When we look at that passage it’s hard to not to be taken a back by the apparent cruelty of God’s judgement here, but I think it reflects the original curse that came through Adam, that the consequence of disobedience – rejecting God, is death. It is also justice, and everyone likes justice don’t they? Pharaoh drowned thousands of babies, God took the firstborn sons of those who didn’t acknowledge God and drowned Pharaoh’s army.
The interesting thing here is that later on as they’re all leaving Egypt, it says a mixed multitude went with them as they left. The word suggests that these are Arab people that leave Egypt with the Israelites.
Now we can’t know for sure, but it’s possible that these were Egyptian people who also believed God and took part in the Passover, which would make them part of the covenant people, just like the Gentiles become today when they accept the sacrifice of Christ. Or perhaps they came to believe after the plagues, maybe they even lost their firstborn and then believed, but whatever the case, clearly they thought it would be better to go with the Hebrew people than to stay in Egypt which had been decimated by all these plagues.
Of course later God would sacrifice his firstborn and only son for all people, so this again should lead us to look to Jesus, as this is what the whole Passover is pointing to.
In verse 7 of Chap 11 it says that this will all happen and the people of Israel will be spared so that you may know that God makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel, between the covenant people of God and those who are not. And that all Pharaoh’s servants would come and bow down before God. Similar to what will happen at Jesus final judgment in Revelation.
Now it’s easy as we read the Old Testament to literally say that Israel the nation is God’s people by their birthright and nothing else. The word Israel means “God prevails or he will rule as God”. When you see God distinguishing Israel from other nations, it is in the Old Testament somewhat about the actual nation of Israel, but even there it’s more about the covenant people who accept God’s rule over them. Because as we will see throughout the Old Testament, God judges Israel the nation harsher than any other. And in the New Testament notice there is no longer any distinction between Jew and Gentile. It has always been about following His commands.
When you see Israel, you should also see the people who live under the covenant of God. I’m not saying that the nation of Israel isn’t special to God, but it is not the nation he will save, but the remnant of those people who believe in his saving grace through Christ. You cannot be saved ever again by your biological birthright. And what we know for sure is that every Jewish person knows about Jesus, and has either accepted or rejected Him.
I hope we all understand that that is a crucial part of the Gospel. God is the only one through Christ, who can deliver anyone from this end. Without full knowledge of the consequences of sin and the fall, the gospel of Jesus death and resurrection is quite meaningless. That’s why the Old Testament is part of the Christian Bible.
Before we look at the Passover celebration itself, look at how Pharaoh releases the Israelites. In verse 29 we see that Pharaoh is awakened around midnight after all the cries go up as people find death in their houses. He calls for Moses and Aaron and he says go and do what you want, but look at how he finishes. “Be gone, and bless me also”.
Now wouldn’t you want to be on God’s side after witnessing all this? Pharaoh may be giving in under the pressure but he hasn’t changed. He didn’t want God, he just wanted to be rid of the competition. He recognized God’s power, but wanted him to leave rather than to rule over Him.
This again is so crucial for our day. Most people will still say they believe in God or at least some kind of higher power, and most think that is enough. It doesn’t occur to them that the demons and Satan also believe this. I also fear that there are some in the Christian church who believe in God, they believe that Jesus died and rose again and forgives our sins. But we must all never forget that we are to confess that Jesus is Saviour and Lord.
Simply acknowledging his authority is not the same as putting yourself under his authority. The Bible is very clear that one day every knee will bow before him, but many of those knees will still roast in hell, because they did not make Him Lord in their life. Pharaoh gave God lip service several times and we see that even after this he will change his mind and come after them.
But he has the nerve to ask for God’s blessing immediately after saying “I don’t want you here God”. Today the world runs around asking for God’s blessings, blaming Him for tragedies, and yet will not submit to His lordship. Such is human nature. I deserve, I want, but don’t tell me what to do. That attitude will not work with God and that is why he will say to many who believe in Him, get away form me, I never knew you.
Let me give you an analogy. Let’s say you are dying and there is a medicine that will cure you. But the person who has the medicine tells you that you have to come get it from them. You believe that this medicine will cure you, but you think it’s wrong for the person to ask you to come get it. So you refuse and you die.
Let’s say you believe the medicine will work and you are willing to go get it from the person. You get it and then you decide you are not going to take it or follow the instructions for taking it, and you die. Who should you be angry with if you die in each of those scenarios. The medicine, the person who has the medicine, or yourself? Pretty easy answer isn’t it?
