His Blood on the Doorposts

Introduction & Opening Prayer

Good morning church! It is my joy to bring the Word of God to you today. If you are able, please remain standing as we read selections from our text this morning. Today we will be covering Exodus 12.1-42:

Exodus 12:1–42 ESV

The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, “This month shall be for you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year for you. Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb according to their fathers’ houses, a lamb for a household. And if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his nearest neighbor shall take according to the number of persons; according to what each can eat you shall make your count for the lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats, and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight. “Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it. Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted, its head with its legs and its inner parts. And you shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. In this manner you shall eat it: with your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. And you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord’s Passover. 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. 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. “This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord; throughout your generations, as a statute forever, you shall keep it as a feast. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven out of your houses, for if anyone eats what is leavened, from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel. On the first day you shall hold a holy assembly, and on the seventh day a holy assembly. No work shall be done on those days. But what everyone needs to eat, that alone may be prepared by you. And you shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for on this very day I brought your hosts out of the land of Egypt. Therefore you shall observe this day, throughout your generations, as a statute forever. In the first month, from the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread until the twenty-first day of the month at evening. For seven days no leaven is to be found in your houses. If anyone eats what is leavened, that person will be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he is a sojourner or a native of the land. You shall eat nothing leavened; in all your dwelling places you shall eat unleavened bread.” Then Moses called all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Go and select lambs for yourselves according to your clans, and kill the Passover lamb. Take a bunch of hyssop and dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and touch the lintel and the two doorposts with the blood that is in the basin. None of you shall go out of the door of his house until the morning. 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 will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you. You shall observe this rite as a statute for you and for your sons forever. And when you come to the land that the Lord will give you, as he has promised, you shall keep this service. And when your children say to you, ‘What do you mean by this service?’ you shall say, ‘It is the sacrifice of the Lord’s Passover, for he passed over the houses of the people of Israel in Egypt, when he struck the Egyptians but spared our houses.’ ” And the people bowed their heads and worshiped. Then the people of Israel went and did so; as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron, so they did. At midnight the Lord struck down 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 the livestock. And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he and all his servants and all the Egyptians. And there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where someone was not dead. Then he summoned Moses and Aaron by night and said, “Up, go out from among my people, both you and the people of Israel; and go, serve the Lord, as you have said. Take your flocks and your herds, as you have said, and be gone, and bless me also!” The Egyptians were urgent with the people to send them out of the land in haste. For they said, “We shall all be dead.” So the people took their dough before it was leavened, their kneading bowls being bound up in their cloaks on their shoulders. The people of Israel had also done as Moses told them, for they had asked the Egyptians for silver and gold jewelry and for clothing. And the Lord had given the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they let them have what they asked. Thus they plundered the Egyptians. And the people of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides women and children. A mixed multitude also went up with them, and very much livestock, both flocks and herds. And they baked unleavened cakes of the dough that they had brought out of Egypt, for it was not leavened, because they were thrust out of Egypt and could not wait, nor had they prepared any provisions for themselves. The time that the people of Israel lived in Egypt was 430 years. At the end of 430 years, on that very day, all the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt. It was a night of watching by the Lord, to bring them out of the land of Egypt; so this same night is a night of watching kept to the Lord by all the people of Israel throughout their generations.

Let’s pray.

Gracious God, we thank you for the opportunity to gather this morning to sit underneath your Word. We thank you and praise you that you have revealed yourself to us through your Scriptures, and that when we study and learn them our hearts and minds are transformed as we draw closer to you. Thank you for the beauty and the wonder of this book that you have given to us, how it reveals your character and your heart for your people and for how it speaks with authority to every part of our lives. We pray that the Spirit will be at work in our hearts and minds this morning as we look at the Passover and what it reveals about who you are, what you have done, and what you have promised to do. May our lives be transformed by your words, and may our hearts be comforted by the great love and compassion that our God has for us. Amen.

