NO OTHER FOUNDATION

        The Israelites celebrated the Passover in remembrance of God’s deliverance from the Egyptians. The last plague that God gave the Egyptians was the death of all of their first born sons. The Israelites were instructed to put blood of a sacrificed lamb or goat over their doorposts, and the angel of death passed over them, sparing their firstborn.  Leviticus 23:4 explains that the Passover was to be held on the fourteenth day of the first month. Israelites who did not participate in observance of the Passover were to be cut off from the community. Skylar explains they were to be cut off because their refusal was “equal to denying the Lord’s salvation and deliverance.”[1] 

The New Testament writers used the Passover to explain Jesus’ death and reasons for partaking in communion. The Passover was a time when the Israelites needed a sacrifice to save them from death. This is linked to the Christian who partakes in the Lord’s Supper, and remembers that it is through Jesus’ sacrifice that she is saved from eternal separation from God. Skylar explains this by saying, “It is during the communion meal, instituted by Jesus at the Passover feast (Luke 22:1-23), that Christians remember and proclaim, ‘Jesus, you are the mighty Saviour, the sacrificial lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!’ (cf. Isa. 53:5-12; John 1:29).”[2]

[1]  Jay Skylar, “Leviticus,”  in Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries, (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2014), 3:280.

[2]Ibid., 281.