Yeshua, The Fulfillment Of The Exodus
If you look at the time around the Exodus from Egypt and compare it to the time of the Crucifixion, we see that they are like bookends.
Exodus 12:1-13 tells us, “Now the Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, “This month shall be the beginning of months for you; it is to be the first month of the year for you. Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying, ‘On the tenth of this month they are, each one, to take a lamb for themselves, according to the fathers’ households, a lamb for each household. Now if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his neighbor nearest to his house are to take one according to the number of persons in them; in proportion to what each one should eat, you are to divide the lamb. Your lamb shall be an unblemished male a year old; you may take it from the sheep or from the goats. You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month, then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel is to slaughter it at twilight. Moreover, they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. They shall eat the flesh that same night, roasted with fire, and they shall eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. Do not eat any of it raw or boiled at all with water, but rather roasted with fire, both its head and its legs along with its entrails. And you shall not leave any of it over until morning, but whatever is left of it until morning, you shall completely burn with fire. Now you shall eat it in this way: with your garment belted around your waist, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it in a hurry—it is the Lord’s Passover. For I will go through the land of Egypt on that night, and fatally strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the human firstborn to animals; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments—I am the Lord. The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live; and when I see the blood I will pass over you, and no plague will come upon you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.”
The blood on the doorpost covered the people inside from the death angel. But to escape death, a lamb, a perfect unblemished lamb, had to be sacrificed. First, let us look at Yeshua, as He too, had to be examined.
Luke 19: 29-40 says, “After Yeshua said these things, He was going on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. When He approached Bethphage and Bethany, near the mountain that is called Olivet, He sent two of the disciples, saying, “Go into the village ahead of you; there, as you enter, you will find a colt tied, on which no one yet has ever sat; untie it and bring it here. And if anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ you shall say this: ‘The Lord has need of it.’” So those who were sent left and found it just as He had told them. And as they were untying the colt, its owners said to them, “Why are you untying the colt?” They said, “The Lord has need of it.” And they brought it to Jesus, and they threw their cloaks on the colt and put Jesus on it. Now as He was going, they were spreading their cloaks on the road. And as soon as He was approaching, near the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the miracles which they had seen, shouting: “Blessed is the King, the One who comes in the name of the Lord; Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” And yet some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Him, “Teacher, rebuke Your disciples!” Yeshua replied, “I tell you, if these stop speaking, the stones will cry out!”
Yeshua entered Jerusalem for everyone to see and examine Him, because He was going to be the perfect unblemished Lamb, the Passover Lamb, going to slaughter on the fourteenth day of the month of Nissan. The people examined Him and cried out, “Blessed is the King, the One who comes in the name of the Lord.”
1 Corinthians 5:7 tells us this, “Get rid of the old yeast, so that you may be a new unleavened batch—as you really are. For Messiah, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old bread leavened with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.”
When we accept Yeshua as our Passover Lamb, we too, then cover the doorway to our hearts with His blood as John 5:24 tells us, “I assure you, most solemnly I tell you, the person whose ears are open to My words [who listens to My message] and believes and trusts in and clings to and relies on Him Who sent Me has (possesses now) eternal life. And he does not come into judgment [does not incur sentence of judgment, will not come under condemnation], but he has already passed over out of death into life.”
Yeshua kept the Passover. What we call the Last Supper was Yeshua and His disciples eating the Seder Meal. Luke 22:10-13 tells us, “He replied, “As you enter the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him to the house that he enters, and say to the owner of the house, ‘The Teacher asks: Where is the guest room, where I may eat the Passover with My disciples?’ He will show you a large room upstairs, all furnished. Make preparations there.”They left and found things just as Yeshua had told them. So they prepared the Passover.”
When Yeshua took the bread which was unleavened bread, and broke it, and said “This is My body”, what He was doing was breaking the Afikoman, which is the middle piece of three Matzahs which are on the Seder dish, and it was this that He broke. When He took the cup and said , “This is My blood,” this was the cup called Redemption; it is one of four cups in the Seder. When He said, “Remember Me,” He said this because up till now we are remembering the Exodus from Egypt, but at this point of the Seder Yeshua, now wants us to remember Him and His crucifixion. This is why the Seder is done on the fourteenth day of the Biblical calendar, because it was on this day that He was crucified and became our Passover Lamb.