There are certain moments in history that have special meaning, moments that define a people group, that define a nation, that define a generation. These are the moments in history where it feels like everything has changed, and that nothing is going to be the same. In my own life, I think of September 11, 2001 as one of those generational moments. I’ll always remember where I was when I heard news of the first plane hitting the Twin Towers. For my mother, her generational moment was the assassination of JFK. For my father it was the moon landing. It might be different for each one of you, but I think that if we take a moment or two to think about it, there are probably a few historic events that we would all agree have changed the world for us.

The event that we have just read about in Exodus 12 was such a moment for the people of Israel. But it was more than simply a generational moment. It was a transformative event, one that would be remembered for thousands of years afterwards, that would be recited year after year and told over and over again to their children and their children’s children and their children’s children’s children. This was the moment that “made” Israel. In the years that followed, their identity would become inextricably linked with the events of Exodus 12. It colored everything - even their calendar! And given the impact that it has had on global culture, it is one of the most important events in all of human history.

The Passover is an event that simply demands our attention. This morning we are going to take the opportunity to examine this story through three different lenses that will shed light on its cosmic importance and help us to understand how it ought to shape our lives. The three lenses are 1) the significance of the symbols, 2) the participation of the people, and 3) the perfect promises of Yahweh. It is my hope and my prayer that by the time we are finished this morning we will have a new appreciation for the story of the Passover, and that we will better understand and appreciate not only what God has done in bringing his people out of slavery in Egypt, but also how the story points us to the promise of what God will do to ultimately bring his people out of slavery to sin.

So with that in mind, let’s turn to the first lens that we will use this morning: the significance of the symbols.

The Significance of the Symbols

The Passover is rife with symbols. Some of them are fairly obvious, and some are a little less so. This morning, I’d like us to spend some time looking at four symbols: 1) the passover lamb, 2) the blood on the doorposts, 3) the contents of the passover meal and the belt, sandals, and staff, and 4) the death of the firstborn.

I want to start this morning with the death of the firstborn, because I think that understanding the importance of this symbol helps us to better understand the significance and importance of the others. We see this symbol first appear in Exodus 12.12:

Exodus 12:12 ESV

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.

The first thing that I want us to notice is that this plague is unlike the previous nine plagues in one very specific way: if you look back over the narratives of the nine previous plagues, you will see that none of them materially affect the people of Israel. We see in the description of the plagues that each of them was specific to the Egyptians. It was the Egyptians who could not drink the water from the Nile when it was turned to blood. It was the Egyptians who were set upon by frogs, gnats, flies, and boils. The land of Goshen where the Israelites dwelt was spared from the death of livestock, the hail, the locusts, and the darkness. The reason for this is revealed in the second half of verse 12 - the previous plagues were Yahweh exercising and demonstrating his power over and above the gods of Egypt. The gods of Egypt were powerless to stop any of the plagues. They could not save their people. The Israelites were spared because they belonged to Yahweh. But the death of the firstborn is different - while the first nine plagues were demonstrating Yahweh’s power over the gods of Egypt, the tenth plague demonstrates something different - the judgment of Yahweh against sin. And this is the reason that the Israelites are subject to the plague - they are sinners too!

Exodus 11.4-7 provides us some additional context for the final plague:

Exodus 11:4–7 ESV

So Moses said, “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. But not a dog shall growl against any of the people of Israel, either man or beast, that you may know that the Lord makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel.’

The detail about how the plague will affect Pharaoh’s son and the slave girl’s firstborn is significant. It demonstrates that this is not simply judgment against Pharaoh. This is judgment against all the people in the land of Egypt (including the Israelites)! But Yahweh does promise that he will make a distinction between the the people of Egypt and the people of Israel, and that brings us to the second symbol: the passover lamb.

Philip Ryken, in his commentary on Exodus, tells us this about the passover lamb:

In his great mercy, God provided his people with a way to be safe. The reason he visited their homes was not to destroy them but to teach them about salvation. Like the Egyptians, the Israelites deserved divine judgment; but unlike the Egyptians, they would be saved by grace through faith. What God’s people needed was atonement, which God provided in the form of a lamb—a lamb offered as a sacrifice for sin.

Ryken, P. G., & Hughes, R. K. (2005). Exodus: saved for God’s glory (pp. 327–328). Crossway Books.

