CHRIST AS THE PASSOVER AND THE FEAST OF UNLEAVENED BREAD
[p. 50] CHRIST AS THE PASSOVER AND THE FEAST OF UNLEAVENED BREAD
CAC It has come before me whether it might not help us if we looked a little at Christ as the passover and the feast of unleavened bread. The Spirit of God has made them both one in Luke 22: 1, “Now the feast of unleavened bread, which is called the passover, drew nigh”.
I suppose that every thought of God must reach us first through our need. God begins with us in our deep need. He introduces His thoughts to us first in connection with our need. But there is what is much greater than our need or His meeting it, and that is what is in His heart, the thoughts He cherishes in His mind. It is a great thing if He brings into our souls a divine thought, as He can add to it and cause it to become bigger and bigger. We never leave anything behind in God’s things. The passover is brought before us in different settings. It was kept (1) in Egypt, (2) in the wilderness, (3) in the land, (4) in the days of Hezekiah and Josiah, (5) in days of recovery (Ezra), and (6) in the most blessed way of all when the Lord Jesus was here on earth. It was constantly coming out in new circumstances. The climax, the full thought, is reached when it is “fulfilled in the kingdom of God”. And, inasmuch as saints are in the kingdom of God now, it is the pleasure of God that we should come into the full thought now, and not only know it as at the first as a shelter from judgment. The kingdom of God is come for us; we are not waiting for it. As having the Holy Spirit, we are in the kingdom and the kingdom is in us. We may understand it in its fulness, as “fulfilled”.
Rem I think you have said that the kingdom of God was established when the Holy Spirit came down.
CAC Yes. The kingdom of the heavens is established in a glorified Man in heaven. There is a Man [p. 51] crowned with glory and honour in heaven this minute. There is supreme rule and influence from Him now. But the kingdom of God is established in the Holy Spirit down here. He is the seal of the righteousness of faith. “The kingdom of God is ... righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Romans 14: 17). It is what is in the Holy Spirit down here. The kingdom of God is a blessed sphere subsisting now, in the power of the Holy Spirit, down here in this world. We need to see what is here. Up there “we see Jesus ... crowned with glory and honour” (Hebrews 2: 9), but there is also what is here. We need to have our eyes opened to see (as Elisha’s servant of old, 2 Kings 6: 16, 17) heavenward and earthward.
The question is, What do I see? What is in the newspapers, or the circle where all the thoughts of God can be known in their fulness? Every thought that God had in His mind at the beginning? Peter speaks of “precious blood, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot, the blood of Christ, foreknown indeed before the foundation of the world” (1 Peter 1: 19, 20). That was long before Exodus 12. What God had in His mind then was that He was going to have a people brought to Himself. I was very thankful once to think that God was outside, happy because God could not reach me in His judgment. How different to know that “Christ indeed has once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God” (1 Peter 3: 18). We want to get more and more into the thoughts of God and escape from the thoughts of men; it is the only way of blessing. A great many are glad that God cannot reach them in His judgment, but that is not the truth. The truth is that all the blessing starts in the heart of God, not that Christ comes in to rescue us from God. What a difference! The first time, the passover was kept for shelter, but it was only once needed for shelter. We have not to keep it in one sense in that way as Christ has kept it for us. “By faith he (Moses) celebrated the passover and the sprinkling of the [p. 52] blood, that the destroyer of the firstborn might not touch them” (Hebrews 11: 28). Moses kept it for all Israel. The true Moses has really kept it for all who are brought to Him by the grace of God. The passover and the sprinkling of the blood stand in eternal blessedness for ever as the ground of our blessing with God.
Rem We “keep the feast”.
CAC “For also our passover, Christ, has been sacrificed; so that let us celebrate the feast”. There is a continual adding. What God gives you, you never leave behind. Did they leave the manna behind? No, they carried it over Jordan in the golden pot. They had a more blessed sense of what it was for God than ever they had in the wilderness. It was not needed for food then. We see the same thing with regard to Aaron’s rod. The priestly grace of Christ that was needed in the wilderness is carried over in the ark. It remained with them in a divine way in the ark. God is never going to let me lose one single thought of Christ that I have ever had. I am never going to lose it. Although I may be freed from the pressures where I valued it first, I shall enjoy it in full for ever.
