Exodus 12

These plagues could not continue forever. The Lord had a plan that included more than judgment. Redemption had to come, and the fullness that atonement would bring to the Lord's people. It was finally time for Israel to be brought out of the house of slavery. It was time for the Lord to save.

In creating His nation and bringing them into The Promised Land, the Lord provided the way for His beloved to look at the world around them and to think about the part that their lives played in His glorious decrees. Looking at the world and one's own life well involves understanding the times. For the nation of Israel, it all began with Passover. Therefore it was fitting that, according to the Hebrew Bible, the month of Passover would be the first month of the year for Israel.

God commanded them to perform certain rituals during that first month, not just once, but forever. Those rituals center around the blood of a sacrificial lamb. Think of all the lambs that would be slaughtered in the years that would follow. All were to be without blemish, all slaughtered at twilight on the fourteenth day of that first month. On the first Passover, the blood of the sacrifice would be a sign before the Lord who was coming in vengeance upon the land of Egypt. The blood on the homes of the Israelites was a testimony to their own need for a death that would take away the wrath of God. It spoke a word about universal guilt, but also a second word about particular redemption. The redemption was for all who would believe the Lord's Word about the blood. The only alternative to faith and participation was the wrath of the Lord upon the firstborn. It was redemption through sacrificial blood with God's people or death.

The lamb that would be the source of the atoning blood was not to be thrown away after giving the necessary life for this ritual. It was eaten. The details of the meal underscored the need for haste. No one should linger in the place of judgment.

This was the meal that God instituted as an annual commemoration. It was a statute forever. Connected to this one day of blood that turned away divine wrath was this urgency of moving out of the place of bondage. There would be no time to let bread rise according to the old ways under slavery. The future celebration of this ritual would include getting rid of all leaven. At Passover and during the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Lord's nation would need to remember that it was time to move forward in obedience to the Voice of the Lord. To ignore this was as serious as ignoring the ritual of circumcision. The person who treated these commands so lightly that he did not bother to obey them would be cut off from the togetherness of the Lord's household. He would no longer be a part of the congregation of Israel.

Moses instructed the elders of Israel on these important matters, and they in turn brought the message to all the tribes and clans of Jacob. On that first Passover, the people of Israel in their families would be the ones who would kill the lambs and sprinkle the blood on their homes for the protection of ceremonial cleansing. They would stay within their homes only until the danger of the wrath of the Lord was past. The Lord would use His destroyer against the firstborn of Egypt. Israel was not to go out in that dangerous Day of the Lord. But once the wrath of God had passed them by, they were to move out of Egypt in haste.

This day of judgment upon Egypt would be a day of redemption for Israel, a day to be celebrated and taught about in Israelite families for many generations to come. The children would learn about “the sacrifice of the Lord's Passover” from the adults. This defining event of the people of Jacob would be part of the foundational heritage of those who worshiped the Lord.

Finally the moment of redemption came on that first Passover. At midnight “the Lord struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt.” Death was everywhere in Egypt, but the people of Israel lived because of the blood of the lamb.

Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron, and this time he urged them to go, asking for their blessing. In haste, the people of Israel went out from Egypt, and they left with the jewelry of the Egyptians according to the Lord's instruction. The wealth of this Gentile nation came into the hands of the Lord's chosen people.

Six hundred thousand men of fighting age went out, and all the women and children with them. They left at the urging of the man who had resisted their freedom through many previous signs of God's power. They had been in Egypt for over four hundred years. It was time to move on. They, and a mixed multitude that associated themselves with them, left the land of Pharaoh that night.

Anyone from the nations who might ever desire to eat of the Passover had to come in to the nation of Israel through the gate of circumcision. Then they too could partake.

But now another door into the Lord's household has been opened wide for us; a better door than the ceremonial Law of God. Through the one Lamb of God who was cut off for our sake, that one true Lamb from heaven who has taken away the sins of the world, we have been grafted into the Lord's saving purposes for Israel. No longer must we be circumcised to have communion with the God of the Jews. Nor do we all need to continue in the ritual of the Passover ceremony. Our consciences have been sprinkled through the blood of the true Lamb of God. We have communion in His flesh and blood with all Jews and Gentiles who receive God's final redemptive Word and believe.