2. Exodus 1-15: The True Passover (Yahweh)

Scripture Reading

Psalm 86:8–10 “There is none like you among the gods, O Lord, nor are there any works like yours. All the nations you have made shall come and worship before you, O Lord, and shall glorify your name. For you are great and do wondrous things; you alone are God.”

For Sermon Intro

Luke 22:7–8, 14-22 Then came the day of Unleavened Bread, on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed. So Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, “Go and prepare the Passover for us, that we may eat it.”… “And when the hour came, he reclined at table, and the apostles with him. And he said to them, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he said, “Take this, and divide it among yourselves. For I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.” And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.

Intro

On the night Jesus gave the Lord’s Supper Luke says Then came the day of Unleavened Bread, on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed. So Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, “Go and prepare the Passover for us, that we may eat it” ( Luke 22:7–8).

And when the Meal came He said to the Apostles “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.” (Luke 22:15).

And in that Passover Jesus said This is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me (Luke 22:19).

And This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood (Luke 22:20).

Now the Passover was already a meal of remembrance where God’s people would remember celebrate God delivering them out of Egypt.

And in the Lord’s Supper Jesus gives a new remembrance of the fullness of that deliverance.

The Passover is something that we should have in mind as we celebrate the Lord’s Supper.

It was a Passover meal.

And so all the themes and promises and graces of the Passover are intimately tied up with what Jesus was doing in the Lord’s Supper.

Those themes… those promises… those graces point to their ultimate fulfillment in Jesus Christ - the True and Better Passover Lamb of the True and Better Exodus.

The ultimate salvation… and the ultimate deliverance Passover always pointed to.

Like Paul said… Christ, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed (2 Corinthians 5:7).

Passover always pointed to Him.

So when Jesus said Do this in Remembrance of me, we Remember the Passover.

When we celebrate our Passover Meal in the Lord’s Supper… we need to have in mind what the first Passover was ultimately all about because it gives us a picture of the fullness of salvation we have in Christ.

Those truths and themes from the Exodus give us have a richer understanding of all that we are Remembering and Celebrating in the Lord’s Supper.

By holding the Passover in our minds and all that it represents when we celebrate the Lord’s Supper we can have a true appreciation for the Salvation and Deliverance we have in Christ and celebrate the Lord’s Supper as the Lord Jesus gave it.

What does the Passover tell us about the Lord’s Supper?

What does the Shadow or the Type say about the ultimate fulfillment of Jesus Christ?

What themes… truths… and promises should we have in mind in the background of the Lord’s Supper to help us see the True Exodus and True Redemption we have in Christ?

The Exodus

When you start out the book of Exodus the people of God are in Egypt.

They had fled there in the days of Joseph to escape a famine and through the years the people of Israel were fruitful and increased greatly; they multiplied and grew exceedingly strong, so that the land was filled with them (Exodus 1:7).

God had blessed them just as He promised.

But then Exodus 1:8…

Exodus 1:8–11, 13-14 Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. And he said to his people, “Behold, the people of Israel are too many and too mighty for us. Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply, and, if war breaks out, they join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.” Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with heavy burdens…So they ruthlessly made the people of Israel work as slaves and made their lives bitter with hard service, in mortar and brick, and in all kinds of work in the field. In all their work they ruthlessly made them work as slaves.

God’s people were in bondage and slavery… this is a picture of us in our sin.

Slavery to Sin

Jesus said Everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin (John 8:34).

We are slaves to our passions and desires.

Slaves to that which destroys us.

For the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23).

And so there is this double tyranny of sin.

We are slaves to the very thing that condemns us and leads to death…

And at the same time we are slaves by our own volition…

We love our sin … we don’t want to be free… we love the very thing that destroys us.

So sin brings condemnation and with every breath we add to that condemnation.

And just like the Israelites we cannot save ourselves… we cannot free ourselves by our own power or our own will.

We need Redeemer.

Someone to loose the chains and deliver us from the heavy burdens and lives made bitter with hard service.

That’s a great picture of sin… they ruthlessly worked them…

That is what your sin is doing to you.

Killing Sons

And Pharaoh even had the Egyptians throw the Hebrew sons into the Nile (Exodus 1:15-22).

