The Passover: The Red Sea

Exodus 12‑14  •  2 min. read  •  grade level: 8
Listen from:
Exod. 12-14
Redemption, as presented in the type of Israel's deliverance from Egypt, has two aspects. The one is seen in the feast of the Passover, the other in the passage of the Red Sea.
The history and circumstances of the two disclose in a wonderful manner the redemption which God has wrought for His people in the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.
In the Passover the deep question is met of how God's power can be thus displayed on behalf of those whom His holiness has condemned as sinners.
"God is light"—"There is none holy as the LORD." He cannot, therefore, link Himself with sin, nor can He bring a people into association with Himself until He has put away their sins.
Hence the Passover comes before deliverance at the Red Sea, even as Jesus must be known as dying for our sins before we can say, through His resurrection, "Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." The Passover, which answers to Christ's death, brings redemption before us in connection with God's righteous holiness. The deliverance at the Red Sea, which answers to Christ's resurrection, shows how God's power in Christ is on His people's side, because His death has met the claims of all the holiness of God.
The Israelites were delivered, it is true, on the night of the Passover; but from what were they delivered? Not from the pursuit of Pharaoh, but from God's judgment for sin. The blood was sprinkled on the lintel and on the doorposts to bar the way of God's entrance as a judge. It is not power that delivers in the Passover, but weakness, death, the blood of the lamb!
The question to the Israelite on that night was how God should be stayed from entering his dwelling as a judge. And God showed him that nothing but his trusting to the sprinkled blood of the lamb would cause the angel of death to pass over his dwelling. He entered every dwelling of the Egyptians, where the blood was not sprinkled. For "without shedding of blood is no remission." "For," says the Scripture (v. 23), "the LORD will pass through to smite the Egyptians; and when He seeth the blood upon the lintel, and on the two side posts, the LORD will pass over the door, and will not suffer the destroyer to come in unto your houses to smite you."