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Covenant and Passover.
pp. 126, 127
In the pamphlet entitled The dispensational place of the Lord's Supper, the third
edition of which we have just published (see Notices), readers will remember that we
have drawn attention to the intimate association of the Lord's Supper with the new
covenant, and teaching that the passover stands to the old covenant in somewhat the same
relation as the Lord's Supper stands to the new. The relation of a covenant with the
passover has been called in question, and as this is an important item we would add the
following:--
The exodus and the covenant.
"The children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage . . . . . and God heard their
groaning, and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob"
(Exod. 2: 23, 24).
This one citation alone would be proof enough that the deliverance of Israel from
Egypt was in direct line with a covenant, and a reference back to Genesis will confirm
this:--
"Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and
shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years; and also that nation,
whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great
substance . . . . . in the fourth generation they shall come hither again" (Gen. 15: 13-16).
There can be no shadow of doubt but that this refers to the exodus of Israel from
Egypt. We have further evidence in Exod. 6::--
"I appeared unto Abraham . . . . . I have also established My covenant with them, to
give them the land of Canaan . . . . . I have also heard the groaning of the children of
Israel, whom the Egyptians keep in bondage; and I HAVE REMEMBERED MY
COVENANT . . . . . I will redeem you . . . . . and ye shall know that I am the Lord your
God, which bringeth you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will bring
you in unto the land concerning the which I did swear to give it to Abraham, to Isaac, and
to Jacob; and I will give it you for an heritage: I am the Lord" (Exod. 6: 3-8).
The deliverance of Israel by the passover is central in the remembrance of this
covenant, and cannot be considered apart from it. Jer. 31: looks back to the passover
and the old covenant, and looks forward to the true passover Lamb, and the new
covenant:--
"Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the
house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: Not according to the covenant that I made
with their fathers IN THE DAY that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land
of Egypt, which My covenant they brake" (Jer. 31: 31, 32).