No. 775
Some Thoughts for the Memorial
“For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us: Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” (1 Cor. 5:7-8)
The date for celebrating the Memorial to our Lord in 2022 is April 13, after 6:00 p.m. The date is determined by this method: The moon nearest the Vernal Equinox becomes new in Jerusalem on April 1 at 9:24 a.m., thus establishing 6 p.m. March 31 as the beginning of Nisan 1, Bible reckoning. Counting forward to Nisan 14, we arrive at 6 p.m. April 13. Any time that evening after 6 p.m. would be proper for the celebration.
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The instructions for the Passover in Egypt were very rigid, even as respects the time it should be kept. Up until that time the Jewish year began with the first day of the seventh month – Tishri; but the institution of the Passover changed that. The month Abib was then to become the first month: “And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you.” (Exod. 12:1-2) Since that time the Jews observe two years – the religious year beginning with Abib, or Nisan, and the business year beginning with Tishri. However, all recordings in the Bible after the Passover in Egypt are reckoned as from the month Abib, or Nisan.
This change was not without purpose. Prior to the Passover, the Jews had no organized religious ritual. The religious order which they had when they entered Canaan some forty years later was the one arranged for them through Moses at Sinai in the wilderness, when the Aaronic priesthood and the Tabernacle ceremonies were first instituted. This would seem to suggest to us that the secular year revealed the character of the dispensation previous to the present one – commonly known as the Jewish Age. It would be followed by the ecclesiastical year, and would suggest the spiritual character of the present dispensation. Here then is contrasted the dealings of God during the Jewish Age, along the rigid lines of the Law, to His Grace dealings during the present age. Prior to the Gospel Age, God’s dealings with His covenant people were along earthly and secular lines; whereas, during this Gospel Age His dealings with His people have been along spiritual and ecclesiastical lines.
The fact that God changed the beginning of the year in connection with His institution of the Paschal Lamb, its feast and the entire Passover festival, suggests that the change of the year is typical of the Lord changing His dispensational dealings at the beginning of the Gospel Age, for the change in the type was made because of the Passover Lamb, its feast and its following festival, which properly type Christ our Lamb, with the privileges and blessings of the Christian life that attach to it.
And concerning the date on which the Passover and its subsequent memorials were to be kept, the instruction was very specific – it was to be on the fourteenth day of the first month. (Exod. 12:6-11)
DELIVERANCE FROM THE BONDAGE OF EGYPT
The Feast of the Passover, celebrated every year for seven days, began with the fifteenth day of the first month. It celebrated in a general way the deliverance of the people of Israel from the bondage of Egypt – but particularly the passing over, or sparing alive, of the firstborn of that nation during the plague of death upon the Egyptians. It was this last plague that finally compelled Pharaoh to release the Israelites from servitude. The passing over of the firstborn of Israel became the precursor of the liberation of the whole nation of Israel and their passing in safety over the Red Sea into freedom from the bondage of Egypt. We can readily see that so portentous an event would properly be commemorated by the Israelites as intimately identified with the birth of their nation; and thus it is celebrated by Jews to this day.
The Lord’s people are interested in those events, as they are interested in all arrangements of their Heavenly Father, both with respect to His typical people, fleshly Israel, and with respect to the whole world of mankind. We are even more deeply interested in those events in Egypt because the Lord has revealed that those things which happened to natural Israel were intended to typify and foreshadow still greater things in the divine plan regarding Spiritual Israel.
Regarding these spiritual things, the Apostle declared: “But God hath revealed them unto us [Spiritual Israel] by his Spirit . . . But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” (1 Cor. 2:10, 14) God used the Apostles as mouthpieces to give us certain clues whereby, if guided by His Spirit, we may understand the deep things of God. One of these clues is found in our opening text, which clearly shows that fleshly Israel typified the whole people of God – all who will ultimately become His people by the close of the Millennial Age. By implication, the Egyptians represented the opponents of the people of God, with Pharaoh, their ruler, representing Satan, the prince of evil and darkness. Pharaoh’s servants and horsemen represented fallen angels and men who have associated or who will associate themselves with Satan as opponents to the Lord and His people.