We also see from Exodus 12:1-13 that they were to eat the meal in readiness, and they needed to prepare the meal a certain way. So why was that so important? Because it represents all five offerings in Leviticus.
- The Passover sacrifice was a Peace offering, Leviticus 7:12-15, this was also an offering of a sweet aroma to God. The blood, the fat and the kidneys of the offering were put upon the altar as “the food of the offering made by fire unto the Lord” (Lev. 3:11). This was God’s part. Then the breast was given to Aaron and his sons and the right shoulder to the offering priest. This was man’s part. Thus God and man both fed on the same offering which speaks of communion and fellowship and typifies the communion which the believer in Messiah enjoys with God on the basis of the work of Messiah at the cross and His blood shed there for our sins. We are at peace with God through the work of the cross and can feed upon Christ in fellowship with the Father. Luke’s Gospel and Psalm 85 especially present this theme. The sacrifices had to be eaten in one or two days.
2. The Grain offering, Leviticus 2:2, the Passover was eaten with unleavened bread and herbs. This offering typifies Messiah as the perfect and sinless Man and presents to us His wonderful Person and His spotless life which was an offering of a sweet aroma unto God. There was no shedding of blood in this offering so it speaks of the perfection of the Messiah, His person and His life rather than of His death. The fine flour pictures His sinless humanity with its evenness of moral qualities, the oil pictures the grace and power of the Holy Spirit which characterized His life, while the frankincense is emblematic of the sweetness and fragrance of His Person and life.
3. The Sin offering, Leviticus 4:23. We come now to the non-sweet savor offerings. The special feature of this offering is in the whole bullock being burnt upon the ground outside the camp of Israel after the blood and fat were put upon the altar for God. This offering was for sin and pictures to us Messiah who was made sin for us (2 Cor. 5:21) and endured the judgment and wrath of God against sin in our stead as our substitute. The holiness of God and the awfulness of sin are brought out in the bullock being entirely burnt up outside the camp. It pictures Messiah, forsaken of God, as our Sin-bearer as given in Psalm 22 and Mark’s Gospel.
4. The Burnt offering, Leviticus 1:3. Here we have the highest aspect of the work of Messiah where He is seen offering Himself up entirely to God to do His will even unto death. The whole offering, except the skin of the animal, was burnt upon the altar and all went up to God as a sweet savor. It pictures Messiah who gave Himself as “a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savor” (Eph. 5:2). Messiah is not seen here as bearing our sins, but as accomplishing the Father’s will, glorifying Him and vindicating the holiness and majesty of His throne. This theme is especially prominent in John’s Gospel and in Psalm 40.
5. The Guilt offering is also called “reparation.” Here sin is looked at as a trespass against the government of God. Amends had to be made for the wrong done and the fifth part added to it. Atonement was made by the blood of the offering, and the trespasser was forgiven. This offering presents Messiah who died for our sins, and trespasses, restoring that which was taken away because of sin(Ps. 69:4). He has not only answered to God for our sins and paid our debt by His shed blood, but has added the fifth part, as it were, bringing more glory to God and more blessings to man than were had before sin was committed. This is the first view the sinner gets of the Cross of Messiah. Psalm 69 and Matthew’s Gospel present this aspect of the offering of Messiah.
Yeshua’s death represents all of these offerings, in so much that by fulfilling them He canceled the debt that was ours to pay. This is why the Passover Seder should be kept by believers, because we too, have our Exodus from Egypt (the world). We too, are covered by the blood, and we too, now can pass over from death to life.