It was the seed of the Serpent going after the seed of the woman doing all that he could to destroy them.

And this is important because ultimate judgment of Egypt is the death of the firstborn just like Pharaoh killed their sons.

Moses

This is where Moses comes in.

Moses was born as one of the sons to die… but God saved Him.

His mother placed Him in a basket… in an ark… and set Him on the waters where He was eventually found by Pharaoh’s daughter and raised in Pharaoh’s house (Exodus 2:1-10).

Then Moses killed an Egyptian man who was abusing one of the Hebrews, and when it was found out He fled (Exodus 2:11-22).

Groaning

And then come some of the sweetest verses in the whole Exodus story.

Exodus 2:23–25 During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel—and God knew.

God heard… God remembered… God saw… and God knew.

God is a merciful and faithful God who always holds true to His Covenant promises.

Just like we talked about the Passover being in the background of the Lord’s Supper… these verses are in the background of the whole Passover.

God is faithful to His people.

God cares.

He draws near to humble.

He doesn’t leave us in our slavery and sin… our groans.

He sees our poor and pitiful life and delivers us by His grace and tender mercy.

In the background of the Lord’s Supper is God’s Steadfast Love!

His condescension…

His mercy to bring us out of the pit and the grave.

When God calls Moses He says…

Exodus 3:7–8 I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey…

This is setting up what the Exodus is all about.

Deliverance out of slavery and death to a good, broad land.

When it says a land flowing with milk and honey…

Milk is a symbol for life… every newborn babe survives on milk to live.

And honey is a symbol for sweetness and blessing.

Both things that are ours in Christ.

Life and blessing.

Who sent me?

And God tells Moses, “I want you to God to Pharaoh and I want you to tell Him , ‘Let my people go.’” (Exodus 3:7-12).

And that’s when Moses says, “But who will I say has sent me?” (Exodus 3:13).

And that’s where we come to one of the major themes of the Exodus… the knowledge of God’s Glory.

When Moses first goes to Pharaoh, Pharaoh asks “Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, and moreover, I will not let Israel go” (Exodus 5:2).

And throughout the plagues… God constantly says that the purpose of those plagues is that the Egyptians… and thereby the Israelites and all the nations of the world… would know He is the LORD.

Exodus 7:4–5 I will lay my hand on Egypt and bring my hosts, my people the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great acts of judgment. The Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring out the people of Israel from among them.

He even tells Pharaoh You will know that I am the LORD… for this purpose I have raised you up, to show you my power, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth (Exodus 7:16-17; 9:16).

And so when Moses says, “Who will I say has sent me to you?” God said to Moses…

Exodus 3:14–15 God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ ” God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations.”

I AM is the Hebrew word to be… is…

And Yahweh translated as LORD is derivative of that.

So God is saying My Name is Yahweh… This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations… I AM.An

Now what does that mean?

God is!

He is Almighty Eternal God.

The Uncreated One.

The One who was, Is, always will be.

The God who is the same yesterday, and today, and forever… always faithful… always true (Hebrews 13:8, cf. James 1:17, Numbers 23:19).

The One who exists in and of Himself who depends on no one and nothing for His own being.

In other words He is the source of all life… the fountain of living waters (Jeremiah 2:13).

The One from whom… through whom… and to whom all things exists (Romans 11:36).

The One to whom belongs all the glory.

The Alpha and Omega… the first and the last (Isaiah 48:12).

The One True God who will share His glory with no other (Isaiah 52:8).

That’s why God shows up to Moses in a Burning Bush that was burning and yet not consumed (Exodus 3:2). (Beeke, Reformed Systematic Theology: Revelation and God, vol. 1, 561).

God is.

He is an eternal, self-sufficient flame.

And He is holy… a bright and glorious light.

He says Do not come near; take your sandals off… for the place on which you are standing is holy ground (Exodus 3:5).

Almighty, Eternal, Holy, Infinitely Glorious God!

And in the context of God coming to Moses and sending Moses to redeem His people… He is the Redeemer and Covenant Keeping Lord of Salvation.

In revealing His Name, God says He is the LORD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (see Exodus 6:2-3).

The one who remembers and keeps covenant.

