PASSOVER AND OUR FINAL REDEMPTION

In this brief study I would like to examine Passover from a Hebrew roots perspective and how it relates to our redemption from sin through Yeshua’s blood and our future redemption when He returns at His second coming.

Passover, as we all know, celebrates the redemption of Israel from Egyptian slavery.

Exodus 6:2-8 God also said to Moshe, “I am Yehovah. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as God Almighty, but by my name Yehovah I did not make myself known to them. I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, where they lived as aliens. Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the Israelites, whom the Egyptians are enslaving, and I have remembered my covenant. “Therefore, say to the Israelites: ‘I am Yehovah, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. I will free you from being slaves to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment. I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am Yehovah your God, who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. And I will bring you to the land I swore with uplifted hand to give to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. I will give it to you as a possession. I am Yehovah.”

Since we have been grafted into Israel, Passover is a celebration for us as believers in Yeshua. The entire story of Passover is a shadow of the Messiah’s coming redemption of His people from the slavery of sin and bondage. Egypt is a shadow of the world and sin. The blood on the door posts that protected the first born of Israel is a shadow of Yeshua’s blood redemption through His death on the cross.

Strong’s defines redeem as: ga’al, gaw-al’; a prim. root, to redeem (according to the Oriental law of kinship), i.e. to be the next of kin (and as such to buy back a relative’s property, marry his widow, etc.): avenger, deliver, (do, perform the part of near, next) kinsfolk (-man), purchase, ransom, redeem (-er), revenger.

Exodus 6:6 Wherefore say unto the children of Israel, I [am] Yehovah, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid you out of their bondage, and I will redeem you with a stretched out arm, and with great judgments.

The Hebrew word Mitzrayim (Egypt) derives from the word meytzarim – which means restrictions or restraints. Mitzrayim, therefore, refers not only to a particular land but also to a condition of both physical and spiritual confinement (just as sin confines us). The Exodus from Egypt is also a type of our final redemption when Messiah will come and slavery and suffering will be banished from the earth. It is the time of Yeshua’s Millennial Kingdom reign for a thousand years as written in the Book of Revelation.

Until Yeshua returns at the consummation of this present age we are still in the days of our Exodus. In other words, we are still waiting for our final redemption when we will be resurrected from the dead and be changed in the twinkling of an eye! (1 Corinthians 15.52)

Passover celebrates the season of our freedom in this present day while looking forward to our final redemption at the end of the age. The observance of the Passover Seder is a carefully choreographed re-experience of our redemption from Egypt (sin and slavery) and a rehearsal for our ultimate redemption at His second coming (Feast of Trumpets).

Leviticus 23.2 “Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: ‘The feasts of the Lord, which you shall proclaim to be holy convocations, these are My feasts.

Orthodox Jewish Bible: Speak unto the Bnei Yisroel, and say unto them, Concerning the Mo’adim of Hashem, which ye shall proclaim to be mikra’ei kodesh, even these are My Mo’adim.

The Hebrew word “miqra” means sacred assemblies (feasts).

Strongs’s says: miqra’, mik-raw’; from 7121; something called out, i.e. a public meeting (the act, the persons, or the place); also a rehearsal:-assembly, calling, convocation, reading.

The Hebrew word “mikraw” translated “feasts” in NKJ is a meeting for the purpose of rehearsing. This rehearsal has been done by the Jewish people for 3300 years and will continue even after Yeshua returns (Luke 22.14-16)! This is why Yehovah has opened the eyes of Hebrew roots Christians to celebrate the seven feasts of the Lord. All of the seven feasts, Passover, Unleavened Bread, First Fruits, Pentecost (Shavout), Trumpets, Day of Atonement, and Tabernacles are dress rehearsals preparing us for future events.

Yeshua has physically fulfilled the four spring feasts and in like manner will physically fulfill the three fall feasts, Trumpets, Day of Atonement, and Tabernacles at His second coming.

In Hebraic thought the night of Passover is called “A night of guarding,” when the House of Israel is guarded from their enemies. “A night of guarding” also implies that the night of Passover is ‘guarded’, set aside for all time, as the night of the final redemption.

The Seder, from the Hebrew word for “order” is the festival meal eaten on the first night of Passover, a celebration of the Exodus from Egypt. The meal does not begin until the story of the Exodus is told and re-experience by the celebrants. This rehearsal of the Exodus from Egypt reminds us of our deliverance from Egypt. It also reminds us of Yeshua giving His life blood for our redemption from sin.