God never let the passover drop out. At each new step God brought it in. Its first celebration starts the year, the first year. “This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you” (Exodus 12: 2). The second celebration takes place in the second year, “in the first month of the second year” (Numbers 9: 1). How much more glorious was it than the first! Why? Because it is not now a question of judgment or the destroying angel but of God having taken up His dwelling. The tabernacle has been constructed according to His mind: it has been put together and set up, and the glory has come down. It is God’s pleasure to be near to His people, and the first thing He would have them do is to hold the passover. And when He speaks of this second passover, He says of it, “Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with [p. 53] leavened bread; neither shall the fat of my feast remain all night until the morning” (Exodus 23: 18; see also chapter 34: 25). That refers to the passover. In Exodus 12: 5 it is spoken of as “your lamb”, what you need for shelter, but now it is “my sacrifice, my feast”. It is not “the fat” in Exodus 12, it is all about the blood there.
Ques Does “the fat” speak of the excellence of Christ?
CAC When we come to “the fat” we are getting more to God’s side of it, His own thoughts about it. We may have kept the feast in the fourteenth day of the first month of the first year, but have we kept it in the fourteenth day of the first month of the second year? God has not only taken us up to meet our need perfectly and divinely but to bring us to His thoughts of Christ. What a feast for God! He is carrying everything out through that “Lamb slain”; the book of life is connected with it in Revelation 13: 8, “Whose name had not been written from the founding of the world in the book of life of the slain Lamb”.
Ques When God says, “My sacrifice”, is He referring to what He sacrificed?
CAC It is His own delight in it rather, His delight in what comes about by the death of Christ, the fat of the Lamb. The blood speaks of the life given, meeting what is due to God. “The fat” would speak to us of the excellence of Christ such as God alone could estimate it. “All the fat shall be Jehovah’s” (Leviticus 3: 16), but “the blood shall be for you as a sign” (Exodus 12: 13). No one but the blessed God could measure what the fat speaks of.
Ques As to Philippians 3: 8, “The excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord”, how would that fit in?
CAC We see that God has got it first, and that stirs up our hearts to want it for ourselves. Paul was throwing what was gain to him behind him there. Everything else, apart from the excellency of that knowledge, was dross and dung. All that could commend Paul he throws aside. He says, as it were, ‘I have seen another Person. His love holds me fast’. In the embrace of that love he is prepared to throw everything else overboard. You come to keeping the feast, for you cannot eat the passover without keeping the feast because they are both one (Luke 22: 1). Nothing is to have any place with you but Christ. All that would give me a place has to go.
Rem I have known a lovelier One.
CAC All this fits in with the light of the glory of the tabernacle. Everything in it spoke of Christ. “Let them make me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them”. All the material came out of the hearts of the people. It was all a free-will offering. One had gold, another silver, and so on; all came from their side. God has taken us up to put valuable substance into our souls; He has put Christ there.
In every saint God has put spiritual substance so that we can contribute to His dwelling-place. We understand the blessing of God’s dwelling-place by contributing towards it the knowledge of Christ that we have. There are thousands of contributors. The way that God is working at this present time is that He puts the knowledge of Christ into the hearts of His people and thus we fit together. We should fit together beautifully if we only gave place to Christ.
Rem “That they may be all one” (John 17: 21 ).
