Jesus interprets the Passover lamb as a symbol of his death on the cross. He uses the bread of the Exodus and the cup of redemption (Luke 22:20) at the Passover as a sign of remembrance of his death. He dies at this feast. Jesus is the Passover Lamb so that divine judgement may pass us by.
According to Exodus 13:13-15, the Passover lamb is not a sacrifice of restitution, but a ransom sacrifice. It is about release from slavery into a life with God. It is about a change of rule. God wants to free us from the slavery of sin so that we can live a life with him. It is about whether we want to live with God.
Rabbi Berel Wein writes in The Triumph of Survival, 1990: “It was an ancient Jewish tradition from biblical times that the death of the righteous and the innocent served as compensation for the sins of the nation or the world”. We find the death of a righteous person affecting the living in Numbers 35:25-28. There was a general amnesty at the death of the high priest. Isaiah also writes about the death of the righteous in chapter 53. “But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities … the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:5-6).
Jesus frees us to live with God by taking away everything that keeps us from living with God.
John the Baptist sees Jesus and says: “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).
He was born like a Passover lamb in a stable in Bethlehem.
Messiah images in the Torah
- God seeks us – Adam where are you?
- The possibility of a choice – Two trees in the Garden of Eden
- Neediness instead divinity – A new view
- God’s master plan – Salvation through a human being
- A divine clothing – God acts
- A world upside down – Kai and Abel
- Living in the presence of God – Enoch
- God is calling – Noah
- A king-priest like Melchizedek
- God visits Abraham
- Life through a sacrifice – Isaac
- The ladder to heaven – Jacob
- New identity from Jacob to Israel
- Messiah Ben Joseph – Joseph the son of Jacob
- Shiloh, whom all nations will serve – Blessing on Judah
- Moses, the prototype of the Saviour
- References to Jesus in Moses
- The Passover Lamb
- The pillar of cloud and fire
- God wants to be with us – The tabernacle / The temple
- The snake on a pole – An image of a new beginning
- The rock in the desert – Faith is not a method
- A prophet greater than Moses
- A star from Jacob – Bileam