Exod. 12 : 22. Footnote 578: W. Robertson Smith’s _Religion of the Semites_, pp. 169–176, and Stade’s _Geschichte_, p. 460. Footnote 579: Compare Exod. 34 : 12–16; Deut. 7 : 5; 12 : 3; Judg. 3 : 7; 2 Kings 23 : 4; 2 Chron. 33 : 3, etc. ----- VI. CHRISTIAN PASSOVER. 1. OLD COVENANT AND NEW. In the New Testament the rites and symbols of the Old Testament find recognition and explanation. This is peculiarly true of the passover service. It was a central fact in the gospel story. The sacrifice, or offering, of Jesus Christ as the Saviour, was made at that season;[580] and it was evident that he himself felt that it was essential that this be so. He held back from Jerusalem until the approach of the passover feast, when he knew that his death was at hand.[581] And his last passover meal was made the basis of the new memorial and symbolic covenant meal with his disciples.[582] The passover sacrifice is as prominent in the New Testament as in the Old. Paul, familiar with Jewish customs by study and experience, writing to Corinthian Christians of their duty and privileges as members of the household of faith, urges them to make a new beginning in their lives, as the Israelites made a new beginning on the threshold of every year at the passover festival, with its accompanying feast of unleavened bread, when all the lay-over leaven from a former state was put away. “Purge out the old leaven,” he says, “that ye may be a new lump, even as ye are unleavened. For our passover also hath been sacrificed, even Christ.”[583] 2. PROFFERED WELCOME BY THE FATHER. The primitive passover sacrifice was an offering of blood by the head of the household on the threshold of his home, as a token of his welcome to the guest who would cross over that blood and thereby become one with the family within. It was not an outsider or a stranger who proffered a threshold sacrifice, but it was the house-father who thus extended a welcome to one who was yet outside. The welcoming love was measured by the preciousness of the sacrifice. The richer the offering, the heartier the welcome.[584] In the Egyptian passover the threshold sacrifice was a proffer of welcome to Jehovah by the collective family in each Hebrew home. In the Christian passover it was the sacrifice of the Son of God on the threshold of the Father’s home, the home of the family of the redeemed, as a proffer of welcome to whoever outside would cross the outpoured blood, and become a member of the family within. Therefore it is written: “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life.”[585] And “for this cause,” says Paul, “I bow my knees unto the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named.”[586]