The Israelites longed for deliverance from bondage, yet they were weak and unable to deliver themselves. They could never have freed themselves from the yoke of Egypt if the Lord had not intervened on their behalf by sending Moses to be their deliverer. Likewise, we see the world of mankind, presently and all throughout history, groaning and travailing in pain under bondage to sin and death under “the prince of this world.” (Rom. 8:22; John 12:31)
These billions of humanity have yearned for freedom from their own sins and weaknesses and from their penalties, pain and death, but without divine aid, mankind is powerless. A few make a vigorous struggle, and make some progress, but none get free. The entire race of Adam is in bondage to sin and death, and their only hope is in God and in the antitypical Moses that He has promised will deliver His people in His appointed time. He will bring them across the Red Sea, representing the Second Death, but Satan and all who affiliate or sympathize with him and his evil course will perish there. They will be everlastingly destroyed, as was typified in the overwhelming of Pharaoh and his hosts in the literal Red Sea. But of the Lord’s people we are told: “He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death.” (Rev. 2:11)
DELIVERANCE OF THE FIRSTBORN
The firstborn occupied a special place in the type. Not only were they the heirs, but they also had a special place because they were subjected to a special test or trial in advance of the remainder of Israel. They became liable to death before the general exodus from Egypt, and when the exodus did occur the firstborn had a special role – a special work to do in connection with the general deliverance. They became a separated class, represented in the tribe of Levi. They were separated from their brethren, giving up entirely their inheritance in the land, so that according to the divine arrangement they might be the teachers of their brethren.
The antitype of the firstborn of Israel is brought to our attention by the inspired Word when the Apostle speaks of the “church of the firstborn.” (Heb. 12:23) The tribe of Levi clearly types the household of faith, led by the preparatory Royal Priesthood, the Church in the flesh, which has given up inheritance in earthly things on behalf of the brethren. In due time they will constitute the actual Royal Priesthood, whose Chief Priest is the Lord, and will bless, rule, and instruct the world during the Millennial Age.
The firstborn of Israel in Egypt were subject to death, but they were passed over and escaped it. Losing their earthly inheritance, they became a priesthood. In the same way, the antitypical Church of the Firstborn in the Gospel Age has been subject to Second Death, having their testing or trial for everlasting life or everlasting death in advance of the remainder of mankind. They have passed from death to life through the merit of the Redeemer’s blood – the merit of His death. Along with Him, they renounce or sacrifice the earthly inheritance, the earthly portion, that they may attain heaven and its life more abundant.
Those whose passing over occurs during the nighttime of this Gospel Age – before the Millennial morning dawns and its Sun of Righteousness arises – are to be the leaders of those who will ultimately become the Lord’s people, bringing them forth from the bondage of sin and Satan. Mark how this agrees with the language of the Apostle: “For the earnest expectation of the creature [creation] waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. . . . For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.” (Rom. 8:19, 22)
CHRIST OUR PASSOVER LAMB
There is another important feature of the type: the passing over of the firstborn and the resulting deliverance of all of Israel required the slaying of a Passover lamb on the fourteenth day of the first month, the sprinkling of its blood upon the doorposts and lintels of the house, and the eating of its flesh with bitter herbs and unleavened bread. Thus each house of Israel represented the household of faith, and each lamb represented “the Lamb of God.” (John 1:29) The firstborn in each family represented the Christ, Head and Body. The bitter herbs represented the trials and afflictions of this present time, which serve to whet the appetite of the household of faith for the Lamb and the unleavened bread.
Moreover, the members of each household were to eat with staff in hand, prepared for a journey. This illustrated that the antitypical firstborn and household of faith partaking of the Lamb during the nighttime of this Gospel Age would be pilgrims and strangers in the world, realizing the bondage of sin and death, and desiring to be led by the Lord into freedom from sin and corruption – into the liberty of the sons of God.
