1. OLD COVENANT AND NEW.
In the New Testament the rites and symbols of the Old Testament find recognition and explanation. This is peculiarly true of the passover service. It was a central fact in the gospel story. The sacrifice, or offering, of Jesus Christ as the Saviour, was made at that season;[[580]] and it was evident that he himself felt that it was essential that this be so. He held back from Jerusalem until the approach of the passover feast, when he knew that his death was at hand.[[581]] And his last passover meal was made the basis of the new memorial and symbolic covenant meal with his disciples.[[582]] The passover sacrifice is as prominent in the New Testament as in the Old.
Paul, familiar with Jewish customs by study and experience, writing to Corinthian Christians of their duty and privileges as members of the household of faith, urges them to make a new beginning in their lives, as the Israelites made a new beginning on the threshold of every year at the passover festival, with its accompanying feast of unleavened bread, when all the lay-over leaven from a former state was put away. “Purge out the old leaven,” he says, “that ye may be a new lump, even as ye are unleavened. For our passover also hath been sacrificed, even Christ.”[[583]]