Passover Part 2

Many people know that Yeshua (Jesus) fulfilled the feast of Passover as the Passover Lamb, the Messiah of Israel. However, the depth and the extent to which he COMPLETED this feast to the fullest needs to be more talked about and celebrated.

The Exodus Passover required a lamb to be sacrifieced and its blood to be smeared on the doorpost and doorframes of the home. God said this was to be a sign to the PEOPLE that when He (God) sees the blood on the doorpost, He would pass over that house and the life of the firstborn (children, as well as cattle) would be spared. (Exodus 12:13). Why did God say that it would be a sign to the PEOPLE that when GOD sees the blood, He would pass over? I find this interesting. Could it be that God was wanting the sign to point to something or Someone in particular? After all, isn't that what a sign does? Point to something else? God also told the Israelites that they are to observe the Passover throughout all their generations. If the children of Israel grew up looking for a sign, the sign of the promised Messiah, this would be God's insurance that they would have what they needed in order to recognize Him when He came.

Many Chrisitans today know that the way in which the Israelites painted the blood on the doorposts would create the shape of a cross. But did you also know that this doorway, or gate, if you will, itself was also fulfilled by Yeshua of Nazareth? For Jesus said in Matthew 7:13, "Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it." Many people today criticize those who believe in Jesus for being narrow-minded and intolerant. If they are narrow-minded in the sense that they are telling the truth that there is only one prescribed way to enter into eternal life, that being through Jesus' atoning sacrifice alone, then what the critics say is true. But not because Christians themselves are intolerant or biggoted. It is what Yeshua Himself said. Yeshua said "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father but through me" (John 14:6).. Now, either Jesus was evil, he was a liar, or He was telling the truth and fulfilling God's Passover. (Since his works were not commensurate with being either evil nor a liar, then one is left to look at his claims for being who he said he was.)

If I were going full speed ahead and were going to go off of a cliff, I would be very grateful that someone was there to tell me to turn or go another way. I would want a sign of warning. I would not argue with the sign or be angry at the person who put up the sign. I would hope that I would follow the specific instructions for a detour so that I would not be in peril. Such it is with the Kingdom of God (God and His ways).


God Himself was very specific in His instructions to the Israleites in slavery in Egypt as to how He wanted their faith to be applied. The blood of the lamb on the doorpost would be a sign to THEM and HE would see it and spare their lives. The application was the blood of the lamb. That was the provision for the remission of sin. For according to the Law, everything is cleansed by blood and without the shedding of blood, there can be no remission of sin (Hebrews 9:22). The Jews of Jesus' day knew this. And they had been told the story of the exodus every year since they were able to talk. So if Yeshua was God's only provision for the cancelling of man's sin debt (for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God), then He truly IS the NARROW GATE, stained with blood. For He is the lamb who was slain before the foundation of the earth.

I have often heard it said that as believers in Yeshua, we must have His blood over the doorpost of our hearts. This is a description of something very real which happens in the spirit realm and in the hearts of men. All sin (from the Greek means 'to miss the mark') which was inherited through Adam, requires a payment in God's eyes. Man was given a conscience at birth and has silenced that conscience through habitual sin and justifying of one's own actions. (I was taught, if you have to justify it, it is SIN!) Yet, God is not bound by space and time and His righteous justice demands a payment. When we sinned 20 years ago, to the Lord, it is like it was yesterday. Yet before the first man sinned....God made a provision for it! He was specific in His prescription for the forgiveness of sin. And man cannot take the credit. Nothing we could do in our own works could be good enough to earn the forgiveness of God. And we cannot first make ourselves clean enough to come before a holy God. The Apostle Paul in his book to the Ephesians puts it this way: "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, lest any man should boast". 2:8 (emphasis mine). It was faith (trust) in God's word and promise in the Passover provision and it is that same trust that is required for us to have our sins washed away today. Trust requires confession and it requires action.

Many pray and ask God to forgive them, accepting Messiah's blood alone as payment for their sin. They are thus in relationship with God and are given Holy Spirit to live inside their hearts and to guide them. They are then children of God, living by new standards and called out to be holy, serving the One true God. Just as the children of Israel were called out of Egypt, out of bondage to slavery to become a called-out people dedicated to service to God, living by new guidelines and laws. So too, we are called out of bondage to sin, called to be a holy people, unlike the rest of the world. And God writes His law on our hearts so that we have a spirit that desires to do His will rather than sin.

Whether we realize it or not, every Passover, (and everytime we take communion in church), we are rehearsing this ancient yet important mandate, as a foreshadowing and at the same time, a looking back, to how a loving awesome God wanted so much to have us restored to close personal fellowship with Him and give us a life that is abundant and full of joy. I can think of no better reason to have a feast!!