And who hears the cries of His people and comes down to deliver them (Exodus 3:7).

So when you hear the name Yahweh… the LORD… God is Almighty, Eternal, Holy, Infinitely Glorious God! and Redeemer and Covenant Keeping Lord of Salvation.

Our Covenant Redeemer.

That’s who God reveals Himself to be in the Exodus…

And that’s the God we worship in taking the Lord’s Supper… Almighty Eternal God who saves us from all our sins.

Plagues

And that’s where the plagues come in.

God sent ten plagues on Egypt.

He turned the Nile and all the water in land of Egypt to blood (Exodus 7:14-25).

The source of life and the fountain of their whole civilization was cut off… judgment was coming.

He sent Frogs (Exodus 8:15)… He sent Gnats (Exodus 8:16-19)… He sent Flies (Exodus 8:20-23… He Destroyed their Livestock ( Exodus 9:1-7).

God sent Boils that afflicted the people (Exodus 9:8-12) … Great Hailstones that fell on the fields and the crops (Exodus 9:13-35)… Locusts to destroy the rest (Exodus 10:1-20)… Darkness over the whole land… (Exodus10:21-23)

And eventually the Death of the Firstborn (Exodus 10:24-12:32).

Now here’s the thing you need to understand about the plagues.

Maker of Heaven and Earth

Number 1… That God is the Maker of Heaven and Earth.

Creator!

Like we saw earlier… that He is Almighty Eternal God.

Going back to Genesis… the waters… the land… the heavens… the cattle… light… darkness… all the animals and even sovereignty over life and death… all these things are aspects of Creation showing that God is absolutely sovereign over all things.

That He… Joshua 2:11… is God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath.

The One True Sovereign who made heaven and earth (Ps. 121:2; 124:8; 134:3; 146:6).

Triumph Over False Gods

The other thing the plagues show us is God’s victory and triumph over false gods.

Since so many of Egypts gods are linked to life and death and different aspects of nature every plague directly attacks these gods in the domain of their power.

In Exodus 12:12 God said For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord.

You’d have Hapi the god of the Nile and Khnum the god of water and life.

Heket, the goddess of childbirth often portrayed as a frog.

Hathor the goddess of livestock.

You had gods over health… god’s over storms… gods over crops and the sun.

Osiris the judge of the dead and even Pharaoh himself who was worshiped as a living God.

(L. Michael Morales, Exodus Old and New: A Biblical Theology of Redemption, The Essential Studies in Biblical Theology (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2020), 45).

All these gods… God triumphed over.

To say what… He is the One True God… there is none like Him (Isaiah 46:9).

So one of the things God was showing His people was that there is no god but the LORD.

There is no other hope and there is no other savior.

Burdens

Of false gods God says they are burdens carried on weary beasts (Isaiah 46:1).

We want them to carry us but they cannot carry themselves.

God on the other hand carries us from the womb… all the days of our life.

Isaiah 46:3–4 Listen to me, O house of Jacob, all the remnant of the house of Israel, who have been borne by me from before your birth, carried from the womb; even to your old age I am he, and to gray hairs I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save.

So one of the things we should have in the back of our mind is that God is our only hope and Savior.

All other gods… all other Saviors… every functional Messiah we make to give us meaning or try to save ourselves are vanity…

They are empty… meaningless.

Those who make them become like them; so do all who trust in them (Psalm 115:8).

Dead… deaf… and blind.

In this way the Lord’s Supper expresses our faith and our devotion to God alone, and that there is no hope outside of Christ.

Its a covenant meal where not only do we remember God’s grace in the New Covenant but we renew our covenant commitment to follow and worship Him.

The very first commandment after the Exodus is Exodus 20:2–3 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. “You shall have no other gods before me.”

How much more more true for us who have been brought out in the True Exodus.

Grace and Power

Finally… what the plagues also show us is God’s grace and power.

In the book of Exodus, you’ll notice that throughout the Plagues it will say that Pharaoh hardened his own heart… and that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart as well (Pharaoh: Exodus 8:15, 32; 9:34; God: Exodus 4:21; 7:3, 7:13-14, 22, 8:19, 9:7, 12, 35; 10:1, 20, 27; 14:8).

