The Day Christ Died as Our Passover

PREFACE

Many years ago the book, The Day Christ Died by Jim Bishop, became a best seller. The year was 1957. The book seemed to remain popular for a good while. Jim Bishop was a news journalist who did extensive research, adding a flourish of conjectured novelty to make the event seem a more realistic drama by today’s society. After all, concerning this day, he said it was “The most important day in the history of the world.” In addition, Roman Catholic authorities also thought his book was important since Mr. Bishop followed their traditional scenario of a Friday crucifixion, making sure that the mother of Jesus was often tactfully situated. Consequently, the clerical authorities placed their nihil obstat and imprimatur on that particular script.
Of course, this day is vitally important spiritually to me as well, as it should be to every Christian. It was, in fact, the day I died in the person of my Substitute. The apostle Paul explained our supernatural identification with Christ in God’s plan of redemption—“I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). It has been said that this passage is the one verse autobiography of every Christian. Unless a person has been “crucified with Christ” and also “risen with Him,” he is not a Christian (see also Romans 6:1–11). Again Paul said “God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by Whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” (Galatians 6:14). This amazing identification takes place when one places his true heart faith in Christ as Savior and Lord.
Historically, the subject of the day Christ died began to be hotly debated a few hundred years after His death. In the council of A.D. 325 the leaders of the Roman “Imperial Church” thought it to be in the best interest of the church to disassociate their ritual observance of the death and resurrection of Christ, which they now called “Easter,” away from the annual Jewish Passover event. They actually wanted to divert attention from the Jewishness of Jesus. In doing so, these “fathers” guided Christendom away from the Biblical reality as expressed by Paul—“Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us” (1 Corinthians 5:7). This error has been locked into their celebrations for over 1600 years not only by Roman Catholics but also by most Protestants.
This book, The Day Christ Died as Our Passover, is a fresh study that will have some surprises for most students of the subject. It will realign the death of Jesus Christ squarely upon the Biblical setting of the Passover theme as presented in the Scriptures. It will demonstrate beyond any shadow of a doubt that the four Gospels harmonize perfectly on the subject. It will establish the fact that Christ died precisely on the eve of Passover when the Passover lambs were being sacrificed in the Temple services.
I believe that, if you are a Christian, you cannot help but spiritually rejoice in this truth as you read through this material slowly and patiently. It has been gathered from a survey of the Hebrew Scriptures, from a proper harmony of the four Gospel records and also from outside historical records which have actually long been available. The conclusion will glorify the Lord Jesus Christ, God’s provision for all mankind.

Jack W. Langford

INTRODUCTION

“Did not our hearts burn within us while He talked with us on the road, and while He opened the Scriptures to us?” (Luke 24:32). These were the words of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus who had listened to a stranger who turned out to be none other than the Lord Jesus Christ, Himself (the text says they had been prevented from recognizing Him, verse 16). Truly, their hearts had been stirred as this stranger opened to them the beautiful truths from the Hebrew Scriptures which spoke of the very things which had happened to Jesus Christ in His sufferings, death and glorious resurrection.
Many of us, who have taken refuge from the judgment of God under the bloodstained doorposts of the cross of Jesus Christ, know exactly what these disciples experienced, as we have also read or heard explained the beautiful fulfillments of the Scriptures, especially in their expressive and inspired typologies. I remember vividly one such experience back in 1953, in a class I had taken in a Bible College I was attending. That class involved explorations of certain types of Christ from the Hebrew Scriptures. The instructor had given a very simple and yet very beautiful explanation of the Passover typology. It was the first time in my young Christian life I had ever heard anything like it; I was deeply stirred by its beauty.
God’s final judgment upon Pharaoh and the Egyptians was announced beforehand by Moses to the Egyptians. However, most of them would not heed the warnings. God would destroy the firstborn son of all the households of Egypt with the exception of those who applied the blood of a young lamb or goat upon the doorposts of their houses. The children of Israel complied with God’s directives. This event would mark a new national beginning for the people of Israel and their liberation from horrible bondage. On the 10th day of this first month every household was to select a lamb. It must be an unblemished male of the first year. They were to keep it until the 14th day and slaughter it in the afternoon of that day. The lamb would be roasted with fire, all of it to be eaten that evening with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. The bitter herbs were to be eaten as a remembrance of their bitter bondage in Egypt. Not a bone of that lamb was to be broken. Prior to going into their houses that evening they were to apply the blood of the lamb to the doorposts and lintels of their houses. Then they were not to venture out until the morning. God would pass through Egypt that night and an angel would strike with death the firstborn son of every household where the blood had not been applied. Where God saw the blood applied to the doorposts of the houses, He would “pass over” and exempt the firstborn of that home, not allowing the “destroyer” (Exo. 12:23) to strike that firstborn with death. This event would be a memorial for all generations to come. That night there was a “great cry” throughout the land of Egypt as the firstborn sons of the Egyptians died. All this can be read in Exodus chapters 11, 12 and 13.
In “the fullness of times” Christ came (Gal. 4:4). All four Gospels unite in placing the substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus Christ squarely in the middle of Israel’s Passover celebrations of A.D. 30. In addition, special note is taken in the Gospel of John to the effect that “not a bone of Christ was broken” (John 19:36) in fulfillment of Exo. 12:46. Like Egypt of old, the world today ignores the warnings of eternal judgment. But God has provided a Lamb (the Lord Jesus Christ) Whose blood can be applied to the doorposts of their hearts by faith. Where such is done— God “sees the blood of the Lamb” and exempts
that person from eternal condemnation. That person is also wonderfully delivered from the horrible bondage of sin to walk in new life in Christ.

When I first heard this story I was deeply stirred by the parallelism and the beautiful fulfillment in Christ. The Passover was revealed through Moses some 1500 years before Christ came to earth, fulfilling it in incredible clarity as the basis of salvation for all mankind. Like the men on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:32), my own heart was, indeed, “burning.”