In harmony with this type, our Lord died as the antitypical Passover Lamb on the fourteenth day of the first month. At no other time was it possible for our Lord to finish in death the sacrifice He began at age thirty with His baptism unto death. Consequently, although the Jews many times sought to take Him, they were unable to do so: “Then they sought to take him: but no man laid hands on him, because his hour was not yet come.” (John 7:30)
As the Jews were commanded to select and receive into their houses the lamb of sacrifice on the tenth day of the first month, the Lord appropriately offered Himself to them on that date. Five days before the Passover, He rode into the city on the ass, the multitude crying, “Hosanna to the Son of David: Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.” (Matt: 21:9) Instead of receiving Him, the nation of Israel rejected Him, and thus identified itself with the Adversary for the time. “He came unto his own, and his own [as a nation] received him not. But as many as received him [individually], to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.” (John 1:11-12)
They refused to eat of the antitypical Lamb and thus lost the opportunity of becoming as a nation the firstborn ones – they lost the opportunity of passing over and becoming members of the New Creation, with life more abundant in glory, honor and immortality. We are glad, however, to be informed elsewhere in the Scriptures that they will, nevertheless, have a glorious opportunity to accept the Lamb of God, to eat and appropriate His flesh, His sacrifice, and thus may escape the bondage of sin and death under the leadership of the Lord and of His faithful brethren, Spiritual Israel, the antitypical Church of the Firstborn. (Rom. 11:11–26)
OUR LORD’S MEMORIAL SUPPER
It was at the close of His ministry, on the fourteenth day of the first month, on “the same night in which he was betrayed” (1 Cor. 11:23), that our Lord celebrated the typical Passover with His disciples, eating the typical lamb representing Himself and His own sacrifice for the sins of the world. The eating of this supper on the night preceding our Lord’s death, and yet on the same day, was made possible by the Jewish custom of beginning each day, not at midnight, but in the evening. The Lord evidently arranged all the affairs of Israel in conformity with the types they were to express.
As Jews born under the Law, it was obligatory for our Lord and His Apostles to celebrate this type at its proper time, but after they had thus observed this Jewish Supper, the Lord instituted for His disciples and for His entire Church a new thing to take its place. Our Lord did not institute another, higher type of the Passover. On the contrary, the type was about to begin its fulfillment – our Lord, as the antitypical Lamb, was about to be slain. As the Apostle expressed it, “For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us.” (1 Cor. 5:7)
For anyone accepting Christ as the Passover Lamb, thus accepting the antitype as taking the place of the type, it would not be proper to prepare a typical lamb and eat it in commemoration of the typical deliverance. For all believers in Jesus as the true Passover Lamb, the appropriate thing going forward would be the sprinkling of the doorposts of the heart with His blood, realizing that through His blood they now have forgiveness of sins. (Heb. 10:22) Henceforth they must “eat,” or appropriate to themselves by faith, the merits of their Redeemer – the merits of the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all. By faith they must partake of those merits, and realize that as their sins were laid upon the Lord, and He died for them, so His merits and righteousness are imputed to them.
When our Lord instituted His Memorial Supper, called the Last Supper, it was a new symbol, built upon and related to the old Passover type, though not a part of it, being a commemoration, or memorial of the antitype. We read: “For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, That the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread: And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me. After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me.” (1 Cor. 11:23-25)
The word “remembrance” implies that this new institution was to take the place of the former one, which was about to become obsolete by reason of fulfillment. This does not imply that it should be done without regard to time and place; it instead signifies that when the cup and unleavened bread were used thenceforth as a celebration of the Passover, it should on every occasion be considered a celebration, not of the type but of the antitype. As it would not have been lawful, proper or typical to celebrate the Passover at any other time than that appointed of the Lord, likewise it is still not appropriate to celebrate the antitype at any other time than its anniversary.
