The Passover lamb a prophetic picture of Christ and his salvation.
I. FOR WHOM THE SACRIFICE AVAILS.
1. The families of Israel, the household of faith. There is no other bulwark against the visitation of the angel of death, and it shields these only.
2. Those who feed upon him. Saving faith must be a real, appropriating faith. Mere assent to a form of words avails nothing, neither can a mere intellectual Conviction of the truth of Christianity or apprehension of the plan of salvation; it must be the soul's food.
II. THE CHARACTER OF THE SACRIFICE. A lamb without blemish; gentleness and blamelessness. He who dies for us is accepted, because he is faultless. The sin-bearer must be sinless. This is redemption's great central mystery. But though the eternal reason of it may not be understood, the wisdom of it is shown in our experience. The power which changes us lies in this, that Christ died not for sins of his own, but solely for ours. "He bore our sins, in his own body on the tree."
III. HIS STORY.
1. The lamb kept for four days within the house foretold that God's accepted sacrifice should come forth from the homes of Israel. The four days may symbolise the nearly four years of our Lord's ministry.
2. The day and hour of the Saviour's death (Exodus 12:6).
3. His death was to be Israel's act; "the whole assembly" were to slay it.