The lamb was to be without blemish, a perfect physical specimen. This was precisely because it was going to serve as an atonement for sin for the household that slaughtered it. That fact alone tells us that the lamb means something more than just dinner the night that the Israelites were going to leave Egypt. After all, if it was only about food, a lamb with a lame leg or one that was blind would have been just as tasty as a lamb without any blemishes. But the lamb represents the wages of sin - that is, death. Death is the proper punishment for our sins, but in this instance Yahweh was making a way for his people to be spared from the death that they deserved.

This is a motif that is developed throughout Scripture. We actually see it for the first time back in the story of the binding of Isaac in Genesis 22, where God provides a ram for sacrifice. One thing that I want us to notice though is that as these theme gets developed through Scripture, the sacrifice of a lamb begins to serve as a representative for more than one person. It starts with just Isaac in Genesis 22, but in our passage today the people are to choose a lamb for each household (or for multiple households, if they happen to be part of a small one). As we continue onward to the revelation of the Law in Leviticus 16, we see the sacrifice of a lamb on the Day of Atonement that covers over the sins of the entire people of Israel. The progression from the lesser to the greater is no accident. This was always part of God’s plan. He was always going to provide his people with an atoning sacrifice. He would provide a perfect sacrifice, just as the people found a perfect lamb to offer up.

This brings us then to the third of the symbols - the blood on the doorposts. It was not enough to have a substitute in the lamb - the people needed to take shelter underneath its shed blood. We see here in this symbol another indication of the seriousness of sin - the wages of sin are death. You cannot get enough blood to put on the doorposts unless you kill the lamb. Something must die for sin to be atoned for (even temporarily!). But once it is atoned for, the people can take refuge under the blood. Both the OT and the NT attest that “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins” (Hebrews 9.22, see also Leviticus 17.11). The blood on the door demonstrated that the sins of the people had been covered, that the wrath of God had been turned away due to the shedding of the blood. Without the blood on the door, the Israelites would have woken in the morning to find their firstborn dead, just like the Egyptians.

That brings us to the last important symbol - the way that the people are to eat the passover meal. In Exodus 12.8-11 we read:

Exodus 12:8–11 ESV

They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it. Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted, its head with its legs and its inner parts. And you shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. In this manner you shall eat it: with your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. And you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord’s Passover.

Have you ever wondered why the instructions for the passover meal are so specific? Why does it matter to God how they cook the lamb? What’s actually wrong with boiling it, or eating it with leavened bread or (theoretically) more enjoyable herbs? Why did the people need to be dressed in a particular way?

If you’ve ever attended a seder meal for Passover, you may have been told of the symbolism behind certain things - for example, how the bitter herbs symbolize the bitterness of slavery, and how the haroset (which isn’t mentioned in our text) represents the mortar the Israelites were forced to mix for their bricks in Egypt. Certainly these meanings are what many people associate with the symbols of Passover, but many of them developed much later in the tradition, as the Jews looked to remember the event and pass the importance of it on to their children. At the moment of the first Passover, however, all of these instructions about the way to cook the meal, what to eat it with, and how to eat it, all point to one thing - faith that Yahweh was going to bring the people out of Egypt that very night. To follow the instructions given here was to express faith and trust that God was going to do what he has promised.

Let’s quickly look at how all of these instructions are related. The first instruction is to roast the lamb as a single piece, complete with its head and internal organs - this was the quickest way to cook the meal and involved the least amount of preparation and cleanup. It also wouldn’t have been typical. If a family were to have slaughtered a lamb for consumption at any other time of the year, they would have been very careful to separate out all of the different parts for use in different dishes. They would likely have boiled the meat and internal organs in a soup or stew, but here they are explicitly commanded not to do that, because it would take a substantial amount of time to butcher the lamb, prepare the ingredients, cook the meal, and clean up afterwards. The focus here is on speed. That’s also the reason for the bitter herbs. These herbs were the easiest ones to find and harvest, and would have likely simply been washed and eaten raw (hence their bitterness because they had not been cooked). The bread needed to be unleavened because there would not be time to wait for the dough to rise. All of the instructions for the way the meal was to be prepared are predicated on faith that the people were going to leave Egypt that very night.

