When I see the blood, I will pass over you. Exod. 12:13.
THIS simple Institution marked off God’s people in ancient days from the nation around them in Egypt. They were all equally sinful, no doubt, and all of one blood, born of Adam’s race, and so all were amenable to the holy judgment of a just God, even as we all are today. God, however, wanted, and was calling out for Himself, a people among whom He could dwell— as He is today from the world around us, for Egypt was a type of this world, “where... our Lord was crucified” (Rev. 11:8). He interposed by grace, to create a way by which the Israelites could be saved from the wrath which hung over the people of Egypt around them. But it must be a way suited to the holiness of God, and conformable with His glory.
This way was by blood, for the reason that the life was in the blood, and where blood is shed the life is taken. Our lives are forfeited because we have sinned, “for the wages of sin is death.” When God therefore would deliver His people Israel from death, He had to “put a difference between the Egyptians and Israel” (Ex. 11:7). That difference was by blood. On the night, in which God was going by His angel to destroy all the firstborn in Egypt, blood was sprinkled on the door of every house in which the Israelites dwelt. consequently in every house there was life and safety and no death, for the lamb had died, so death had already taken place. The firstborn were safe.
The incident as recorded in Exodus 12 is very interesting and simple. A lamb had to be chosen by every household, or two households if one were too small. The lamb was to be without blemish, and a lamb of the first year. Then it had to be kept up from the 10th day to the 14th day of the 1St month in the year and then killed between the two evenings of the 13th and 14th days. The blood of the lamb was to be poured into a basin, and a bunch of hyssop — a type of faith — gathered and dipped in the blood. With this the blood was sprinkled on the side posts and the lintel of their doorways, but none on the threshold of the door, to be trodden on. Then the lamb was roast with fire and eaten by the inmates. Nothing was to be left in Egypt but ashes, i.e., anything over from what was eaten had to be burnt with fire, before the morning.
Now nothing is plainer from this than that Israel was saved by the shedding of blood, and the death of a victim without blemish. And Gods’ ways do not change, because He does not change, He being holy, can only associate Himself with those that are holy. Alas! we have all sinned and come short of His glory — short of His standard of holiness, truth and righteousness; hence One, capable of meeting our need and God’s claims, has come down to stand in the breach. Just as the blood shed from the Passover lamb screened the children of Israel from death and the judgment of the destroying angel in Egypt, so God has given to us His only Son; a spotless Victim to bear the judgment that was due to us. He has been accepted for us, as a Lamb without blemish, to atone for our guilt, and bear the punishment of our sins, “in His own body on the tree” (1 Peter 1:19; 2:24). Our life was forfeited and so He gave His for us. “None can by any means redeem his brother” (Psa. 49:7), but God’s grace has supplied a substitute and Christ died for us.
All the inmates of that Jewish house or tent were equally safe. God had said, “when I see the blood I will pass over you.” So God’s Word and His gift both give assurance of safety. The children inside the house could not see the blood, but they had within the roast lamb, whose blood was sprinkled outside, and it was a witness to them of what God saw, namely, the blood. One child may have been full of fear, another may have said, “Father sprinkled the blood today, and God has said ‘when I see the blood I will pass over’ — so we are safe”— but both were safe equally. So it is with the believer today. The Lamb, God’s substitute for the sinner, was offered up as a sacrifice for sins 1900 years ago. We did not see it, but the Word of God tells us, “He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities... and with His stripes we are healed” (Isa. 53:5). Believing, we rejoice to see the curse removed. For, “the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all” (Isa. 53:6).
When I was a boy I was taken to see the illuminations in London that celebrated the peace made after the Crimean War. It was a wonderful sight to my youthful eyes, and I have never seen greater expressions of joy and exultation, but I did not see the Peace Treaty signed by the representatives of Queen Victoria and the French and Turkish and Russian Sovereigns of those days. Still I was able to rejoice in the fact that peace was made. So Christ has made peace by the blood of His Cross. Accept Him as your Substitute and Saviour, as God has accepted His full payment of your debt, and you will rejoice in the peace made, for the Lord Jesus “was delivered for our offenses and was raised again for our justification” (Rom. 4:52). Now, “being justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 5:1).
A. E. Walker.