CAC “One in us”, one in the knowledge of divine Persons. Divisions come in because we do not give place to divine Persons. The only way to unity is to let that which is of God and of Christ enter our hearts; then all that is of God and of Christ in one will fit with all else that is of God and of Christ, and thus we arrive at God dwelling; His people are round Him and near Him and learning the passover as God’s feast. The more we get increased, the more power there is for the practical refusal of the flesh, and the more power there is to keep the feast. How are we keeping it? In the light of Egypt or of the tabernacle, God dwelling? If I am keeping it in the light of God dwelling I shall have great [p. 55] power. What I know of God and of Christ becomes great power for keeping the feast, so that we get rid of the leaven in that way. In the sense of what the passover is to God, there is power in the soul to purge out what marked us in our unconverted days. “Not with old leaven”. Whatever taste we had in our unconverted days reasserts its power if we get away from God. Then there are also personal feelings, “the leaven of malice and wickedness”, but we have power by the Spirit to refuse the leaven and bring in the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. If we were content to be what the grace of God had made us, we should be happy. The apostle could say, “By God’s grace I am what I am” (chapter 15: 10). Let me be what the grace of God would make me. “In simplicity and sincerity before God, (not in fleshly wisdom but in God’s grace,) we have had our conversation in the world” (2 Corinthians 1: 12). They were like Christ. The question with us should not be ‘What is right?’ but ‘What is like Christ?’ We should be concerned to give expression to Christ.
Rem We are often slow to recognise what is of Christ in one another.
CAC An old brother used to say, ‘It takes a lot of grace in one to see a little grace in another’.
There is a great difference between the passover as kept in Egypt and that kept after the sanctuary had been made, setting forth all that God had found in Christ. The saints are now “the true tabernacle, which the Lord has pitched, and not man” (Hebrews 8: 2). Exercises with regard to holiness are most important. “The temple of God is holy, and such are ye”. There should be great exercise with us to maintain holiness.
Rem And all is to be “according to the pattern”.
CAC Some Christians ask whether certain things are left to our discretion or not. The answer is, ‘Nothing’. Everything was done with regard to the tabernacle “as Jehovah had commanded Moses”. Every ring and pin was [p. 56] made as God required it. If that was so in regard of the type, the shadow, how important now in regard of the substance that all should be according to “the Lord’s commandment” (1 Corinthians 14: 37). There is to be no allowance of contamination or defilement. Hezekiah commenced by cleansing the house of Jehovah, “And the priests ... carried forth all the uncleanness that they found in the temple of Jehovah” (2 Chronicles 29: 16). It was all cleared out and in view of keeping the passover also. They could not keep it for the pleasure of God except in holiness. There is a lack with us of keeping the feast. We are not sufficiently exercised about it and therefore we have not much access into the mind of God.
Ques Is to “keep the feast” a perpetual thing with us?
CAC “Seven days”. We work as Christians by the week. We begin the week on the first day by eating the Lord’s supper. The Lord ate the passover with His disciples and brought in new thoughts in connection with it. We eat it now in the light of all that the Lord has added to it.
The third passover was kept in a new position over Jordan and in the land, and in new conditions — after circumcision.
Ques Has the passover a burnt-offering aspect?
CAC The burnt-offering is introduced in connection with passovers observed in the days in Hezekiah and Josiah. In fact, in one passage the Spirit of God seems to speak of the passover as “the burnt-offerings” (2 Chronicles 35: 14). It was provided for in Numbers 28: 19 - 24, “besides the continual burnt-offering ... after this manner shall ye offer daily ... two young bullocks, and one ram, and seven yearling lambs”, etc. It is a wonderful setting forth of the excellence of Christ as the burnt-offering. We shall get a multiplied apprehension of the death of Christ as we begin to keep the feast.
Rem “And their oblation” also.
CAC You get a sense of the delight of God in connection with the death of Christ, “an offering and sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour” (Ephesians 5: 2). God is enriched. The sin-offering meets His claims but the burnt-offering enriches Him beyond measure and He wants us to know Him as thus enriched. The meat-offering is not offered in connection with atonement, but in connection with His perfect devotion to God as the obedient, dependent Person, “fine flour”.
Rem Also “oil” and “wine”.