The same is true for the manner in which the Israelites are to eat the meal - with their belt fastened, their sandals on their feet, and their staff in hand. The belt was to be fastened in order to tuck their cloaks up for travel - on a typical night they would have been left down and loose for comfort and warmth. Like many people today, the Israelites would have typically removed their sandals when they were in their houses - today they are called to have them on their feet, ready at any minute to depart. And the staff in their hands was something that they would not have typically had with them in the house - it was an item for protection and herding…it would not have been needed on a typical night. But this is not any typical night. This is a meal eaten, as our passage says, in haste. It is anticipating their imminent departure. It is asking the people to prepare in faith for the fulfillment of Yahweh’s promises.

So if we trace back through the symbols that we see in our passage today, we see a narrative that starts to emerge. First, we see that everyone (even the Israelites!) are subject to judgment because of their sin. Second, we see that God has graciously given the Israelites a way to escape that judgment by substituting a flawless lamb in their place. Third, we see that the people need to take refuge under the blood of the lamb, and finally, we see that they need to act in faith, trusting and believing that God is going to do what he has promised he will do.

And that brings us to our second lens for this morning: the participation of the people.

The Participation of the People

In addition to the symbols that we just discussed, the story of the Passover comes with a number of commands for the people that were designed to help them demonstrate the trust and faith that they had in Yahweh. These are particularly instructive to us because they teach us what participatory faith looks like, and some of them have clear applications that we can draw to our lives today.

These participatory moments begin at the outset of the Passover story. In Exodus 12.2, we read:

Exodus 12:2 ESV

“This month shall be for you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year for you.

Let’s stop and think about this for a moment. What is Yahweh asking of the people here? He is telling them that this is the event that they are to order the entirety of their lives around. The Passover represents a new beginning and as such God’s people are to orient their calendar around it. This would have been an unusual position for a culture to have in the ancient world. In the ancient Near East, the fall was generally seen as the beginning of the new year, since that was when the previous year’s harvest was completed. Yahweh’s people are to be set apart and different. It is not the natural cycles of life that set the calendar for the people of Israel - it is the divine intervention of Yahweh himself to bring them out of slavery in Egypt and establish them as a nation.

And this raises an important question for each and every one of us - are our lives oriented around the saving work of God? For the Israelites, they would have been reminded of the Passover every time the new year rolled around. Now I’m not advocating that we change our current calendar, but I think that there are plenty of other ways that we can take stock of our lives and see if we have really oriented them around the work of salvation that God has done. Is it front and center before us always? Does the fact that God has saved us matter? Or do we simply continue to drift along with life as our present culture does, with no distinctions even though we are the redeemed of God? Friends, this is a moment for us to participate. This is something that we can take hold of and change. Do people know that we are Christians by the priorities that we have, by the way that we orient our lives? If they do not, then we ought to ask ourselves why!

We’ve spoken at length about the symbolism of the commands in verses 3-13, so we won’t go into great depth again on their specifics here. But one thing that I want us to take away from everything that Yahweh commands there is that faithful obedience of his commands is necessary to to escape his wrath. Now, that isn’t to say that the actions and the obedience of the Israelites is primarily what saves them from experiencing the destruction that befalls the Egyptians. But I would point out that you don’t follow these incredibly specific instructions about how to choose and slaughter a lamb, paint its’ blood on the doorpost, and eat it in a very specific manner if you don’t believe that Yahweh is going to do what he has said. That’s the important part. The participation of the people in the specific actions of the Passover demonstrate that they have faith in Yahweh to fulfill his promises. Their actions demonstrate that they believe.

But it is also more than just believing in the initial moment of the Passover. The commands for that particular night come with corresponding commands for future nights. What is important is not just the single act of faith on that night long ago in Egypt - what is important is remembering the faithfulness of Yahweh and continuing to place their trust in him. And the commands that God gives for the future celebration of the Passover here are opportunities for the people of Israel to do just that. After all, within a generation the vast majority of the people who experienced the Exodus first hand will have died. Without these acts of faithful remembering how are the subsequent generations to demonstrate their faith and trust in Yahweh? To drive this point home, I want us to look a little more closely at Exodus 12.18-19:

Exodus 12:18–19 ESV

In the first month, from the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread until the twenty-first day of the month at evening. For seven days no leaven is to be found in your houses. If anyone eats what is leavened, that person will be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he is a sojourner or a native of the land.

