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A.
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Luke 22 :7,8: "Then came the day of unleavened bread when the
passover must be killed. And he sent Peter and John, saying, Go and prepare us
the passover, that we may eat." The most natural way of reading this is with
reference to preparation, on the morning of the 14th,of a Passover meal to be
eaten the same evening, the beginning of the 15th-the usual Passover
pattern.
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B.
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v.13: "And they made ready the passover."
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C.
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v.15: "With desire I have desired to eat this passover with
you before I suffer."
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D.
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Mention of two cups by Luke (v.17,20) ' suggests the ritual
Passover, which actually included four.
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a.
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John introduces his account with the words: "Now before
the feast of the passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come . .
." (ch.13 ;1); and v.2 continues: "and supper being ready" (not "ended", as in
AV; the Greek participle, and also v.26, both prove AV to be in error here); see
Study 184.
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b.
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John 13 :29: "For some of them thought . . . that Jesus had
said unto him (Judas), Buy those things that we have need of against the feast:
or that he should give something to the poor." But immediately after the slaying
of the lambs in the temple court, the Passover sabbath began (Lev. 2 3 :6,7); so
if this was the Passover celebration, no shops would be open at that time. And
the needs of the poor for the feast, would have been dealt with long
before.
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c.
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Joseph of Arimathea "bought fine linen" for the interment of
Jesus (Mk.15 :46). This goes along with (b), and is a useful corrective to the
claim that the synoptic gospels are solid in their evidence that the Last Supper
was a Passover. (See also paragraphs g and h on this).
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d.
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"For that sabbath (the day after the crucifixion) was an high
day" (Jn.19 :31)can only mean that it was the Passover sabbath, in the early
hours of which (about 8 p.m.?) the Passover meal was eaten.
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e.
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The chief priests "went not into the judgment hall, lest they
should be defiled; but that they might eat the passover" (J n . 1 8 :2 8) . This
seems to be decisive enough, unless the suggestion (not too convincing) be
accepted that the word "passover" here covers the ensuing celebration which
seven days of unleavened bread involved.
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f.
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"And it (the day of crucifixion) was the preparation of the
passover" (Jn.19 :14) ). The word "preparation" was normally used for Friday, as
the day on which preparation was made for the sabbath. Edersheim ("Temple/' p.
188) makes the point that the rabbinic writings never use the name "preparation"
for the day preceding the Passover sabbath, but commonly use it as a synonym for
Friday. This "preparation", then, was the Friday preceding an ordinary sabbath
which in this year coincided with the Passover sabbath.
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g.
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Mark 15 :42 and Matthew 27 :62 say the something.
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h.
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The citation of the foregoing details is hardly necessary,
since if Jesus did actually partake of the Passover, then all the irreligious
and blasphemous transactions associated with his arrest and interrogation, the
convening of the Sanhedrin and his trial, the rousing of the mob and the release
of Barabbas, the crucifixion itself and the subsequent deriding of
Jesus—all of these took place on the Passover sabbath which should have
been given over to holiness and special religious observance.
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i.
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A different kind of fact which will carry special weight with
those who are impressed with the accuracy of Old Testament prophecy: If Jesus
did not keep the Passover, then his death on the cross at the ninth hour
coincided precisely with the time when the Passover lambs began to be slain in
the temple court—"the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the
world." And, further, his resurrection would then be at approximately the same
time as the special offering in the temple of another identical lamb along with
the wave-sheaf of first fruits barley on the morning after the Passover sabbath
(Lev.23 :11,12), for all the world as though the Passover lamb had come to life
again and was being re-consecrated to God!
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j
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For the first three hundred years after the apostles all the
early Christian writers who comment on this question say that the Last Supper
was not a Jewish Passover. Chrysostom (350-400) was the first to teach
that it was. And until the 9th century the church uniformly used leavened
bread at the Eucharist. The change to unleavened bread was a Roman Catholic
institution.
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k.
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Jewish tradition preserved in the Talmud says that Jesus died
on the 14th Nisan.
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l.
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If Jesus had actually eaten the Jewish Passover, would not
this have provided a powerful argument for the Judaisers in the first century
church that Christians should do the same?
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m.
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The walk of Jesus and the eleven to Gethsemane was an
infringement of Exodus 12 :22. It may be argued, of course, that this
commandment was regarded as being in abeyance at that time. But would not the
Law of Moses be more mandatory upon Jesus than current tradition?