But this is what so many people do. They hear there’s a cure for death, but they’re not willing to do what the person with the power to heal tells them. Simply believing that the cure is real will not help them.
Then there are those who might come to Jesus and say a prayer asking for the medicine, they accept the medicine from Jesus, but they are unwilling to follow the directions which are very simple. Simply accepting the medicine will not help them.
You have to be willing to take the medicine as per the directions and put up with the side effects, if you want to be saved. Anyone who preaches that obedience is not necessary for salvation is not being true to the word of God. You have to at least take the initial action of repentance. No where does it say we can just believe without obedience to be saved.
Wait a minute Pastor who’s being the heretic here? What about Galatians 2 and 3 where Paul has to rebuke even Peter for saying that they had to be circumcised, no one will ever be made right with God by obeying the Law.
He says it is foolish to try to become perfect by your own efforts, but only by putting your faith in Christ. And Romans 3 and 4, “we are made right with God through faith alone”.
I say I agree with you, but have you looked at the context of those two main passages about being saved by faith from Paul? In both, the context is about obedience to the Law of Moses and specifically in both cases circumcision.
He mentions Abraham in both passages. And I ask you what was Abraham’s faith like? Remember Abraham lived before the Law of Moses, but why is Abraham attributed with such great faith. Was it because he said I believe you Lord, please forgive my sins? Or does Scripture tell us it was because though he was imperfect and disobeyed on occasion, he left his home immediately for an unknown destination, and because he took his son up on a hill to sacrifice him because God told him to. That’s what faith is.
Do you see that Paul is not only promoting the doctrine of salvation by faith alone, but he is giving us the very definition of faith. So you can say salvation is by faith alone and James will come up to you and say show me your faith then. And your prayer of salvation alone will not cut it.
Then you run back to Paul and say hey James said this, you go tell him he’s wrong like you did with Peter. But then Paul says, “If you wouldn’t have turned off your ears after chapter 4 of Galatians you might have heard me say that when you put your faith in Christ, the Spirit enters you and you express that faith in love. Not only that, don’t let yourself be a slave to your sinful nature, use your freedom to obey the great commandment”
I spent all of chapter 5 and 6 telling you how to live. And even when I talked about faith before, remember who I used as an example. Oh and by the way, are you baptised, have you repented, which means to change.
Were the Israelites free to do whatever they wanted after they got out of Israel? Hardly. Yeah but that was the Law of Moses they were given, Paul said we don’t have to do that anymore. So you don’t have to follow the 10 commandments anymore? Well…
The truth is Jesus didn’t do away with the commandments, he strengthened them. Not only can you not cheat on your wife, you can’t even look at a woman other than your wife with wrong intentions. Not only are you not allowed to murder anyone, you are convicted of murder in the heavenly court when you stay angry with them.
He did away with the covenant ceremonial worship laws. You don’t have to be circumcised to be a child of God anymore, you don’t have to sacrifice animals anymore, but if you go down the road and talk to Jesus’ best friend John he will tell you what makes you a child of God.
Obedience after deliverance is very important as we will see when we continue through the book of Exodus. The question is what are we to be obedient to? We’ll get back to that.
So as we move into chapter 12 we see the instructions for the Passover. This month, the month of Abib or Nisan will now be the first month and it’s interesting of course that this time falls within the months of March and April just like Easter, and it’s a week long, just like the Passion Week.
The instructions are to sacrifice a perfect unblemished lamb with no bones broken, and they are to eat the roasted flesh and completely consume it. They are to take the blood and smear it on their doorframes, the entrance to their house, and when God sees this blood death will Passover those houses. Notice it doesn’t say it has to be a Hebrew household even though this is to be announced to the whole community of Israel which is well over a million, so I imagine the announcement was pretty public for all to hear. It says that any house with this blood, who obeys these instructions, will be saved.
In verse 11 it even gives instructions for how to eat this meal. They are to be fully dressed, wearing their sandals and carrying their walking stick. And eat it quickly. Why is that? Because it represents the fact that they would have to quickly leave after the plague passed over, and I think it also suggests that when the Lord gives you an instruction, you are to be ready and act on it immediately.