Exodus 13:1-16 goes on to say this,“The Lord said to Moses, “Consecrate to Me every firstborn male. The first offspring of every womb among the Israelites belongs to Me, whether human or animal.” Then Moses said to the people, “Commemorate this day, the day you came out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery, because the Lord brought you out of it with a mighty hand. Eat nothing containing yeast. Today, in the month of Nissan, you are leaving. When the Lord brings you into the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Hivites and Jebusites—the land He swore to your ancestors to give you, a land flowing with milk and honey—you are to observe this ceremony in this month: For seven days eat bread made without yeast and on the seventh day hold a festival to the Lord. Eat unleavened bread during those seven days; nothing with yeast in it is to be seen among you, nor shall any yeast be seen anywhere within your borders. On that day tell your son, ‘I do this because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt.’ This observance will be for you like a sign on your hand and a reminder on your forehead that this law of the Lord is to be on your lips. For the Lord brought you out of Egypt with His mighty hand. You must keep this ordinance at the appointed time year after year. “After the Lord brings you into the land of the Canaanites and gives it to you, as He promised on oath to you and your ancestors, you are to give over to the Lord the first offspring of every womb. All the firstborn males of your livestock belong to the Lord. Redeem with a lamb every firstborn donkey, but if you do not redeem it, break its neck. Redeem every firstborn among your sons. “In days to come, when your son asks you, ‘What does this mean?’ say to him, ‘With a mighty hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. When Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go, the Lord killed the firstborn of both people and animals in Egypt. This is why I sacrifice to the Lord the first male offspring of every womb and redeem each of my firstborn sons.’ And it will be like a sign on your hand and a symbol on your forehead that the Lord brought us out of Egypt with His mighty hand.”
What we see here is that the last plague upon Egypt was the death of the firstborn, man and animal. Because of this, God required the Israelites to consecrate their first born, also. We know that Yeshua was Mary’s first born child and He too was consecrated to God also as Luke 2:22-24 tells us, “When the time came for the purification rites required by the Law of Moses, Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, “Every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the Lord”), and to offer a sacrifice in keeping with what is said in the Law of the Lord: “a pair of doves or two young pigeons.”
So the people fled Egypt. They came to the Red Sea and it was here that they noticed that Pharaoh’s army was pursuing them as Exodus 14:10-14 tells us. “As Pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up, and there were the Egyptians, marching after them. They were terrified and cried out to the Lord. They said to Moses, “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? Didn’t we say to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians’? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!” Moses answered the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.”
Yeshua and His disciples ate and left quickly also. Luke 22:39-44 tells us this, Yeshua went out as usual to the Mount of Olives, and His disciples followed Him. On reaching the place, He said to them, “Pray that you will not fall into temptation.” He withdrew about a stone’s throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed, “Father, if You are willing, take this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done.” An angel from heaven appeared to Him and strengthened Him. And being in anguish, He prayed more earnestly, and His sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.”
Like the people when they saw Pharaoh’s army , they too, went through a spiritual battle. They cried out to God, “Save us!” Yeshua also asked God to save Him by removing the cup before Him.
Exodus 14:21-31, continues, “Then Moses reached out with his hand over the sea; and the Lord swept the sea back by a strong east wind all night, and turned the sea into dry land, and the waters were divided. So the sons of Israel went through the midst of the sea on the dry land, and the waters were like a wall to them on their right and on their left. Then the Egyptians took up the pursuit, and all Pharaoh’s horses, his chariots, and his horsemen went in after them into the midst of the sea. But at the morning watch, the Lord looked down on the army of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and cloud, and brought the army of the Egyptians into confusion. He caused their chariot wheels to swerve, and He made them drive with difficulty; so the Egyptians each said, “Let me flee from Israel, for the Lord is fighting for them against the Egyptians.” Then the Lord said to Moses, “Reach out with your hand over the sea so that the waters may come back over the Egyptians, over their chariots and their horsemen.” So Moses reached out with his hand over the sea, and the sea returned to its normal state at daybreak, while the Egyptians were fleeing right into it; then the Lord overthrew the Egyptians in the midst of the sea. The waters returned and covered the chariots and the horsemen, Pharaoh’s entire army that had gone into the sea after them; not even one of them remained. But the sons of Israel walked on dry land through the midst of the sea, and the waters were like a wall to them on their right and on their left. So the Lord saved Israel that day from the hand of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore. When Israel saw the great power which the Lord had used against the Egyptians, the people feared the Lord, and they believed in the Lord and in His servant Moses.”
