on the Passover at the temple, it became necessary to prolong the period of the killing throughout the 14th. They began to kill at the beginning of the fourteenth and the killing progressed and continued throughout the night and on into the morning of the fourteenth.

                                    Meaning that those, whose lambs were killed last, would be eating their meal and observing the Passover at the end of the fourteenth. And over generations, it simply became tradition to eat the Passover at the end of the fourteenth. That's all there is to it. You don't need a 400-page book to explain that. They simply couldn’t kill that many lambs that quickly. Because  it took longer; and as it was still the fourteenth if they ate it before Sunset, they could observe the Passover on the fourteenth day of the first month. And gradually over hundreds and perhaps a couple of thousand years, it became the custom to observe Passover at the very end of the fourteenth and therefore to link it up with a Feast of Unleavened Bread which begins on the fifteenth.

                                    That's all there really is to it. In fact, the Passover lamb was killed at the beginning of the fourteenth in Egypt so that the blood could be put on the door post before midnight on the fourteenth so that the people would be spared from the Destroyer. The observance, as long as it takes place as a memorial on the fourteenth, is acceptable. This is why the sacrifice of Christ who died about 3 PM on the afternoon of the fourteenth was acceptable before God, and he was accepted as our Passover sacrifice for us; because he died still well within the 24-hour period, well within and on Passover day. We observe Passover at the same time that the Passover lambs were killed in Egypt, which is at the beginning of the fourteenth. We do this because Jesus Christ observed Passover on the beginning of the fourteenth day.

                                    We do this because Christ observed the Passover on the beginning of the fourteenth day. We find this in Luke 22:15 where he said unto them, with desire, with a deep feeling, “I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer”. And we know that he ate the Passover in the evening, went out in to the garden, was arrested about midnight which was  the same time that the Destroyer went through Egypt. Then he was taken before various judges, and eventually crucified and died at 3 PM on the fourteenth day. So Christ observed Passover at the exact time that the Israelites in Egypt observed it. And later he was killed in the afternoon of the fourteenth at the same time that the priests were completing the job of killing the lambs at the temple.

                                    Now what has Jesus Christ to do with the Passover? Very much. For it is written in I Corinthians 5:7, “Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us”. Jesus Christ was the Lamb of God. John chapter 1:29, “The next day John sees Jesus coming unto him, and says, behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world”. The Passover lambs died so their blood could be put on the door posts of Israel and Israel could be saved from the Destroyer. Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God died so that His blood could be placed upon the door posts of our hearts. So that His death, His sacrifice; could atone for our wickedness, our sins, and thereby enable us to enter the kingdom of God, and to enter the family of the Father.

                                    Jesus Christ paid the wages of sin. For it is written, “The wages of sin is death”. We have earned those wages, and He has paid those wages, paid that price in our place. Not so that we could continue in sin, but rather so that we can make a new beginning, free from sin, and free from the guilt of having sinned in the past, free from having to look forward to the penalty of death, which is the wages of sin. Christ's sacrifice covers us and atones for our sins as the sacrifice of those lambs. And the blood on the door posts covered the people of Israel so that the Destroyer would not go through and kill them.

                                    Even so, we who repent from breaking the Commandments, who turn away from breaking the Commandments, who embrace God, who seek to please Him by seeking his Commandments, will have the sacrifice of Jesus Christ applied to us, paying the penalty for us, atoning for sins. For it is through obedience and then the sacrifice and atonement of Christ for past sins that we may enter God's kingdom.

                                    For if Israel had not obeyed and had not killed the lambs, surely they would have died. Even so, we must obey God, and then surely we shall live as Israel lived for; Christ our Passover will atone for us, will cover us, will protect us from the Destroyer. Now Jesus Christ being our Passover lamb sacrificed for us replaces the lambs sacrificed year by year at the temple. And His sacrifice being complete and perfect need only be made once. As we sin from time to time and repent, it must be reapplied from time to time, which is why we repent on Passover day, the fourteenth day of the first month of each year. We repent and ask that His sacrifice be reapplied to us, even as a Passover was to be observed for a memorial for ever.

