Israel started preparation for bringing the Passover sacrifice on the 10th day of the month of Aviv:
This month shall be the beginning of the months for you; it is to be the first month of the year for you. 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. (Exodus 12:2-3)
The Jews guarded the selected lamb until the evening of the 14th day of the month of Aviv, when the animal was slaughtered. On the night from the 14th to 15th, the lamb was roasted over fire and eaten:
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… And they shall eat the flesh that same night, roasted with fire, and they shall eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. (Exodus 12:6,8)
Chapter 28 of the book of Numbers tells of the time and character of the sacrifices which had to be brought by Israel in the name of the Lord. Amongst such sacrifices, the Passover sacrifice is also mentioned. It is noteworthy how the chapter begins:
Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, "Command the sons of Israel and say to them, "You shall be careful to present My offering, My food for My offerings by fire, of a soothing aroma to me, at their appointed time." (Numbers 28:1-2)
The Lord required His people not only to follow the order for sacrifices but also to strictly observe His appointed time.
Peter in his first epistle, when speaking of Jesus as the sacrificial lamb, points to the fact that His sacrifice was brought at the time that God appointed:
…you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ. For He was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but has appeared in there last times for you…
(1 Peter 1:18-20)
In this way, the Passover sacrifice prophetically points to two dates in the last year of Jesus' life: 10th Aviv and the evening of 14th Aviv. Through the fixed dates when the Passover sacrifice was brought, the Lord shows the day on which the Christ will be given over to death: the evening of the 14th day of the month of Aviv, at the same time as the Passover lambs are slaughtered.
Jesus adds to the prophecies of the Old Testament by saying to His disciples that He will rise from the dead on the third day after the crucifixion. In this case we have one more date - the 17th of the month of Aviv.
Now it is important for us to investigate the events that happened on the 10th, the 14th and the 17th of Aviv and then as a result to analyse: was the order of bringing the Passover sacrifice observed in the sacrifice of Christ?
The gospel of Mark informs us that Jesus was raised on the first day of the week i.e. on the day after the day of rest, the Sabbath. We call this day Sunday. As we have already seen, according to the prophecies this is the 17th of Aviv. In this case, the day of Jesus' crucifixion falls on Thursday. (see diagram)
But traditionally it is considered that the crucifixion happened on Friday. We will try to solve this. Firstly, in Scripture (for example John 19:14) the day of the crucifixion is described in the original text as the day of preparation for the Passover. Secondly, Jesus said that He shall be
"Three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." (Matthew 12:40).
On the diagram it can be seen that if Jesus had died on the Friday, then there would have been only two nights and three days before His resurrection. But if, as we have established, the crucifixion happened on Thursday evening then we can count three nights, two full days and the start of the third day before the resurrection, which corresponds to the words of Jesus.
As Thursday is the day of Jesus' crucifixion, it is necessary to commentate on the chronology of the Gospels, as it can seem contradictory in this case.
We turn to the Gospel of Luke 22:7-18
Then came the day of Unleavened Bread on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed. (Luke 22:7)
According to the Law of Moses, the Passover lambs were slaughtered on the 14th in the evening. They were eaten at the beginning of the 15th, at night. And on the 15th, the feast of Unleavened Bread began, which continued for seven days. Therefore the day of the slaughter of the Passover lambs and the first day of the feast of Unleavened Bread are different days. But Luke writes that these events coincided. What can we say? As we have already noted, in the original it talks of the day of preparation before the Passover. On the last day before the Passover (14th Aviv), the Jews began their preparations for the coming feasts: Passover and Unleavened Bread. During the course of the day they cleansed their houses from anything that had leaven. This was a ritual in which the whole family took part. The adults and children searched their house and, when they found something with leaven, they burnt it on the fire or, crumbling it to dust, they threw it to the wind.
We find confirmation of this in Paul's writing,
"Clean out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump,
just as in fact you are in fact unleavened.
For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed.
Let us therefore celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. (1 Corinthians 5:7-8)
Paul, knowing full well the Jewish traditions, says that the feast is preceded by the cleansing from leaven. Therefore, all day on the 14th, the Jews were concentrated on the preparation of their houses for the feast of Unleavened Bread, cleansing them from any leaven and then, towards evening, they slaughtered the Passover lambs. Probably, because of this,Scripture also calls the day of the slaughter of the lambs the day of Unleavened Bread: the Unleavened days informally started a day earlier with the cleansing of the houses from leaven.
