Scripture Daily

Context No. 2166 of 4322 · Exodus

Context · Reflection

Exodus 12:1-14: in context

1The LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, 2“This month shall be to you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year to you. 3Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying, ‘On the tenth day of this month, they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to their fathers’ houses, a lamb for a household; 4and if the household is too little for a lamb, then he and his neighbor next to his house shall take one according to the number of the souls. You shall make your count for the lamb according to what everyone can eat. 5Your lamb shall be without defect, a male a year old. You shall take it from the sheep or from the goats. 6You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month; and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at evening. 7They shall take some of the blood, and put it on the two door posts and on the lintel, on the houses in which they shall eat it. 8They shall eat the meat in that night, roasted with fire, with unleavened bread. They shall eat it with bitter herbs. 9Don’t eat it raw, nor boiled at all with water, but roasted with fire; with its head, its legs and its inner parts. 10You shall let nothing of it remain until the morning; but that which remains of it until the morning you shall burn with fire. 11This is how you shall eat it: with your belt on your waist, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it in haste: it is the LORD’s Passover. 12For I will go through the land of Egypt in that night, and will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and animal. I will execute judgments against all the gods of Egypt. I am the LORD. 13The blood shall be to you for a token on the houses where you are. When I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will be on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt. 14This day shall be a memorial for you. You shall keep it as a feast to the LORD. You shall keep it as a feast throughout your generations by an ordinance forever.

As the final plague approaches Egypt, God gives Israel the Passover. Each household is to take a lamb without blemish, kill it, and put its blood on the doorposts and lintel of the house. That night, God will pass through Egypt in judgment, striking the firstborn; but where he sees the blood, he will pass over. The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are, God says; when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will destroy you. The people were spared not by their own worth but by the blood of the lamb.

The heart of the Passover is the blood of the lamb, and what it accomplished. Judgment was coming on the land, and the Israelites were not exempt from it by their own righteousness; the plague that struck the firstborn threatened them too. What sheltered them was the blood of the lamb, marked on their doorposts. Where God saw the blood, he passed over; the household was spared, not because of anything in the people themselves, but because they were covered by the blood of the lamb that had died in their place. Their safety rested entirely on the blood, not on their own worth. This points forward to a greater deliverance, for the Passover lamb foreshadows Christ. Christ, our Passover lamb, Paul says, has been sacrificed. As the blood of the Passover lamb sheltered Israel from the judgment on Egypt, so the blood of Christ, the Lamb without blemish, shelters us from the judgment our sin deserves. We are not spared by our own righteousness, which cannot save us, but by being covered by the blood of the Lamb who died in our place. When God sees us covered by that blood, judgment passes over us; we are spared, not for our worth, but for the sake of the Lamb whose blood shields us. You were redeemed, Peter says, with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish. This is deeply reassuring, and it directs our confidence away from ourselves. Our safety from judgment does not rest on our own goodness, which would leave us exposed, but on the blood of Christ, the Lamb God provided. When we are tempted to think our standing before God depends on our own worth, the Passover reminds us that Israel was spared by the blood of the lamb, not by their merit; and we are spared by the blood of Christ, not by ours. Behold the Lamb of God, John the Baptist said, who takes away the sin of the world. This calls us to shelter under the blood of the Lamb rather than trusting in ourselves. Judgment is real, and we are not exempt by our own righteousness; but the blood of Christ, the Passover Lamb, shields all who are covered by it, so that when God sees the blood, judgment passes over. We rest our safety not on our own worth but on the Lamb whose blood was shed for us, sheltered from judgment by the blood of Christ as Israel was sheltered by the blood of the lamb.

Do I rest my safety from judgment on my own goodness, which leaves me exposed, or can the Passover, where Israel was spared not by their merit but by the blood of the lamb on their doorposts, direct my confidence to the blood of Christ, our Passover Lamb, sheltering me from the judgment my sin deserves, so that I rest not on my own worth but on the Lamb whose blood was shed for me, over whom judgment passes when God sees the blood?

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