Romans 6 :1- 7 tells us, “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? Far from it! How shall we who died to sin still live in it? Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Messiah have been baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that, just as Messiah was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for the one who has died is freed from sin.”
Yeshua’s death freed us from the power of sin. Egypt represents the world, and leaven represents sin. When Israel went into the water, it was like they were dead and buried, but when they came out of the water it was like they were resurrected into new life.
Paul speaks about it this way in Philippians 3:7-11, “But whatever things were gain to me, these things I have counted as loss because of Messiah. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Messiah Yeshua my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them mere rubbish, so that I may gain Messiah, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Messiah, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; if somehow I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.”
Paul was saying that faith, the same faith that Israel had when they went into the sea, we must have in the death and resurrection of our Messiah. We must suffer and die also, like Yeshua, having the faith to lose everything for Him, knowing that one day we will rise also after death. This faith in Him, and becoming like Him is what makes us righteous in Him.
Pharaoh and his army suffered loss also, just like Satan and his army did when Yeshua died that day, for it tells us in Colossians 2:13-15,
“And when you were dead in your wrongdoings and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our wrongdoings, having canceled the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through Him.”
We also had the victory for Colossians 1:13 says,
“For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son.”
We had our Passover, we had our forgiveness as Hebrews 9:22 tells us, “And almost all things are cleansed with blood, according to the Law, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.”
Now we can be light and have fellowship with each other as 1 John 1:7 says, “But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, His Son, purifies us from all sin.”
Now it is time to celebrate and that is just what the people did. Exodus 15:1-4a,20 says, “Then Moses and the sons of Israel sang this song to the Lord, saying: “I will sing to the Lord, for He is highly exalted; The horse and its rider He has hurled into the sea. The Lord is my strength and song, and He has become my salvation; this is my God, and I will praise Him; my father’s God, and I will exalt Him. The Lord is a warrior; The Lord is His name. Pharaoh’s chariots and his army He has thrown into the sea..” “Miriam the prophetess, Aaron’s sister, took the tambourine in her hand, and all the women went out after her with tambourines and with [dancing.”
Yeshua, also rose victoriously, it is said in Matthew 28: 1-10, “Now after the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to look at the tomb. And behold, a severe earthquake had occurred, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled away the stone, and sat upon it. And his appearance was like lightning, and his clothing as white as snow. The guards shook from fear of him and became like dead men. And the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid; for I know that you are looking for Yeshua who has been crucified. He is not here, for He has risen, just as He said. Come, see the place where He was lying. And go quickly and tell His disciples that He has risen from the dead; and behold, He is going ahead of you to Galilee. There you will see Him; behold, I have told you.” And they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to report to His disciples. And behold, Yeshua met them and said, “Rejoice!” And they came up and took hold of His feet, and worshiped Him. Then Yeshua said to them, “Do not be afraid; go, bring word to My brothers to leave for Galilee, and there they will see Me.”
And again in Revelation 5:11-14, “Then I looked, and I heard the voices of many angels around the throne and the living creatures and the elders; and the number of them was myriads of myriads, and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slaughtered to receive power, wealth, wisdom, might, honor, glory, and blessing.” And I heard every created thing which is in heaven, or on the earth, or under the earth, or on the sea, and all the things in them, saying, “To Him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be the blessing, the honor, the glory, and the dominion forever and ever.” And the four living creatures were saying, “Amen.” And the elders fell down and worshiped.”
There are so many reasons why believers should be celebrating these days of Passover. They would have been, if man did not change the dates and times that were written in the Bible. This is your heritage, it is yours, and as Believers in the One True God, and His Word,that makes us Judeo -Christians, grafted into Israel as Paul tells us in Romans 11:17-18. Let us be the true light to the world, testifying to God’s truth, not man-made theology.
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