Exodus 12
The general idea of the passover, as a type of redemption, has already been given; but the details of its institution are of the deepest interest, as bearing upon the application of the wondrous death of Christ, as the ground of a sinner's deliverance from sin, and the basis of his peace and security before God.
The chapter begins with the statement, " This month shall be the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year unto you." The commencement of Israel's existence, as the people of God, dates from the time of their redemption from the judgment of the firstborn, and from their bondage in Egypt. God cannot acknowledge a people to be His, and yet leave them under the judgment of the world, nor under bondage to Satan, as its prince. The death of Christ alike delivers the soul from the world's condemnation and from the world's bondage.
The passover unfolds the grounds of this. It is the presentation, in type, of the means by which a sinner is brought into association with God. Hence the first thing presented is the victim, whose blood preserves from judgment, set apart for death—according to the force of the scripture, " Without shedding of blood is no remission;" and "ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ." Most precious truth that it is God that marks, and estimates, and condemns the sin, which His infinite grace puts away!
The lamb was especially marked for the households of Israel. Every man was to take a lamb for his house. And if his own household was too small, his neighbor's was to be joined with it; for the relationship of a redeemed family must not be lost. It is the household of faith which is shielded from judgment, by the sprinkled blood; as it is also said, the whole household were to partake of the lamb. There may be in the family of God " little children, young men, and fathers," but one and the same ground of redemption is common to each; and eternal deliverance, through His blood, the blessed position of all. Redemption is the bond which unites together the whole family of God.
It was to be a" lamb without blemish." The purity of the victim is marked before the efficacy of the blood which delivers from death is brought into view. Jesus, also, is seen in all His purity, as the spotless lamb—"the Lamb of God "—before His blood-shedding on the cross, presents the full answer to every claim of the moral nature of God. It needs but to refer to the word, "ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold... but with the precious blood if Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot."
But the, whole assembly of the congregation of Israel were to kill the lamb: because redemption is the common need of all who are called to have to do with God. “There is no difference; for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." He can surround Himself alone by a people whom He has redeemed; for He cannot be associated with sin, nor can sin, for a moment, abide the holiness of His presence. Hence before there is any feeding upon the lamb, the blood is sprinkled upon the lintel and the door-posts. For the death of Christ must be known, as delivering from the judgment of sin, before Christ, who is the object of God's delight, can in any sense be delighted in, or become the object of satisfaction to the heart. For in the passover God is seen in the double character of judge and deliverer. His judgment falls, and falls of necessity, wherever the blood of atonement does not shield—for "he is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity." this is seen in the death universally of the firstborn, taken as the representatives of the people, and also in the blood being the symbol of deliverance. The Israelites were not delivered, in this sense, because they were Israelites. For God is viewed as judging sin, and they were sinners as well as the Egyptians. They were delivered from the judgment of God only by virtue of their trust in the sprinkled blood. When God judges for sin there can only be one of these two results—either death, as in the case of the firstborn of the Egyptians, who met His judgment in their own persons; or perfect deliverance, as in the case of the Israelites, because the judgment of sin has been met in the death of Christ, as seen in the sprinkled blood.
" The blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are; and when I see the blood, I will pass over you." The blood was given to the Israelite as the pledge of his security when death and judgment were all around him. He took refuge inside the house, when he had sprinkled the blood on the doorway, and trusted that it would be for him a bar against the entrance of the judgment of God. And did he trust in vain? Did God enter as a judge notwithstanding this pledge? No! He had said, " When I see the blood, I will pass over you." The symbol of deliverance was presented, not to the eye of the Israelite -with him it was dark night-but to the eye of Him who was Judge, and who had given the pledge of the blood, and well knew bow to estimate its value. The expression is, " When I see the blood, I will pass over." It is not said, when you see it, but when I see it. The soul of an awakened person often rests, not on its own righteousness, but on the way in which it sees the blood. Now, precious as it is to have the heart deeply impressed with it, this is not the ground of peace. Peace is founded on God's seeing it. He cannot fail to estimate it at its full and perfect value as putting away sin. It is He that abhors and has been offended by sin; He sees the value of the blood as putting it away. It may be said, But must I not have faith in its value? This is faith in its value, seeing that God looks at it as putting away sin; your value for it looks at it as a question of the measure of your feelings. Faith looks at God's thoughts. " When I see the blood," says God, "I will pass over you."
