Exodus 12:21-32 & St. Luke 22:1-23
Palm/Passion Sunday 2005
The Passover Sacrifice
“Life Through Death”
This morning we turn to the heart of salvation in the Old Testament. The Passover sacrifice is the tenth and climatic plague in which God brings judgment upon the reprobate oppressors who enslaved His people in Egypt. Through judgment comes redemption, out of death comes life.
The “exodus” (to come out of) extends from Moses’ pronouncement of judgment upon the firstborn in Egypt to the glorious salvation of Israel through the judgment waters of the Red Sea. The Passover sacrifice serves as the redemption price (the atonement) that liberates Israel from bondage in Egypt and is the judicial basis that saves/delivers them from the judgment to come at the Red Sea and ultimately purchases their entrance into the Promised Land. While the Israelites who through faith trusted God were delivered from the judgment to come, the reprobate Egyptians were overcome by God’s wrath and destroyed in the deadly waters of the Red Sea. Truly as God has promised only the redeemed are preserved from death and judgment and inherit life:
“These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. 15 “For this reason, they are before the throne of God; and they serve Him day and night in His temple; and He who sits on the throne shall spread His tabernacle over them. 16 “They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; neither shall the sun beat down on them, nor any heat; 17 for the Lamb in the center of the throne shall be their shepherd, and shall guide them to springs of the water of life; and God shall wipe every tear from their eyes” (Rev. 7:14-17).
Exodus 11:1-10 – The climatic tenth plague is announced in the presence of Pharaoh (10:28-29). As Moses is about to leave, the Lord tells Moses what the last plague will be (11:1-2) and its almost like Moses suddenly turns around as he is leaving and says, “oh yeah, one more thing . . . ” (11:3-10). Judgment will fall upon all the firstborn in Egypt (whether they are Egyptians or Israelites) who do not trust the Lord. On the one hand, this is payback to Pharaoh for killing all the Israelite male newborns. God is now going to respond in like kind in punishment for Egypt’s harsh treatment of His people (v. 6). On the other hand, as Pharaoh is considered the son of Re, the sun god in Egypt, the last plague serves as an attack on his power demonstrating that Yahweh alone is the true God of the whole creation. When Israel finally is sent away they will not leave with head’s hanging low but will leave with more than what they came with, even glorified in the midst of their enemies (vv. 7-8).
Exodus 12:1-2 – What is it that is going to save the people? Literally, it will only be the blood of the lamb. This day of salvation will rewrite Israel’s history. It will serve as the beginning of their new year. Redemption has broken into their history and the new first month is a new beginning, a new creation of God’s covenant people.
God gives Israel a way of escape from His own wrath. Each household is to take a one-year old male lamb without any defect and kill it (12:3-6). It is clear that the sacrifice is substitutionary. It serves as a substitute for the firstborn within each household. The firstborn represents the whole household. The lamb will die in the place of the child. It reminds us that Israel is no different from Egypt. While judgment will certainly fall on all who do not sacrifice the lamb, the fact that Israel must sacrifice a lamb in the first place reminds them that they are sinners who deserve judgment as well. Rather, it is the lamb that takes the place of the household and receives the judgment that the whole household deserves. While the firstborn of the Egyptians will die in the place of the whole household, the lamb will die in the place of each of the households of the Israelites.
Further, each household that will be saved is to take the blood of the lamb and smear it on the entryway into each home. In the home they will consume the roasted lamb with bitter herbs and unleavened bread and they will eat it while dressed ready to go (vv. 7-11).
While the Israelites, who through faith trust in the blood of the lamb, are safe and secure in their homes, the Lord will go through the city at night and strike the firstborn child of every home that is not protected/covered by the blood of the lamb (vv. 12-13). On the homes covered with the sacrificial blood God will pass-over the home and move to the next home. Note that the blood is not smeared on all the doors in Egypt but only the doors of God’s elect. The atonement is not universal but particular and limited only to those to whom God chooses to show mercy.