The Apostle added, “For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord’s death till he come.” (1 Cor. 11:26) This shows us that the disciples clearly understood that thenceforth the annual Passover celebration must have a new meaning for them: the broken loaf representing the Lord’s flesh, the cup representing His blood. Although this new institution was not laid upon His followers as a law, and no penalties were imposed for failing to properly observe it, the Lord knew well that all trusting in Him and appreciating Him as the antitypical Passover Lamb would be glad to take up the Memorial which He thus suggested to them.
PRIMARY SIGNIFICANCE OF THE BREAD AND THE CUP
In presenting to the disciples the unleavened bread as a memorial, Jesus said, “Take, eat; this is my body.” (Matt. 26:26) His words evidently meant that the bread symbolized or represented His body, for in no sense had His body yet been broken. The picture is complete when we recognize that the unleavened (pure, unfermented) bread represented our Lord’s sinless flesh – leaven being a symbol of sin under the Law, and especially commanded to be put away at the Passover season. On a previous occasion, Jesus had given a lesson which interprets this symbol. He said, “For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world. . . . I am the bread of life . . . I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.” (John 6:33, 35, 51)
In order to appreciate how we are to “eat of” this living bread, it is necessary for us to understand just what the bread signifies. According to our Lord’s explanation of the matter, it represented His human life, which He sacrificed for us. He did not sacrifice His pre-human existence as a spirit being, which He laid aside in order to take our human nature. It was the fact that our Lord Jesus was a perfect human being who was “holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners.” (Heb. 7:26) The fact that He had no contamination from Father Adam, and hence was free from sin, allowed Him to become the Redeemer of Adam and his race, giving himself “a ransom for all.” (1 Tim. 2:3-6)
When we see that it was the pure, spotless human nature of our Lord Jesus that was laid down on behalf of sinners, we see what it is that we are privileged to “eat,” to appropriate to ourselves. His perfect human life was given to redeem all the human race from condemnation to death, to enable them to return to human perfection and everlasting life, if they are willing. We are to realize this and accept Him as our Savior from death.
The Scriptures show us, however, that if God would consider all past sins canceled and recognize us as having a right to human perfection, this still would not make us perfect, nor give us the right to eternal life. In order for any of Adam’s race to profit by the sacrifice of Jesus, it was necessary that He rise from the tomb as a spirit being on the divine plane, and that He ascend to the Father and deposit the sacrificial merit of His death in the hands of justice, receiving from the Father “all power . . . in heaven and in earth.” (Matt. 28:18) For the world, it was also necessary that Jesus come to earth again, invisibly, as a glorious divine being, to be the Mediator, Prophet, Priest and King for the whole world, to assist back to perfection and to harmony with God all who will avail themselves of the wonderful privilege then to be offered.
This is the same blessing that the Church during the Gospel Age has received by faith in their Redeemer – namely, justification by faith. It is not justification to a spirit nature, which we never had and never lost, and which Christ did not redeem; but justification to perfect human nature, which Father Adam possessed and lost, and which Christ redeemed by giving His own sinless flesh, His perfect human life, as our ransom sacrifice.
The partaking of the unleavened bread at the Memorial season then primarily means that by faith we have appropriated to ourselves the right to perfect human life with all its privileges, which our Lord at His own cost prepared for us. Likewise the fruit of the vine primarily symbolizes our Savior’s life given for us, His human life, His human being, His soul, poured out unto death on our behalf. (Isa. 53:12) The appropriation of this by us primarily signifies our acceptance of the restitution rights and privileges secured by our Lord’s sacrifice of them.
