Intertextuality Pair

1 Corinthians 5:7 → Exodus 12:21

Allusion

Later text

1 Corinthians 5:7BSB

Get rid of the old leaven, that you may be a new unleavened batch, as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.

Earlier text

Exodus 12:21BSB

Then Moses summoned all the elders of Israel and told them, "Go at once and select for yourselves a lamb for each family, and slaughter the Passover lamb.

Significance

Exodus 12:21 records Moses' command to the elders—"slaughter the Passover lamb"—the moment the institution of verses 1-14 moves from prescription to enacted sacrifice. Paul's declaration that "Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed" (1 Cor 5:7) locates Jesus precisely here, at the act of slaying. This is typology that satisfies all five marks: a real lamb really killed (historicity), whose death-by-blood spares the household, corresponds to and is escalated by the sinless Christ whose once-for-all death delivers His people from a greater bondage and a greater judgment. Within the canon-wide motif of Sacrifice and Atonement, the Passover lamb is a foundational shadow whose substance is Christ; the verb "has been sacrificed" gathers the whole Levitical and paschal sacrificial trajectory to its appointed end. The point is not merely that Jesus fulfills a pattern but that He is the Lamb in whom God's people find their protection and their joy—the slaughter at twilight in Egypt was always pointing toward the cross where the true and desirable substitute was slain.

Found via
Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Reference Type
Allusion
Connection Method(s)
Typology

▸ The Passover

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