The First Passover
Exodus 12:1-13
We have come to the final plague as God is ready now to pry His children out of the grasp of Pharaoh and the Egyptians. You and I, even if this were the first time we had read Exodus, would know that this plague was coming. Before God sent Moses to Pharaoh the first time, God told Moses was He was ultimately going to do: 4:22-23.
God knew the choices Pharaoh would make. God knew that it would take a lot of pressure to get Pharaoh to make the right choice. So God brought nine plagues on Pharaoh.
It is in this chapter – 12:12 – in which God tells Moses that He has brought judgment on the gods of the Egyptians. The score: Jehovah God – 9; Egyptian theology – 0. There is no comparison between the God of the Bible and the gods created by man’s imaginations.
THE WAGES OF SIN
If Israel did not listen to and obey God, they also would suffer the same plague God was brining on Egypt. In other words, Israel’s salvation was conditional on their own faith and obedience to the word of God! Yes, God had made a covenant with Abraham to bring the Savior into the world through His family, but this generation of Israelites would have to obey God’s conditions in order to be saved and to be a part of that blessed family. In 12:13 and 23, God says that He (or the “Destroyer” as He is called in verse 23) will pass through Egypt and if He does not see the blood of the lamb on their doorposts, they would also lose the life of their firstborn.
So, Israel would have to obey Jehovah God, based on their faith in His word, in order to avoid the loss of their own firstborn child.
THE LAMB OF GOD
Here is what God did to test His people’s willingness to obey His command, to set a precedent for later Israelite history, and to provide a picture of what God Himself will do for us… take a lamb (12:1-6) and sacrifice it (12:7-11), sprinkling the blood on the doorposts and over the door frame.
In the garden of Eden, God required a lamb, which Abel gave (Gen. 4:3-5). That lamb was for that individual. Now, God requires lambs for each household of Israel. On the Day of Atonement, recorded in Leviticus 16, God will command a lamb be sacrificed annually, for the whole nation of Israel.
But what about everyone else? That would require a New Covenant with mankind, not like the one which God made with Israel when He brought them out of Egypt. John the baptizer saw Jesus and, in words echoing the Passover lamb, John pointed to Him and said, “Behold, the lamb of God which takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29).
NOTHING BUT THE BLOOD (12:12-13):
Blood represents life. In Leviticus 17:11, the Law of Moses will explain why God required animal sacrifices and why God required the sacrifice of Jesus: “the life of the flesh is in the blood.” Notice in verse 13 of our text that the blood was a sign both to Israel and to God. What the blood signified to Israel was that a lamb had died for them. By the grace of God, they were spared this final, and painful, plague. As they heard cries and screaming perhaps coming from the land of Egypt, the would know that God had saved them because they had obeyed God’s commandments.
Of course the NT talks to us extensively about the blood of Christ. “Blood” is used 97 times in the NT, sprinkled throughout the NT books, but especially found in Hebrews and Revelation.
Listen the voice of the Lord: Romans 5:9; Ephesians 1:7; Hebrews 13:12; 1 Peter 1:18-19; 1 John 1:7; Hebrews 9:22.
But when and how can we come into contact with that blood? When and where does that blood wash our sins away? It is not at the point of faith. It is not when we repent of our sins. It’s not when we confess our faith in Christ.
Listen to God’s spokesmen: Acts 22:16; Ephesians 5:25-27; Hebrews 10:22.
So the NT is extremely clear that it is in immersion in water for the forgiveness of sins that we are washed from our sins by the blood Christ. In Paul’s words in Romans 6:3-4, it is through a burial in water that we are united together with Christ in His death.
The Lamb has been provided. We just need to trust and obey.
Paul Holland