Literally, God is redeeming his people Israel through the death of the firstborn of Egypt. It was because of this night of terror that Egypt finally set the enslaved Israelites free. This is God’s claim on the firstborn (13:2). He is purchasing the firstborn of Israel through the payment price of the firstborn of Egypt. The exodus from Egypt will not come at a small price – a sacrifice will be made. God will one day bring about the ultimate exodus through the sacrifice of His own firstborn Son. What will shock us in that day is that when the true Israelite (who is perfectly innocent) comes judgment will fall upon this Son as if He were the firstborn of Egypt and through His blood the adopted sons of God will be set free and the redemption of God’s true Israel will finally be complete. In His death the firstborn of God will be more like the firstborn of Egypt and not Israel and will bear God’s wrath in your place:
He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him (2 Cor. 5:21).
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us—for it is written, “CURSED IS EVERYONE WHO HANGS ON A TREE” (Gal. 3:13).
It is clear that the Israelites are saved by the blood of the lamb. When God sees the blood on the entryway of the house He will pass over that home and go to the next. Judgment will not fall upon those homes where judgment has already fallen on the substitutionary lamb. The lamb has died in their place (is being judged) and through its blood the home is saved. But there is something else (much deeper) that is going on in the text.
Notice that in the night when the Lord comes in judgment there are actually two different actions taken place that are attributed to the Lord. We can see this in 12:12-13, 23, 27. In v. 12 we are told that it is the Lord that “go through the land and strike down the firstborn.” This is the first act – the Lord will “go through.”
The second act is that He will pass over the home where the blood is spilt. The word “pass over” actually means “to cover or hover over” as in the day of creation when the Spirit hovered over the waters (Gen. 1:2). We see the word used in different places in the Old Testament. In 1 Kings 18:21 “hesitate” or “waver,” literally “hovering over” between two opinions – Elijah pictures the Israelites as hovering over two options in their indecision of whether to follow God or Baal. He is telling them to stop hovering over these two and decide where they are going to come down. Stop riding both sides of the fence and choose a side.
We see another usage in Ps. 91:1-6 (4) – The Lord will hover over or cover his people with His wings and protect or shield them from danger (Isa. 31:5). What happens to a shield when it protects someone? The shield receives the force of the blow thereby protecting the soldier. This is what God is promising to do in the Psalm. When the arrow of the enemy flies toward His people God will shield them or cover them to protect them from danger. But notice that as the shield God is receiving the shot of the arrow in our place.
We see God doing this in the glory cloud that stood between Egypt and Israel to protect His people (Ex. 14:19-20).
This is what is literally taking place on Passover night. When it says that God is going to “pass-over” the house, or hover-over or cover the house, shielding it with His body. You can see this distinct action in Ex. 12:23 where the Lord covers the house and “will not allow the destroyer to come in to your houses to smite you.” Notice the different actions. The Lord is the destroyer who is going through the city to kill the firstborn. But here the Lord is protecting the home so that the destroying angel does not kill the firstborn within this house.
Now what is going on? God is using His body as a shield to cover the house protecting it from the fatal blow of the angel of death. As the shield God is taken the blow for His elect. He is hovering over and protecting His people – but He is receiving the death blow in their place. So the blood of the lamb is also a picture of what is taking place as God Himself becomes our substitute for judgment. God is being judged in our place.
But notice that it is through this judgment that those in the household are allowed to live. It is not simply that God forgives the sins of Israel’s households. Something innocent has to die in their place. God’s justice is met and His wrath is satisfied/propitiated and turned away. God’s wrath literally falls on all the households that night. It either falls on the firstborn within the house or falls on God himself who is covering the house and pictured by the blood of the lamb. God is taking their punishment in their place. This is the Gospel in picture form – God doesn’t simply forgive our sins. His own justice must be met and it can only be satisfied by God Himself. God Himself saves us from Himself.
As Paul says in 1 Cor. 5:
For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed (1 Cor. 5:7).And in Eph 1:
In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace, 8 which He lavished upon us (Eph. 1:7-8).