CAC Oil denotes that everything was in the power of the Spirit, but the wine was poured out in the sanctuary. You can pour something out for God. And in Hezekiah’s day there is the addition of “cymbals, with lutes and with harps” and “at the moment the burnt-offering began, the song of Jehovah began” (2 Chronicles 29: 25 - 30). And it is a long time before the burnt-offering is finished, “all night unto the morning”. And we know the day that is going to break very soon when the glory of the Lord will cover the earth. Now, continually, we can send it up “all night”. “It shall never go out” (Leviticus 6: 13). The Spirit will maintain the affections of the saints for Christ. God will keep up the line of faith.
The greatest passover of all was when the Lord sat down with His disciples. It is said of the passover held in the days of Josiah, “And there was no passover like to that holden in Israel from the days of Samuel the prophet; neither did all the kings of Israel hold such a passover as Josiah held” (2 Chronicles 35: 18). But now, it is since the Lord was here. There was the sweetness of companionship in it: “With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer”. If He valued it then, does He not value it now? They were those given Him of the Father, their affections were bound up with Him: “Lord, to whom shall we go?” He sits down with them and connects (in Matthew and Mark) the loaf and the cup with the passover. In Luke they are separated or, rather, distinguished from it, His body [p. 58] given and His blood shed in relation to the new covenant. But in Matthew and Mark the thought of the passover is given fulness to. The Lord brought out a new glory and put it on the passover, and it will never be disconnected from it. Even in the millennium it will always have the character that the Lord gave it. God’s people on earth in a coming day will see the whole pleasure of God accomplished. The Lord brought in a new element, a cup which is not connected with the passover in the Old Testament.
Ques I suppose “this do in remembrance of me” (Luke 22: 19) is peculiar to us?
CAC The assembly is in view. “This is my body which is given for you”. It is the peculiarly blessed way in which the church enters into it. We have it in a better way than Israel will ever have. We understand the fulness of God’s thought in the passover — what God has found — and that has been furnished to Him in Christ in both the bread and the cup. “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you”. It is a cup into which we drink, filled with all the love of God.
Ques Would you connect it with Psalm 16: 5, “Jehovah is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup”?
CAC It was His portion as Man on earth and thus His cup — unbroken joy in the love of God, His own personal portion, as He says, “That they may have my joy fulfilled in them” (John 17: 13). What could be more blessed than to have His portion? God introduces a thought in connection with our need first, but He adds to it, and it becomes bigger and bigger until the Son comes and brings in the fulness of the divine thought, and we are set in it.
Ques “The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage”. Does that give us a thought of the Lord’s joy?
CAC It is His joy, what He acquires. He wanted it and He has got it, present possession of the assembly ([p. 59] Ephesians 5: 25 - 32). Someone may say, ‘But what if there are only two or three of us?’ Never mind, you can have the substance of it. There is no reason why two or three should not minister to Him. It is one loaf and one cup. If ninety-seven out of one hundred do not respond, it need not hinder the three. “And the whole congregation of the assembly of Israel shall kill it” (Exodus 12: 6), as if there were only one. And Hezekiah speaks of it being “for all Israel” (2 Chronicles 29: 24). “The cup ... which we bless”. How big is that “we”? Is not there room in it for every saint? “The bread which we break”. God supposes that every Christian does it. “We have all been baptised into one body ... and have all been given to drink of one Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12: 13) is the whole church of God. It is heartbreaking that so many are not there when we come to break bread, but two persons can hold the truth of God’s assembly for the whole church. The testimony consists in holding the truth for the whole assembly. The whole assembly will come out in the value of the truth in the day of glory. Some may then say, ‘But, Lord, we have known nothing of it before’, and He will answer, as it were, ‘I had a few faithful souls holding it for you all the time’. I feel inclined to say to believers sometimes, ‘I have valuable property in my possession that belongs to you and as soon as you put in a claim to it, the better will I be pleased’. The truth belongs to all saints. Anything not according to the truth is a lie. I want to be identified with the truth, not with a lie. You hold the truth as a steward for all saints. It is a great honour to hold it as the heritage of His people.
Rem It is said of some in 1 Chronicles 11: 14 that “they stood in the midst of the plot and delivered it ... ;and Jehovah wrought a great deliverance”.