The Torah gives us a clue that helps us to see that our future redemption is related to our past redemption:

In that day also he shall come even to thee from Assyria and from the fortified cities and from the fortress even to the river, and from sea to sea, and from mountain to mountain. And the land with those that dwell therein shall be made desolate, for the fruit of their doings. ¶ Feed thy people with thy rod, the flock of thine heritage, which dwell only in the mountain, in the midst of Carmel; let them feed in Bashan and Gilead, as in the time of old. I will show you wondrous things as in the day when thou came out of Egypt. The Gentiles shall see and be ashamed at all thy mighty acts: they shall lay their hand upon their mouth, their ears shall become deaf. They shall lick the dust like a serpent; as the serpents of the earth, they shall tremble in their holes; they shall be filled with fear of the LORD our God and shall also fear thee. Micah 7.12-17

This verse shows that at the end of the age we (i.e., the final generation) will be redeemed by Yehovah with new wonders. The future redemption will be characterized by wonders and miracles that transcend the natural. Our future redemption will be just as wondrous as the redemption from Egypt in the days of Moshe! The three fall feasts are shadows of this future redemption.

Moshe’s song in Exodus 15.1-19 is rendered in the present text, but in the Hebrew it is in the future tense: Exodus 15.1: Then Moses and the children of Israel sang (will sing) this song to the Lord, and they spoke, saying, I will sing to the Lord, for very exalted is He; a horse and its rider He cast into the sea.

This same song will be sung at the future redemption, as we can see in Revelation:

Revelation 15:3 And they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints.
During the Seder meal we drink four cups of wine. The cup of Deliverance, the first cup, clearly speaks to our redemption from Egypt, while the cup of redemption, the third cup, clearly speaks to the Messianic redemption at the end of this age--and from sin in this age. The requirement for four cups is based on the passage in the Torah, which describes the four stages of our deliverance from Egypt:

Exodus 6:6-7 “Therefore, say to the Israelites: ‘I am Yehovah, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. I will free you from being slaves to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment. I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am Yehovah your God, who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians.

The Four Cups of the Passover Meal

1. The Cup of Sanctification: God chose us to be His holy people (separated) people. To accomplish this He promised to unburden us from our enemy’s entanglements (sin).

2. The Cup of Deliverance: God teaches us that we can’t affect our own release (from sin), and that in our helpless state we must trust in Him and in Him alone for our salvation.

3. The Cup of Redemption: God further reveals to us that His sovereign work of salvation requires divine power and payment. Our salvation would cost Him dearly, even the life of the Lamb.

4. The Cup of Hope (Praise): God shows us that the redemption which is ours is still not fully complete. We must await the future with hope of Messiah’s coming and our resurrection from the dead, for He alone can transform us fully into the holy people He has promised.

The four cups of the Egyptian Passover have their counterparts in the Messianic redemption:

Ezekiel 34:13-14 I will bring them out from the nations and gather them from the countries, and I will bring them into their own land. I will pasture them on the mountains of Israel, in the ravines and in all the settlements in the land. I will tend them in a good pasture, and the mountain heights of Israel will be their grazing land. There they will lie down in good grazing land, and there they will feed in a rich pasture on the mountains of Israel.

The pouring of the cup of Elijah immediately follows the third cup, the cup of Redemption. We then open the door to search for Elijah. This intimate connection of the Cup of redemption with the prophet Elijah, suggests that the Messianic redemption is associated with the third cup, because of what was spoken through the prophet:

Malachi 4:4-6 “Remember the law of my servant Moshe, the decrees and laws I gave him at Horeb for all Israel. “See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of Yehovah comes. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers; or else I will come and strike the land with a curse.”

The Hallel before the meal reminds us of our redemption from Egypt in the days of Moshe. The Hallel are the same psalms Yeshua sang at His last Passover meal. Read: Psalms 113 through 118. These are also sung at the Feast of Tabernacles.

Hebrews 8.7-13 For if that first covenant had been faultless, then no place should have been sought for the second.
For finding fault with them, he said, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when 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 when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, because they did not continue in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord.

For this is the testament that I will ordain to the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord: I will give my laws into their soul and write them upon their hearts, and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people: and no one shall teach his neighbour nor anyone his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest. For I will reconcile their iniquities and their sins, and their iniquities I will remember no more. In that he says, New, he has made the first old. Now that which decays and waxes old is ready to vanish away.


This new covenant is written on our hearts and will be established physically on earth during the millennial reign of Yeshua.