Life Is An Open Book Test

Recently, I made the mistake of looking on social media where I came across a post claiming that “When Yeshua (Jesus) died on Passover, His blood didn’t cover our sins because the Passover offering wasn’t a sin offering.” But reading that uninformed post wasn’t the real mistake, it was reading the long thread of bubble-gum theology that followed in the comments section.

It is posts and threads like this that remind me, and should remind every believer, that the context for the symbolism connected with Yeshua is found in the Torah, not within the pages of the pop-culture theology often promoted as explanations for statements like the one above.

As I read through the comments, one person emphatically stated, “He was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world,” while another proclaimed, “John said, ‘He was the Lamb of G-D who takes away the sin of the world.’” While both of these statements are true, neither answers the claim being made. Others made statements such as, “You don’t seem to understand—the Old Testament was literal, while the New Testament is symbolic,” which made me wonder whether they believed that Yeshua literally died on the cross or not.

Still others used circular reasoning, clichés, and sleight of mouth to string together enough words to sound intelligent, while distracting readers from noticing that they didn’t have an actual biblical argument to address the statement.

All of the comments had one thing in common: the writers were trying to defend something they didn’t understand while attempting to sound as if they did. Any decent debater could easily challenge all of the above, and those trying to defend Yeshua’s death on Passover as a sin offering that atones for our sins would have to either obfuscate (muddy the waters further), admit they couldn’t explain it, or admit they were mistaken in what they believed. 

This is because most of those responding to the original post have no real concept of what the Torah says about Passover. Their knowledge is largely limited to a few words spoken by Yeshua during His Passover Seder, a meal that, in the minds of many Christians, holds value primarily because of communion, which later became a replacement for Passover.

They don’t understand that it wasn’t the function of the Passover lamb to cover sin. The sacrifice of the Passover lamb was to provide protection from death and open the door to redemption. The lamb died in place of the firstborn. It was in this role that Yeshua, as the substitutionary Lamb, fulfilled His purpose. Consider Isaac and the ram in Genesis 22. This is why Yeshua said, “Abraham rejoiced to see My day” (John 8:56). This substitutionary death is also why we read about the first and second Adams in 1 Corinthians 15:45:  ^“So also it is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living soul.” The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.” Through the first Adam, death entered the world; through the second Adam’s death, life entered once again.

Yeshua’s sacrificial, substitutionary death, like the death of the Passover lamb, was communal, not individual. The blood covered everyone in the house, and although millions of lambs were slain that night in Egypt, each was to be slain at the same time, as if it were one lamb being sacrificed. As Exodus 12:6 states: “You must watch over it until the fourteenth day of the same month. Then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel is to slaughter it at twilight.”

To reiterate, the Passover lamb was not a sin offering. However, Yeshua’s death as the Lamb did bring atonement. To understand how, we must read beyond Passover to Yom Kippur and consider what is written in the book of Hebrews about what Yeshua did after His death. As Hebrews 9:11-12 says: “But when Messiah appeared as Kohen Gadol of the good things that have now come, passing through the greater and more perfect Tent not made with hands (that is to say, not of this creation), He entered into the Holies once for all—not by the blood of goats and calves but by His own blood, having obtained eternal redemption.”

So, if the Passover sacrifice wasn’t a sin offering, how did Yeshua become the Lamb who takes away sin? It becomes clear when we understand the Torah concerning the Feasts of the Lord in Leviticus. Yeshua died on Passover, becoming the substitutionary sacrifice that opened the door to life, which had been closed by Adam’s sin. Then Yeshua left the earthly realm, confined by time, and entered eternity, where time does not exist.

In eternity, Yeshua entered the Holy of Holies and fulfilled the Yom Kippur offering by applying His blood to the Ark of the Covenant. Because He exists outside of time, He was able to fulfill the atonement offering once for all time. In doing so, His death took away the sin of the world, not by being the Passover lamb alone, but by being the High Priest who entered the Holy of Holies.

Yeshua became the Passover offering so that He could also serve as the High Priest, fulfilling the Day of Atonement offering with the blood of the Lamb. The Day of Atonement offer was also communal like the Passover lamb. Which means the offering covered the sins of those who were Participating in the offering either by applying the blood to their home or by trusting in the complete work of the High Priest.