Now one of the things this shows us according to Paul in Romans 9 is God’s Sovereignty in Salvation.

He hardens whom He wills and has mercy on whom He wills (Romans 9:17–18).

As Jesus said No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him (John 6:44).

Power

But in the context of the Exodus, Pharaoh hardening His own heart shows us God’s power over all enemies.

No power or force can stand in His way or keep Him from redeeming His people even if Pharaoh himself sets all of his heart on not letting God’s people go.

Grace

It also show us God’s grace because there was no grace in Pharaoh that let the people go.

It was all God’s grace… His plan… His purpose to redeem His people.

Connection to Lord’s Supper

And so in the Lord’s Supper we remember that we too were delivered by God’s Grace and Power.

It was the mighty works of Christ that Saved us… His death and resurrection from the Cross that brought us out of our Egypt of sin and death.

He triumphed over Satan no matter how much he had set his heart against us.

Christ bound the strongman to plunder his goods and redeem the elect just like the Israelites plundered the Egyptians (Matthew 12:29; Exodus 12:35-36).

In the Lord’s Supper we celebrate that we were delivered by God’s almighty grace and power in Jesus Christ.

We celebrate the grace upon grace that delivered us from sin.

That planned our salvation from before the foundation of the world.

And the Power of God to triumph over all our enemies no matter how strong whether it was the Malice of Satan or our own sinful flesh.

The Lord’s Supper says God thank you for saving me!

The Passover

And now the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart actually takes us to the Passover.

In Exodus 11 God said…

Exodus 11:1, 4-6 The Lord said to Moses, “Yet one plague more I will bring upon Pharaoh and upon Egypt. Afterward he will let you go from here. When he lets you go, he will drive you away completely… Thus says the Lord: ‘About midnight I will go out in the midst of Egypt, and every firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sits on his throne, even to the firstborn of the slave girl who is behind the handmill, and all the firstborn of the cattle. There shall be a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, such as there has never been, nor ever will be again.”

To redeem His firstborn son… that’s what God calls Israel in Exodus 4:22… God would kill the firstborn throughout all the land of Egypt.

Remember this was a judgment that answered Egypt’s throwing of the Hebrews sons into the Nile.

As they destroyed the Hebrews… God would destroy them and bring His people out.

Now this is because God made a distinction between His people and the people of Egypt.

He had done this before in a few of the plagues but this one was different.

Every firstborn son in the land of Egypt would die… Hebrew and Egyptian included.

All were condemned under a sentence of death.

But God provided a substitute in the Passover Lamb.

If you took lamb without blemish… a male that was a year old… a son for a son… you could kill it and spread its blood over your doorposts (Exodus 12:5, 7).

And as the Lord passed through the Land of Egypt to strike the firstborn of the land God said, Exodus 12:13 The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.

The Lamb was as a substitutionary sacrifice that took the place of the firstborn son.

Every house that was covered in the blood of the firstborn son represented by the blood of the Lamb would be saved.

Judgement would fall on the Egyptians but the people of God would be saved by the blood of a Substitutionary Lamb.

Christ Our Passover Lamb

Christ is that Passover Lamb.

The Passover Lamb was to be without Blemish or Spot (Exodus 12:5).

A pure sacrifice.

And not one of its bones could be broken (Exodus 12:46).

In the same way John says that Christ was crucified on the Day of Preparation when all the Passover Lambs were slaughtered and when He died the Roman soldiers did not break His legs For these things took place that the Scripture might be fulfilled: “Not one of his bones will be broken” quoting the Passover Lamb of Exodus 12:46.

No wonder Paul says Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed (1 Corinthians 5:7).

The Exodus is the story of the Gospel.

1 Peter 1:18–19 You were ransomed…

That is purchased… bought with a price… redeemed from slavery…

from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.

The True Passover Lamb.

Just like the Passover Lamb He is our substitute.

He died on the cross in our place for our sins.

And by grace through faith in Him the blood of Jesus covers all our sin and the death and wrath of God our sins deserve does not fall on us.

God’s wrath passes over us and we are saved.

The Message of Passover is that God delivers His people by the death of an innocent substitute.

