“The Covenants, the Law, the Priesthood and the Passover”

Steve Corley

Given in Kingsport on Sabbath, March 30, 2024

Given in Knoxville on Sabbath, April 6, 2024

Given in Roanoke on Sabbath, April 13, 2024

In this sermon I am going to cover four subjects whose very close relation may not be immediately obvious – but it is very much there and has been through human history.  When God has changed one of these He has typically changed others at the same time – and in a number of cases, all four.  So I will get right into these areas – and we are going to take a deep dive into all four.  The title we can give this sermon says it all – “The Covenants, the Law, the Priesthood and the Passover.”

Let’s go back to the original covenant which God made with Abraham (Gen. 14:18-15:21).  We will shortly show that this covenant was made on Nisan 14 and 15 (I have covered this in previous sermons).  We can see that it was actually preceded by a foreshadowing of the New Testament Passover – Melchizedek brought out [unleavened] bread and wine to Abraham [who was still called Abram at that time].  As I have shown in previous sermons, Melchizedek was not a human being but was in fact the preincarnate Christ – this can be proven from Hebrews 7:1-3 (although not stated there in so many words).  Note that when God made this first covenant with Abraham, Abraham was still uncircumcised – circumcision was not introduced into the covenant until at least 13 years later, to become its symbol at that time (Gen. 17:10-14, Rom. 4:9-12).  The law associated with the original covenant was God’s eternal spiritual law – remember that we read in Galatians 3:17 that the [temporary ceremonial] law did not come until 430 years later.

The New Covenant Passover (or at least two of the three parts of it) preceded the establishment of the Old Covenant Passover (Gen. 14:18) by 430 years and continued after the Old Covenant Passover became obsolete.  Let’s first turn to Exodus 12:40-42.  The night that the Israelites walked out of Egypt – which falls at the beginning of Nisan 15, the time we now celebrate as the “night of watching” or “night to be much observed” (verse 42) – fell 430 years to the day after the beginning of the “sojourn of the children of the children of Israel who lived in Egypt [and Canaan].  But this passage in Exodus does not tell us what event was considered to be the beginning of that “sojourn.”  To answer that question we need to turn to Galatians 3:16-18.  We see here that the [ceremonial and sacrificial] law – which was given during the Exodus – was given 430 years after the original covenant was made with Abraham.  [By contrast, the moral/spiritual law had existed from eternity.] 

The 430 years which ended with the start of the Exodus on Nisan 15 started when the covenant was made with Abraham – which was finished on Nisan 15.  The making of the covenant with Abraham is described in Genesis 15:18-20.  The earlier events apparently also occurring on Nisan 14 and 15 are shown in Gen. 14:18 through 15:17.  The sunset at the beginning of Nisan 15 (before the actual covenant was finished) is shown in Gen. 15:17.  The earlier events described in the chapter occurred on Nisan 14, with Gen, 15:1-5 indicating that sunset at the beginning of Nisan 14 had already occurred – God appeared to Abraham in a “vision” (apparently a dream) and then woke him up and told him to go out and count the stars in the sky.  Then, looking backward from the beginning of chapter 15 into the end of chapter 14, the most likely time for Melchizedek to have brought out the bread and wine to Abraham (Gen. 14:18) would have been the very beginning of Nisan 14 – the same time that Jesus observed the last Passover in His human life with His disciples.  [The verse does not tell us whether or not Melchizedek also washed the feet of Abraham – He may or may not have decided to introduce this part of the Passover to Abraham at that time.]  So what became the New Testament Passover – or at least part of it – was actually introduced to Abraham, the “father of the faithful.” Similarly, the New Testament priesthood (in the form of Melchizedek, who was the preincarnate Christ) preceded the establishment of the Levitical priesthood and continued after the Levitical priesthood lapsed (Gen. 14:18, Heb. 7). 

