exodus 12

Exodus 12: Passover Night Pharaoh Lost the Fight

Exodus 12: 

In Exodus 12, we get the set up of the Passover as God prepares the Israelites for departure out of Egypt. This first Passover has consequences for the firstborns of both Egypt and Israel.

The scene shifts from the Egyptians and their once prosperous land that has morphed into a dark decimated horror in which they are trapped with no escape. To Goshen, awash with sunlight, buzzing with activity. The Israelites who have been watching and whispering, and I am sure holding their breath, begin to believe with hesitant hope that this is really OUR God, and freedom, becoming a nation is and always was his plan and promise to us. We are his people and HE will redeem us. HE has finally come.

And HE means business

Exodus 12 shows God shifting to also turning his attention from Pharaoh to the Israelites. It is time to prepare them to leave and become a nation of their own. It’s time for 600,000 men and their families well over a million people to pack up and hit the road, together!

God’s focus was to move them from a faith they had forgotten to an unforgettable faith. God gave them this experience because he wants them to never, ever forget that he redeemed them. He wants them to KNOW that he is God. Their God. And he wants them to act like it. In other words, OBEY him. More than any other story in the Old Testament, Exodus is a great story of redemption. And it is referenced throughout the OT and NT hundreds of times. So that they will remember God starts his new nation with a new tradition:

T H E    P A S S O V E R  

The Instructions for The Passover and the Festival of Unleavened Bread

  1. The month: the Passover takes place in this new first month of the Hebrew calendar called Abib, and later renamed Nisan.
  2. On the 10th of Nisan: Each household was to acquire a perfect-year-old male lamb.
  3. On the 14th of Nisan: Each family was to:
    1. Kill the lamb
    2. Cover the doorframe with the blood
    3. Roast the lamb whole
    4. Tuck their cloak into their belt, put on sandals, and hold their staff
    5. Eat the lamb with bitter herbs and bread without yeast quickly
    6. Then burn the leftovers

It’s Israel’s turn to obey – every Israelite must make a choice.

  • And it must have seemed odd to them to obey this command from God.
  • But then everything they had just witnessed in the plagues had been strange
  • Perhaps that was another point of the plagues – to build their faith
  • As their faith came alive, did they dare to hope that they could leave this wretched place? Did they doubt as Moses did that it was possible?

Are you in a wretched, dark situation like Israel?  Do you believe that God can provide a way out?

The explanation of what God will do:  if they obey, they will be saved. If they don’t, they die.

  • God does not make a distinction here between the Israelites and the Egyptians.
  • God will strike down any firstborn without the sign of the blood on the door.
  • Similarly, today, God does not make a distinction between any man, woman, or child. If you believe in Jesus Christ, you are saved. There is equal opportunity for all.

The Instructions for the Festival of Unleavened Bread

  1. 7 days eat bread without yeast
    1. from the evening of the 14th day of the first month (Passover at midnight) to the evening of the 21st day.
    2. If they don’t they will be cut off from Israel
  • do not work on these days
  1. Day 1 remove yeast from homes and hold a sacred assembly
  2. Day 7 hold another assembly

T H E    E X O D U S     T H E M E     O F    R E D E M P T I O N

  Redemption is deliverance or rescue. Therefore, the Passover is a celebration of Israel’s redemption from Egypt.

The Passover Lamb is:

  • A reminder that their life (freedom from Egypt) came from death (the blood of the lamb over the door).
  • The death and blood of the lamb over the door saved them from death
  • It was a way of escape. A way of deliverance.
  • But the Passover is also more than the substitution of a lamb for the life of the Israelites’ firstborn
  • The Passover is also God redeeming his firstborn son, the nation, Israel through the death of the Egyptian firstborn.

The Theme of Redemption or Sacrificial Substitution is a foreshadowing

  • In the Bible, there are reoccurring examples of a substitute sacrifice as a way of deliverance.
  • Before that Passover story in Exodus 12, In Genesis 22 (Season 1 Episode 21):
    • God commands Abraham to sacrifice his long-awaited beloved son, Isaac
    • Abraham obediently proceeds to execute the command,
    • And his willingness to do so proves his faith in God. It was a test.
    • So at the last minute – a substitute sacrifice, a ram, is provided by an angel.
    • Isaac escapes death.
    • God saved Isaac, the first-born son of Abraham and Sarah, with a replacement.
  • Just as in the Passover God saved Israel, by covering them with the blood of a lamb, as a replacement, an escape from death.

After the Passover story, the reoccurring theme of the substitute occurs in the New Testament

    • More than a thousand years after the first Passover another lamb provides a way of escape
    • God provides his only son, the Lamb of God, as a substitute for us
    • The Lamb of God dies in our place.
    • For those who believe in Jesus, His blood covers our sin
    • God’s judgment for our sin, passes over us,
    • just the angel of death passed over the doors of the Israelites
    • Jesus is our substitute, our redemption, our way of escape.
  • Fortunately, the way of escape is much simpler for us than it was for the Israelites.
    • No more sacrificing animals or painting blood over the door frame!
    • We only have to believe that Jesus’ shed his blood on the cross for us and we are in!

The Passover as it relates to the Last Supper

  • The Passover Meal was a reminder to Israel of God’s deliverance from bondage to Egypt
    • It takes place right before the exodus to the promise land
    • The meal consisted of lamb
  • The Last Supper is a reminder of all of God’s deliverance from the bondage of sin, from the Fall.
    • It takes place right before the cross and the promise of eternal life. The new covenant of redemption.
    • There is no lamb served at the meal because Christ is the Lamb.
    • Instead, new elements are added to this new “Passover meal”
    • Bread and wine represent the body and blood of Christ, the new Lamb.

God is weaving his Old Testament plan for Israel into his greater plan for the world by holding the Last Supper on Passover Night.

There is one more interesting pattern of sacrifice or substitution in the Bible.

  • As the Bible progresses the sacrifice for substation counts more.
  • In Genesis 3:
    • (Season 1 Episode 4) Adam and Eve sin and realize they are naked.
    • God covers them with Animal skin garments.
    • Animals are sacrificed and blood is shed to cover Adam and Eve’s nakedness, a consequence of their sin.

So

  • In the case of Adam and Eve: There was a sacrifice of one animal to cover one person
  • In the case of the Passover: there was a sacrifice of one lamb to cover a family
  • Later we will learn in Leviticus: that there is a sacrifice of one animal to cover a nation
  • Lastly in the New Testament: the sacrifice of the Lamb of God, Jesus covers the sins of the WORLD!
  • One perfect, sinless, man is sacrificed for the whole world. 

VERSES MENTIONED:

SHOW NOTES:

The Score Card

ISRAEL REJECTS (Moses + God) ISRAEL TRUSTS (Moses + God)
The next day he went out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, “Why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew?” The man said, “Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid and thought, “What I did must have become known.” 2: 13-14 Moses and Aaron brought together all the elders of the Israelites and Aaron told them everything the Lord had said to Moses. He also performed the signs before the people, and they believed. And when they heard that the Lord was concerned about them and had seen their misery, they bowed down and worshiped. 4:29-31
When they left Pharaoh, they found Moses and Aaron waiting to meet them, and they said, “May the Lord look on you and judge you! You have made us obnoxious to Pharaoh and his officials and have put a sword in their hand to kill us.” 5: 20-21 All the Israelites did just what the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron. And on that very day, the Lord brought the Israelites out of Egypt by their divisions. 12:50-51

 

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