Passover – Leaving Egypt (Part 2/2)
[Click here to read the first half of this article Passover – Leaving Egypt (Part 1/2)]
The Passover Elements:
- The Lamb
- The Blood
- Unleavened Bread
- Bitter Herbs
- Hyssop
- The Destroyer
3. Unleavened Bread
The Israelites were to bake bread without any leavening agent (yeast). This bread would then be eaten together with the Passover lamb and bitter herbs. Leaven (yeast) is a symbol of sin in the Bible. The Israelites were in a rush to leave Egypt (a type of the world and sin) and so had no time to let bread rise (takes hours). The symbolism of bread without leaven is of moving to a life without sin.
Jesus took our sin on the cross. Those that choose to follow Him, have Jesus come and live within them. Jesus exchanges His innocence for our guilt. We are sinless and made righteous in Him.
1 Corinthians 5:6-8
Your glorying is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
John 6:35
And Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst.
1 Peter 2:24
who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed.
1 John 2:1-2
My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And He Himself is the propitiation [appeasement] for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.
[Bread also represents Jesus’ body in the taking of communion – discussed in a later article]
4. Bitter Herbs
They were to eat the lamb and bread, together with bitter herbs. These herbs represented the bitterness of slavery in Egypt. The bitter herbs could also point out to us the bitterness of sin. Sin usually approached us pretending to be sweet, something to make us feel better or help us towards a goal, but sin always brings death and the ultimate results of sin are always bitter.
Romans 6:16-18
Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness? But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.
James 1:14-15
But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.
Romans 6:23
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
5. Hyssop
They were to make brushes from bunches of hyssop to apply the blood of the lamb to their doorways. Hyssop was also used during the crucifixion. When Jesus was thirsty on the cross, a sponge on some hyssop was dipped in sour wine and mockingly help up to His mouth.
Hyssop was used in purification and sacrificial rituals under the Old testament Law of Moses. Jesus was the final sacrifice for all time that purifies us from sin.
John 19:28-29
After this, Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said, “I thirst!” Now a vessel full of sour wine was sitting there; and they filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on hyssop, and put it to His mouth.
Hebrews 10:10-14
By that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. And every priest stands ministering daily and offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God, from that time waiting till His enemies are made His footstool. For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.
6. The Destroyer
The destroyer was to pass through the land of Egypt, entering every house that was not marked with the blood of a lamb and kill the first born. Only the Israelite houses were spared, because of the lamb’s blood on the doorways.
Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil, who is the source of all evil on earth. Jesus’ death, His shed blood on the cross, defeated the devil and stripped him of his power to devour us.
1 John 3:8
He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.
Colossians 2:13-15
And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.
John 10:10
The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.
1 Peter 5:8
Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.
Jesus triumphed over the devil and made us who are His, more than conquerors, able to resist the devil and send him fleeing away.
Romans 8:37
Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.
James 4:7
Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.
The passing over of the Israelites by the 10th plague of Egypt, is a type and shadow of Jesus’ redemption of mankind. The symbols that we saw point out the various elements of the ordeal that Jesus would go through to save us. He would pay the ultimate price, His life, to free us from slavery to sin and enable us to enter into our promised land, freedom from sin as citizens of the Kingdom of God.