And Peter:
You were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, 19 but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ. 20 For He was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but has appeared in these last times for the sake of you (1 Pet. 1:18-20).
You have been washed in the blood of the true Passover Lamb. As the Israelites were redeemed from bondage in Egypt and saved from the coming judgment at the Red Sea where they crossed over on dry ground and eventually entered into the Promised Land by the blood of the lamb of Passover so the cross of Christ is the judicial basis upon which we have been delivered from our bondage to the Law and saved from the coming judgment to come at the end of this age and through whom we will one day enter into New Heavens and New Earth.
There is one more aspect of this picture that we need to pursue. When the blood was smeared on the doorposts of each of the households of the Israelites it made each home a little tomb. The blood on the entryway was shed in the place of the blood inside the house. Death surrounded the house. The people inside died vicariously through the sacrifice of the lamb. The whole household died that night when the lamb was killed in their place. But once the death angel passed over the house what happens? The Israelites who put their faith in the blood of the lamb came forth from their houses alive. The door way was opened, the stone was rolled away from their sepulchers and they were brought forth to walk in the newness of life that they might now enter into the Promised Land and worship the Lord there.
“I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me (Gal. 2:20).
Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? 4 Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection (Rom. 6:3-5).
You have been entombed with Christ. You have died in Him. His judgment was your judgment death in order that you might be brought forth in His resurrected life. You have been implanted/engrafted into Christ so that His death is your death and His resurrection is your resurrection.
The exodus from Egypt was not only for this present generation. In fact, this generation rebelled and in the end all but Joshua and Caleb died in the wilderness and did not inherit the Promised Land (Num. 14:30). Rather, the Israelites were instructed that each generation were to be taught what God did for them in the Exodus (12:14, 24-27; 13:1-10). Notice that Moses is saying that when they enter the Promised Land they are to tell their children. This is significant because in v. 8 Moses says that they are to tell their children “me . . . I” (taken on the lips of each generation). But this present generation will not enter into the land. But they are to see that what God did for Israel on this day He did for the whole covenant people. This is what the Lord did for “me” when “I” was brought up out of Egypt. Even in latter generations this history is their history. They belong to one another as the covenant people of God.
Further it was through the annual Passover meal that tied not only the covenant people together throughout all generations but it was that meal that tied them to the redemptive event itself. All latter generations of Israelites were there on this day of salvation. They participate in the redemptive event and relive the history of salvation every year that they sit down and rehearse the Passover supper.
And this is the same thing that happens in the Lord’s Supper. On the night when Jesus celebrated the Passover with His disciples there was no sacrificial lamb on the table. Jesus was the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Jesus did not come merely to confirm or add to the Mosaic Passover meal but through His own life, death, and resurrection to fulfill it and transform it. We now have a new meal in which in the new covenant we participate in the redemptive payment of the blood of Jesus Christ at the cross.
Through Christ you have been connected to all of God’s redemptive acts in history so that even this Passover night is your history. Paul says in 1 Cor. 10 that what happened to Israel was ultimately for you (v. 6) because through Jesus Christ you are now the true Israel. Her promises have been fulfilled in Christ, the true Israelite, and all those promises are yours (Yes and Amen) in Christ.
At the Lord’s Supper we do not merely remember what Christ did on our behalf but we too participate in that redemptive event with one another. Notice that the broken bread and cup of wine focus our attention on the cross of Christ. There our Passover Lamb was sacrificed and finished the work of salvation for all His elect. But a day is coming when Jesus will again eat this supper with you, His people, whom He purchased with His own precious blood and the Kingdom of God will be complete. Together we will join our voices with one another and sing a new song to Jesus our Passover Lamb:
“Worthy are You to take the book, and to break its seals; for You were slain, and purchased for God with Your blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. 10 “And You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to our God; and they will reign upon the earth. Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing . . . To Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever” (Rev. 5:9-10, 12-13).
Amen!
-SDG-
