This article answers the following questions:
Should Christians Celebrate The Passover?
Is It Wrong For Christians To Celebrate The Passover?
Should Christians Celebrate The Passover?
The Passover Meal was the forerunner of the Lord’s Supper, and it was to be eaten by Old Testament Jews in remembrance of when a spotless lamb was sacrificed and its blood was applied to the door post of each Jewish home, causing God’s judgment to pass over when He struck down the Egyptians. This memorial meal was a celebration of God’s grace toward His people, the children of Israel.
The Lord’s Supper (also known as Communion) is to be eaten by New Testament believers in remembrance of the sacrifice of Jesus, the spotless Lamb of God, whose blood covers the sins of all who put their faith in Him, causing God’s judgment to pass over when He strikes down the wicked. Like the Passover Meal, the Lord’s Supper is a memorial celebration of God’s grace.
Not only was the Passover Meal a memorial of what God had done for the Jew’s ancestors, it is a picture, a foretelling, of the time when the spotless Lamb of God would be sacrificed for our sins. Therefore the meaning of the Passover was fulfilled in the sacrifice of Jesus (1Cor 5:7), and the new ordinance, the Lord’s Supper, is to be celebrated in remembrance of that event.
The observance of the Passover Meal was to the Israelites and their descendants, and it was to last until the Messiah had come and fulfilled all the Old Testament prophecy (Exo 12:24).
The observance of the Lord’s Supper is to New Testament believers, and it is to last until the Messiah returns and fulfills all New Testament prophecy (1Cor 11:26).
Is It Wrong For Christians To Celebrate The Passover?
The Passover was a foreshadow of things to come, and the substance, or fulfillment, of that shadow was the Messiah. Even though the picture of the Passover meal has been completed in Jesus, the New Testament says, “let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or Sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ” (Col 2:16-17). In other words, Christians are free to celebrate the Passover, or any of the festivals and feasts, because all of these events are about the Messiah and what He is accomplishing in the life of every believer.
In fact, we can better understand the purpose and practice of the Lord’s Supper when we compare it with it’s Old Testament counterpart, the Passover Meal.
Keeping it real,