                                    The lambs were killed year by year on the fourteenth. And now that Christ has Himself been sacrifice on the fourteenth, we acknowledge His sacrifice year by year on the anniversary of that sacrifice, the anniversary of that Passover in Egypt, and now  the anniversary of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, His sacrifice, His death, covering our sins and protecting us from having to pay the penalty for those sins, the penalty of death, His blood protecting us from the avenging destroying angel of God, even as the blood on the door posts of Egypt protected Israel from the Avenger,  the destroying angel of God. Therefore physical lambs killed year by year are no longer necessary,  having been superseded by the sacrifice of the true Lamb of God.

                                    Jesus knowing these things were coming on that evening of the fourteenth of the first month, in Matthew 26:26, “And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body. And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying; Drink all of you of this cup; for this is my blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom”.

                                    This he said knowing that he was going to die before the next sunset. And in the resurrection He could drink it anew, but He would not be drinking any more wine or taking another Passover before His death and resurrection. So we find that Jesus then gave us the symbols of His body; which were the bread and wine.Tthe symbols of His sacrifice which are the bread and wine. And He did this knowing that the law proclaimed that the sacrifice of the lambs must take place in Jerusalem, must take place by the temple. And He knew that His people would be scattered. For it is written, “The sheep shall be scattered”.

                                    So we can turn to Matthew 18:20, where He tells us, “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them”. He is saying the place which God shall choose is any place where two or three are gathered together in My Name. If that occurs, if two or three are gathered in His name or at His command, He will be amongst them, and He will sanctify that meeting by His presence. Even so then, we no longer need to go to the temple and sacrifice a lamb, for we have a better sacrifice, a perfect sacrifice. And we can have a memorial of that sacrifice anywhere where the faithful can gather together, and not just at a temple because God no longer dwells in a physical simple. God dwells in His people, and His people as individuals possessing the Holy Spirit of God, make up the temple of the living God.

                                    Christ dwells in us, within us, every one of us as individuals through the power of His spirit. And we are the temple of God. Therefore, wherever God's people are, that is the temple of God. And we need not go to Jerusalem. We can observe it together; wherever we gather together as God's people. And as Jesus Christ observed the Passover at the beginning of the fourteenth, if He is dwelling in us, He will be doing the same thing in us today, which is, He will be motivating us to observe the Passover at the beginning of the fourteenth even as He did. And by observing it at the beginning of the fourteenth, we are keeping His example, following His example, following His instructions.

                                    Further, we have His perfect sacrifice. There is no longer any need to spend hours and hours of the best part of the day killing lambs. The perfect lamb, the perfect sacrifice has been offered. That sacrifice need only be offered once because it is perfect and complete. We only need to acknowledge that sacrifice by the taking of the unleavened bread and wine, which does not require hours and hours and hours of killing and processing lambs at a temple. It can be done in a short space by all God's people wherever they happen to be. There is no longer a need to take the whole day of the fourteenth for preparing, getting ready for Passover through the process of killing and preparing lambs throughout the entire day.

                                    The need is only to take the bread and wine at a simple service following the example of Jesus Christ by doing so at the beginning of the fourteenth day of the first month even as He did. In short, the killing of vast numbers of lambs in a small space, in a small enclosed area; made delays to the observance of the Passover necessary. It was only a matter of practical necessity. Jesus Christ by completely and perfectly fulfilling all the law of sacrifice, and all the law of the Passover, giving himself as our Passover Lamb, eliminated the necessity of taking a lengthy period of time for the killing and processing of the lambs, and brought the observance of Passover by his example and instructions back to the original timing of the first Passover in Egypt.

                                    And indeed the Passover is a memorial both of what happened in Egypt, and of what happened to Jesus Christ. For He, Jesus Christ, was our Passover sacrifice for us. And as it is written in Revelation 13:8, “He was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world”. That is, it was planned from the very beginning, even before the very first sin; that a means of atoning for sins should be made available to mankind, that Christ would indeed be the Passover Lamb, the Lamb of God given for our sins.