One of the greatest typologies in The Bible of Jesus is The Passover Lamb. When John saw Jesus, he said, “behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world;” [Jn 1:29, 36] and Paul writes, “Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.” [1 Cor 5:7] Just as God told Israel to, “take for himself a lamb,” and that the lamb should “be without blemish, a male of the first year,” [Ex 12:3-5] so too Jesus is our Lamb without blemish. And as The LORD said, “and they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel,” after having killed the lamb, [Ex 12:6-7] so too Jesus was slain for us, and we are sprinkled/covered in His blood. And most importantly, as The LORD said, “I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night, and will strike all the firstborn in the land,” He also made an exception, and told all the people,
“Now the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you; and the plague shall not be on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.” [Ex 12:12-13]
So too, because we have put our trust in Jesus’ blood, we are saved from God’s wrath, saved from death. As it is written, “…we shall be saved from wrath through Him;” [Rom 5:9] and as the song of the Elders in Revelation says to Christ The Lamb, “for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation.” [Rev 5:9] This is but one example among many in which the Passover typifies Jesus. Speaking of another, it says regarding the lamb,
“And ye shall let nothing of it remain until the morning; and that which remaineth of it until the morning ye shall burn with fire.” [Ex 12:10]
The lamb which was killed and eaten was not to remain until the morning. Anything left over was to be burned. This is also repeated in Deuteronomy: “Neither shall there any thing of the flesh, which thou sacrificedst the first day at even, remain all night until the morning.” [Deut 16:4] Indeed, this shows to us Jesus, for we read in Philippians that Jesus, “emptied Himself.” [Phil 2:7] Similar to the lamb, which was to be totally consumed, so too Jesus totally gave Himself. There was not another ounce of energy, strength, or blood, that Jesus could have given: it was all poured out for us. Jesus completely emptied Himself for our sakes, not sparing His life, but with joy, giving it up on our account; for Jesus, of His own accord, of “his own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.” [1 Pe 2:24]
Praise be to our Shepherd, “The Shepherd and Bishop of [our] souls,” [1 Pe 2:25] who gave Himself so freely on our behalf, “who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.” [Rom 4:25] It is the comprehension of this love, which Paul says, “constraineth us,” [2 Cor 5:14] to “not henceforth live unto [ourselves], but unto Him which died for [us], and rose again.” [2 Cor 5:15] And it is this deep, eternal love of Jesus, which manifested itself some two-thousand years ago upon the tree, where our Lord was both “made a curse for us,” and, “made…sin for us,” [Gal 3:13, 2 Cor 5:21] which constrains us to love our wives.
Just as Jesus said, “the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many,” [Mt 20:28] so too husbands are sent unto their wives: that they might, in selfless love, empty themselves for their wives as Jesus did for them. Yes, we are, as husbands, because of Christ’s dear love, indebted to lay our lives down to our wives. We must give them up as it is written of the Passover Lamb and as Jesus did, emptying ourselves, so that nothing is left. We are to fully lay our lives down for our wives, not sparing, but saying as Paul, “I am now ready to be poured out as a drink offering.” [2 Tim 4:6] In John’s first letter, he writes,
“Hereby perceive we love, because [Jesus Christ our Lord] laid down His life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” [1 Jn 3:16]
Remembering that we are with our wives, “heirs together of the grace of life,” [1 Pe 3:7] let us see here that this verse chiefly directs the husband to first lay down his life for his wife, who in addition to his chief ministry, is also his sister in Christ. As therefore our Elder Brother, Jesus, God’s beloved Son, thought it well to give up the entirety of His life for us, let us seek to exemplify the same. As He, God’s Messiah, the chosen one to fulfil the Old Covenant and enact the New, ushering in the age of grace, has died for us, so too we must empty ourselves for our wives. And as He our Lord, greater than us, served and gave Himself selflessly for us, so too we, as the main authority in our wives’ lives, must humble ourselves to serve and love them. Therefore, taking Jesus’ example, and being urged on by the Passover’s admonition regarding the meat, let us, if we have energy to spare, seek to spend it upon our wives as Jesus spent His upon us.