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n.
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In the gospel accounts of the Last Supper, there is no
mention, not even the slightest hint, of the lamb which was the main feature of
the Passover meal. Plummer, on the one hand, regards this as decisive. On the
other, Jeremias, the chief modern advocate that the Last Supper was a Passover,
dismisses this with the observation that "this silence is no longer surprising,
when we reflect that Mark 14 :22-24 is a cultic formula, not purporting to
give a description of the Last Supper, but recording the constituent elements of
the celebrations of the primitive church." A typical modernist way of
evading an uncomfortable fact! And what about the other three records?
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o.
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It is very clear from John 13 :5 that the group betook
themselves to the supper table without any foot-washing taking place first.
Because of the high-festival character of the Passover it is very difficult to
believe that the disciples would contemplate beginning their Passover meal
without prior attention to this detail.
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(i)
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John, writing last of the four, is quietly trying to correct
the chronology of the others. (But this won't do because items c.g.h. belong to
the Synoptics also. Mark, for example, appears not only to contradict John, but
also to contradict himself; contrast 14:12ff with 14:26).
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(ii)
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Errors of fact are to be expected in tk« gospels. They
were written many years after the events, memories had become blurred, and in
any case the writers were men untrained in the accurate observation and
recording of detail. For most readers of this study, who have not so learned
Christ, such a solution is utterly unacceptable.
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(iii)
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One set of facts must be explicable in harmony with the other
set. This should be possible. The rest of this study aims at showing that it is
possible.
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a.
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"The cup of blessing" (1 Cor. 10 :16) was the name given by
the Jews to one of the four cups of wine at the Passover feast,
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b.
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"Go and prepare us the passover, that we may eat . . . Where
is the guest chamber, where I shall eat the passover with my disciples?" To the
disciples these words meant one thing, but in the mind of Jesus they had a
different connotation. For him it was to be the memorial feast of a greater
deliverance than that from Egypt. And it is this sense, doubtless, that the
author of the gospel meant when he wrote significantly: "Then came the day of
unleavened bread, when the passover must be killed'—for in
retrospect he could see that it not only behoved the Christ to suffer, but to
suffer then. No other time was fitting.
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c.
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"And when the hour was come" (Lk.22 :14) reads as though with
reference to the Jewish Passover, but equally certainly was meant for the hour
of the Lord's tribulation and glory: "The hour is come; glorify thy Son, that
thy Son also may glorify Thee." A quite superb double entendre!
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d.
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Compare also the intensely dramatic force of: "The feast of
unleavened bread drew nigh, which is called the Passover. And the chief priests
and scribes sought how they might kill him (the Lamb of God)" (Lk.22 :2).
To the student who reads with his eyes open, the gospels abound in delicate
touches of this kind—nuances which so easily lose their flavour when one
attempts to explain them.
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e.
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"This is my body'—compare the Mishna's reference to the
roasted lamb as "the body of the Passover."
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f.
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"He broke it and gave it to the disciples;" the action was
very similar to a certain part of the Passover ritual. The Mishna also has the
comment: "the poor have not whole cakes, but broken pieces."
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g.
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"Ye do show forth the Lord's death till he come" (1
Cor.ll :26) is a clear allusion to Exodus 13 :8: "Thou shalt show thy son in
that day . . . ", a part of the Passover ritual called Haggadah, the showing
forth. The verbal connection is very marked.
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h.
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The sop given to Judas probably came to be compared with the
bitter herbs dipped in the sauce and shared by all participants at the Passover
table.
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i.
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It may be possible to go further and see in the searching of
the hearts of the disciples counterpart to the searching of the house for leaven
(Ex.12 :19).
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j.
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"Whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the
Lord unworthily, is guilty of the body and blood of the lord. But let a man
examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup" (1
Cor.ll :27,28). The warning is a direct and more searching counterpart to the
responsibility laid upon every Jew to be purified for the Passover
(Jn.11:55).
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k.
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Peter's allusions in his First Epistle appropriate Passover
language in a quite systematic fashion:
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i.
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"Redeemed ... with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb
without blemish and without spot" (1:19).
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ii.
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"Obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Christ" (v.2; Ex.12
:22).
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iii.
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"Not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold"
(v.18; with reference to Ex.12 :35).
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iv.
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"Gird up the loins of your mind" (v.13) similarly looks back
to Ex.12 :11
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