Although God’s people had made offerings and sacrifices to Him as far back as the time of Cain and Abel (Genesis 4:3-4), today’s passage is the first time that God commanded everyone to make an offering at the same time and for the same reason. The celebration of the Passover thus marks the inauguration of the ceremonial law, the set of rituals God’s Old Testament people would perform that pointed forward to the saving work of Jesus Christ.

And the sacrifice of Christ is so clearly in view in the Passover, isn’t it? The offering was to be from either the sheep or the goats, only one year old, and without blemish. In the same way, Jesus came to be one of us, and died as a young man who had never sinned. Moreover, in order for them to escape the judgment of God for their sins, ancient believers were to put the blood of the sacrifice on the outside of their houses – on either side of the door and on the threshold. Just so, Jesus’ hands and feet were pierced and His blood was shed so that all those who trust in Him might be forgiven.

But God’s ancient people weren’t just supposed to adorn their houses with the blood of the sacrifice. No, by eating the roasted lamb or kid, they were to take that sacrifice into themselves. In the same way, whenever Christians celebrate the Lord’s Supper, we take the bread and the fruit of the vine inside ourselves, indicating our union with Christ by faith. And just as God’s ancient people were told to repeat the ceremony every spring in remembrance of their deliverance from bondage to Pharaoh, so Christians celebrate our deliverance from bondage to sin and death whenever we observe the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.

And so we see the blessing of studying the ceremonial law of God: by looking at the Old Testament signs and symbols of the work of Christ that was yet to come, we gain a deeper understanding of that work. We are thus reminded that Christ has always been the only way of salvation – either for His Old Testament people who were looking forward, or for His New Testament people who are looking back to the one Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29).

Exodus 12:1-14 (NASB)

Now the LORD said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt,
2 “This month shall be the beginning of months for you; it is to be the first month of the year to you.
3 “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 their fathers’ households, a lamb for each household.
4 ‘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; according to what each man should eat, you are to divide the lamb.
5 ‘Your lamb shall be an unblemished male a year old; you may take it from the sheep or from the goats.
6 ‘And you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month, then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel is to kill it at twilight.
7 ‘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.
8 ‘And they shall eat the flesh that same night, roasted with fire, and they shall eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.
9 ‘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.
10 ‘And you shall not leave any of it over until morning, but whatever is left of it until morning, you shall burn with fire.
11 ‘Now you shall eat it in this manner: with your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it in haste– it is the LORD’s Passover.
12 ‘For I will go through the land of Egypt on that night, and will strike down all the first-born in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments– I am the LORD.
13 ‘And 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 befall you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.
14 ‘Now this day will be a memorial to you, and you shall celebrate it as a feast to the LORD; throughout your generations you are to celebrate it as a permanent ordinance.