There are a number of similarities between the Passover and the Lord’s Supper – which is not surprising since the latter was started by the Lord in Passover week (see Mark 14: 15-20).

 

However, the differences between the two are important:

• Fundamentally, the Passover is a sacrifice (Deut. 16: 2), typifying the death of Christ (see 1 Cor. 5: 7). The Lord’s Supper is not a sacrifice, and the loaf and the cup have no value in themselves. The Lord’s Supper is for the purpose of remembering the Lord (comp. Jer. 16: 7), and what the emblems represent is  to bring Him into our minds and what He has done for us. However, we do not call Him to mind as dead, but as One who was dead but is now living (though absent from this scene) and who will shortly come for us – hence: “until he come” (1 Cor. 11: 26). To make the Lord’s Supper a sacrifice would totally ignore the fact that Christ’s sacrifice at Calvary is once for all and never to be repeated (see Heb. 8: 27; 9: 26; 10: 10, 12, 14 and note how strong the language is). When He comes again, He shall appear the second time “without sin for salvation” (Heb. 9: 28), which does not mean that He is personally sinless (though true), but that the question of sin has been settled at His first coming!

 

• The Passover was to be celebrated forever (Exod. 12: 14) - and in the same way, Christ’s death will be not be forgotten throughout eternity (comp. Rev. 5: 6). The Lord’s Supper, however, is celebrated only until the Lord comes: “For as often as ye shall eat this bread, and drink the cup, ye announce the death of the Lord, until he come” (1 Cor. 11: 26). There will be no need then of a “calling of me to mind” (1 Cor. 11: 24) for “we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3: 2).

 

• The Passover was celebrated yearly (see Num. 28: 16; Deut. 16: 1). There is no such limitation with the Lord’s Supper: “For as often as ye shall eat this bread …” (1 Cor. 11: 26, my emphasis). The early Christians appear to have celebrated the Lord’s Supper on the first day of the week (see Acts 20: 7).

 

• Christians are to celebrate the Lord’s Supper – hence the Lord’s words “this do” (1 Cor. 11: 24). Christians do not celebrate the Passover – it is a Jewish celebration of their (not our) deliverance from Egypt (see Exod. 12). In 1 Cor. 5: 7 we read that “our” (that is, Christians) “Passover, Christ, has been sacrificed”, and then we read that we are to “celebrate the feast” (v 8). Does this mean that we celebrate the Passover? No, otherwise we would be in conflict with Galatians 4: 10, 11: Paul was saying to the Corinthians that they should keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread. The Church in Corinth was a bit of a mess, they were doing all sorts of sinful things. What Paul was trying to get at in these verses, was that they should be getting rid of all the Leaven (which symbolises sin) in their lives so that they could break bread in a better way. Live lives throughout the week that were moral and upstanding so they were ready to break bread when the time came.