God even decrees that the slaves be paid and so affects the Egyptian’s hearts that they give their wealth to them as parting gifts (Exodus 11:3) in fulfillment of God’s promise in (Exodus 3:21). God will from time to time cause people who don’t serve Him to bless us. Remember when it happens to thank God (and remember to thank God when the Body of Christ blesses you too)
Every creature was subject to God (Exodus 11:7) and even as the Israelites started to move out the dogs didn’t bark or chase them.
Death of a firstborn (12:29) – final break from Egypt
Finally the death of the firstborn breaks the bondage. The angel of death passed over the Israelites because of the blood of the sacrifice. Pharaoh and Egyptians begged Israel to leave Egypt at that point.
In our lives God often works prior to our salvation experience to build our testimony, begin to make us aware of His power, and begin to convict us of our sin. One of the key take home lessons as God rocks a person’s world in working out their early salvation is that it may get worse before it gets better. If you pray for someone in bondage to sin, then you may see big problems before you’ll see God’s solution in their life.
Israel’s spiritual condition was pretty grim. We find out how bad things were from other portions of Scripture (Leviticus 17:7; Joshua 24:14; Ezekiel 20:6-9) that they were worshiping idols representing demons and various false gods and they refused to stop as they were brought out of bondage by God. They were wretched and blind spiritually when God took them out of Egypt and they had lots of garbage to get out of their lives.
The plague didn’t pass over the Israelites because they were the children of Israel. Israel merited the judgment of God just like the Egyptians did. It passed over them in fulfillment of God’s covenant promise to Abraham. They heard the promise of God and offered the sacrifice He commanded. Sin was judged in the death of the firstborn and only Grace kept the Angel of Death out of the door of the Israelites who offered the lamb. What happens in Exodus is a foreshadowing of the work of Christ in the New Testament. Every time an orthodox Jew celebrates Passover they have before them a testimony of Christ. The unbroken bone of the lamb, three cups for each person, the empty setting and having the youngest person go to the door and look for the return of Elijah. Even the roast beef now because they can no longer offer a lamb because the temple is gone testifies to someone who has eyes and ears opened by God’s Grace.
Romans 3:21-26
But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
The plague passes over you because of the blood of Jesus and the chains of bondage are broken (Exodus 12:12,13). God passed over because He saw the blood and not because of the house or what He saw inside the house. Christ is our Passover. We would do well to eat bitter herbs reminding us of our sorrow for our sins on Easter and remember the bondage we were freed from.
Jesus’ blood is that payment for your sin so that God is just and our justifier. So Jesus blood brings forgiveness in that it meets the just demands of a holy God for our sins and justifies us. So the sacrifice brings forgiveness from God and brings thanksgiving and praise in our hearts as we take our place in the Body of Christ by faith.
Jesus is the Lamb of God and God placed many links into Scripture to drive this point home to us. In Exodus 12 the Israelites were told to change their calendar in response to Passover. Of course our calendar changed as well. Those saved by the blood killed the lamb. The lamb was selected 4 days before Passover and Jesus ministry started with John proclaiming Him the Lamb of God and Jesus ministry lasted between 3 and 4 years. The lamb was without blemish and Jesus lived a perfect life and in eating the lamb we see a foreshadowing of communion. It was eaten on the night of the sacrifice so that communion never is separated from the sacrifice. There are folks going to churches claiming to be Christian who claim Jesus as a spiritual leader but don’t believe in the atonement. They take communion but they’ve forgotten the sacrifice.
The application of the blood to the left and right picture Christ’s hands pierced for us; the threshold, where the blood was poured out, illustrate His feet and the base of the cross; and the lintel His head where the crown of thorns was placed.
The hyssop used to apply the blood may also illustrate the scourging that Christ was subjected to.
The leaven is a picture of sin and was put away not to save the individual but because the person was saved. It gives a picture of our sanctification after God has saved us.
You can imagine that today it is very inconvenient to eliminate all leaven from a house. It is also not very economical. One trick that is sometimes used is to put all the leaven in one of your closets and then rent the closet to a gentile friend. That way the leaven in not in your “house” since you’ve rented the closet to someone else. That is very much like the way we handle sins in our lives. We try to contain them in a closet that we think God won’t notice. However, God sees our thoughts and the intent of our heart. We should be thankful that we can’t fool Him and that He will lead us gently as a shepherd but with a holy thoroughness that will result in our sanctification.
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