But the flesh of the lamb, roasted with fire, was to be eaten on the night of the passover. The victim, whose precious blood delivers from judgment, having been submitted to the trial of God's holiness, becomes the food of the sheltered soul. Eaten, indeed, with the bitter herbs of repentance, for sin is fresh before the mind, and the judgment due to it vividly displayed. Every part of the lamb was to be eaten, " his head with his legs, and with the purtenance thereof," because all that Christ is, as having offered Himself without spot to God, is given to us as our portion and our strength. Being shielded by His sprinkled blood from judgment, we feed upon Him by faith as sacrificed for us; and thus have fellowship with God in the perfectness of the sacrifice which Christ has presented to Him on our behalf.
The flesh was to be eaten on the same night that the blood was sprinkled, and not on the morning after; for Christ cannot be fed upon by the soul that does not see the power of this sprinkled blood as delivering from the judgment of sin. All thoughts of Christ, apart from His sacrifice, are vain, and are the mere offspring of nature, alike ignorant of its own condition in the sight of God, and of the holy judgment of God. Moreover, the flesh was to be eaten in the blood-sprinkled house, and not apart from it.
They were to eat it with girded loins and shoes on their feet, with a staff in their band, and in haste. For the pass-over was eaten in Egypt, where they had been slaves, and where God's judgment was now being solemnly displayed. Redemption by the blood of Christ separates the soul from the world's final judgment, and sets free from its present course. It brings into association with the thoughts and counsels of God's goodness; and while it makes the world no longer our home, it is because it presents to the heart a better home of God's own providing.
The passover made Israel pilgrims under the guidance of God, instead of leaving them slaves in Egypt, and exposed to its judgment; and it put Canaan before them as their hope, instead of leaving them in " the iron furnace," and to such present ease and plenty as might be gathered by them in the land of their oppressors.
" The ordinance of the passover" (from ver. 43-45) brings into view the relationship in which the believer is set toward God by virtue of The death of Christ. No stranger was to eat of the passover, nor an uncircumcised person, nor a hired servant. And how simply does scripture show these relations to exist, and these barriers to be set aside by association with the death of Christ! For it says, "ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God." And again, " thou art no more a servant, but a son." Or if the servant that was bought for money, and afterward circumcised that he might eat the passover, (ver. 44,) be looked at, it is the same. For " ye are not your own: for ye are bought with a price." And again, " In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands."
But the ordinance proceeds, (ver. 46, 47,) " In one house shall it be eaten: thou shalt not carry forth aught of the flesh abroad out of the house; neither shall ye break a bone thereof. All the congregation of Israel shall keep it." The flesh cannot be carried abroad to be the portion of those who are not in the blood-sprinkled house. Men may pretend, by means of outward ordinances, or in ways of their own, to give a participation in Christ, while they are strangers themselves, as well as those who are led by them, to the faith which brings a sinner in all his sins to find a refuge in the blood of Christ; but it can never be. Christ is no portion for those who despise the efficacy of His precious blood. The fruits of His death will never be participated in by those who have any other hope of meeting God or of being delivered from the judgment of sin but through trust in that death. This point is especially guarded here. Security was alone found in the blood-sprinkled house. There only could the lamb be eaten with bitter herbs. It was not allowed that the eating of the flesh should be so far dissociated from the sprinkling of the blood as to be partaken of on the morrow. And in the verse before us, " In one house shall it be eaten; thou shalt not carry forth aught of the flesh abroad out of the house; neither shall ye break a bone thereof." [It is not a Christ mutilated by man, but solely offered in sacrifice to God, that is our portion.] And " all the congregation of Israel shall keep it." Redemption is the only link of connection between the sinner-any sinner, a sinner in any circumstances-and God.
The feast of unleavened bread, to which the passover introduced, (ver. 14-20.1 comes in to strengthen this position. Christ, in His unleavened perfectness, is indeed the food of the believer; but not until he has fed upon Him as a sacrificed Christ; until he has thus eaten His flesh. It is not Christ in death only that we are called to know, with all the grace that brought Him there; but Christ in. life also, in all His perfectness as a man subject to God; " the bread of God which came down from heaven to give life unto the world." But He is not thus fed upon, cannot be, as the power of a believer's separation to God, until He has been known in death. Holiness (of God) follows, not precedes, redemption. The passover introduces to the feast of unleavened bread, and not the feast of unleavened bread to the passover. Holiness, or separation to God, begins with the knowledge of the death of Christ for our sins. It is the fruit of His death that we are delivered from this present evil world. " Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works."