By William Barclay

      The Passover Lamb stood for two things.

      The Passover Lamb was the symbol of deliverance. Nowhere in history did the Jews see the delivering power of God so clearly and definitely demonstrated as in the events which brought them out of Egypt. here was the deliverance par excellence, and without parallel. And to think of Jesus as the Passover lamb is to see in him the delivering and rescuing power of God come to earth for the salvation of men. Just as the first Passover lamb was the sign of God's deliverance of his people from their slavery in Egypt, so Jesus the second Passover lamb is the symbol of their deliverance from slavery to sin.

      But there is a real sense in which the Passover lamb was more than a symbol of deliverance; it was the means of deliverance. It was the mark of the blood of the lamb, which the lamb had to die to provide, which was the means which kept the Jewish homes safe on that terrible night of death and destruction. The death of the lamb was essential for the deliverance of the people. Jesus therefore is the means of salvation whereby men are saved from the penalty and the power of their sins. Through his sacrifice and death that salvation came.