Now what’s all this business about unleavened bread? There was to be no yeast whatsoever. Well the word means to be made sour and can also mean to be oppressed. It is simply symbolizing the slavery and oppression that God is delivering them from. This whole meal is to be a memorial meal of the deliverance out of slavery and oppression. Remember Jesus calls the Pharisees leaven because they bound these heavy burdens of oppression on God’s people.
The Lord’s Supper that we participate in today is also a memorial to what we may call the second Passover lamb, the second and last deliverance from the slavery of sin and death.
Now this is to be a statute or law forever, this meal or celebration, and it is, only Jesus just altered it a little and took some of the Law out of it. The Bible makes it clear that these rituals if you will, are very important for remembering throughout the generations, what God has done.
Remember God knows us better than we do, so He makes these Laws and rituals so that as the generations get farther away from the actual memory they have something to remind them. It’s not the ritual or the law itself that is important, it is the activity of God that they represent. But us people, whether it was back then or now can easily get caught up in the rules and traditions of how and when to do things, and forget the spirit and purpose behind the whole thing.
This leaven is mentioned 12 times in these few verses. I think God is making a point. Perhaps the same point that Paul tries to make. Through Romans 6 and 7 Paul says we are slaves to whomever we obey, whether it be sin which leads to death, or obedience to God which leads to righteousness. He says we have been set free from the slavery of sin and have become slaves to righteousness, so live like it.
In Galatians 3 and 4 he goes into it again and tells us that we are no longer slaves but children of God. Of course God also says to obey your parents, and I find it interesting that the word used for love in John 14 where Jesus says “If you love me you will keep my commandments”. The word for love there can also mean “to welcome”. So if you love me or have welcomed me into your life, you will keep (guard, obey, hold fast to) my commandments. We can’t get away from the obedience.
John in his first letter also says that this is how we know him, by keeping his commandments. If we say I know Him and do not keep his commandments, we are liars and the truth is not in us… Whoever says he abides in Him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.
And of course Jesus says the greatest commandment is this, Love the Lord with every ounce of your being and love others as yourself, or as I have loved you. There is no greater love than to lay down your life for another. If we really understand this kind of love we can do away with all the laws including the 10 commandments because we will be doing them. Most moral law has to do with loving others and not being selfish.
So that night about 600,000 men plus the women and children headed out after 430 years in Egyptian slavery. And finally they are given a few more instructions about the Passover meal.
This is important for us as it foreshadows the future as well. It talks about who is allowed to participate. No outsiders, no temporary or hired servants, no foreigners unless they have been circumcised. In fact no man Jew or Gentile may eat of it unless they are circumcised. So does this mean we have to be circumcised in order to participate in communion today?
Well, let’s let Paul answer that from Romans 2, “In fact, uncircumcised Gentiles who keep God’s law will condemn you Jews who are circumcised and possess God’s law but don’t obey it. For you are not a true Jew just because you were born of Jewish parents or because you have gone through the ceremony of circumcision. No, a true Jew is one whose heart is right with God. And true circumcision is not merely obeying the letter of the law; rather, it is a change of heart produced by the Holy Spirit. And a person with a changed heart seeks praise from God, not from people.” He then uses Abraham as an example again.
Col 2:11-12, “In Jesus also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism…”
So for the Christian, obedience from a changed heart is the equivalent of circumcision. Some say you have to be baptised to participate. I don’t think we have enough in Scripture to be dogmatic about that, but I think there is something to it as baptism is really the first step of obedience in identifying with Jesus death and resurrection and our putting off the body of the flesh and being reborn in the Spirit. If I say I’m a Christian and have chosen not to be baptised, some soul searching needs to be done.
But look at verse 44 in chapter 12, any slave who has been purchased may eat of it if he has been circumcised. Friends we are foreigners and we are also purchased slaves. Our hearts have been circumcised by Christ. There’s that passage in 1 Cor 6:19 about our bodies being temples of the Holy Spirit. In the very next verse Paul says, “for you are not your own, for you were bought with a price”. Revelation 5:9, “by your blood you purchased people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation”.
Moses even mentions that the people are purchased when he sings about their passing through the Red Sea a couple chapters ahead in Exodus.
If you don’t like the idea of being a slave to God, how about an employee? Have you ever asked how long you would continue to receive a paycheck if you were as obedient to your employer as you are to God?
Let’s keep that in our thoughts as we search ourselves coming to the communion table this morning, to remember that this Jesus that we say we follow, was tortured and killed so he could purchase us, so that we would no longer belong to sin and death.