That’s what Jesus meant when He said Do this in Remembrance of me.

He is our Passover Lamb.

Its like He was saying… I am the Passover… I am the Paschal Lamb.

I’m the firstborn son… not in the since that He was created but in the sense that He was God’s only and beloved Son… I’m the firstborn son who gives my life as a substitute… for you.

The Exodus is the story of the Gospel… it was all right there from the beginning.

Just as God ransomed His people by the death of the firstborn… He ransoms us by the death of His only beloved Son, Jesus Christ.

By His death, God brings us out of Egypt into the Promise Land of Eternal Life.

Red Sea

That’s where the Red Sea comes in.

After God struck the first born in the land Pharaoh drove the Israelites out.

But then he had a change of heart (Exodus 14:5).

So he chased after them with all his armies and chariots (Exodus 14:9).

And eventually he cornered them at the Red Sea.

Exodus 14:10–12 When Pharaoh drew near, the people of Israel lifted up their eyes, and behold, the Egyptians were marching after them, and they feared greatly. And the people of Israel cried out to the Lord. They said to Moses, “Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us in bringing us out of Egypt? Is not this what we said to you in Egypt: ‘Leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.”

The Red Sea represented certain death… it was the people of Israel’s doom.

But Moses said “Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will work for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again. The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent” (Exodus 14:13-14).

And what did God do?

First He stood in the gap.

The Pillar of Cloud that was leading the people moved behind them and stood between the host of Egypt and the people of Israel (Exodus 14:19-20).

And then God split the Red Sea and led His people through on dry ground (Exodus 14:21-22).

And when the Egyptians pursued them… God brought the waves crashing down and destroyed Pharaoh and the Egyptian armies (Exodus 14:26-29).

Exodus 14:30–31 Thus the Lord saved Israel that day from the hand of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore. Israel saw the great power that the Lord used against the Egyptians, so the people feared the Lord, and they believed in the Lord and in his servant Moses.

So with the Passover Lamb God saved them from slavery and with the Red Sea God saved them from death.

The Passover as a whole was a Redemption from slavery and death… the fullness of we have in Christ.

Even in the Exodus Narrative there’s this movement from darkness to light.

They come the Red Sea at dusk (Exodus 14:1-14).

They pass through the Sea at night (Exodus 14:25-25).

And they come out the other side delivered and saved at the breaking of the Dawn (Exodus 14:26).

Darkness to Light… Death to Life.

Its the same idea as Colossians 1:13–14 He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

The Passover and the Exodus is the story of the Gospel.

Its all right there.

And the fulfillment of that Exodus is what we celebrate in the Lord’s Supper.

Conclusion

The Big… Overarching theme of the Passover and the Exodus is that God delivers His people by His Grace and Power.

And that the way God delivers His people is by the death of a substitute to bring them out of death and into life.

So when we celebrate the Lord’s Supper we should have in mind all these promises and truths.

Slavery to sin.

The glory of God as Almighty, Sovereign, and Eternal Lord and Covenant Redeemer.

His Grace…

His Power…

His Triumph over all false gods and the only Savior…

The Substitutionary Death and cleansing blood…

Darkness to light…

And ultimately… that Jesus is the True Passover Lamb saves us and delivers us from sin and death.

The Lord’s Supper is a Passover Meal where we remember the True Passover Jesus.

The Lord’s Supper is where we remember Christ’s Suffering and Death and celebrate the Salvation and Deliverance we have in Him.

So when you take the Lord’s Supper… remember the Passover and all that it means for you.

In the Lord’s Supper we sing the Song of Moses to the glory of Jesus Christ.

The Song Moses and the People sang when God delivered them to the other side of the Red Sea.

Exodus 15:1–3 I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea. The Lord is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation; this is my God, and I will praise him, my father’s God, and I will exalt him. The LORD is a man of war; the LORD is his Name.

Exodus 15:11, 13, 17-18 Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders?… You have led in your steadfast love the people whom you have redeemed; you have guided them by your strength to your holy abode… You will bring them in and plant them on your own mountain, the place, O Lord, which you have made for your abode, the sanctuary, O Lord, which your hands have established. The Lord will reign forever and ever.

Let’s Pray