Page 14 - Easter The Untold Story

Chapter Two
THE NEW TESTAMENT SIGNIFICANCE OF PASSOVER
No record exists of God giving any annual Holy Days or festivals – except for those He originally gave to ancient Israel. These festivals are listed in Leviticus 23. They present a remarkable picture of the major steps in God's great plan of salvation for mankind.
First on the list of these special annual occasions is the Passover (verse 5). It is first because the lambs slain for the Passover foreshadowed the slaying of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God. His sacrifice marks the beginning point of God's plan of salvation as portrayed in the sequence of the Holy Days. The entire plan is predicated on that singular event. Without that sacrifice, no salvation is possible.
Let's understand why.
God's law represents the way to universal peace, happiness and well-being. Sin is the breaking of this holy and perfect law (1 John 3:4). Sin is such a serious matter that its result is the second death, from which there will be no resurrection (Romans 6:23; Revelation 20: 14-15; 21:8).
Starting with Adam and Eve, every human except Jesus has broken God's law, "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23). We are all consequently under the sentence of death: "The soul who sins is the one who will die" (Ezekiel 18:4, 20). Those who choose to live in sin will not be allowed to live eternally. Instead they will die and thus be put out of the misery that sin always brings. That would remain the fate of all mankind, except that God provides a way to cleanse repentant individuals of sin, through redemption. Jesus Christ bore the penalty of human sin.
He "became flesh and made his dwelling among us" (John 1:14) – so he could lay down his life in our place. In becoming human, Jesus "made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death – even death on a cross!" (Philippians 2:7-8).
New Symbols
The evening before his death, Jesus instituted the New Testament Passover. The next afternoon, he died as the Lamb of God.
The Old Testament animal sacrifices anticipated the only sacrifice that could provide atonement for sin "because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. . . . We have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all" (Hebrews 10:4, 10).