Eating the legs of the lamb is a reminder to us that we need to eat Christ in His walk on this earth. Eating the legs strengthens us to walk out of Egypt. Leaving Egypt required strong legs. The children of Israel did not pursue a direct route. They curved around before reaching the shores of the Red Sea. Then, when they looked behind, they found the Egyptians in hot pursuit. On either side of them were mountains. Any way of escape seemed completely cut off. How they needed the wisdom from eating the head of the lamb and the walking strength from eating its legs! This was the source of their strength for walking on dry land through the Red Sea, with its waters a wall to them on their right hand and on their left.
The last part of the lamb the children of Israel were told to eat was its inward parts (translated purtenance). The inward parts of Christ are His emotion, mind, will, and heart. We need to learn to read the four Gospels with a view to eating Christ in His wisdom, walk, and inward parts.
By eating Him in this way, He will be to us not only wisdom and strength to escape the snare of the world but also the patience, the long-suffering, and the strong will to sustain us.
Lamb was not the only food eaten at the Passover. Unleavened bread was one of the accompaniments. First Corinthians 5:8 says, “Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” Eating Christ as the unleavened bread keeps away all the sinful things, making us also unleavened, with nothing about us unclean in the eyes of God.
“With bitter herbs shall they eat it” (Exo. 12:8). This was the other accompaniment to the lamb, all together making a well-rounded meal. The effect of eating Christ as the bitter herbs is the bitter sense you have whenever you touch something sinful. If you go to a movie, or criticize your mother-in-law, or even think negatively about her, you will sense the bitter herbs working within you.
I believe that by now we are all clear that the way to get out of the coffin and out of Egypt is by eating. This the provision of the Passover makes apparent.
Even the manner of eating the Passover shows how closely it was related to their imminent departure. “And thus shall ye eat it; with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and ye shall eat it in haste: it is the Lord’s passover” (12:11). It was not a leisurely, relaxing meal. They were on the alert, one hand grasping their staff and the other the pieces of roast lamb to be eaten. Thus they partook of the Passover, ready at a moment’s notice to make their exodus.
Once the children of Israel were out of Egypt and across the Red Sea, they praised the Lord by singing and even dancing. “Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the Lord, and spake, saying, I will sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously....And Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand; and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances” (Exo. 15:1, 20). How was this glorious triumph accomplished? By the blood there was a complete redemption, and by the eating of the lamb, the unleavened bread, and the bitter herbs there was a perfect exodus. Thus have we too been redeemed from God’s condemnation and released from Satan’s tyranny.
Hallelujah for what the eating accomplishes!
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