God's First Great Salvation

In God’s last plague against Egypt he slays every firstborn, both of people and of animals (11:4–6; 12:29–32). By displaying the blood of an unblemished lamb on their doorposts, as God had instructed Moses and Aaron, the Israelites save their firstborn children (12:1–13, 23). Because of this final blow, Pharaoh sends Israel away from his people and land (12:31–32).

As God had declared before the plague, the blood on the doorpost is a “sign” of salvation (12:13), and he memorializes the entire event (12:14), giving his instructions so that each successive generation would remember that the Lord had saved Israel out of Egypt (12:17). Their celebration of his delivering them from slavery through the sacrificial lamb is to mark their ongoing identity. After God institutes the Passover meal (12:43–50), the people celebrate it, remembering the strong hand of the Lord, their Deliverer (13:3–10).

The Passover and the exodus mark God’s first great salvation of his people, and he requires them to remember it across generations, as Jesus and his disciples did in the first century a.d. (Matt. 26:17–29). Jesus’ institution of the Lord’s Supper while celebrating the Passover reveals his fulfillment of the original salvation in Egypt. As Paul says, “Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed” (1 Cor. 5:7).

Just as the nation of Israel looked back to the exodus in the Passover feast, so the church looks back to the full salvation of Jesus Christ in the Lord’s Supper (1 Cor. 11:25). This meal marks our identity as God’s people as we eat together in faith (1 Cor. 11:17–22). In this meal we are united to Christ, our great Savior and the Lamb without blemish (1 Pet. 1:19), who strengthens us with his grace as we partake.

Adapted from the ESV Systematic Theology Study Bible