The Passover was Israel’s fundamental institution. It marked the commencement of their history as a nation, and as a people in special relationship with Jehovah. That night in Egypt was never to be forgotten by them. Its terrible doings were to be rehearsed in the ears of their children from generation to generation.
What a night! The angel of Jehovah sweeping through Pharaoh’s empire from end to end with his destroying sword! Every house, save those which were marked with blood, was bereaved of its firstborn. Every stable too was robbed of its choicest and best. One deep united wall ascended to heaven as Jehovah thus vindicated His offended majesty, and manifested His superiority over all the gods of the heathen, and over all the might and glory of men.
The awful story has a living voice for men today. God was acting in His judicial character as the avenger of sin. Pharaoh and his people had openly defied His commandments. Spite of plague after plague they still refused to let Israel go. Even divine long-suffering has its limits. Accordingly we have Jehovah in Exodus 12 carrying into effect His original threat as given in Exodus 4:22-2322And thou shalt say unto Pharaoh, Thus saith the Lord, Israel is my son, even my firstborn: 23And I say unto thee, Let my son go, that he may serve me: and if thou refuse to let him go, behold, I will slay thy son, even thy firstborn. (Exodus 4:22‑23), “Thou shalt say unto Pharaoh, thus saith Jehovah, Israel is even My firstborn; and I say unto thee, Let My son go, that he may serve Me; and if thou refuse to let him go, behold, I will slay thy son, even thy firstborn.” Are men more subject to the voice of God in our day than, in Pharaoh’s time? Is it, not a fact that His every commandment is outraged amongst us, and His authority everywhere challenged? As surely then as He desolated Egypt in ages past, so will He desolate the whole earth shortly. None will escape His avenging hand but those who are sheltered beneath the Savior’s blood.
The Passover chapter opens very suggestively. “And Jehovah spake unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt saying, This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year unto you” (Ex. 12:1-21And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, 2This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you. (Exodus 12:1‑2)). The month in question was Abib, otherwise Nisan (Ex. 13:44This day came ye out in the month Abib. (Exodus 13:4)), and corresponded to our March-April. It had hitherto been the seventh in order of reckoning; from the time of Israel’s deliverance from Egypt it was to be accounted the first. Redemption thus gave the people a new start with God. Even so is it now. When a man acknowledges himself a sinner in the divine sight, exposed to eternal wrath, and in simple faith takes refuge under the blood of the Lamb, he begins life anew. His past of sin and guilt is divinely expunged. His whole previous course, “alienated from the life of God” (Eph. 4:1818Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart: (Ephesians 4:18)), is accounted as so much waste, and so utterly worthless that it is mercy on the part of God to wipe it out of all remembrance.
We are aware that this is not men’s usual way of looking at things. When it becomes whispered around that such and such a one has become “converted,” it is too commonly supposed that the individual referred to has said “good-bye” to “life once for all.” What men call “life” and what God so describes are two wholly different things. Men’s idea of “life” is the gratification of their, own lusts and pleasures at the utmost possible distance from their Creator. Bitterness and disappointment result, as the Lord so graphically showed in the parable of the lost son in Luke 15, and as the wise man so painfully records (writing down his own experience) in the book of Ecclesiastes. It is feeding upon ashes and striving after the wind. Life according to God is participation in divine joys. “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life” (John 3:3636He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him. (John 3:36)). The happy man of whom this is true finds himself in heart and mind in touch with pleasures outside this world. The life he has thus received, as the fruit of sovereign grace, is of a heavenly order, and carries with it capabilities of entering into divine thoughts, divine affections, and divine counsels. This is life indeed. He who is in it looks back with shame and self-judgment upon all the years spent in ignorance of God and His Son. The knowledge of redemption involves a tremendous revolution; it is “the beginning of months”—a new point of departure, a new mode of being altogether.