Further we will note that the Jewish day starts at 6pm (approximately the time when it becomes dark). So the day starts and ends in the evening. Luke says that as the day came (the first evening of the "day") of 14th Aviv, Jesus, without waiting for the night to pass, sends His disciples to prepare the Passover and indicates precisely where they would spend the Passover.
In the evening, He explains His haste:
… And He said to them, "I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer; for I say to you, I shall never again eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God." (Luke 22:15-16)
At the supper, the Lord shares bread and wine with His disciples but of course we do not see them sharing the Passover lamb, since the time to slaughter the Passover lamb has not yet come. (If they had eaten the Passover lamb, it would be reasonable to expect Jesus to compare the flesh of the lamb with His flesh, but He compares His body to the bread.)
At the end of the supper, Jesus leaves to go and pray in Gethsemane, where He is arrested by the chief priests, the officers of the temple and the elders. During the course of the night and the morning, Jesus goes through the courts and is beaten. By 9am He is crucified. And at about 3pm Jesus dies. The next few hours until the end of the Jewish day are spent on preparing and burying the body.
Scripture says more than once that the Sabbath day comes after the burial of Jesus i.e. Thursday was followed by the Sabbath. To resolve this question we will turn to John 19:31.
The Jews, therefore, because it was the day of preparation, so that the bodies should not remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a high day), asked Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away.
John notes that the coming Sabbath was a high day. The first day of the feast of Unleavened Bread had come which, according to the law was a day of rest, a Sabbath. The month of Aviv had been declared by the Lord to be the first in the year since such great events had happened in this month - God had led the Jews out of slavery in Egypt. It is not surprising that the day of this month when they celebrated Passover and Unleavened Bread was considered to be a great or high day. The day of rest (15th Aviv) could fall on any day of the week. In the year of Jesus' death, it fell on a Friday. In that case, there were two Sabbath days next to each other, one of which (the high day) fell on the Friday and the other as usual was the day of rest on the Saturday. That is why Scripture speaks of the day that came after the Thursday of crucifixion as being a Sabbath.
Here it is important to understand that our aim is not to establish the "correct" day for celebrating Christ's suffering. The day in which Jesus tasted death will serve as a starting point in our further research: which events happened to Jesus as the sacrificial, Passover lamb on the 10th of Aviv.
On one of the last days of His life, Jesus says to the disciples,
"You know that after two days the Passover is coming, and the Son of Man is to be delivered up for crucifixion." (Matthew 26:2)
Jesus is talking about the evening of 14th Aviv. From the diagram, we establish that He says these words on Tuesday, since that is two full days before Thursday evening, when the Passover events were to begin.
The Gospel of Mark presents us with a detailed chronological account of what happened before Jesus said these words. From 11:20 to the end of chapter 13 we read about the events of Tuesday as in 14:1 Mark indicates that the Passover was two days off. From 11:12 to 11:19 Mark describes what happened on Monday. Finally, from the beginning of chapter 11 until the end of verse 11, he tells us about the events of Sunday, 10th Aviv.
This day we call "Palm Sunday", when Jesus rode triumphantly into Jerusalem.
In this way we have established the following: 10th Aviv, Sunday, when the Jews separated out their Passover lambs from the herd, Jesus triumphantly rode into Jerusalem; 14th Aviv, Thursday evening, when the Passover lambs were slaughtered, Jesus died on the cross at Golgotha; 17th Aviv, Sunday, Jesus rose from the dead early in the morning.
Knowing what happened to the Lord Jesus on the 10th and 14th of Aviv, it will also be interesting for us to see how this is linked with what the Jews did to their Passover lambs.