Fast forward 430 years.  Remember that the patriarchs, with whom God had dealt originally, had been given the Holy Spirit (compare Luke 13:28 with Romans 8:11 – this is a very important point to remember as we will see later).  But beginning with the Exodus, instead of dealing with a few patriarchs, God was now going to continue His plan with a physical nation made up of the descendants of the patriarch Jacob – and unlike in the case of the patriarchs, the nation of Israel as a whole was not going to be offered the Holy Spirit at this time.  The covenant God made with Abraham was to be [temporarily] folded into another covenant to be made with the nation (Ex. 24:1-8).  Because the people transgressed the preexisting eternal spiritual law (cf. Gal. 3:19) an additional set of laws was temporarily added which would be in force as long as this covenant should last, until it would become obsolete.  [Note that few if any of the laws mentioned in Exodus before this point could be classed as “ceremonial” although some were civil laws.  Most of the ceremonial/sacrificial law was given subsequently.]

But one [apparently new] ceremony had been added a few weeks before the giving of the law from Sinai and the making of this covenant – the Old Covenant Passover involving the killing and eating of a lamb.  Since Melchizedek (the preincarnate Christ) had given to Abraham 430 years earlier what was to become the New Covenant Passover – one might ask, what was the reason for the killing of a lamb and the rest of what was involved in the Old Covenant Passover ceremony?  Remember that as we read earlier in Gal. 3:19 the [ceremonial] law – including the ritual associated with the Old Covenant Passover (and the rituals associated with the Holy Days in general) – was added “because of transgression.”  The people – a nation who as a whole were not offered the Holy Spirit – had been violating the moral/spiritual law and therefore needed an additional law to remind them of the consequences of sin.  The Old Covenant Passover ritual – and the sacrificial system in general – were to remind the people of the consequences of sin, that the shedding of blood was necessary to pay the penalty for sin.  (Unfortunately some of them actually seemed to believe that the blood of sacrificed animals would itself take away sin – not getting the point that the sacrifices were merely a symbol of the sacrifice of Christ who was to come (Heb. 10:4)). 

With the establishment of the Old Covenant, along with the changes in the covenant, Passover and the Law came a change in the priesthood (cf. Hebrews 7:12).  Melchizedek (who was to become Christ) temporarily turned over His position as High Priest to Aaron, with Aaron’s sons to follow him in the priesthood.  A human nation without the Holy Spirit needed a human priesthood to whom it could go to offer sacrifices for sin and other purposes, and to teach the nation the Law and the difference between the clean (or permissible) and the unclean (or forbidden).  The record of the human priesthood (which of course had weakness – Heb. 7:28) in carrying out these assignments was quite mixed – remember the sons of Eli who greedily diverted the sacrifices to their own use (1 Sam. 2:12-17), and ultimately the chief priests of the Sanhedrin who condemned Jesus to death.

So now we fast forward again to the final Passover of Jesus Christ as a human being.  The Old Covenant became obsolete and the New Covenant superseded it on the same day of the year (and apparently at the same time of day) as when the first part of the original covenant with Abraham was “cut.”  The animals were cut in two before sunset, apparently on the afternoon of Nisan 14 – quite likely at the same time of day that the Roman soldier poured out the blood of Jesus Christ and killed Him (John 19:34), thereby enabling access of chosen humans to the New Covenant, a better covenant (Heb. 7:22) [which only in a future age will be extended to all mankind] and rendering the Old Covenant obsolete (Heb. 8:13).

We can see the grandeur of Christ’s final Passover – the day when the covenant, the law, the priesthood, and the Passover itself were restored to their original forms.  When the Old Covenant became obsolete so did the ceremonial law and sacrificial system which were part of it (Gal. 3:23-25, Heb. 9:9-10).  God’s eternal spiritual law – which existed before the Old Covenant and its accompanying ceremonial law (cf. Gal. 3:17) – remained (Matt. 5:17-18). Remember that the ceremonial law was added because of transgressions (Gal. 3:19) – implying that there was a preexisting law which had been violated since when there is no law there is no transgression (Romans 4:15).  The change in the law was accompanied by a change in the priesthood (Heb. 7:12) – the Aaronic or Levitical human priesthood became obsolete.  The resurrected Jesus Christ again became our High Priest forever – just as He (when He was known as Melchizedek) had been priest of God Most High before the Old Covenant was established. 

