Scripture Daily

Context No. 1506 of 4322 · Exodus

Context · Reflection

Exodus 12:21-27: in context

21Then Moses called for all the elders of Israel, and said to them, “Draw out, and take lambs according to your families, and kill the Passover. 22You shall take a bunch of hyssop, and dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and strike the lintel and the two door posts with the blood that is in the basin. None of you shall go out of the door of his house until the morning. 23For the LORD will pass through to strike the Egyptians; and when he sees the blood on the lintel, and on the two door posts, the LORD will pass over the door, and will not allow the destroyer to come in to your houses to strike you. 24You shall observe this thing for an ordinance to you and to your sons forever. 25It shall happen when you have come to the land which the LORD will give you, as he has promised, that you shall keep this service. 26It will happen, when your children ask you, ‘What do you mean by this service?’ 27that you shall say, ‘It is the sacrifice of the LORD’s Passover, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, when he struck the Egyptians, and spared our houses.’” The people bowed their heads and worshiped.

On the night of the first Passover, Moses instructs the elders: take a lamb for each household, kill it, and with a bunch of hyssop strike its blood on the lintel and doorposts. Stay inside until morning. For the LORD will pass through to strike the Egyptians, and when he sees the blood on the door, he will pass over that house and not let the destroyer enter. This is to be a lasting ordinance, and when your children ask what it means, you shall tell them: it is the sacrifice of the LORD's Passover, who passed over our houses when he struck Egypt. And the people bow down and worship.

The heart of the first Passover is the blood on the doorposts and what it did: when the LORD saw the blood, he passed over that house. It is worth being clear about what made the difference that night. The Israelites inside the marked houses were not spared because they were morally better than the Egyptians, or more deserving, or wiser; they were spared because the blood of the lamb was on their door. The difference between the house that lost its firstborn and the house that was passed over was not the goodness of the people inside but the blood on the frame. Salvation rested on the lamb's blood, not on the merit of those it sheltered. This is why the New Testament sees in the Passover a picture of Christ, who is called our Passover lamb, sacrificed for us. Just as Israel was spared by the blood of the lamb and not by their own worthiness, so those who are in Christ are spared not by their goodness but by his blood, shed for them. When judgment passed through Egypt, what mattered was whether the blood was on the door; and the deepest question for us is the same, whether we are sheltered under the blood of the Lamb, not whether we have earned to be spared. It was never our merit that saved us, then or now; it was the blood of the lamb. The people who understood that bowed their heads and worshiped.

Do I trust that I am spared not by my own goodness or merit but by the blood of the Lamb, Christ my Passover, shed for me, as Israel was spared not by their worthiness but by the blood on the door, and does that move me, like them, to bow and worship?

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