We’ve seen the symbolism behind leaven in our sermon series in 1 Corinthians, where Paul admonishes the Corinthians to cease boasting, because “a little leaven leavens the whole lump”. Leaven is used throughout the Bible as an analogue for the pervasiveness of sin - just the tiniest amount is enough to spoil the entire batch. Here the people of Israel are commanded to eat only unleavened bread for 7 days, and anyone who eats leavened bread “will be cut off from the congregation of Israel”. What does that mean? Well, this language is often used assumed to be used in the context of capital punishment. It conjures up the image of the “yeast police”, going from door to door in ancient Israel making sure you threw out Aunt Miriam’s sourdough starter in the days leading up to Passover or else off to the stoning field for you! But the truth is that this phrase is not really an imperative for the people to carry out a sentence. Rather, it is an expression of what will happen if you don’t obey the command. To be “cut off” means to cease to participate in the promises of Yahweh. It means that the person is located outside of Yahweh’s covenant people. There didn’t need to be an imperative to physically remove the person from the midst of Israel - their spiritual removal had already happened. Such a person has demonstrated that they do not believe in the covenant between Yahweh and his people, and will ultimately be cut off from the promises of the covenant because of that unfaithfulness.

This concept should cause us to stop and examine our own hearts. Are we demonstrating that we believe in the promises of God? On this side of the cross, that looks a little different from the way that it did in ancient Israel, but the concept and the implications are the same. Our obedience to what God has commanded is the clearest demonstration and declaration of our faith. Are we striving to do what God has commanded us to do? If we are not, we should turn and repent! God is gracious to forgive - we’ve seen that from the very beginning of the Passover story in his provision of the Passover lamb.

The last element of participation that I want us to look at is the commands given in Exodus 12.24-27:

Exodus 12:24–27 ESV

You shall observe this rite as a statute for you and for your sons forever. And when you come to the land that the Lord will give you, as he has promised, you shall keep this service. And when your children say to you, ‘What do you mean by this service?’ you shall say, ‘It is the sacrifice of the Lord’s Passover, for he passed over the houses of the people of Israel in Egypt, when he struck the Egyptians but spared our houses.’ ” And the people bowed their heads and worshiped.

The participation of the people in the Passover was to be generational. This was to be a key way that the people passed on their identity as Yahweh’s chosen to their sons and daughters. It was to be a way that they helped to educate their children in the way of Yahweh and articulate what he had done for them. It is often said that to truly understand something, you need to be able to teach it. That is what God is commanding that his people do. He wants the remembrance of his intervention in their history to be such a defining event that they teach it to generation after generation of descendants. Through participating in these rituals, the future generations are given the same opportunity as that first generation in Egypt - a chance to demonstrate that they truly have saving faith in Yahweh. Friends, let us not understate what it means to participate in the things that God has commanded us to do. It is an opportunity for us to demonstrate the true alignment of our hearts, to show our true allegiance to our king.

The Perfect Promises of Yahweh

We now turn to our third and final lens through which we said we would examine this passage - the lens of the perfect promises of Yahweh. We’ve seen through the symbolism that we all stand under judgment due to our sin, but that God has provided a sacrifice on our behalf, and that we can take shelter under the blood by faith. We’ve also seen the necessity of participatory faith - showing the state of our hearts through our obedience to what God has commanded. All of that is wonderful, but it also all hinges on one important thing - what (or more accurately, who) are we putting out trust in? Faith, after all, has an object. And with our third lens this morning, I want to take the opportunity to examine some of the reasons why we ought to place our trust in Yahweh much like the Israelites did the night of the first Passover.

Throughout the story of the Passover there are numerous references to promises that God has made to either Abraham or to Moses. Think back with me to Exodus 3, where Yahweh first appears to Moses in the burning bush. One of the first things that Yahweh tells Moses is this:

English Standard Version Chapter 3

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, 8 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, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. 9 And now, behold, the cry of the people of Israel has come to me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. 10 Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.”