With the help of Old and New Testaments we will look at how the order of bringing the sacrifice of the Passover lambs was preserved in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
Was observed:
The lambs were separated from the herd and observed from 10th to 14th Aviv: 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… And you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month… (Exodus 12:3,6)
Jesus from the 10th to the 14th of Aviv was open for everyone to see:
before 10th Aviv, when Jesus triumphantly entered into Jerusalem, He had had to hide from the people. The first reason for this was in the desire of the people to make Jesus king, avoiding God's will:
Jesus therefore perceiving that they were intending to come and take Him by force, to make Him king, withdrew again to the mountain by Himself alone. (John 6:15)
The second reason is in the desire of the religious leaders to put Jesus to death before the time that God had appointed:
Therefore they were seeking again to seize Him, and He eluded their grasp. And He went away again beyond the Jordan… (John 10:39-40)
But from the 10th Aviv Jesus was no longer in hiding, but was open for all to see.
Now during the day He was teaching in the temple, but at evening He would go out and spend the night on the mount that is called Olivet. And all the people would get up early in the morning to come to Him in the temple to listen to Him. (Luke 21:37-38)
Without Blemish:
Lamb shall be without blemish: Your lamb shall be an unblemished male a year old; you may take it from the sheep or from the goats (Exodus 12:5)
Jesus was tempted, but was without sin: And they watched Him, and sent spies who pretended to be righteous, in order that they might catch Him in some statement, so as to deliver Him up to the rule and the authority of the governor. (Luke 20:20)
And Pilate summoned the chief priests and the rulers and the people, and said to them, "You brought this man to me as one who incites the people to rebellion, and behold, having examined Him before you, I have found no guilt in this man regarding the charges which you make against Him… (Luke 23:13-14)
Kept:
The lambs were kept for several days: 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. (Exodus 12:6)
Jesus was kept by the people: And they were seeking to seize Him; and yet they feared the multitude; for they understood that He spoke the parable against them. And so they left Him and went away. (Mark 12:12)
Now the Passover and Unleavened Bread was two days off; and the chief priests and the scribes were seeking how to seize Him by stealth, and kill Him; for they were saying, "Not during the festival, lest there be a riot of the people." (Mark 14:1-2)
Bones not Broken:
The bones of the lambs remained whole: They shall leave none of it until morning, nor break a bone of it; according to all the statute of the Passover they shall observe it. (Numbers 9:12)
Jesus' legs were not broken: But coming to Jesus, when they saw that He was already dead, they did not break His legs (John 19:33)
The Offering is made in Jerusalem:
The Passover sacrifice is brought in Jerusalem: but at the place where the Lord your God chooses to establish His name, you shall sacrifice the Passover in the evening at sunset, at the time you came out of Egypt. And you shall cook and eat it in the place which the Lord your God chooses. And in the morning you are to return to your tents. (Deuteronomy 16:6-7)
Jesus was crucified by the walls of Jerusalem: "Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered to the chief priests and the scribes; and they will condemn Him to death, and will deliver Him up to the Gentiles." (Mark 10:33)
Sacrifice with Blood:
In the Passover ceremony the blood of the lambs was used: 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. (Exodus 12:7)
Jesus' sacrifice is also linked with blood: And when He had taken the cup, and given thanks, He gave it to them; and they all drank from it. And He said to them, "This is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many." (Mark 14:23-24)
…but one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately there came out blood and water. (John 19:34)
In Christ's sacrifice it was not only the time and order of the offering of the Passover lambs that was preserved, but we also find in Scripture the analogy of the results achieved.
Deliverance from Death:
The Passover sacrifice: 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 judgements - I am the Lord. 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. (Exodus 12:12-13)
… "it is a Passover sacrifice to the Lord who passed over the houses of the sons of Israel in Egypt when He smote the Egyptians, but spared our homes…" (Exodus12:27)
The sacrifice of Christ: For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. (John 3:16)
Freedom from Slavery:
The Passover sacrifice: And Moses said to the people, "Remember this day in which you went out from Egypt, from the house of slavery; for by a powerful hand the Lord brought you out from this place. And nothing leavened shall be eaten. (Exodus 13:3)
The sacrifice of Christ: Since then the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil; and might deliver those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives. (Hebrews 2:14-15)
Therefore, the study of the Old and New Testaments leads to the conclusion: the Old Testament Passover sacrifices prophetically point to the perfect sacrifice, which was to be brought by Christ Himself. The events of the last days of the life of Jesus of Nazareth in detail correspond to the events that happened to the Passover lambs: a correspondence in time, order and result of the sacrifices of the Passover lambs and the sacrifice of Jesus is observed.
Jesus is the Christ
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