Grace & Truth Chapel
131 Fardale Avenue ~ Mahwah, New Jersey
Phone 201-327-6226 ~ E-mail gtchapel@juno.com

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"Saved at Passover" (posted February 1, 2003)

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.
    - Exodus 12:27

In the twelfth chapter of Exodus we have the well-known story of the blood of the lamb, the lamb slain instead of the firstborn. They were to kill the lamb and to put the blood, not inside where they could see it, but outside where God could see it. It is a striking figure of the death of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Perhaps you are not quite clear as to this paschal lamb being a type of the Lord Jesus. When the Lord Jesus appeared on the earth, John the Baptist said, "Behold the Lamb of God, which takes away the sin of the world" (John 1:29). When He died on the cross, the apostle John wrote, "For these things were done, that the scripture should be fulfilled, 'A bone of him shall not be broken'" (John 19:36). This is a direct quotation of Exodus 12:46. The apostle Paul wrote, "Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us" (1 Corinthians 5:7). The Old Testament is full of figurative truth which found its perfect answer in Him as a man here.

God was going to pass through the land as a judge, and the only thing that could save the soul from God's judgment was the sprinkled blood. We flee, as sinners of the deepest dye, to Christ. The judgment due to us has fallen upon God's dear Son, and the Lord passes over us in righteousness. Peace with Him is the result. Peace with God does not rest upon your feelings. It is the atoning blood of the Lamb, God's own Lamb, put down before God's eye, that is the basis of your peace. "When I see the blood, I will pass over you" (v. 13). It is not "when you see the blood." No. It is God who sees it.

But then all the way along you and I are to keep in our hearts the memory of what it cost our Savior to redeem us. This the lamb "roasted with fire" (v. 8) brings before us. That describes the agonies of the soul of Christ on the cross. The 22nd, the 69th, the 88th, and the 102nd Psalms describe the inward experiences of the blessed Lord when He was bearing our sins.

"Its head with its legs and its entrails" (v. 9). You are called to feed not only on the death, but on the moral ways and the beautiful intelligence of Jesus. Knowing what lay before Him, He went steadily to death. "Jesus therefore, knowing all things that should come upon Him, went forth" (John 18:4). And then you feed upon the beautiful and lovely walk of the Lord Jesus. You have thus material for your soul to feed on all your days. Feed on Christ. "Bitter herbs" (v. 8) carry the thought of self-judgment, because my sin cost Christ His life.

Redemption by blood is a wonderful truth, and the moment the people are under the shelter of the blood, and have fed on the roast lamb, they start on their journey, and we read: "It came to pass that all the armies of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt" (v. 41). The blood that shelters them from God as a judge establishes their relationship with God on the ground of accomplished redemption, and from that moment they are regarded and called, for the first time, "the hosts of the Lord."

How do you stand, and what is your relationship towards Him? Have you yet made a spiritual start similar to that made by Israel? If so, you will follow with interest the succeeding chapters in their history.

Walter T. P. Wolston



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