Again, the consecration of the first-fruits, the first- born of the soil, is an easy type of the consecration of the first-born of the Israelites. This seems to be coun- tenanced by Exod. xiii, 2-4, where the sanctification of the first-born, and the unleavened bread Avhich figured it, seem to be emphatically connected with the time of year, Abib, the month of green eiirs (see Gesenius, Thesaur. In the Sept. it is called fii]v rwv v'twv, sc. Kapirwv). If Nisan is a Shemitic word. Gesenius thinks that it means
the month of jiowers. in agreement with a passage in Macarius {Horn, xvii), in which it is called ^u)v twv av^oJv. But he seems inclined to favor an explanation of the word suggested by a Zend root, according to which it would signify the month of Neif-year''s day.
4. Typical Import of the Festival. — No other shadow of good things to come contained in the law can vie with the festival of the Passover in expressiveness and completeness. Hence we are so often reminded of it, more or less distinctly, in the ritual and language of the Church. Its outline, considered in reference to the great deliverance of the Israelites which it commemorated, and many of its minute details, have been appropriated as current expressions of the truths wliich God has re- vealed to us in the fulness of times in sending his Son upon earth.
It is not surprising that ecclesiastical writers should have pushed the comparison too far, and exercised their fancy in the application of trifiing or accidental partic- ulars either to the facts of our Lord's life or tt# truths connected with it. The crossed spits on which Justin Martyr laid stress are noticed above. The subject is ex- panded by Vitringa ((Jhserrat. Sac. ii, 10). The time of the new moon, at wliich the festival was held, has been taken as a type of the brightness of the appearing of the Messiah ; the lengthening of the days at that season of the year as figuring the ever -increasing light and warmth of the Redeemer's kingdom ; the advanced hour of the day at which the supper was eaten, as a represen- tation of the fulness of times; the roasting of the lamb, as the effect of tiod's wrath against sin; the thorough cooking of the lamb, as a lesson that Christian doctrine should be well arranged and digested; the prohibition that any part of tlie flesh should remain till the nKtrn- ing, as a lorcshow ing of the haste in which the body of Christ was removed from the cross; the unfermented bread, as the emblem of an humble spirit, while ferment- ed bread was the figure of a heart puffed up witli pride and vanity (see Suicer, sub irdaxc)- I" t^i^ ^'''''^ spirit Justin Martyr and Lactantius take up the charge against the Jews of corrupting the O. T., with a view to deprive the Passover of its clearness as a witness for Christ. They specifically allege that the following passage has been omitted in the copies of the book of Ezra : " Et dixit Esdras ad populum : Hoc pasclia salvator noster est, et refugium nostrum. Cogitate et ascendat in cor vestrum, quoniam habemus humiliare eum in signo; et post haic Sjierabimus in eum, ne deseratur hie locus in ffiternum tempus" (Just. Mart. Dialorj. cum Tryp. ; Lact. fnst. iv, 18). It has been conjectured that tlie words Aay have been inserted between vers. 20 and 21 in Ezra vi. But they have been all but universally regarded as spurious.
But, keeping within the limits of sober interpretation indicated by Scripture itself, the application is singularly full and edifying. The deliverance of Israel according to the flesh from the bondage of Egypt was always so regarded and described by the prophets as to render it a most apt type of the deliverance of the spiritual Israel from the bondage of sin into the glorious liberty with which Christ has made us free. The blood of the first paschal lainbs sprinkled on the doorways of the houses has ever been regarded as the best defined foreshadow- ing of that l)lood which has redeemed, saved, and sanc- tified us (Ileb. xi, 28). The lamb itself, sacrificed by the worshipper without the intervention of a priest, and its flesh being eaten without reserve as a meal, exhibits the most perfect of peace-offerings, the closest type of the atoning Sacrifice who died for us and has made our peace with God (Isa. liii,7; John i,29; comp. the expres- sion " mv sjicrifice," Exod. xxxiv, 25, also Exod. xii, 27 ; Acts viii. 32; 1 Cor. v, 7 ; 1 Pet. i, 18, 19). The cere- monial law, and the functions of the priest in later times, were indeed recognised in the sacrificial rite of the Passover; but the previous existence of the rite showed that they were not essential for the personal ap- proach of the worshipper to God (Isa. Ixi, G ; 1 Pet. ii,
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5, 9). The unleavened bread is recognised as the figure of the state of sanctineation which is the true element of the believer in Christ (1 Cor. v, 8). The haste with which the meal was eaten, and the girt-up loins, the staffs and the sandals, are fit emblems of the life of the Christian pilgrim, ever hastening away from the world towards his heavenly destination (Luke xii, 35; 1 Pet. i, 13; ii, 11; Eph. v, 15; Heb. xi, 13).