The beauty of the biblical history of YHWH and his people - the descendants of Israel - is that it is also the history of us - YHWH's adopted children. It shows us how our father thinks and operates and gives us clues about our future.
In Exodus 12, The Lord (YHWH) said to Moses and Aaron in Egypt, “This month is to be for you the first month, the first month of your year. Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each man is to take a lamb for his family, one for each household."
and "all the members of the community of Israel must slaughter them at twilight. Then they are to take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the doorframes of the houses where they eat the lambs."
[It is important to remember as we read that the original audience in Exodus is not of our contemporary minds so what we might find gruesome is nothing out of the ordinary in their own setting]
He also told them how to eat it: "with your cloak tucked into your belt, your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand. Eat it in haste; it is the Lord’s Passover."
And Why: “On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn of both people and animals, and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the Lord. The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt."
Three things I like to point out in these first few verses are that
The first month, i.e of their year, was to be seen as starting from the month of their deliverance from Egypt. This was marked by the slaughtering and eating of a lamb. The blood of that lamb marked their salvation and deliverance.
The lamb was to be eaten with a readiness (full dress, work tools and footwear on) to leave Egypt in haste.
The lamb slain was to mark them apart. In order words, there was nothing else marking them different from the rest of Egypt but that blood. They were as guilty as the whole of Egypt and would have been destroyed except for that blood which mercifully kept from them the destroyer's (avenging angel) judgement.
Now Egypt (not referring to modern-day Egypt) is symbolism later used in the scriptures to represent the world i.e. those who choose not to come under the protection (covering) of YHWH.
Jesus has come as a lamb slain for the world that anyone who comes under his covering will live. His blood demarcates us not because we are better, but because we believed and acted our trust by accepting his mercy. So we will not be destroyed by the judgment coming to this world. Our year started after his death, and for us as individuals, our life started after we ate his flesh.
However, as Jesus said in John 6:54-55, “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink."
And
56 -57, "Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me."
Our innermost man is saved from Egypt but our bodies and whole being (soul included) is being renewed as we feed on the 'Word of God become flesh'. The imperative is that we eat Christ, our saving Passover lamb, with a readiness to leave physically in haste.
The other point is to note the instructions that follow after
Exodus 12:18 "In the first month you are to eat bread made without yeast, from the evening of the fourteenth day until the evening of the twenty-first day. ...
20 Eat nothing made with yeast. Wherever you live, you must eat unleavened bread.”
And 34-36
"So the people took their dough before the yeast was added, and carried it on their shoulders in kneading troughs wrapped in clothing. The Israelites did as Moses instructed and asked the Egyptians for articles of silver and gold and for clothing. The Lord had made the Egyptians favourably disposed toward the people, and they gave them what they asked for; so they plundered the Egyptians."
In other words, they left with a different type of bread from what they were used to - bread with no yeast. Leaven (yeast) signified the ills and impurities of Egypt, but since we left Egypt as unleavened bread, we have no yeast in us.
Paul reiterates this to those who have escaped Egypt through Christ Jesus spiritually and are eating the lamb(word) in readiness to leave Egypt physically:
" Get rid of the old yeast, so that you may be a new unleavened batch—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old bread leavened with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth." 1 Corinthians 5: 7 - 8
This is the attitude and expectation of the delivered: we live with this knowledge of who we really are as we await the perfection of all things, as sanctified and as victors, waiting for the redemption of our bodies.
Remember that clause "be a new unleavened batch—as you really are." That is who you really are!
"Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.
And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure." 1 John 3:2-4
"Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you." John 15:3
Comments