Exodus 12:21-30
21 Then Moses called for all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Pick out and take lambs for yourselves according to your families, and kill the Passover lamb. 22 And you shall take a bunch of hyssop, dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and strike the lintel and the two doorposts with the blood that is in the basin. And none of you shall go out of the door of his house until morning. 23 For the Lord will pass through to strike the Egyptians; and when He sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over the door and not allow the destroyer to come into your houses to strike you. 24 And you shall observe this thing as an ordinance for you and your sons forever. 25 It will come to pass when you come to the land which the Lord will give you, just as He promised, that you shall keep this service. 26 And it shall be, when your children say to you, ‘What do you mean by this service?’ 27 that you shall say, ‘It is the Passover sacrifice of the Lord, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt when He struck the Egyptians and delivered our households.’ ” So the people bowed their heads and worshiped. 28 Then the children of Israel went away and did so; just as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron, so they did.
29 And it came to pass at midnight that the Lord struck all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of livestock. 30 So Pharaoh rose in the night, he, all his servants, and all the Egyptians; and there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where there was not one dead.
29 And it came to pass at midnight that the Lord struck all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of livestock. 30 So Pharaoh rose in the night, he, all his servants, and all the Egyptians; and there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where there was not one dead.
After given instructions for the Passover to avoid the firstborn of God’s people being struck down with those holding them sinfully in bondage, the night came for the visitation. Moses first called the elders to select the Passover lambs for the families, giving details on how to mark their house entrances with the blood of a perfect lamb using branches to strike the wood, much like the nails struck to pierce Jesus’s hands and feet on the wood of the cross giving entrance to the new house in (John 14:2) Paradise. The destroyer of death would then pass over the judgement on those houses, a reminder of God’s merciful deliverance from spiritual death for sin. They were to repeat this as a meal every year as a memorial of their deliverance until the new covenant where Christ would pay the price once for all to deliver all His people promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob before them and us. There is no more need to continue to celebrate God passing over His people in Egypt when the Lamb of God has done it completely and effectively for eternity; the observance here given ‘forever’ to remember is fulfilled in Christ and replaced by the Lord’s Supper in which Jew and Gentile together remember His complete and ultimate deliverance from the bondage to sin. We who are in Christ should therefore bow our heads in worship now to this deliverance, thankful that it is not us as those of Egypt losing our firstborn, but finding life from the Firstborn from the dead (Colossians 1:18, Revelation 1:5), in whom we find grace for life. All lost in the bondage of sin will likewise perish, but all in Christ who have been passed over from death into life (John 5:24, 2 Thessalonians 1:9-10) follow into the resurrection in the end as the Firstborn has done. We therefore preach this good news of deliverance with the hope that as many are appointed to eternal life will hear to faith by God’s word (Acts 13:48, Romans 10:17).
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