We are told this:
1 Cor 5:7 - ... For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.
1 Peter 1:19 - the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or spot.
The Passover Lamb was the type for which Jesus became the antitype; He did this in several ways:
- Jesus was crucified on the 14th of Nissan as was the Passover Lamb
- Jesus was sinless just as the Passover lamb had to be without blemish
- As the OP points out, the Passover lamb was selected 4 days before being slaughtered; Jesus was "selected" by Judas and the priests to be betrayed by Jesus about 4 days before Passover for the price of 30 pieces of silver.
- The Passover lamb was sacrificed after confessing sins; Jesus bore the sins of humanity when He died on the cross. Thus, the Lamb prefigured the substitutional death precisely as Jesus did for all sinners.
Thus, it becomes abundantly clear that when God specified all the details of the ceremonial and sacrificial ritual, it effectively became almost a prophecy of Messiah in many ways.
APPENDIX - Levitical Covenant: – Lev 1-9, 16, 21-27 , Num 3, 4, 8, 18, 25:10-13, Deut 33:8-11, Neh 13:29, Mal 2:4-8. This is an eternal covenant (Num 25:12, 13, Ps 106:30, Jer 33:18, 21, 22) of salt, Num 18:19.
The Levitical covenant is stated in Num 3:11-13, 25:12 where God takes the Levites (especially the line of Phineas as High Priest) instead of the all the firstborn of each family, thus changing the (informal) priesthood from the firstborn of each family to the (formal) priesthood of tribe of Levi. Several Bible writers refer to this Levitical Covenant including:
- Neh 13:29 – “the covenant of the priesthood and the Levites”
- Jer 33:18, 21 – “covenant with the Levitical priests.”
- Mal 2:4-8 – “the covenant with Levi”
- Num 25:10-13 – the eternal covenant of priesthood was also a covenant of peace and a covenant of “salt” (Num 18:19), ie, very solemn and eternal.
- Isa 54:10 & Eze 34:25 also describes the covenant of peace with the Levites
The purpose of the Levitical covenant was to teach and inculcate the plan of salvation (Deut 33:9, 10, Heb 9:8, 9, 11-14, 10:1-3, Col 2:16, 17). That is, it symbolically taught about salvation by grace through the coming Messiah via His substitutionary death in the place of the sinner. Thus, the sacrifices, Levites, priests and High Priest became a type of Jesus in various ways.
It was this Levitical covenant that established all the sanctuary system with its ritual and animal sacrifices. These all symbolized, in various ways, the (then future) sacrifice of Messiah.
That is, all the sacrifices, especially the Passover Lamb was the type of which Messiah's death on the cross was the antitype. For example:
- Jesus was the fulfilment of what the sanctuary/temple typified, John 2:19-21, Heb 9:1-28, 10:1-18
- Jesus represented the foundation of the temple as well, 1 Peter 2:4-8 (Compare Isa 28:16, Ps 118:22)
- Jesus’ body was represented by the curtain in the temple, Heb 10:20.
- Jesus was the bread of life, John 6:35, 41, 48 (compare Ex 25:23-30, Lev 24:8).
- Jesus was the light of life, John 8:12, 9:5 (compare the lampstand Ex 25:31-39, Lev 24:3, 4, Isa 53:11, Ps 56:13, etc)
- Jesus provides the water of life, John 4:13, 14 (Compare the laver Ex 30:17-21. See also 1 Cor 6:11)
- Jesus is the promised seed of the woman Gal 3:16 (compare Gen 3:15, and the Abrahamic Covenant)
- Jesus was the Passover Lamb and thus the promised Messiah, John 1:29, 1 Cor 5:7, 1 Peter 1:19 (compare Ex 12:1-14).
- Jesus is the High Priest of the New Covenant in fulfilment of the Levitical covenant, Heb 4:14-16, 5:10, 7:23-28, because He was “pure, blameless, set apart” exactly as the Levites were. See also Heb 9:15, 12:24.
- Jesus provided the blood of the new covenant of which the communion ceremony was to be a memorial, Matt 26:28, Mark 14:24, Luke 22:20, 1 Cor 11:25, Heb 13:20, 1 Peter 1:19 (compare Ex 24:5, 8).
- Jesus was the anti-type of the “red heifer” (Num 19:1-10) and its associated ashes that “purify our consciences from works of death”, Heb 9:13, 14.