And of course the ceremony of the Passover itself was changed on that evening.  A final Old Covenant Passover meal was eaten – and then was introduced (actually reintroduced!) the New Covenant Passover, in which Christ’s body and blood were to be symbolized by unleavened bread and wine respectively instead of by the flesh and blood of a physical lamb.  Footwashing, which like unleavened bread is a symbol of the humility we should always have, was introduced as a new part of the Passover ceremony (unless Melchizedek had actually washed the feet of Abraham – we are nowhere told this).  As with the Old Covenant Passover ceremony which became obsolete because it was no longer needed, likewise the ceremonies and rituals (which generally included animal sacrifices) which had been carried out (generally by the Levitical priesthood) on the Holy Days under the Old Covenant likewise became obsolete.  Hence we do not practice them today. 

However the Passover and the Holy Days themselves remained as parts of God’s eternal spiritual Law – and we see from a number of passages in the books of Acts and 1 Corinthians that they were kept in the early New Testament Church.  So we continue to observe the New Testament Passover and keep the Holy Days today.  We keep the Passover in the form that Christ (as Melchizedek) originally introduced to Abraham.  Like Abraham and the patriarchs, and unlike most of Israel under the Old Covenant, we have been given the Holy Spirit – and we have been shown how to keep the Passover in the manner appropriate for a group of people with the Holy Spirit.  A group with the Holy Spirit can understand the true symbolism of the bread and wine – and do not need rather to kill and eat the physical lamb as was necessary for ancient Israel.

Physical circumcision became the sign of the Abrahamic covenant (Gen. 17:10-14) thirteen or more years after the covenant was made (although Abraham was not circumcised when the covenant was actually made in Gen. 15 – Paul wrote more on the significance of such in Romans 4:9-12).  Physical circumcision is of course not required under the New Covenant (although circumcising male babies is still a good idea for purely health reasons).  However, water baptism and the subsequent laying on of hands (for receipt of the Holy Spirit) replace circumcision as signs of the New Covenant.  [Recall that many of the Galatians were falling for the erroneous idea that, even after accepting the New Covenant, they needed to be circumcised in order to be more “spiritual.”  Paul warned them that if they did this that Christ would “profit them nothing” (Gal. 5:2) and furthermore that if they became circumcised for religious reasons it would become incumbent upon them to keep the whole law, including the ceremonial law (verse 3).  We already have signed on to a better covenant (Heb. 8:6) and have no further need for the Old.  Physical circumcision is now religiously irrelevant – what is important instead is whether we are keeping God’s commandments, His eternal moral and spiritual law (1 Cor. 7:19)!]

In order to observe the Old Covenant Passover an individual (if male) had to be circumcised – he had to have the sign of the covenant.  Foreigners could eat the Passover meal only if they became circumcised (Ex. 12:48).  Likewise today, in order to observe the New Covenant Passover in God’s Church one must be baptized – baptism being the sign of one’s acceptance of, and commitment to, the New Covenant.  Colossians 2:11-12 shows that baptism is part of the “circumcision made without hands….the circumcision of Christ.”  The “circumcision of the heart” is carried out through baptism and the subsequent receipt of the Holy Spirit through the laying on of hands.  Baptism holds a place in the New Covenant similar to that occupied by physical circumcision in the Old – and hence one must be baptized in order to observe the New Covenant Passover.

So let us think on how the law and the priesthood have changed over the ages as God made successive covenants with His people – and how the Passover was a part of each covenant, and how we are now truly observing the Passover in the original form it was given to mankind.  Let us go forward, examine ourselves and observe the Passover in the manner that God commands for us in this age under the New Covenant, accepting the sacrifice of Christ for forgiveness of our past sins.  And let us then further go forward into the Days of Unleavened Bread – asking for God’s continued help to root sin our of our lives, to better keep the commandments of His eternal spiritual law – which, as we read where Paul told the Corinthians, is indeed what matters.