#3. The Lord's Supper is a Better Memorial than the Passover

1 Corinthians 5:7 — 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.

When God intervened to bring the nation of Israel out of slavery in Egypt, He purposed to

strike all the firstborn in the land in one night, but to spare His own people and make a

distinction between them and the Egyptians. Each household in Israel had to sacrifice an

unblemished lamb and apply the blood to the doorposts and lintel of their house, and when

the destroying angel came, he would pass over the houses where he saw the blood and not

bring judgment upon its occupants. Then He would lead His people out to possess the

inheritance He had promised in the land of Canaan.

The Lord did all that He had purposed, judging Egypt for her idolatry and harsh treatment of

His people. He instituted the Passover meal as an annual celebration and reminder for

Israel of their deliverance. However, the meal was also to serve another purpose for them.

They were to see the lamb as prefiguring the Messiah, Who would come and shed His blood

to deliver His chosen people from their slavery to sin.

So it was at His last Passover meal in Jerusalem that Jesus took the elements of that feast

and turned them from a means to remember the deliverance from Egypt and look forward

to Messiah's coming, into the Lord's Supper. Now it was to serve as a celebration and a

remembrance that, in the faithfulness of God, Messiah had indeed come. It was to remind

them that He had shed His blood to free His chosen ones from bondage to sin. It was to

speak of redemption - the purchase of His people at the cost of His precious life. It was to

speak of a hope and a future - the glorious inheritance prepared for the children of God in

heaven.

In our text, Paul confirms that Christ was indeed the fulfillment of this Old Testament

shadow. He was the fulfillment of the Passover Lamb.

If the Passover meal was full of significance to God's Old Covenant people, how much better

and how much more poignant is the Lord's Supper for the people of the New Covenant? For

those led by Moses out of Egypt, there was physical deliverance and the promise of a

physical inheritance in this world. For those led by Christ out of sin, there is spiritual liberty

and an eternal and unspeakably wonderful hope in glory.

So next time we come to the Table, think of Jesus, our Passover Lamb, perfectly fulfilling

the Old Testament shadow; providing certain salvation and eternal life for those who take

refuge in Him and come under the protection of His shed blood.

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