The Israelites were instructed to kill an unblemished lamb, "a male a year old" (Exodus 12:5) on the 14th day of Abib (April), "at the going down of the sun" (Deuteronomy 16:6), and to put the blood on the two side posts and the headpiece of their doors (Exodus 12:7). The lamb was to be roasted and eaten with unleavened bread ("the bread of affliction") and "bitter herbs" that night (Deuteronomy 16:3; Exodus 12:8).

The Lord promised that, as he passed through the land to smite the Egyptians "at midnight," when "I see the blood, I will pass over you," and not allow "the destroyer" to enter that house (Exodus 12:13, 23, 29). So the Passover Feast was begun, and the Israelites were commanded to "keep this ordinance in its season from year to year" (Exodus 13:10), saying to their children: "It is the sacrifice of Jehovah's passover, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel, when he smote the Egyptians, and delivered our houses" (Exodus 12:26-27).

This "day" became a "memorial," a "feast to Jehovah" (Exodus 12:14) "by an unlimited (olam) ordinance" (Exodus 12:14). But "in the fullness of time" (Galatians 4:4), "according to the eternal purpose" (Ephesians 3:11), Jesus appeared as a planned replacement of the Passover lamb, becoming "the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world" (John 1:29). Yes, in "the plan of the mystery, hidden for ages in God" (Ephesians 3:9), Jesus became "our Passover Lamb" (1 Corinthians 5:7). As no bones of the Passover lamb were broken (Exodus 12:46; Numbers 9:12), so it was predicted that no bones would be broken in the body of "our Passover Lamb" (Psalm 34:20; John 19:36).

The Israelites, in their annual Passover "memorial," through 1500 years from the days of Moses, remembered that their ancestors walked "out from the land of Egypt" in "a night to be much observed" (Exodus 12:14, 17, 37, 42). So Christians now honor in a weekly memorial their "Passover Lamb" (Acts 20:7; 1 Corinthians 5:7). This their "Passover Lamb" has requested, "Do this in memory of me" (1 Corinthians 11:24-25). Thus the Old Testament Passover Feast, by God's plan, is "fulfilled in the kingdom of God" when Christians in the Lord's Supper "eat and drink," said Jesus, "at my table in my kingdom" (Luke 22:16, 30; 1 Corinthians 11:20).