Right as Moses enters the story, we see one of God’s promises - that he has come to deliver his people from their slavery to the Egyptians, and that he is going to use Moses in order to do that.

But that isn’t the only promise that God makes to Moses in Exodus 3. He also speaks of the way that the people will leave Egypt in Exodus 3.19-22:

Exodus 3:19–22 ESV

But I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go unless compelled by a mighty hand. So I will stretch out my hand and strike Egypt with all the wonders that I will do in it; after that he will let you go. And I will give this people favor in the sight of the Egyptians; and when you go, you shall not go empty, but each woman shall ask of her neighbor, and any woman who lives in her house, for silver and gold jewelry, and for clothing. You shall put them on your sons and on your daughters. So you shall plunder the Egyptians.”

These are two big promises! I think the people of Israel would have been reasonably satisfied with only the first one being fulfilled - but in fact, both of them are! We see the fulfillment of these promises in Exodus 12.29-36, where we read:

Exodus 12:29–36 ESV

At midnight the Lord struck down 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 the livestock. And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he and all his servants and all the Egyptians. And there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where someone was not dead. Then he summoned Moses and Aaron by night and said, “Up, go out from among my people, both you and the people of Israel; and go, serve the Lord, as you have said. Take your flocks and your herds, as you have said, and be gone, and bless me also!” The Egyptians were urgent with the people to send them out of the land in haste. For they said, “We shall all be dead.” So the people took their dough before it was leavened, their kneading bowls being bound up in their cloaks on their shoulders. The people of Israel had also done as Moses told them, for they had asked the Egyptians for silver and gold jewelry and for clothing. And the Lord had given the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they let them have what they asked. Thus they plundered the Egyptians.

It would have seemed incredible to the people of Israel that they would have been able to plunder the Egyptians during their departure. But that is exactly what happened! God was faithful to his promise, even when it seemed that it would be something impossible.

But I mentioned earlier that it was not just to Moses that God made these promises - there were some that he made to Abraham too. I specifically want to look at two of them, one that finds its fulfillment in Exodus 12.38 and the other that is fulfilled in Exodus 12.40.

For the first of these promises, we need to look all the way back to Genesis 12, where Yahweh first calls Abraham to follow him and tells him in Genesis 12.3 that “in you all the families of the earth will be blessed”. That’s odd, you might think. How is this promise fulfilled in the Exodus? Wasn’t it just the Israelites that left? Well, Exodus 12.38 gives us a picture of the crowd that left Egypt, and it’s not quite who you might think. Our passage tells us that “a mixed multitude” went up with them. What does that mean? Well, it means that it wasn’t just the Israelites who had placed their trust in Yahweh and had obeyed the commands of the Passover. There were other people as well! Perhaps some of them were Egyptians who had forsaken their old gods to follow Yahweh after they had seen the plagues. Perhaps they were slaves from other nations who happened to be living in Egypt at the time and had come into fellowship with the Israelites. Regardless, it was not just ethnic Israel that left, because the people of God have never been about physical lineage - they have always been about those who have “circumcised their hearts”. The blessing of the nations begins with Passover, where those who were not born into the physical family of Israel have still be adopted into its spiritual family by their faith.

The second promise is found in Genesis 15, right after Yahweh has cut a covenant with Abraham. While he is in a deep sleep, Yahweh tells him this: “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions.”

We see the fulfillment of this promise in Exodus 12.40-41, where we read:

Exodus 12:40–41 ESV

The time that the people of Israel lived in Egypt was 430 years. At the end of 430 years, on that very day, all the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt.

It might seem like the dates don’t completely line up here, but remember that when Joseph’s father and brothers moved to Egypt they were not slaves to Pharoah. In fact, Exodus 1 tells us that Joseph and all his generation died before a new Pharaoh arose who didn’t know Joseph and enslaved the people. Precise estimates vary, but most scholars put the length of a generation (both in ancient times and modern) at about 25-35 years, which fits just about perfectly with what Yahweh told Abraham all those years ago.

