The Pulpit Commentary — Exodus — Volume 1 — Section 284

HOMILIES BY VARIOUS AUTHORS. Vera. 21-29.-" Christ our Passover." The Passover was an eminent type of Christ, It wns probably to it the Baptist referred when be said," Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the Bin of the world" (John i. 29). Paul gives a decisive utterance on the question in the words: "Christ our passover is sacrificed for us" (1 Cor. v. 7). I. POINTS OF ANALOGY BETWEEN THE TRUE PASSOVER AND ITS TYPE. 1. In both the death of a blameless victim. The lamb, physically blameless (ver. 5); Christ, morally faultless. A sinful world needs a sinless Saviour. It bas one in Christ. 'Ibe sinlessness of Christ, a moral miracle, Proofs of this sinlessness. (1) Christ asserts bis own freedom from sin (John viii. 29-46; xiv. 30), (2) In no part of his conduct does be betray the least consciousness of guilt. Yet it is admitted that Jesus possessed tlce finest moral insight of any man who bas ever lived. (3) His e.po~tles, ~oe and all, believed him to be sinless (2 Cor. v. 21; Hel !, . 15; 1 Pet. ii. 22; 1 John iii. 5). (4) His enemies could find no fault in him (Matt. xxvi. 60; xxvii. 23, 24). (5) The very traitor confessed the innocence of Christ (Matt. xxvii. 4). (6) The delineation of his character in the gospels bears out the averment of his moral blamelessness. (7) The captious efforts which have been made, by fixing on a few paltry points in the gospel narratives to impeach Christ's sinlessness, indirectly prove it. "As if sin could ever need to be made out against a real sinner in this small way of special pleading ; or as if it were ever the way of sin to err in single particles, or homreopathic quantities of wrong" (Bushnell). 2. In both, the design is to secure redemption from a dreadful evi"l. In the one case, from the wrath of God revealed against Egypt in the smiting of its first-born. In the other, from the yet more terrible wrath: of God revealed against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men (Rom. i.18). "Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come" (1 Thess. i. 10). "Saved from wrath through him" (Rom. v. 9). 3. In both, the principle of the deliverance is that of vicarious sacrifice. The lamb was substituted for the first-born. It protected the house, on whose door-posts the blood was sprinkled, from the stroke of the avenger. The substitutionary character of the death of Christ is, in like manner, affirmed in innumerable Scriptures. Jesus" died for the ungodly" (Rom. v. 6). He "suffered for sins, the just for the unjust" (1 Pet. iii. 18). He gave "his life a ransom for many " (Matt. xix. 28). His blood is a propitiation (Rom. iii. 25). There is just ground for the remark of Coleridge (we quote from memory) that a man who would deal with the language of his father's will, as Unitarians on this and other points do with the language of the New Testament, would be liable to an action at law. 4. In both, there was need for an act of personal, appro- priating faith. " The people bowed the head, and worshipped. And the children of Israel went away, and did as the Lord had co=anded" (vers. 27, 28). "Through faith (they) kept the passover, and the sprinkling of blood," etc. (Heb. xi. 28). Their faith showed itself in sprinkling the blood on their door-posts and lintels, and in sheltering themselves under it,1 Nothing short of this would have availed to save them. So it is not knowledge about Christ, but faith in him; personal application to his blood, and trust in it as the means of salvation, which secures our safety. Faith is the bunch of hyssop. 5. In both, the slain lamb becomes the food of the new life. There was, on the part of the Israelites, a sacrificial feast upon the flesh of the lamb. This denoted, indeed, peace and fellowship with God, but it was also an act of nourishment. Simi- larly, under the Gospel, the new life is nourished by feeding upon Christ. We make him ours by inward appropriation and assimilation, and so are spiritually nourished for all holy service (cf. John vi.). Minor typical features might be insisted upon (male of the first year, roast with fire, not a bone broken, unleavened bread, bitter herbs of con- trition, etc.), but the above are the broad and outstanding ones. II. TnE SURPASSING EXCELLENCE OF TlI.E TRUE PASSOVER. It belongs to the nature of a type that it should be surpassed by the antitype. The type is taken from a lower sphere than the thing which it represents. So completely, in the case of the pass- over, does the reality rise above the type, that when we begin to reflect on it the sense of likeness is all but swallowed up in the sense of disproportion. How great, 1. The contrast in the redemptions. The redemption from Egypt, though spiritual elements were involved in it, was primarily a redemyt.iQQ from the power of Pharaoh, and from r.  278 THE BOOK OF EXODUS. (CH, XlI, 26, 27