Exodus 12:14

For ever] The Jews still keep the feasts of the Passover and Unleavened Bread. They now offer no sacrifice, seeing that Jerusalem has passed from their possession, but they look forward to the time when they will return to Jerusalem and the sacrifice be resumed. Each celebration is closed with the pathetic words, expressive of undying faith and hope, 'Next year in Jerusalem!' To Christians the death of Christ gathers up and fulfils all that was signified by the Jewish Passover, and therefore supersedes it. 'Christ our passover hath been (RV) sacrificed for us; therefore let us keep the feast' (RM 'keep festival,' i.e. the festival of unleavened bread which followed the passover) '.. with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth': 1 Corinthians 5:7; 1 Corinthians 5:8. Here Christ is regarded as typified in the paschal lamb, as He is also in the Fourth Gospel (John 19:36), which places the Crucifixion at the time of the Passover, and regards the fact as significant; His death redeems His people from their spiritual bondage; His blood, sprinkled on their hearts, delivers them from the guilt and consequences of sin. The old Passover sacrifice is fulfilled, once for all, in His sacrifice of Himself, which is commemorated, not repeated, in the sacrament of Holy Communion. That sacrament, accordingly, takes the place of the Passover. It differs from it in so far that it is not a recurring sacrifice, but the continual remembrance of the one great sacrifice offered by Christ, the true Passover lamb. The sacrifice is past, and Christians now live in the time of unleavened bread, and must therefore put away from them the 'leaven of malice and wickedness.'