Friends, what I want us to see is this: our faith must have an object. We need to place our faith in someone. What we see in the fulfilled promises of the Passover is that Yahweh is one who is faithful. He is one who will without a doubt see his promises through, even if, for his own good and glorious purposes, it takes 400 years to do it. We can trust in the promises of God.

Where Do We Go From Here?

So, where do we go from here? We’ve seen a story of salvation traced throughout the Passover - one where we find ourselves under judgment for our sins, where we need a perfect sacrifice to be made on our behalf so we can stand sheltered under its blood. We need to act in faith to receive the blessings of this sacrifice, and we need to believe that our God is going to move in the ways that he has promised. And finally, we have seen that Yahweh is faithful to fulfill his promises, even if it seems that it has taken him a long time to act.

But we have also seen that the events of the Passover point forward. The people were to teach them to their children and their children’s children. The history of what Yahweh had done was to be remembered and passed down - in part because it wasn’t complete yet. The blood on the doorposts had atoned for sin that night, to be sure - but it did not finish the job. At the tabernacle and eventually the temple, lambs would be sacrificed on behalf of the sins of the people for another 1400 years, until an itinerant preacher in the Judean wilderness named John lays eyes on the supposed son of a carpenter, Jesus of Nazareth, and declares “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”

Jesus was the perfect and final Passover lamb. He was the one who never sinned, who did nothing except the will of the Father. He lived the life that we could not, and therefore could stand in our place at Calvary. This Jesus was crucified as our Passover lamb.

He told us this himself, you know! It was at his final Passover meal, with his twelve closest friends in the upper room of a house in Jerusalem. He told them this when he took bread and broke it, telling them that this was his body broken for them. He drove the point home further when he gave them a cup of wine to drink, telling them that this was his blood of the new covenant, shed for the forgiveness of sins. Every single Passover meal that had been held in the history of Israel was looking back to the Exodus from Egypt, to be sure. But it was also looking forward to this, the perfect and final fulfillment of the promises of Passover, the sacrificial lamb who would save us from the Destroyer once and for all.

For it is his blood on the doorposts of our hearts, that shows that while we are still sinners we are no longer under the wrath of God because Jesus has died in our place. And it is in believing in his death and resurrection from the dead that we show our participatory faith in his promises. When we take the bread and the wine on Sunday morning, we remember not just how God passed over the sins of his people once in Egypt due to the death of a lamb, but how he has passed over them for all eternity due to the atoning death of his beloved Son. We have seen the true Passover lamb - his name is Jesus.

As we close this morning, I want to leave you all with a final thought. The people of Israel had spent 400 years living in Egypt. That’s a long time to acclimate to a place - think about it, our own nation has only existed for 246 years! It was asking a lot of the people to have faith that they were actually going to leave Egypt that night. This was all that they had ever known. They were being called to go to a promised land that they had never experienced, never set eyes on. And so it is with us. We have only known this life and bondage to sin. But we are called through Christ to be pilgrims on the narrow way, bound for that promised heavenly city, where at its golden gates we will behold the face of our Redeemer forevermore. For each and every one of us who has trusted in Jesus, I pray that the Passover story would be a deep encouragement to us, and that we would cling tight to the faithful promises of our God.

Let’s pray.

Closing Prayer

Heavenly Father, we thank you for your faithfulness. We thank you that throughout your Scriptures you have continually revealed yourself to us, and that you continually point us toward the only one who can save - Jesus. We stand in awe of your perfect plans, how you have orchestrated history to bring about what you have designed, and how you have given us glimpses of that plan throughout the Bible. But above all, we thank you for Jesus, the true and perfect Passover lamb. We thank you that even though we stood under the same curse of death as the Egyptians, that you have made a way for us to be reconciled to you through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Father, in the same way that the Passover was to be ever before the people of Israel, their foundational story, we pray that the cross of Christ may be the foundational story for our lives. We pray for faithfulness in explaining it to our children and our children’s children, and we pray that our hearts may never lose sight of the great and glorious mystery of the lamb upon the tree. Help us to live out our lives in faithfulness and gratitude for the great mercy that you have shown to us. Amen.