Troublesome Topic: Why Did Jesus Die on Passover instead of the Day of Atonement?

Have you ever wondered why God planned things in such a way that Jesus would die as the perfect sacrifice on Passover rather than on the Day of Atonement? To listen to the preaching of our day one would say that His sacrificial death on the Day of Atonement would have been a better fit. So why didn’t God do it that way?

Here’s why. The Day of Atonement focused on one aspect of God’s relationship with His people, whereas the Passover celebrated the beginning of it all. Passover called attention to the fact that God chose them when they were nothing, liberated them from their oppressors and established a covenant relationship with them, making them His people. In other words, the Passover pointed to the entire covenant relationship, while the Day of Atonement emphasized only one part of that relationship. In this way Jesus was making it clear that He was indeed establishing a New Covenant as Jeremiah had foretold, and that this New Covenant was taking the place of the former one. It would not come alongside the Former Covenant, but it would replace it.

The next lesson in the Full and Midsize series on Covenants is: Have We Been Sprinkled with the Blood of Jesus?