DEEPER SIGNIFICANCE OF THE LOAF AND THE CUP
Now let us note that there is a deeper meaning to the loaf and the cup. God purposed to allow the Church during the Gospel Age to present their bodies a living sacrifice (Rom. 12:1) and thus to have a part with the Lord Jesus in His sacrifice – as members of His body. Jesus did not directly refer to this deeper meaning of the Memorial, but it was doubtless one of the things to which He referred when He said, “I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth . . . and he will show you things to come.” (John 16:12-13)
This Spirit of Truth (the power and influence of The Father), bestowed through Christ and speaking through the Apostle Paul, clearly explains the very high significance of the Memorial; for St. Paul says, writing to the true Church, “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion [participation] of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion [participation] of the body of Christ? For we being many are one bread, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread.” (1 Cor. 10:16-17)
Both views of this impressive ordinance are very important. First of all, it is essential that we should see that our justification is through our Lord’s sacrifice. It is proper then that we should realize that the entire Christ, the entire anointed company, is from the divine standpoint a composite body of many members, of which Jesus is the Head (1 Cor. 12:12-13), and that this Body, this Church, as a whole had to be broken – that each member of it had to become a copy of the Lord Jesus and walk in the footsteps of His sacrifice, by laying down their lives for the brethren, as Jesus laid down His life not only for His Jewish brethren, but also for the whole world, according to the Father’s purpose. As Jesus sacrificed His actual, perfect humanity, the members of His body have been called to sacrifice their justified selves, reckoned perfect through Jesus’ merit, although not actually perfect.
Accordingly, the loaf and the cup represent suffering. Each grain must be crushed and ground before it can become bread for man; they cannot retain their life and individuality as grains. The same is true of the grapes; they must be crushed to extract their juice, thus losing their identity as grapes.
Our Lord distinctly declares that the cup, the fruit of the vine, represents blood, that is, life – not life retained, but life shed, given, yielded up. He tells us that this life poured out was for the remission of sins; and that all who would be His must drink it, must accept His sacrifice and appropriate it by faith. They must receive life from this source. It will not do to declare that life is the result of obedience to the Law. It will not do that faith in some great teacher and obedience to his instruction will amount to the same thing and bring eternal life. There is no way to attain eternal life other than through the blood once shed as the ransom price for the whole world: “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12)
“TILL HE COME”
What is the full significance of the Apostle’s words, “till he come”? (1 Cor. 11:26)
Since our Lord, who instituted the Memorial Supper, placed no limit upon its observance, this expression by the Apostle is not to be understood as limiting the length of time in which it will be appropriate to commemorate the death of our Lord Jesus, our ransom sacrifice, and our consecration with Him. Rather, He is showing that it was not to be considered a limited arrangement, for a few years, but was to be continually observed until the Lord’s second coming. When speaking of the second coming of our Lord, the Apostle includes in his expression the gathering and exaltation with Christ of His Church to rule and bless the world in power and great glory. Even though the Kingdom is considered to have begun when the King began the exercise of His great power (Rev. 11:17) in 1878, it will not be set up, in the full sense of the word, until the last member of the Kingdom has been changed or glorified – until the breaking of the “loaf,” the Church, Head and body, is complete.
It is the coming of Christ as including the full exaltation of His Church or Kingdom that the Apostle evidently meant in his command to “show the Lord’s death till he come” – that is, to show our hope and confidence in His sacrifice until the Kingdom is fully set up. The same thought of the Kingdom glory being the end of the symbol may be gathered from our Lord’s own words on the occasion of the institution of the memorial: “But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.” (Matt. 26:29)
We believe the command to show His death until the Kingdom is fully set up would apply also to those faithful ones here in the end of the age who are not a part of the spirit-begotten Church of the Firstborn, because the merit of our Lamb has been tentatively imputed to all such – to the extent that the New Covenant cannot begin to operate toward the world until that embargo against Christ’s merit has been removed.
And surely if it were ever proper and expedient for those who believe that our Lord’s death was the ransom-price for sinners to confess it – to show it forth as the basis of all their hopes – it is now, when this foundation doctrine of God’s Word is being slandered and misrepresented. Let all who hold fast the confidence of faith in His precious blood (His sacrificed life) as the propitiation (satisfaction) for our sins, and for the sins of the whole world, be more zealous and fervent than ever before in confessing this great truth.
We send Christian love to all God’s people wherever they may assemble. We especially offer a prayer for the Lord’s nearness and rich blessing in the preparation for, and participation in this coming service. “Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.”
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This paper is primarily drawn from the writings of Pastor Russell, with additional comments based on several of Brother John J. Hoefle’s writings.
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