In 1 Corinthians 5:7, Paul refers to Jesus as "Christ, our Passover", suggesting that the Passover of Exodus somehow foreshadowed the life of Jesus.

How specifically does the Passover do this?



In regards to Passover, Jesus is closely identified with the Passover lamb.

Exodus 12 gives the specific details on how to select the lamb and how it was to be used.

3 Announce to the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each family must choose a lamb or a young goat for a sacrifice, one animal for each household. ... 5 The animal you select must be a one-year-old male, either a sheep or a goat, with no defects. 6 Take special care of this chosen animal until the evening of the fourteenth day of this first month. Then the whole assembly of the community of Israel must slaughter their lamb or young goat at twilight. 7 They are to take some of the blood and smear it on the sides and top of the doorframes of the houses where they eat the animal. ... 13 But the blood on your doorposts will serve as a sign, marking the houses where you are staying. When I see the blood, I will pass over you. This plague of death will not touch you when I strike the land of Egypt.

A couple of key points here,

  • The lamb was to be without defects
  • The blood covered the doorposts and it was because of this blood that those within the home were saved from death.

Jesus as we know was/is perfect (without sin) in every way and it's because of his shed blood that we are saved as well.

In John 1:29 John the baptist makes this declaration about Jesus:


And in 1 Peter 1:19-20



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Paul wasn't talking about the Passover feast, but the original Passover that the feast was meant to commemorate. It refers to the last of the ten plagues of Egypt, just before the Exodus. God told Moses that the tenth plague would involve the death of the firstborn son of every household throughout the land of Egypt, and how the Israelites could be spared this fate:

Exodus 12: 1-13:














And everyone who had enough faith to listen to God's prophet and obey the commandment that was given to them was saved from the coming destruction that was to befall everyone else in the land.

In the 1 Corinthians passage, Paul says that "Christ our passover is sacrificed for us." This is an explicit parallel to John the Baptist calling Christ "the lamb of God." Christ was the sacrificial offering, and the parallelism is clear. His blood, and our faith and obedience to God's commandments, provides a way for us to be saved from the spiritual destruction that will otherwise come upon all the world, just as the blood of the Paschal lamb, and their faith and obedience to God's instructions through Moses, allowed the Israelites to be saved from the physical destruction that would otherwise come upon all the land of Egypt.

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I want to expand a bit on the other good answers already given.


One of the first things to note is the state of the people of Israel at the time. They were enslaved to Egypt.


Jesus taught that we, as sinners, are also slaves--not of Egypt, but of sin.

Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. John 8:34 ESV

The Passover Lamb

God instructed the Israelites to select an unblemished lamb, keep it for four days, then slaughter it at twilight.

Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb according to their fathers' houses, a lamb for a household... 5 Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats, 6 and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight. Exodus 12:3, 5-6 ESV

John the Baptist introduced Jesus as the Lamb of God. Though the timing is disputed, it does seem that Jesus entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, stayed for four days, and then was crucified, dying close to the end of the day. Pilate himself pronounced Jesus as unblemished as well.


Luke 23:34 ESV

Salvation and Impending Judgment

God told the Israelites to observe the Passover in order to escape the impending judgment that He was going to execute upon the land.


Plain and simply, those who heard, believed, and acted on that belief by observing the Passover and applying the blood were spared from God's judgment. Those who did observe the Passover received the judgment of God.

The New Testament teaches that there is an impending judgment for all mankind as well. Jesus taught that there is only one way in which to escape this judgment, and that is by faith in Jesus, our Passover Lamb. Those who hear, believe, and place their trust in this means of escape will indeed be saved from judgment. Those who do not respond to this will, indeed, receive God's judgment.



Other Notes

The Israelites were commanded to eat all of the lamb. Jesus may have been alluding to this in John 6 when He spoke of eating His flesh.

The Israelites were specifically commanded to eat the Passover meal "in haste". We eat quickly when we are in a hurry to leave, and they did the same. They had been enslaved for many years, but by eating in a hurry, they exhibited faith that they would soon be set free.

The people were commanded to apply the blood to the doors of the homes. Without this application of the blood, there would be no escape from judgment. The blood of Jesus is the means of our escape. It's interesting that it wasn't the righteousness of the people inside the houses that made them worthy of escape, but the blood of the lamb that was on the door of their houses.


The Last Supper

Jesus was crucified during the Passover Feast. The Last Supper may have even been a Passover meal. If so, the cup He lifted up would possibly have been the one called the "Cup of Redemption". He may have died while many Jews were sacrificing their own chosen lambs.

It is interesting that during modern day Jewish celebrations of the Passover, there are three pieces of bread placed together in a white cloth. The middle or second one is removed during a part of the ceremony, broken, then hidden away in another white cloth until it is brought out later.

Jesus, the Second Person of the Trinity, spoke of His body being broken. If the meal was, indeed, a Passover celebration, this may have actually been the time that He took and broke the second piece of bread. Jesus's body was broken, and He was hidden away in the tomb for three days, but resurrected later.

Heaven, the Promised Land

The exodus that began at the Passover Feast culminated in the entrance into the Promised Land--a distant land "flowing with milk and honey". God had indeed promised them that He would bring them there, and He did. The exodus of Christians begins when we put our faith in the blood of Jesus, and it culminates when we reach a distant land called Heaven.


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In short, if you recall the Passover was a celebration of the memorial of The Angel of Death 'passing over' the houses whose doorframes (wooden frames) were stained with the blood of the Passover Lamb. Inasmuch as Jesus' death does the same, that is, causes death to 'pass over' those that are marked with his blood, he is in effect 'our passover' both in the sense of being the Paschal Lamb whose blood averts death and that his crucifixion and resurrection are pre-figured by the Passover celebration itself.

To go a little deeper, the blood on the doorframe is symbolic of those 'participating in his death', and in evading the sting of death, they also 'participate in his resurrection' as the Hebrews' firstborn were also spared death. If we take the household vis a vis the Passover to be symbolic of the body of the person, the 'firstborn' of the family is the soul. Thus, those whose bodies are marked by Christ's death through baptism escape death, provided they keep the vigil as the Hebrews did in the Passover. The vigil represents 'those who endure until the end shall be saved.'

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